adam

Fields play reminds me of that meme where the girl changes faces after taking a drink. One game you have that disgusting look on your face, then the next game, you say, hmm that was a pleasant surprise. So in order for him to be THE GUY, he has to ball out these last 5 weeks and leave no doubt that the progress noted was real and this is who he is now. If he flounders, has the same types of mental mistakes, then he is just auditioning for another team. One thing to look at will be the playcalling. If there are no over the middle throws, they are probably protecting him from INTs and negative plays. I would rather have them let him loose, and that way you can get a true eval of what he can and can't do. If it is too much for him, at least you know, but masking stuff with a bazillion screens tells us nothing.

For ARZ, are they even in a position to draft a WR that high? That would mean all in on Murray, but with that O-Line? Their offense and defense are near the bottom of the league. Adding MHJ would be like the Ferrari at the trailer park.

You really think NYG are taking a QB after paying Daniel Jones earlier this year? $69M in dead money in 2024. They may still draft one but that would be a huge boat anchor because if Jones is on the bench or cut, they are eating that money either way. Also, if they draft one AND keep Jones, they could be paying him $47M (cap hit) to sit on the pine. Cutting him would seem to be highly unlikely because they would need to shave another $22M off the cap. Granted, they could do that with other cuts, but then 3-4 vet starters would be UDFA or vet min guys.

Good plan, and that's awesome. Have fun, and drink one for me!

Mitch Trubisky is willing the Patriots to victory. Wow he looks bad. 3-8, 19 yds, 1 INT, which is a 6.3 Passer Rating. A Patriots win would be huge for the Bears (it would almost assure the Bears of the #1 pick from CAR's pick) because they would have a 2 game gap between them and NE and ARZ.

If you use the Rich Hill model, #1 is worth 1000, #11 is worth 358, it would be #43, which is 138, a #1 next year normally worth half the value, so 179 + Crosby who should be worth a mid-1st (305) = 980. So that seems close enough, but with Sweat already getting paid, they probably would rather trade for a 3T.

Oh I agree, and I think both can be true. Fields can struggle in the pocket, not throw to open guys, and hold onto the ball too long, while the O-Line can be bad. I think that is what has made the evaluation this difficult and this long (3 seasons and we could potentially still be evaluating him).

Oh awesome, they have to win if you are there representing TalkBears.com. Wave to the camera, and dress warm!

I almost believe that the hit rate for a QB in the first is similar to all other positions, meaning the entire draft is a crapshoot and it is not solely tied to the QB position. The higher you draft anyone, the higher the probability that they will turn out to be good/great than a later pick.

So I looked all the way back to 2010 and there have been 165 QBs drafted. Out of all of those, only 22 were deemed as franchise QBs, guys that got 2nd contracts from their original team, and started 6+ years (if drafted before 2017), otherwise I made an objective call for more recent QBs (Murray is, Daniel/Mac Jones is not). With those parameters, of the 22 "Franchise" QBs, 15 were from the 1st round pick. That is 68.8% of the franchise QBs coming from the 1st round, with 31.2% coming from all other rounds combined. But how many 1st rounders work out? Of the 39 drafted in the first round, 15 were franchise QBs. If you use a first round pick on a QB, there is a 38.5% chance you will get a franchise QB. The odds of you getting a franchise QB between the 2nd and 7th round is 5.93%. So you are 6 times more likely to get a franchise QB in the 1st, or it would take you 6 picks in the 2nd-7th rounds to have the same 38.5% chance at drafting a franchise QB. Note - There were a few QBs I put TBD on and didn't include them in the numbers (Young, Richardson, Pickett, Levis, Love, Willis, Howell, and Ridder). If someone wants to make a determination on them, let me know, either franchise QB or bust. Here is a list of franchise QBs, most defined with their performance on their drafting team. So guys like Dalton and Carr qualify based on their numbers with the Bengals and Raiders respectively. Did I miss someone? Should someone be dropped from this list: C.J. Stroud Texans Trevor Lawrence Jaguars Joe Burrow Bengals Ryan Tannehill Dolphins Tua Tagovailoa Dolphins Justin Herbert Chargers Kyler Murray Cardinals Josh Allen Bills Derek Carr Raiders Lamar Jackson Ravens Patrick Mahomes Chiefs Deshaun Watson Texans Jared Goff Rams Andrew Luck Colts Robert Griffin Redskins Cam Newton Panthers Jalen Hurts Eagles Andy Dalton Bengals Russell Wilson Seahawks Dak Prescott Cowboys Kirk Cousins Redskins Brock Purdy 49ers Of all the QBs drafted, the hit rate is about 14% with all draft picks considered. I am sure it is lower if you count UDFAs who have made the 53-man roster. Thoughts?

