adam

Velus fields punt off the ground and gains a few yards.

Pickens with a huge 3rd Down sack!

Offensive drive, pass in the flat out to Blasingame for 10. Herbert run up the middle for 1. Quick pass to DJ Moore, takes it 62 yards to the house, LMAO!

Defense did relatively nothing to stop Titans on first drive. Malik Willis just walked them down for a 72 yard TD drive. Gordon was only player that stood out on defense so far.

It's game day. I would like to see Fields and the offensive starters play at least 2 series and hopefully score on at least one. I want to see Fields getting the ball out quick with timing. Main players I will be watching besides Fields: Wright and Claypool on offense. The entire D-Line and Gordon on defense. The media is going to be so polarizing after this one. If Fields looks good as a passer, look out MVP. If he looks bad, he is a bust. There is no in between.

Yeah I scooped up NFL+ as well, and I have ESPN+ thru the Disney+/Hulu bundle for free. I used to get DirectTV Sunday Ticket online but YouTube wants $400 for it or for you to have YouTubeTV for $75 a month AND $300. If you want RedZone Channel with that, it is $40 more. That is such a rip off it is ridiculous, especially with the blackout restrictions, you would not even get all 17 Bears games. If you only watched the Bears, it would be over $30 per game. I went with the $15 monthly NFL+ Premium and will pay for it for 5 months ($75) which will get me thru the entire regular season.

Random Vildor Tweet: "Business is Business"

Wims was a bum, Stevenson is way better.

Claypool has shown enough, no need to risk further injury, let him rest up for the opener.

Updated Keepers, we now have 6 teams who have reported keepers. Fields of Dreams - Amari Cooper - 9th, Treylon Burks - 11th SAVAGEw/LOOSEMORALS! - Amon-Ra St. Brown - 5th, Drake London - 8th Victorious Secret - Tony Pollard - 5th MotM - Kenneth Walker - 13th Nopper - Patrick Mahomes - 3rd, Garrett Wilson - 15th The Mad Lithuanians - Aaron Rodgers - 10th, Tyler Allgeier - 14th We still need keepers from (if they are keeping anyone): PapaBear, Nip&Tips, The Bunny, and Mike's team (our new GM)

Baldy knows ball. I believe him.

It seems like Poles slightly changed his view compared to last year: Gordon - 9.69 (7th CB) Brisker - 9.11 (7th SS) Velus Jones - 7.1 (53rd WR) Braxton Jones - 8.42 (14th LT) Dominique Robinson - 9.74 (5th DE) Zachary Thomas - 8.97 (12th OG) Trestan Ebner - 4.75 (Bad) Doug Kramer - 8.46 (10th OC) JaTyre Carter - 6.3 (Low) Elijah Hicks - NS Trenton Gill - NS Robinson the highest RAS guy, followed by Gordon/Brisker. then Kramer (lol). Ebner was really low and Velus was lower than I expected.

Going back to the draft, Poles is banking on highly athletic dudes at all positions: RAS Scores Wright - 9.45 (4th OT) Dexter - 9.21 (2nd DT) Stevenson - 8.64 (14th CB) Pickens - 8.97 (5th DT) Johnson - 8.09 (8th RB) Sewell - 9.04 (6th LB) Scott - 8.3 (16th WR) Smith - 8.48 (16th CB) The lowest RAS guy was Roschon, with 3 guys over 9 (Wright, Dexter, and Sewell), and one right there (Pickens). That still is an impressive draft plus they got an extra 2024 1st and 4th, and some guy named DJ Moore.

Dexter is HUGE. 6'6" and 313. I love the work ethic and he didn't have to stop his pro day because he was too tired either. Dexter and Wright are always going to be linked to Jalen Carter. We will see if Poles got it right. Dexter looks like a steal in the 2nd and if Wright becomes a perennial starter at RT, then it was the Wright move because I don't know if there was another player drafted after Dexter that would be as good as Wright is/will be.

Gents, if you have not paid or set Keepers, we got about 3 weeks until the draft.

The good thing overall is that we are worrying about bottom of the roster guys, not starters, not backups, and the bottom 4-5 guys on the roster barely play significant minutes, if any. That is a good sign. If you think of target count, majority of the targets will go to WR1, WR2, TE1, RB1, then WR3, WR4, TE2, and RB2 will get almost all of the others. The Bears are stacked in those positions with Moore, Claypool, Kmet, and Herbert, then Mooney, Velus, Tonyan, and Foreman. WR5, TE3, and RB3 will all have less than 10. Scott/ESB, Lewis, and Roschon/Homer. In terms of snaps on defense, the DT rotation is deep, and DE now has 5 guys. LB Corps is stacked (Edmunds, Edwards, Sanborn, Sewell), and the secondary is sneaky good (Jackson, Brisker, Johnson, Gordon, Stevenson/Smith). I feel better about the top 50 guys than I have in a long time. This is probably your bottom 10 of the 53-man: QB2 - Walker, PJ U/CAR CB6 - Vildor, Kindle 20/5 or Jones, Jaylon CF22 (ST) DE5 - Gipson, Trevis 20/5 or Lewis, Terrell SF22 TE3 - Lewis, Marcedes U/GB OL9 - Leatherwood, Alex W/LV LB5 - Cole, Dylan U/TEN (ST) WR6 - St. Brown, Equanimeous U/GB (ST) S4 - Williamson, Kendall 23/7 (ST) RB4 - Homer, Travis U/SEA (ST) LB6 - Johnson, Buddy U/PIT (ST)

Man, I was thinking the same thing. Super fun I am sure, but the last thing we need is a guy twisting his knee trying to avoid getting hit by a water balloon.

