adam

I am just saying Walker, Billings, Jones, Gipson is the worst DLine in the league. Not one of those guys is a starter on pretty much any other team. Those are all good rotational guys, but none are starters. Walker is probably the closest, so we still need 3 starters.

I was assuming one of the 2nd rounders, or the 3rd rounder could be used on a starting CB. My hope is OL, DL, Edge, CB are addressed in the first 4 picks (in any order). I could also see them doubling up at DT or OL (with OT and C) which would be ok too.

I am thinking it will look like this at 9 with 4 QBs gone, Anderson, Wilson, and one of the CBs gone. Obviously Anderson, Wilson are 1-2, then I think it will go in this order for the Bears: A. Jalen Carter DT - This one is still up to debate for me, but I think someone will take him before 9. B. Paris Johnson OT - Seems to be the consensus #1 OL now C. Broderick Jones OT - Some are saying he would be a better fit for the Bears? D. Peter Skoronski OT - Best tape, but them arms. No shame sliding him in to G if he is that good. E. Witherspoon/Gonzalez/Porter Jr CB - The only way this occurs is if only 2 QBs go in the top 8 (not happening). F. Murphy/Van Ness Edge F. Johnston/Smith-Njigba WR Anderson, Wilson, Stroud, and Young are definitely gone before 9. That leaves Levis and Richardson and the list above for 4 slots before the Bears. If 2 go to the QBs, that means only 2 players from A-E will be off the list when the Bears pick. I doubt they ever get past Skoronski on the list. So it will ultimately come down to the best available of these 4: A. Jalen Carter DT - This one is still up to debate for me, but I think someone will take him before 9. B. Paris Johnson OT - Seems to be the consensus #1 OL now C. Broderick Jones OT - Some are saying he would be a better fit for the Bears? D. Peter Skoronski OT - Best tape, but them arms. No shame sliding him in to G if he is that good.

Right, but what if OL or DL never go on discount? Do you just continually say we are not going to spend there just for principle? If he continues on the same course, the Bears are drafting a CB in the 1st, LB and S in the 2nd, because those will be the highest rated players available at those picks. At this point, the Bears still could use at least 3 more on the DL and at least 2 more on the OL.

Poles roster construction has been almost backwards. Did the secondary last year with Brisker/Gordon, now doing LB Corps, did Claypool and now Moore for WRs, but the trenches? We still need some dudes on both sides of the ball, otherwise the LBs and DBs will be useless.

At this point, the Bears still need to address DT, DE, OT, and CB. If they can do that before the draft, that would allow them to go BPA the entire way. Right now the weak links as starters are RT1 (Borom?), CB2 (Vildor), DT1 (Jones), and DE2 (Gipson/Robinson). Would you agree those are the weakest starting slots? I am assuming Walker is DE1 and Gordon is NB1. I think QB, WR, TE, and RB on offense are good to go for starters. On defense, LB and S are locked in. That leaves the aforementioned spots. If those spots get addressed, what are the next set of weak spots? More OL? DT2, DE1?

$11M is the 26th most WR contract for AAV. If they believe he is a fringe WR1, then $11M is probably correct. JuJu just got $8.5M/multi-year deal and he seems to be more productive than Mooney. So $8.5-$11M seems like Mooney's range.

He was referring to the Vikings signing Davenport to a $8.5M deal. One guy thought that Poles could've paid more to get him. The other guy was saying he was crazy to think Poles would pay for a guy with that little production.

So Poles go Foreman and Tonyan for less than Monty. That is a pretty good deal. Same for LB, he basically got Edmunds, Edwards, and a 2nd rounder for a few million more than just Roquan. That is impressive. Now he needs to address the trenches. He can't go two years without getting some dudes in there.

I know, it is wild. I was really surprised to see him go to HOU in the first place. Dallas makes a lot of sense. They have a stacked WR room now.

Velus was high risk already with his age, but lack of production too is already two red flags. Even if he becomes a gadget player and regular KR, that is still a reach in the 3rd round imo.

Yeah, I am thinking Kmet would be the easiest, Claypool the least likely, and Johnson is going to be the toughest. Jackson and Whitehair definitely can save close to $10M if they need it.

Here are a few guys left, 30 or under: McGovern - C, 30yrs old Fleming - RT, 29 Smith, LT, 30 Ngakoue - Edge, 28 Ward - Edge, 29 Ford - IDL, 28 Ioannidis - IDL, 29

So here is the current estimated available cap for teams with over $10M in effective cap space. These teams are really the only ones that could sign a player to a decent contract without other cap restructuring. If you consider you need $5M for rookie pool and $5-10M for operating money for the year, The Bears, Falcons, and Packers are really the only teams with room to sign players to a deal that is over $7M AAV. There are still several players left like that. The Bears could sign 2 of them and still have the most cap space. So Poles is not done yet.