I totally agree about letting Fields play out his rookie deal. However, I think the rationale is this team is too good to ever get the 1st overall pick again and if Poles trades it in back to back years without taking "his" QB and Fields does the same thing next year, Poles is gone. At the end of the day, they need their scouts and all other inputs (analytics, etc) to determine if the projected development of a rookie QB will be higher than the projected career trajectory of Fields. The difference is Fields has a huge data set while the rookie only has a projection. You can only have one starting QB, so Poles has to decide where he puts his chips. Just like this year, Poles did not think Stroud or Young would be better than Fields. He is 1/2 in that assessment so far. For the 2024 draft, if they get the #1 pick, he has to think Fields will be better than Williams/Maye. Also, one other factor, salary. If you did extend Fields, what do you give him annually? Then once you have that number, what other positions will lose their high paid starter? So is Fields -Jaylon Johnson better than Williams + Jaylon Johnson. Which way is the team better?

Supposedly the Lions have some issues in the secondary AND their starting Center Ragnow may be out. That would make them slide their G to C and they would have a backup Guard in. So two potential vulnerable positions on the road. The Lions won't have CJ Gardner-Johnson (CB), Alim McNeill (DT), and more than likely Ragnow (C) for this game. Ragnow is considered one of the best Centers in the league, so there will be a drop off there. When the move Glasgow in to C, that makes them start a backup G where there is another drop off. The Bears interior should be able to get some pressures. I didn't know this but McNeill is legit, was the 2nd highest graded defender in PFF. CJGJ was 8th. If those two were on the Bears, they would be the 2nd highest graded player and the 3rd. So those are two huge losses that the Bears will not face this weekend. While the Bears come in the healthiest they have been all season, including Week 1. With all these things going for the Bears, there are zero excuses from top down, Flus, Getsy, Fields, Chris Morgan, and the rest of the players. If you can't beat a team at home, off a bye, with a health and rest advantage, to a team you basically dominated for 56 minutes, then the outcome will be a true reflection of who you are. Fields thumb should basically be near if not 100% at this point. He will get a lesser DLine and Secondary against him. If there ever was a game, it's this one. Bears by 12!

Another interesting note. Listening again to some national media, I love how the narratives are literally polar opposite for Fields (and Bears QBs in general) and other QBs. When Goff struggles = the O-Line is injured, not giving him enough time. When Love struggles = he is in his first year as a starter, young WRs, injuries. When Fields struggles = Fields takes too many sacks, holds the ball too long, can't read a defense. Now granted some of those are true, but rarely do people say the Bears O-Line was a mess AND Fields holds the ball too long. Both can be true. I have the perfect example of this. If you have never listened to or watched Adam Rank's Podcast, this is a great one to see the polar opposite narratives. Carmen Vitali works for Fox and covers the NFC North. She is very low on Fields and very high on Love and the Lions. A few minutes in they get into this discussion and you can see exactly what I am talking about. She justifies why the Lions are playing worse now and why Love struggled, but when the same conditions are for the Bears, it's all Fields. Rank calls her out on a few, which was good on him. On a side note, the bar seems very low to be a talking head these days, no offense to anyone, but man the bar is low. If you have a few mins, take a listen/watch:

Regardless if we keep Fields and he becomes the franchise QB, or we draft one, I don't care where we draft him, as long as he becomes our franchise QB. Maybe we go the Washington route and draft one in the 2nd (after a trade back) and another in the 5th or 6th. Use the 1st rounders on WR, Edge, or DT, then use the 3rd and 4th on a Center or Safety.

