adam

The defense was playing better, but the level of talent of the opponent went up too when their production went down. Without looking, I had no clue which week Brisker or Billings went out. Brisker's last game was the Carolina game in Week 5. Billings last game was ARZ in Week 9. Dexter was way more recent. Also, one or two guys should not make the entire unit fall flat on its face. DET lost a potential DPOY Candidate and are doing fine. This looks even worse on Poles to be honest. Having quality depth is just as important a top tier starters, and the Bears have neither. Since the Hail Mary before Flus was fired the defense was allowing 24.2 pts and 380 yds per game, and since he was fired 27.0 pts and 380 yds per game. So zero yardage difference and 2.8 pts. They also played 60% at home vs 50% at home, so the difference of 2.8 pts is easily within the margin of error for schedule and opponent. Meaning, the defense has been about the same with or without Flus over the course of multiple games. At the end of the day, the offense has been the deciding factor in most games. They were 2-0 when they scored 30, and 4-1 when they scored 24 or more and the one loss was to MIN in OT. When the opponent scored 21 or less, they were 4-6. They should've been 8-2 in those games, but the offense is what failed.

There is a good chance the Giants part ways with Brian Daboll. My assumption is that the Bears will interview him because he is an Offensive Guy, A Leader of Men, and has HC experience. The issue is, outside of a fluky 2022, they have been terrible.

There is no way Warren can look at this team and say with a straight face that Poles is up to standard at his job. He had one job, the product on the field, and it is one of the worst products in the league, literally the bottom 2 over the last 3 seasons. He has to go. Bring in a GM with a vision that aligns with the new HC, get those guys in the building, then do some house cleaning with the 53-man roster in preparation for free agency and the draft. Looking at the best teams in the league, it comes down to having solid players in almost every starting spot, in some cases more, but it looks like you need at least 8 above-average players on both sides of the ball to compete. On offense, you need at least 4 on the OLine, the QB, and 3 skill position players. On defense, you need 3 on the DL, 1 LB, and 4 in the secondary (includes Slot CB). The more the merrier, but that seems like the lowest you can have to be a consistent playoff contender. So for the Bears, the offseason targets are no-brainers: OLine - need 3 (Wright) Skill - need 0 (Moore, Odunze, Swift/Kmet) - Jones, Jenkins - injured DLine - need 1 (Dexter, Sweat) LB - need 1 (None) CB/S - need 1 (Johnson, Gordon, Byard) - Brisker, Billings - injured - Edmunds - terrible, Edwards - terrible in coverage So they need 2 OL before they should even consider another position group. Then once it is 1ea left, then you can go BPA. As much as we don't want to see it, LB is a need. They have been a huge problem all year, Sanborn has probably been the best one, but because of his contract/draft status, he is rotational at best. Edwards is fine if his partner is a coverage stud. Edmunds has been neither, he can't tackle, can't cover, but looks intimidating presnap. To put Edmunds into perspective, there are only 2 LBs with more snaps than him that have a lower PFF Grade (I know PFF, blah blah, but you can pretty much use any metric and he is near the bottom). Guess who is one ahead of him, Edwards, lol. Edmunds is a problem because he will have the 4th highest cap hit of any player on the team in 2025, there is just no way you can pay someone that much for literally being a huge liability on the field. He would be a cap casualty, saving $4.3M from his current 2025 cap hit. I would rather have $4.3M in free money and a roster spot than to pay him $17.4M to waste a roster spot. Other easy cuts, Bates - saves $4M, Everett - saves $5.5M. Byard would be the only other one I would consider as he would save $7M on the cap.

