adam

Looks like Bears will have two top-5 picks. A QB and OL or Edge.

Check down Charlie. We don't need Fields to do that, Bagent is more than capable of throwing checkdowns on EVERY play.

What sucks is the defense let up 3 HUGE plays that all resulted in TDs, then the pick-6 from Fields. That is 28 of the 38 pts. 7 was on the opening drive of 40 yards. 2 huge plays to Dillon and the blown coverage on Musgrave. That's all it takes to have a blowout. Love is still fools gold, but he made the plays he had to make. However, he had hours back there to throw and was rarely pressured. The game is so much easier in that environment.

Fields has 144 passing yards with 12 minutes left in the game. Same scheme, same QB, same results. DJ Moore with 2 targets. Come on Getsy.

Wow, this is how you show up to an opening day game at home against an arch rival? This team is toast. Both offensive and defensive schemes are terrible. Sending 4 and dropping 7 with no pressure ain't gonna work in this league. Every coach and coordinator need to be on the hot seat. Fields does not look good. Looks exactly the same as last year. Late on throws make for easy interceptions.

Defense with back to back 3 and outs. Offense needs a sustained TD drive here.

Ok defense, that was better, a quick 3 and out.

Bears sloppy, Packers always are rushing 5 almost every time. Bears need to take advantage of that.

Gave them a short field, easy TD. Terrible start, getting destroyed in the trenches.

Getsy with some questionable play calls. Felt like Nagy there. Just play football, you are fooling no one. Defense still having trouble stopping the run. Not the best start.

LETS GO!

btw 19 hours to kickoff!

I am not 100% sold on Fields, but the slider has moved closer to 100 from 50, say between 75 and 80. Basically what he did last year, especially in that 10 game stretch, was pretty herculean. An average QB would've looked a lot worse. It was not like he was going to throw for 250 yards a game to ESB, Pettis, and ISM with the patchwork offensive line. The lack of volume killed him. The Bears 2022 Receiving Group is most comparable to the 2018 Bills and 2018 Jaguars in terms of grades. The 2018 Bills had Zay Jones, McCoy, Foster, and Benjamin as their top 4 receivers. A rookie Josh Allen threw for 2074 yds and ran for 631. Terrible receivers and low volume. The 2018 Jaguars had Westbrook, Yeldon, Moncrief, and Cole as the top 4 receivers. Bortles threw for 2718 yds and ran for 365. Look at those receiving groups, that is what Fields had last year.

I am changing my game score. My initial projection was Bears 24-17. Without Watson, the Packers are not going to get the chunk plays they need to score, and Love will have to throw to less capable receivers leading to an extra turnover. So I am giving the Bears an extra score and taking one away from the Packers. Final score: Bears 30-13 Moore goes over 100 yards receiving. Fields throws for 250+ and runs for 50+. The triple headed monster of Herbert-Foreman-Johnson rush for a combined 150+ yards. The Bears defense gets 2 sacks and 2 turnovers.

BTW, besides terrible coaching by Nagy, Trubisky also had a subpar receiving unit that was bottom 10 every year except for 2018 when they were 17th. Check out CHI vs KC receivers from 2017 - 2022, then consider how Mahomes looked on Thursday night. Trubisky was the fall guy and he had his flaws, but he could've been a better, more mobile Mac Jones if he had receivers. 2017 - 23rd / 10th KC 2018 - 17th / 3rd KC 2019 - 28th / 7th KC 2020 - 20th / 4th KC 2021 - 26th / 11th KC 2022 - 32nd / 2nd KC Fields had the WORST receivers in 2022 (and one of the 5 worst units in the last 5 years), yet somehow pulled some of those games out of his ass. Now with at least a league average receiving corps, if nothing else improved, that is several wins added. The defense has 6 new starters and 5 new key rotational players. That is 11 out of 16 main cogs on the defense with several others back from injury. They don't have to be great, just league average, and the Bears take a massive leap in wins in 2023.

On a side note, I got involved in a Twitter thread and uncovered some interesting info. So after Thursday Night there was all this discussion about how Mahomes looked without Kelce. Then PFF grades came out and people used that to support their argument that Mahomes had no help. Yet Fields has never gotten that benefit because the team hasn't won. However, the situation with Fields is much worse than I even expected. The Bears were dead last in Receiver grades in 2022, and for his career, Fields receivers grade out at 62.4, well under the league average. He has only started 5 games out of 25 where his receivers were league average or above. So in only 20% of his starts were his receivers at least average, and in 2022, he only had 2 starts (NE and DET) where receivers were average. Now you add DJ Moore, a healthy Mooney, a Claypool that knows the playbook, Tonyan, and Scott, and that grade should go way up. That alone is going to make Fields better, there is a clear correlation between those values. People say that the QB has to make the players around him better, but as shown by Toney, the players have to help out the QB by just being average. If the Bears get average receiver play, they are a 10 win team, that's what the numbers say. Fields will improve exponentially without actually improving. If he actually improved himself at the same time, the league is in for a big surprise.

