adam

So at least Poles hit a home run with Edwards. He needs to lock this hometown dude up with a long term contract. He is on pace to have one of the best LB season's in Bears history, on par with Urlacher's best. Here is Roquan's best season as a Bear compared to Edwards thru 11 games: 21 Roquan (17g) - 163 tackles, 3 sacks, 3 PD, 12 TFL, 1 INT, 0 FF (made 2nd Team AP) 23 Edwards (11g) - 121 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 PD, 5 TFL, 1 INT, 1 FF (on pace for 187 tackles, 9th most in NFL history) Urlacher was insane, do you go with the year of 19 TFL, 153 tackles, 4.5 sacks, 7 PD, 2 FF, and 1 INT in 2002 or the 5 INT, 12 PD, 5 sacks, 123 tackles, 7 TFL and 1 TD season in 2007? He also had a 118 tackle, 6 sack, 8 PD, 9 TFL, 3 INT, 2 FF, 1 TD 2001 season.

Ben Johnson inherited Jared Goff, so I would think they would hire the HC first, then allow him to determine if he wants Fields or is enamored with a specific QB in the draft. I would let him decide. Fields will have to learn a new system on a new team too. So from his POV there is at least familiarity with the players, facilities, etc if he stays. My only concern with Fields to this point is if his play style is sustainable and repeatable, and something team's can't eventually figure out. The great QBs can beat any defense. Right now Fields has yet to beat a team with a winning record.

Shaq Leonard was just released by the Colts.... I didn't see that coming, seems very random, especially the timing.

I have done a ton of interviews and been on both sides of them. It is fairly easy to determine if someone is the right fit for a job. I can't imagine Flus going into an interview and talking how he does in press conferences during the interview process. I don't want to come across as an ass, but he sounds like an idiot who has no idea what he is doing.

Yeah, if they don't let Dobbs free, don't let Hockenson just sit down in the zone and ensure Addison doesn't get free over the top, I think the Bears will win fairly easy.

It did lol. Yeah, a Mooney trade to KC would've made a lot of sense. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up there next season as an FA (Nagy connection).

Very true. I guess it would be more fun to figure out how they lose this time. 1. Defensive Pass Interference on deep ball gives MIN ball at 1 with 0:00 on the clock, Dobbs runs it in for the win. 2. Fields Pick-6 with Bears up by 6. XP wins it 21-20. 3. Bears burn clock on long drive to end game, instead of trying for TD, they burn more clock and go for FG to win it, and Santos misses, Bears lose by 1. 4. Bears down by 1, go for 2 to win it and don't make it, lose by 1. 5. Bears score TD to take lead by 4 with 30 seconds remaining, on ensuing kickoff, MIN runs it back for the win.

If the season ended today, MIN is the 7th playoff team and they actually have a 1.5 game lead on the 8th place team. The NFC is super weak this year. Fields gets 8 days to get that thumb healed up a little more. He handled pressure really well against DET. MIN is going to blitz, that is what they do. I think Fields will make them pay this time. In the last meeting, the Bears had the ball with 6:44 left in the 4th, down by 6 and Bagent got them all the way down to the MIN 35 before throwing that pick. As long as the injury report looks good, this will be another game where the Bears are the healthiest they have been all year while MIN will be without Cousins and Jefferson. This game means more to MIN than it does to CHI, but I think Fields is worth at least 7 points compared to last game. I am going to go with Bears 24-20 with MIN scoring a TD late to make everyone stress a little at the end because the Bears rarely win easy games. If the Bears win this, I think they also beat DET at home after the bye. They have the formula to beat Goff, they just need to stick with it all game.

Last night was a QB clinic, I hope Fields took notes. Hurts had 150 yds passing, 0 TD, and 1 INT, but won. His last drive was a 5 play punt drive that left 2:49 on the clock for Mahomes (w/ 2 timeouts). Mahomes had 177 passing yards for a 4.1 Y/A, 2 TD, 1 INT and lost. His 2nd half drives consisted of Punt, Punt, Fumble, Punt, Punt, Turnover On Downs. Mahomes also got the benefit of a ton of calls and still couldn't do anything with them. Jalen Carter, the DROY, best player in the 2023 draft, had 3 tackles, 0 TFL, 0 Sacks, and 0 QB Hits.