The challenging piece is knowing what Caleb is being coached to do, what the scheme is, progression, etc. To me, there are 4 basic components to a pass play, the play/scheme (does it scheme someone open, does it stress the point defender?), the O-Line/Protection (can include blitz/stunt pickups), the QB, and the receivers. The QB is obviously the most influential, so the play's success rate will more times than not come down to how well they performed individually on any single play. The next most influential is the receiver, because everything else can go right and they can still drop the ball. The next is scheme and O-Line which both can fail, but be overcome by a great QB and Receiver (see Cincy). The goal is to have none of those below average. If Caleb had an average O-Line, average scheme, and average receivers, he would've thrown for 4K yards, probably 30 TDs, etc. He would've still had high sacks, but probably around 40-50, but not 70. The Receivers were not good enough to overcome a bad scheme, less time to get open due to the O-Line, and some inaccurate passes by Caleb. Caleb, as a rookie, was not good enough to play above the bad O-Line, scheme, and receivers. My project this weekend is to watch every sack from the end zone view, look at the receivers between 2-3 secs after snap and see if any are open. I feel like the combination of everything made everything else worse. No unit picked up the play of the other. 2 vet WRs, 3 vet TEs and none of them picked up their QB. Way too many dropped passes, wrong routes, presnap penalties, etc. We all know how bad the O-Line was, it is not even up for debate. Caleb was a rookie QB that struggled against the blitz and immediate pressure, he held onto the ball too long, took unnecessary sacks and was too young to understand the urgency in the 2-minute drill. They will obvious get a new scheme next year, one can only hope it is better than what we have seen out of Getsy and Waldron. The O-Line needs to be the focus of free agency and the draft. They need to put money into it and draft capital, then repeat that every year. The WR Corps needs a burner that can stretch the field, maybe that is Scott, I don't know, but having the Safeties at 15 yards makes for a very condensed secondary. Caleb is going to need to learn how to bail after 2 reads, not 4, and run more than he probably wants to until the O-Line is above average. Every receiver needs to use the juggs machine for 1K reps per day until they stop dropping passes. The good thing is there is nowhere to go but up next year. Hopefully....

There are endless numbers, always a different way to look at the same thing.

Caleb had a 24.4 QBR for the game. Terrible performance. One of his worst games as a pro. At 3,393, he would need 207 yards next week to hit 3,600 on the year. He has failed to hit 200 in 3 out of the last 4 games. So this is going to be a challenge. He did have 231 against GB last time, but that was at home, and not in GB in January. Obviously Erik Kramer's team record is safe for another year.

Serious question, why are there not TEs chipping on that side? Just stick Kmet or Lewis there and smash them inside to squeeze the DE and DT. On the play that Caleb got sacked where players ran on either side of Borom and he blocked neither, there were 2x OLinemen blocking air to the right. The line needed to shift left. They didn't, which is the norm.

Remember all the "Cord-cutting" stuff. Lol, that is hilarious now because EVERYONE pays more now for less. If you want the same cable TV subscription that you had a few years ago, it is likely close to double because they have to make up for all the customers that left. Then with the streaming services, it is so fractured, that you have to get 3-4 different services to get most of what you had before. The ecosystem is completely broken. I have Netflix thru T-Mobile, so the last two games I could watch, but for some reason, they restricted casting to a TV for live events. Like how stupid is that? So if I have the Netflix app on the TV it is no problem, but if I try to cast it to a TV (using Chromecast), it won't allow me.

He cost the team a TD AND killed the game ending drive. Seriously crazy that we are at this point. 110% on Poles, who should go with Curhan. Both are worthless.

Thomas Brown looked like the OC of the 2023 Panthers coaching the 2024 Bears. The one game in the last 3 months that the defense actually shows up and that is what the offense looked like? How about Kmet? Zero targets. That is 2 out of the last 4 games without a target, and only 3 total in the last 4 games. For a top 10 TE contract. Unbelievable really. The defense actually played much better with their gaps. Fant was their leading receiver, so JSN, Metcalf, and Lockett were kept in check. I really hope these brutal offensive concepts and now all the sacks piling up haven't killed Williams already. He looked terrible. Outside of 2-3 throws, he was out of sync, missing throws, running into rushers. He seemed to revert back to needing to see someone open, and that extra .5 sec was causing some sacks. The O-Line was worse than I expected. I knew they would be bad, but wow. Borom and Curhan were revolving doors. Brutal loss, one more and this abortion of a season is done.

So now you need Sunday Ticket, Netflix, Amazon, and Peacock to watch all the games. It is really getting out of hand.

I am still really disappointed in the WR Room. The WR coach should be fired. How do you misuse Moore, over target Allen, and do nothing to develop Odunze? Out of all the position groups, this one dropped the most. I would say LBs, mainly Edmunds has been a disappointment. The secondary, which was supposed to be a strength all of a sudden turned to crap without Brisker. Stevenson also on the most disappointed list. I also think the TE room failed. They don't really have a TE2, Everett was a overpaid waste. It seems like every time Everett or Lewis come in the game, they are good for at least one presnap penalty. According to the official stats, Lewis (201 snaps) has a team leading 3 False Starts to go with Wright and Pryor.

Yeah, crazy draft. One of the best all-time for any team. Considering how scouting was back then, it makes it even more impressive. I am curious what people think of CJ Stroud, he was the golden boy last year, little brothered Caleb this year and now looks like a bottom 3rd QB. He now has 19 TD with 12 INT and 52 Sacks on the season, and that is with Mixon at RB, had Dell back for a good chunk of the season and had Diggs for the first half. He doesn't look like the same QB.