Goff is 8th in QB Rating, 10th in QBR, 4th in passing yards, 20 TD, to 8 INT. That seems like top 10 to me. I personally don't think he is, but his numbers say otherwise. Now those are the top teams, but there are some really good QBs on bad teams, Allen, Herbert, Stafford, would all fit that category. At the end of the day, you need great QBs, great teams, coaches, and organizations. The Bears are not there yet, but they seem to be trending in the right direction, and after the most losses the team has ever experienced in a 2 year window, getting some additional wins down the stretch should be seen as a success. If you are under 40, you didn't even get to experience the 85 team, and you have seen more losing than winning, so we need to celebrate the wins when they come. I am hoping and praying, holding crystals in both hands with incense lit that the Bears can win out, Justin balls out and the entire narrative gets flipped.

There are a few ways to cut the data. The way I did it was franchise QBs in the 1st vs franchise QBs everywhere else. You can also go 1st round pick QB hits / first round QB overall picks. and you can do it your way: 1st round QB failures / all other round QB failures I will look into it, but I believe the ratio will be similar. There were 14 QBs drafted in 2023. Stroud currently looks like the only real deal. So 1/3 chance vs 0/11 chance. Going back to Fields year, you could say at this time it is 1/5 in the first (TLaw only), and 0/5 everywhere else. Fields still has a chance, and would bump the success rate up significantly. Ultimately, the likelihood of getting a franchise QB in the first, and in the top 5 is exponentially higher. However, in order to have a large enough sample size, you probably have to do a 10 year review. Looking at just the 2 years I did, it was 1/4 chance in the 1st, and 0/16 chance outside of the first just using that data set. Knowing Purdy is in 2022, if I add that year into the numbers, it goes to 2/9 (22.2%) for the first round (Pickett added), and to 1/24 (4.2%) outside of the 1st for the last 3 years. Now to get failures, you just flip the data. So in the first there is a 77.8% failure rate, for all other rounds, there is a 95.8% failure rate. I didn't include UDFAs, but their failure rate is even higher.

I was joking. I didn't include him in the numbers.

This is what Love did to "WIN" against KC: 4th quarter, close and late: 7-15, 46.7%, 80 yds, 5.3 Y/A, 0 TD, 2 Sacks (both sacks resulted in longer FG attempts). If Fields did that, the Bears lose. Against the Lions, Fields orchestrated an 8+ min FG drive in the 4th quarter that ate up more time than all of GB's drives combined against KC while they milked the lead. The difference was with the defenses (and officials). The Bears defense failed twice (2x 70+ yard TD drives in under 4 mins) and the officials never help the Bears (Cassius Marsh where are you?).

So while looking up some Jordan Love stats, I realized something about the GB defense and how their performance has correlated more to their wins and losses than anything Jordan Love does. Love has improved as the season has gone on and is now 14th in QBR, slightly higher than Minshew, Geno Smith, and Dobbs. That seems to be about right for him. Now looking at their defense, is has allowed 27 or more points in only one game this season (34 in a loss to DET). I was shocked to see that. Did anyone else know that their defense has been THAT good? The Bears defense have done that 6 times (all losses). The Packers are 0-4 when their defense allows 23 or more (Bears are 0-6 - yikes), and 6-2 when they hold opponents to 22 or less (Bears are 4-2). So the team's outcomes are very similar, the differences have been the defenses and offensive turnovers. As good as the media is making Love out to be, their offense has scored more than 30 only once (Week 1 vs Da Bears), the same as the Bears anemic offense. Since that week, they have 11 straight games with 29 or less. In the game they scored 29 in, they had a defensive TD. In the Bears game, they had a pick-6, so their highest offensive output was 31 (and only 4 TD game), then the next highest was 27 against KC. GB is 4-1 in their last 5, but 3-0 at home and 1-1 on the road. They play 3 of their last 5 on the road. If any of you have watched their last game, Love had some great protection and got really lucky on a few passes. On the season he has had a TD pass go thru a defender's hands right into his receivers, another one tipped and caught by a completely different receiver, and in the last game, he threw up a desperation moon shot (not waxing) that was played terribly by the defenders who both whiffed on it to be caught for like a 50 yard gain with the WR on his back. Way too lucky for me. They talk about Fields performances not being sustainable, but if you are living off of several lucky TDs and huge chunk passes, those will both dry up eventually and turn into turnovers in a heartbeat. I think Love will be a decent QB, but nothing tells me he is the 3rd coming of Brett Favre. I think he will live in that 2nd tier of QBs (11-15 range) with an occasionally great game or two.