Looks like he got hurt during practice. They released Cole, and elevated Carlson and Gates. Presumably to replace Tonyan and Cole for Week 1. Greg Gabriel expects them to bring Cole back after the game.

Looks like they released Dylan Cole due to injury, and with Tonyan hurt, elevated Carlson and Gates.

They drafted Skyy Moore last year and Rashee Rice this year, signed Valdes-Scantling and traded for Toney, but that is their WR room as they traded Hill and let Juju and Hardman walk. Last year it really was Kelce and Juju. Valdes-Scantling was their 2nd best WR with 42 receptions for 687 yards. That is more like a #3, but Kelce takes 25% of the receptions and targets. I just don't understand why teams don't bracket Kelce, the odds of any of the other players to succeed one on one consistently is very low. Pacheco is their lead back and he is more of scatback than a true 3-down RB. However, this is what your team looks like once your QB's massive contract hits. Wait until Burrow's finally kicks in, guys like Higgins and Mixon will be gone. They will have Burrow and Chase, and a whole bunch of rookie contracts and minimum cap hit free agents.

Did they? Wow, I didn't see that.

Bears with no Jenkins, Packers with no Watson. Seems like the playing field got evened out a little bit. Beyond Aaron Jones, Watson was the #2 threat in their offense. Now the Bears have to worry about stopping Jones/Dillon on the ground and in the short passing game, and Doubs/Musgrave in the passing game. If the Bears can't beat that team, at home, then it's going to be another long season. In reality, the Bears should beat them handily (double digits).

No Watson:

I don't like to use PFF grades, but I will when they support what I am seeing. Billings and Walker are low key sleeper acquisitions. Billings with the 16th ranked IDL last year and Walker was 24th. Every team has 2x Edge starters, so the top 64 are normally starting caliber. Walker is in the top 3rd of that group. Depending on formation you can have 1-2 IDLs starting, so at least 48, if not more are starting IDL, Billings was also a top 3rd player. Then you add Dexter and Pickens rotating in with fresh legs, and you have a very solid DL room. Compare that to the dudes that they replaced, well into the 100s (near bottom of league), so the defense is going to be improved. They also went from one of the worst LB corps in the league (after Roquan trade), to arguably the best (Edmunds - 5th, Edwards - 6th, Sanborn - 41st). The defense is going to be better. Then they have Gordon replace Vildor in the slot, which will be a massive upgrade because Vildor was targeted early and often. Lastly, they were already one of the better Safety duos, but now in their second year together, they should improve. So where are the holes on this defense? Justin Jones is arguably the worst starter, and he is at least serviceable with Dexter/Pickens behind him.

After watching what many have projected to be 2 playoff teams and KC potentially winning another Super Bowl, my confidence in the Bears surprising people just went up. Comparing the offenses to the Bears, Moore is arguably the best skill position player amongst the Bears, Chiefs, and Lions. Herbert is the best RB (just based on his numbers from last year), and if Mahomes can run like that against the DET defense, Fields is gonna cook. Kmet would be TE1 on the Lions and TE2 on KC. Even Foreman would be RB1 on KC and a better RB2 than Monty. Mooney and Claypool make for a great WR2/3 combo. KC doesn't even have any good WRs. Outside of Brown, DET has a lot of castoffs that never amount to anything other than 1-2 good games per year. On defense, the only player that stood out was Hutchinson, and even though he looked like a super productive player, he had no official stats, not a single tackle, pass defended, sack, or INT. That is pretty remarkable for someone that is getting so much hype. In some ways, his pursuit will get him in a lot of trouble against a QB like Fields. If he can't keep contain against Mahomes, he won't keep it against Fields. Bears are going to shred the Packers. 5-6 30yd plays. 30 something to something in the teens.

BTW, Montgomery had a -9 RYOE, so he had 9 yards less than expected for his 21 carries (-0.45 per carry). That is terrible. I hope they keep feeding him. He was the 6th worst back in the NFL last year for RYOE. Herbert was 4th best with the least amount of carries. For RYOE/ATT, Herbert was 1st in the NFL at +1.29 per carry, Foreman was 9th with +0.61, and Montgomery was -0.26. Monty was also -0.36 in 2021 after being +0.20 in 2020. His rookie year he was -0.22. So he has always been a below average RB.