Brandon Cooks traded for the 10th time. Now to Dallas. It is wild how many draft picks he has gotten for the teams trading him.

3 down is HOU, 4 is NYJ, and 5 is NE. I doubt any of them are taking a QB there unless HOU goes Anderson at #2 and one of the top QBs drops. There is no scenario that I can see that yields an early to mid second rounder unless a team like SEA wants to move up from #20 and give up #37. I couldn't find a realistic trade partner that was far enough back to warrant a 2nd rounder but not so far back that the 2nd rounder wasn't in the 50s. WAS or PIT? Maybe, but what are they trading up for? I really think the Bears are locked in at #9, and the only way they get an earlier pick in the 2nd is by moving up using one of their current ones (#53+#104 = #43), something like that. Using one of their extra 5ths, they could get into the early 4th (#133+#148 = #109) but that is the best I can see for trade-ups.

Poles just needs to find 4 starters. The Velus pick was his Shaheen, trying to be smarter than the other GMs with Lucas (picked right after Velus), Raimann, and Parham still on the board. He can't do that again. There are too many holes to whiff on an early pick. Velus was pick #71 and the Bears have at least 4 picks inside 64. He can't get those wrong. DL, Edge, OL, and CB have to be priorities.

With Rodgers leaving the Division and handing the franchise over to Jordan Love, it feels like the division is up for grabs. Detroit is a decent but needed to win 2 meaningless games to finish 9-8. They still have Goff at QB and with his cap hit over $30M again, they didn't get much better. They do have some decent picks from the Stafford trade, but for free agency, it seems like they are just replacing their losses and not really upgrading there. I figure they will be in the 7-9 win range again. In Minnesota, they are basically just replacing their free agent losses, and don't have many draft picks. Right now they only have 5 picks, no 2nd rounder, and only 2 picks inside the top 100. So if anything they are going into 2023 slightly worse than they were in 2022. They were one of the weakest 13 win teams in NFL history and I think they will struggle to win 10 again. Green Bay is going to come down to how Love plays. Rodgers, when playing at his peak was arguably one of the best QBs of all time. I don't think Love is that, but he might end up as an average to above average starter. However, for GB, that would be a drop off at the most important position in the game. They had 8 wins with Rodgers and they are sort of cap restricted due to Rodgers this year, so with Love and the same team, they will be hard pressed to match those 8 wins again next year. They look like they are trending for 6-7 wins. This feels like every team is going to be within 1-2 wins of each other all season long and end up with a 10-win division winner with the other 3 teams with 7-9 wins.

is a DE, not a DT. He never played any 1st down DT, only passing downs moving a DE inside for pure pass rush. Good catch, cut and paste error.

The concern for any WR past 3 is they will have to play STs.

The Bears got 6 receptions total out of Griffin and Wesco last year. I have a feeling that Tonyan will get a lot more than that, even as TE2.

ESB is WR4 or WR5, I don't know how much of an impact guys like that have on the overall outcome of a game. A typical WR4 averages 1 catch per game. Even in the low-volume Bears passing offense from 2022, ESB still had 21 receptions with a 15.4 average. That is good enough for a WR4 or 5. I just went off speculation, but RT is still a need. The Bears technically have 3 guys that can play Center in Patrick, Whitehair, and Kramer; and Patrick and Whitehair can also play guard, so there is still some juggling to do.

Here is a few guys I would look into for the Bears: Ngakoue, DE Fleming, RT Ford, DT Gaines, DT Robinson, DT Ya-Sin, CB Griffin, CB

Based on last year's 53-man composition and using all the current players under contract. Here is what I came up with for positions, holes, needs, etc. Blue is a 53-man roster spot, red is a 53-man roster spot that could use an upgrade. Bold is new player. White is non-53 man roster, likely Practice Squad. I see 13 possible upgrades with 1 to 2 starters in need of an upgrade, CB and probably RT. After that the biggest needs are on the D-Line and actually LB corps after the top 3. By quantity, the Bears could upgrade 4 DL slots, 3 LB slots, 2 CB slots, 1 OL spot, 1 WR spot, 1 S spot, and 1 TE/FB slot. For the O-Line, the biggest need is deciding on what to do with the RT. If you keep Jones and Whitehair in place, plug Patrick back into C, add Davis to RG, it would seem like sliding Jenkins out to RT is the only option. Since that is undecided, I considered RT a need. However, outside of that, the rest of the offense is basically done. So it would be prudent if they addressed CB and RT before the draft, then they could go BPA to replace and upgrade by bumping current starters into backup rotational slots. In the draft, they need to go DL, CB, and OL to upgrade those starter spots with rookies, preferably a top DT and DE, CB, and OT.

running the ball for sure, Monty was a better blocker and pass catcher. Herbert needs to hit Mooney's JUGS machine 2x a day for 1000 catches.