Eberflus is such a fraud. You don't rotate your elite players. Guys like Sweat only come out when they ask to come out.

Yeah, there is no way you risk him when you essentially get 2 additional weeks for one game. They already beat the Bears without him and Dobbs has yet to pass to him, so if anything the first game back might be clunky anyway. I am sure they will start his 21-day window during the bye week to get him some reps with Dobbs.

I would be good with any of the following: Johnson (made Goff look good), Slowik (made Stroud an MVP candidate), Canales (somehow got Mayfield to look like a starter)

If they play like they did against DET, it should be an easy win. No Cousins or Jefferson.

Jones needs to work on form, stands up too straight for my liking.

Fields had the 5th best QBR game this week with a 73.9. In his last 3 full games, his QBR is 73.8, which would be tied for 2nd in the NFL with Dak Prescott. For the season, Fields is now up to 44.9 (23rd). His sack rate and INT rate are the two things keeping him down, but every week he has been trending up. PFF gave him a 65.9 for the game, which is below his season grade, but higher than average. To show how crazy the PFF grades are though, Jack Sanborn had the lowest grade at 30.2, Sweat the 2nd lowest at 39.8. On offense, Wright had a 49.1 grade, yet he held down Hutchinson the entire game.

Interesting perspective here: In the game against CAR, with the Bears holding a 3pt lead in the 4th quarter, Bagent had a 1st down passing attempt, a 2nd down passing attempt, and 2 3rd down passing attempts when trying to close out the game. 4 pass attempts while the team rushed the ball 6 times for a 40% pass rate. Then against the Lions, in the 4th quarter, the Bears rushed 15 times and Fields had one pass attempt (the incomplete to Scott), 6.25% pass rate in the 4th quarter. So the Bears had more trust in Bagent to allow him to pass the ball 40% of the time than they have in Fields to close out the game. The Bears went 20:14 of game time between passing attempts from the 3rd to 4th quarter. The last time DJ Moore was targeted was 11:54 left in the 3rd quarter. Moore got no targets for the last 27 minutes of play. That is why it is hard for me to blame Fields, even after the strip sack safety. One passing attempt, and it was the deep ball that was thrown perfectly to Scott. Why is Getsy not scheming up plays for Moore and Kmet in crunch time? How about Kmet, he had 4 targets, all in the first 14 mins of the game. Kmet was not targeted again for the last 46 minutes of play.

There are 3 more division games, win those, go 3-3 in the division for the season. Start somewhere. Beat ARZ and ATL to finish 8-9. That would be an 8-5 finish to the season.

btw, has everyone seen enough? Two months later and it is literally the same song and dance. Nothing has changed except the opponent and date. OCT 1st, 31-28 loss to Denver, they had a 28-7 lead with 20 seconds remaining in the 3rd quarter and lost 31-28. The game was tied 28-28, and instead of kicking a FG to take the lead, they go for it on 4th and 1 in that game and don't make it. Logically, you want any lead over a tie in that situation. Then fast forward to yesterday, and with a 9 pt lead, you kick a FG on 4th and 1 to go up by 12, which still makes it a 2 score game. At worst, going for it on 4th down would've left DET at the 28, so field position was a wash. So the better option is to go for it there because if you get it, you can still kick a FG, but get to burn another 2 mins off the clock at a minimum, or force DET to use all their timeouts. Another crazy thing, if you go for it and don't make it, now Detroit is only down by 9, so if they score that first TD, that would change their game plan considerably on the next drive (only needing 3 to win vs a TD). Flus/Getsy literally did the opposite of what you should do in those situations, and both times failed and lost.