These are not all of them, but the Bears stacked their OLine and DLines for the 85 Team, using 5 1st rounders in the trenches, with the others being McMahon, Gault, Marshall, and Wilson. So 5 out of 9 in the trenches, all others were starters at their positions. 1979 #4 - Dan Hampton - DE 1981 #11 - Keith Van Horne - OT 1981 UDFA - Jay Hilgenberg - C 1983 #6 - Jimbo Covert - OT 1983 #91 - Tom Thayer - OG 1983 #203 - Richard Dent - DE 1983 #219 - Mark Bortz - OG 1985 #22 - William Perry - DT The Bears hit on every 1st round pick from 79 to 87 (Harbaugh), then the wheels fell off after that (Muster, Wendell Davis, Woolford, Armstrong, Carrier, Stan Thomas, and Spellman.

The great thing is they can do no worse than #10 right now as the Saints are the only 5-win team. They would have to win the last two to drop out of the top 10.

I really hope they can score on more than 2 drives at home on a short week against Seattle.

I hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas and holidays! 🎄🎅🍺

I would rather go for the Home Run and fail than settle for the single and fail. Johnson or Brady for me is Tier 1. Vrabel would be Tier 2. I would not be happy, but he would be an upgrade over Flus, Fox, and Trestman. If he got the right OC, the team could be solid. However, this HC has to be about Caleb.

One thing I heard from all the player interviews is that most of the young guys only know losing. The Bears really need to bring in a few FAs from perennial winning organizations.

4 OL, Edge, CB2, S2, and a rotational DT. That is 8 starters at a minimum. So they need to get a min of 4 in FA.

Of the two other 4-win teams, CAR is at TB and NYJ is at BUF. I don't see either of the lesser teams winning. So our only hope is some 3-win teams move up. TEN is @JAX, so one of those teams will move to 4 wins. LVR is @NO, who looked terrible against GB. So LVR could move to 4 wins. That sets up for some interesting games in Week 18: MIA @ NYJ - (MIA is terrible in the cold), NYJ could move to 5 wins JAX @ IND - if JAX beats TEN in Week 17, this could get them to 5 wins CAR @ ATL - this is the last realistic game where a team could move to 5 wins Other games: LAC @ LVR - Is LAC resting starters for WC Weekend? TEN @ HOU - Is HOU resting starters for WC Weekend? So the absolute best the Bears could do is 6th, if JAX beats TEN and IND, NYJ beats MIA, and CAR beats ATL. The issue is based on odds, only NYJ is favored to win. That would give the Bears 8th if they don't win again. If they win one more, it looks like 10th is locked in unless NO wins again (they play LVR and TB), so a win is likely against LVR. So figure 8, 9 or 10. For CAR, at this point we would rather have the better first-round pick than 2nd. One slot is huge in the first round. So we actually want CAR to win one more. That scenario would give the Bears #8, 40, and 42. or 9, 41 and 42. 9 to 8 is worth a late 3rd round pick.

I always find this interesting, how the media can portray the same production. All 3 of these QBs have played 15 games. Herbert gets praised all the time, and no one ever talks bad about Kyler, yet Caleb is crapped on constantly. Kyler Murray 3,288 yds, 16 TD, 9 INT, 518 Rush Yds, 5 TD Caleb Williams 3,271 yds, 19 TD, 5 INT, 442 Rush Yds, 0 TD Justin Herbert 3,243 yds, 18 TD, 3 INT, 252 Rush Yds, 2 TD The biggest issue with Caleb is sacks.

Thru 15 games: 1. Moore - 826, proj: 936 (87/g to hit 1K) 2. Odunze - 701, proj: 794 (149.5/g to hit 1K) 3. Allen - 694, proj: 786 (153/g to hit 1K) 4. Scott - 0, proj: 0 (500/g to hit 1K)

Some of this is dependent on who they resign. I am going with them resigning Jenkins for one of the OG positions. With Braxton's injury, the OLine is going to need a new LT, new OC, and a new OG. They need a real TE2, with Allen probably leaving, they will need a new WR3, and they will need a new rotational RB. Depthwise, they will need another OT, OG, and OC. That is 9 spots on the offense at a minimum. On defense, they need a real Edge2, another DT, a CB2, and another S. Depth wise, they need another DT, Edge, CB, LB, and S. So for the 53-man, that's also 9. So I see about 18 spots, at a minimum that need to be filled in FA and the draft. Obviously 4-5 of those are going to be vet min deals. The draft will need to fill 4-5 of those, so 6-7 need to be filled in FA with legit contracts.

Yep that accounted for more than 2x INTs by other QBs, it makes no sense. On the flip side, PFF graded him at 83.0, his 3rd best game of the season.