If you look at the top QBs from this season, and some other very young QBs who are looking the part, there are 10/14 from the 1st round, Hurts from the 2nd, 2x from the 4th, and Purdy. I think Purdy is an anomaly and very dependent on Shanahan and that team as a whole. I doubt he looks half as good on the Bears from 2022. Even so, you are 3 times as likely to get a QB in the 1st than all other rounds combined. Considering rounds 3-7 have more than 32 picks, that ratio is even larger. Prescott - 4th Allen - 1st Mahomes - 1st Herbert - 1st Cousins - 4th Tua - 1st Hurts - 2nd Goff - 1st Stafford - 1st Trubisky - 1st Jackson - 1st Burrow - 1st -------------- Purdy - 7th Stroud - 1st Lawrence - 1st If you go a step further, 9 out of 10 were top 10 (Jackson was the only one not in top 10), 6 were top 5, 5 were top 2, and 4 were #1 picks. So you are just as likely to hit on a franchise QB at #1 than you are in every pick from the 2nd to 7th rounds combined (on average). So 1/1 vs 1/229. That's pretty wild.

This season has flown by, we are already into our final regular season week this weekend (first game on Thursday night). Right now there are 3 teams that clinched a playoff spot and 4 others vying for the remaining 3 slots. Both the first two teams have enough wins to ensure they both get a bye, the only jockeying would be for the seeding. The next 4 teams can finish as high as 3rd and as low as 6th. The Bunny is still mathematically eligible, but it seems like the only realistic shot would be for them to win and for PapaBear to lose and The Bunny's PF is 107 pts more than PapaBear's this week. If that is not achieved, The Bunny is eliminated. There has been a two-team PF difference of 107 or more two times this year, (Week 5 and Week 13), so it is possible. 2023 TB Keepers Playoff Picture 1. SAVAGEw/LOOSEMORALS! 9-4 vs Nopper 4-9 2. Nips&Tips 9-4 vs MotM 8-5 ------------------------------------------- 3. MotM 8-5 vs Nips&Tips 9-4 4. Comfortably Dumb 7-6 vs The Mad Lithuanians 5-8 5. Fields of Dreams 7-6 vs The Bunny 6-7 6. PapaBear 7-6 vs Victorious Secret 3-10 -------------------------------------------- 7. The Bunny 6-7 vs Fields of Dreams 7-6 Potential Outcomes 1. SAVAGEw/LOOSEMORALS!- 1 or 2 2. Nips&Tips- 1 or 2 3. MotM- 3-6 4. Comfortably Dumb- 3-6 5. Fields of Dreams- 3-6 6. PapaBear- 3-6 7. The Bunny- 6

that's so funny, I just randomly thought about the moon after I looked into the weather. I have no clue that curse existed, but unlike that lady on the plane, that mother-f'er is real!

Yeah, that makes sense. Trading back is always beneficial if you can get more bang for your buck. I wouldn't mind a 2nd round QB, but it is nice having the 5th year option, though more teams are locking QBs up before then, thus killing the benefit.

Yes, absolutely, make a lifesize voodoo doll of Goff, and on every passing play, you have to jump on the doll, basically sack the doll, even teabag if you have to. The Bears need all the help they can get from the universe. I will be playing binaural beats on every Lions 3rd Down to distract them.

That's hilarious, I made that crap up lol. It will actually be Waning Crescent on the 10th.