DABEARSDABOMB

Is he on the practice squad or main roster? If he is on the main roster, I presume that means we are not elevating Gentry from practice squad.

I'm hoping we see Wheaton become the player the Steelers once we thought he could be (injuries have gotten in the midst of it), but they were the type of injuries that shouldn't derail his upside.

And for those knocking our play-calling, we don't exactly have the type of personell to just run some big wide-open offense and try to beat someone in a score-fest. We have to be deliberate with this personell group and try to keep the game close and hope we will win. Ground and pound with creative uses of Cohen and TE's because we have literally no one who can stretch the field / get open consistently at wideout (or at least no one who has proven to have that capability). If we asked Glennon to air it out 40 times, we'd have gotten creamed. Instead, if the team executed at critical times, we'd have beaten a team who played in last year's superbowl. I've said it before and I'll say it again, we are a playmaker in our secondary and a QB away (along with an upgraded WR corps) from being a very very good team. If we just had a good QB and league average receiving corps, I'd feel pretty confident in our ability to be a playoff team. As we stand today, I think we are going to be on the losing end of quite a few close games and then have a few games where we just get destroyed). And of course we'll win some too. The good news is, talent is being built and we might actually have the QB we need on the roster. While our end season record might indicate far away, I predict it will actually be the closest we've been in a long-time to a sustained strong wrong...I just hope ownership / front office keep faith in the plan / process.

If we had a receiving corps, we win the game. Or if the safeties could prevent the "big" play.

Great stuff. On your point on Glennon (and downfield), the reality is with this wide receiving corps, its going to be hard to do much anything down field. I hope I'm wrong, but this has to be a historically bad receiving corps.

Am I quite confused? Are you referring to the pre-draft review? You can't just predict things like this and to place blame on medicals is probably unjust. Football is a violent sport and stuff happens. Both of his recent injuries were football related injuries...the original injury, who knows, but the reality is, the guy had a great attitude, etc., but man football happened and he got hurt and we'll never really know what he could or couldn't be. Either way, our really bad receiving corps gets even worse. I hope someone or multiple players can rise from the ashes of this receiving corps.

Hhaa. Some of that is some good cop / bad copy. I think Fangio uses that for motivation for McPhee. Plus there is a lot of truth in it, but I also think that "Probably not" comment is a total inspirational shot at McPhee (trying to push im so he can come back and have some great games and remind "coach fangio" about that comment). Those are moves coaches can make (presuming they know there players and it fits in). Those comments from a GM would be no bueno.

Usually he actually gives pretty kind/fair remarks on the organization. While Gabriel is out of the job, I thought he was older and is more "retired" then anything else. The dude had an extremely long and productive career and was part of one of the more successful Bears runs. Everyone on this board likes to rip Angelo, but during his tenure, our franchise did a lot of great things. It had its challenges but to call the Angelo era a failure would be harsh.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/08/29/chi...c-expectations/ Thought this was a really really good read. Agree with pretty much everything he says, with the obvious key how the QB position emerges, especially in the second half of the season. Highly possible we are going to get dug into a big hole with that start of the season, but if we could put on a strong finish, from Fox's perspective, it could be the way to save his job (and I don't think he's a bad coach and I like the idea of continuity and him staying around vs. restarting thing) while creating good positive momentum for 2018. Trubisky is key to all of this, but defense is so much better than a few years ago, albeit we still have a lack of playmakers in the secondary. To be honest, we are a developed QB, a wideout, and a strong DB from being what I'd call a damn good team. The QB is the hard piece, but we have a guy who could be that with time (he may not too...but we've at least invested in a guy who has a shot at doing that). Knowing this is going to be a process and the start of the year might be rough (and I think we should all recognize that) but big picture, It has been a long time when I've been this excited looking forward as a Bear fan!!!

I don't think we will keep a FB and instead will keep the plethora of RB's. Langford played well and I actually think he is a solid RB2, but we have other guys who are better or who serve more roles. He's a guy that if I were on another team and more thin at the position, I would quickly gob up (or even be willing to potentially deal a very late round pick for). Wheaton should make the team, if he's healthy, because he provides downfield speed and pass threats that our other players don't possess.

My presumption is Davis had gotten more of Meredith's routes in practice (they were playing similar spots) which drove it. Gentry has produced all of training camp and looked solid during the season. I presume Meredith's injury means he'll break camp. I also would have thought Victor Cruz would have been a lock but he's been playing largely with the backups and man that drop yesterday was brutal (of course it was still just one drop). Wright would appear to be a lock, but we do have, on paper, the worse receiving corps in the league, imo.

Glennon's reaction to this whole thing has been relatively salty (vs. Trubisky who has seemed to handle everything with a lot of class). You see it on the sidelines...its as if Glennon is actively rooting against Trubisky.

Got reps with 1st team offense and is supposedly going to get a shot with them on Sunday as well.

Bummer...good special teams player and solid running back. Probably gives Langford another shot at making the roster.