Two months later, and we are dealing with the same stuff. I keep flip flopping on Poles, but the more I think about it, do we really want him picking or dealing with 2x top 5 picks? The same guy that drafted Velus Jones, went with Brisker and Gordon instead of building the trenches first. Passed on Jalen Carter for Wright. Traded Mack and Roquan ($49M cap hit in 2024) only to sign Edmunds and Sweat ($47M cap hit in 2024). For $2M more, I would rather have Mack and Roquan. Poles continually stuck with an inferior OLine even though he needed to evaluate Fields (2023 was a waste of time). He drafts a guy like Scott who is a Mooney clone, neither can make a contested catch to save their lives. On the roster, it feels like way too many guys are overrated. On tape, the best player on defense is Jack Sanborn and they don't play him every down. Flus is arguably the worst Head Coach in franchise history (W/L wise he is), and one of the worst coaches to coach deep into a 2nd season ever. Name a single positive thing he has done? Then as a DC, we praise some pressure because the Bears were so historically low that any seems like a lot. All he knows how to do is play soft zones, which eventually stop working (like every game). Getsy can only coach with scripted plays. Once those are done, it's game over. The offense goes away from what works, then says the defense dictated that. How do you go from all that motion and redirects to straight drop back passes leaving the OLine and Fields on islands in known passing downs? He is probably the most predictable play caller in the NFL. Instead of running Herbert into a wall of 10 defenders with 7 blockers, how about play action there buddy?

Of all the losses, this one takes the cake. Historic choke job + missed opportunity to win 2 in a row for first time under Poles/Flus + huge tone setter for remainder of year + Fields would be getting praise for win. On defense, they need more than just some DL help. Eddie Jackson is done. He does nothing but run around in the secondary. Tremaine Edmunds signing was a mistake. The good thing is you can safely cut him after 2024. I would honestly consider cutting Nate Davis and taking a $11M dead money cap hit next season. Otherwise, you can safely cut him after 2024 like Edmunds. Both whiffs by Poles there. It just goes to show you, you can't pour big money into FAs, they rarely work out anymore. Trade and extend (like Sweat) or resign your own guys.

I am not trying to find excuses. I get the frustration of losing, it absolutely sucks, especially with the game in hand, but when it should've been Fields chance to put the game away, they handed the ball off twice and Scott misjudged a perfect deep ball. What do you think of CJ Stroud's performance today? He threw for 336 yards, 2 TD, and 3 INT, in a 21-16 win. The Texans 2nd half offense drives were FG Miss, 3 and out Punt, Interception, Interception. They literally gave the Cardinals every chance to win the game, yet Stroud "won the game", but didn't close it out for an entire half, and handed the game to the Cards with back to back INTs. Yet the narrative will be the rookie balled out, threw for over 300 yards (again) and won the game. Fields gets strip sacked with 29 seconds left, and he lost the game. Yet Fields got the Bears a 26-14 lead with 4 minutes left and scored on 5 consecutive drives.

The Giants just beat the Commanders. So they should have a win or two left in them.

I am not sold on the defense just yet. 4 TD drives allowed, 3 over 70 yards under 2 mins each. If they don't get those INTs, they probably allow at least 6 TDs.

Historic loss, just as I suspected, no team had ever lost with a +3 turnover ratio and 40 mins of ToP. The Bears are the first team to achieve it and will probably be the only team for the next 90 years to do so. Thanks Flus.

So if DET scores with 0:00 on the clock and Fields never gets the ball back. Did he do enough to win the game? The offense scored 26 pts, and held the ball for 40 minutes. The defense allowed 29 pts in 19:36 of possession time. The offense had 25 first downs and had 71 plays. If the offense didn't hold the ball so long, the defense would've allowed 40+ in a normal game. If not for the 3 INTs, this would've been a blowout loss. They allowed 4 TD drives. The craziest stat of all, the Bears allowed 3 TD drives of 70 yards or longer (73, 75, 75), and the time of possession for the Lions was 1:36, 1:16, and 2:04. So the INTs don't matter if you are allowing a team to score that quickly on other drives. The first one ended the 1st half and the other two were the last two of the game. Those are all game killing drives. For Fields, after the defense allowed that last second TD drive before half, he started the 2nd half down 14-10 and rallied the team to a 26-14 lead with 4 minutes left. In those 4 minutes, he handed the ball off twice to Herbert into a 10-man box, then Scott misjudged a game sealing deep pass.