They are basically paying him RT money (or if you compare him to LT's, league average LT money). He was a 7th round pick who is 26 and the Bears seem to think he has upside. They are using up a chunk of cap space this year to be more cap efficient in future years. I guess the question is what kind of step forward do we see out of him in year 3. If he struggles, depending on the guarantee money / structure, you can always drop him in a year or two (and we aren't tight for cap space at the moment, so it may behoove us to gamble a bit on current cap space for longer-term payoffs).

A 2014 seventh-round pick, Leno has started 29-of-32 games the past two seasons. He was Pro Football Focus' No. 53 tackle out of 76 qualifiers last season after checking in at 49-of-76 the previous year. The Bears see upside in the soon-to-be 26-year-old and keep in tact the left side of their line. At $9.5 million per year, Leno is the league's 14th-highest-paid left tackle.

I think it is too early to judge this years draft. I like it so far, but that is a very premature statement. In terms of last years draft, it looked very good after year 1 and with Bullard ascending it looks better (and Floyd looks even better)...that said, we are still talking about some preseason games.

I think the reality is Trubisky controls his destiny. We aren't going to not play him when he is ready. The reality is Glennon is here to be the bridge until Trubisky is ready. We didn't invest the #2 pick in Trubisky to not play him WHEN HE IS READY. The key is when he is ready. Until then, we shouldn't put a panic mode on and just throw Trubisky to the wolves because he is the 2nd pick. John Fox has not been afraid to play / use young QB's, just look back to Denver when he made the switch to Tebow from Orton (and of course Tebow went on that ridiculous playoff run).

I think a big difference is the Cowboys were forced to make Dak the guy and even then, it wasn't as if they invested the 2nd overall pick in him (so you weren't as concerned with "protecting" the investment). In the Bears case, they put security blankets in place for a reason.

Adding to your post, I read a list somewhere indicating very few QB's who get benched ever go on to be good players. The moral behind that point is that if you don't think a player is ready, putting him to the wolves too soon can be extremely detrimental. You could argue well, the great players just swim to start, but if Aaron Rodgers sucked for a season and got benched, would he have lost his mojo and just started developing bad habits, etc....because you are just weak at everything, you really can't rely on anything and over press, etc.

I think it is a mistake to rush Trubisky. He's shown a ton...but taking lumps isn't always a good thing and I think it is better for Trubisky to be in a position where he can truly learn from his lumps. I want to maximize his reps in the preseason though, where he is more then prepared to go against 2nd stringers.

I think he needs to move up and get more reps with better players. That said, I don't think he's ready to start and I like the fact that we have Glennon to at the very least take a few games away from Trubisky so he is in a better position to start later in the year. I don't want to send Trubisky to the wolves, so Glennon is a needed piece right now, imo. If we play Trubisky too early, I think you do more harm then good. Maybe he overcomes it, maybe he doesn't. I'd much rather let Glennon go out and play mediocre (I hope he does well, but I think he can be mediocre) for a while until we aren't in contention. Trubisky has had more time to get reps, etc, and then turn things over to him (with lower expectations, etc and more prepared to play and read defenses). Putting someone out too soon could actually mean they regress because they aren't yet ready to learn. Trubisky isn't perfect, that said, he's shown a lot of skills that make you excited. We just need to calm that excited. I do think he needs to get more reps though (he got a ton in that 1st game...not enough in the 2nd). My presumption is he will get more reps in the 3rd game (probably play most of the 2nd half) and then get tons in the 4th game. And if Glennon is bad, then at least we've given Trubisky a few weeks on the sideline (and lowered expectations due to Glennon's poor play). And in the unlikely scenario that Glennon is really good...well I'll deal with that problem. I should point out that we should expect struggles...new system..new offense, minimal playmakers at the wide receiving position (somehow I hope White becomes good but I'm not holding my breath).

Yes...what you say...all of it.

When the blitzes come, etc, I would be very surprised if Glennon wasn't better then Trubisky. I think the speed at which Trubisky is growing is huge though (and it doesn't help that Glennon isn't playing up to his capabilities, which is shrinking the gap). The biggest question when you draft an NFL QB to me is how smart are they and how quickly are they able to develop, learn to read defenses, etc. You think about Prescott and no one thought he could read D's like he did his rookie year...the game film didn't back it up, but there are a lot of stories about how much he worked and just how quick he was and it shined through during his first year (he also was put in a great position to succeed). Trubisky is going to have learning moments and I like the idea of not just throwing him to the wolves and letting him continue to learn the craft...that said, I also like the fact that he is forcing things early with his play...but it was still one half of one preseason game. Excited to see Saturday and please note if he has a massive stinker, it doesn't mean he stinks either. I would expect him to not play as well as he did last week...that said, if he kicks butt again, I'll be super fired up!!!

It seems like Wheaton has a skill-set that will keep him around, which is his speed. We really don't have a downfield threat with his speed. I sure hope Wheaton gets healthy cause it is nice to have someone who can stretch the field, but didn't he have health issues with the Steelers as well? I remember him being one of those guys the Steelers thought was going to emerge into a really good threat, but he was never able to take that next step forward.