Yeah, I assume Patrick is safe because of the Getsy connection, but they also have Doug Kramer, who was a 6th rounder last year. In a backup role, is Kramer + $3.9M more valuable than Patrick? I think Vildor or Gipson could also be cap casualties as they can get the same production from vet minimum guys and save $2.7M each.

I doubt the Bears go into Week 1 with only 2 backup LBs, 6 seems like the number, and they cut Weatherford for Johnson, so I was just making an educated guess there. There is no way Gipson or Lewis make it to the PS as the Bears have to waive them first.

The last WR spot seems up for grabs between ESB and Pettis. It just feels like Pettis is slightly redundant with Scott and Velus, but I could be wrong. I was thinking that Getsy likes "his" guys (ESB, Patrick, Tonyan, and now Lewis).

Here is my best 53-man guesstimate as of 8/5. Getting DL down to 9 is going to be tough. Blue/Bold is the Special Teamers. The Bears lost key ST contributors in DHC, J. Thomas, S. Weatherford, M. Adams, R. Griffin, and look like they will be losing Ebner's, and maybe even Jaylon Jones' ST snap share. 2 QB Fields, Justin 21/1 Walker, PJ U/CAR - This seems like a lock, a 3rd QB would be a waste. 4 RB Herbert, Khalil 21/6 Foreman, D'Onta U/CAR Johnson, Roschon 23/4 (ST) - replaces Ebner Homer, Travis U/SEA (ST) - replaces Griffin - I don't see more than 4, Ebner odd man out here. 1 FB - Blasingame, Khari U/TEN (ST) 3 TE Kmet, Cole 20/2 Tonyan, Robert U/GB Lewis, Marcedes U/GB - I don't see them carrying 4, which other position would you take from to carry 4? Tonges to PS? 6 WR Moore, DJ T/CAR Mooney, Darnell 20/5 Claypool, Chase T/PIT Scott, Tyler 23/4 Jones Jr., Velus 22/3 (ST) St. Brown, Equanimeous U/GB (ST) > this WR slot is almost exclusively ST. - WR6 is going to be very interesting. That WR will see basically 0 offensive snaps, and ESB doesn't play ST. I can't see Poles giving up on Velus this soon, and Scott was a 4th rounder (they rarely go to the PS). So they may just rearrange these guys and bump ESB up to WR4, but that seems counter productive. 9 OL LT Jones, Braxton 22/5 LG Davis, Nate U/TEN C Whitehair, Cody 16/2 RG Jenkins, Teven 21/2 RT Wright, Darnell 23/1 Borom, Larry 21/5 Patrick, Lucas U/GB Carter, Ja'Tyre 22/7 Leatherwood, Alex W/LV - I don't know if they will carry 9 or 10 OL on opening day. That will actually have a pretty big roster impact as I think it would come from the DL. If Patrick can play both Center and Guard, do you really need more than 2 Interior and 2 Tackle subs? DEFENSE 9 DL LDE Ngakoue, Yannick U/IND LDT Jones, Justin U/LAC RDT Billings, Andrew U/LV RDE Walker, DeMarcus U/TEN Green, Rasheem U/TEX Dexter, Gervon 23/2 Pickens, Zacch 23/3 Robinson, Dominique 22/5 Gipson, Trevis 20/5 or Lewis, Terrell SF22 - With 7 new acquisitions in this group, this is a group to watch. Travis Bell, Andrew Brown, D'Anthony Jones, and Bravvion Roy are currently the odd men out, and either Gipson or Lewis, who has been a camp standout. Another cut candidate could be Green ($1.6M in savings) if they like Gipson and Lewis better than Green. 6 LB WLB Edwards, T.J. U/PHI MLB Edmunds, Tremaine U/BUF SLB Sanborn, Jack CF22 (ST) Sewell, Noah 23/5 (ST) - replaces Thomas Cole, Dylan U/TEN (ST) - replaces Weatherford Johnson, Buddy U/PIT (ST) - replaces Adams - this group seem fairly locked in with 5 new guys out of 6. 6 CB LCB Johnson, Jaylon 20/2 RCB Stevenson, Tyrique 23/2 NB Gordon, Kyler 22/2 Smith, Terell 23/5 Blackwell, Josh W/PHI (ST) Vildor, Kindle 20/5 or Jones, Jaylon CF22 (ST) > this DB slot has to play ST - CB6 is going to be very interesting. Since the Bears drafted 2x CBs that are expected to make the roster, that really pushes Vildor, Jones, and guys like Stroman basically off the roster. If CB6 is an ST slot, Jaylon Jones is the front runner. If not, then Vildor has a chance, but then you need to find another rostered player to take Jones' snaps on ST. 4 S SS Brisker, Jaquan 22/2 FS Jackson, Eddie 17/4 Hicks, Elijah 22/7 (ST) Williamson, Kendall 23/7 (ST) - replaces DHC - This group seems like a lock, but there is a chance that someone like Trahan makes a big enough impact to replace Williamson or Hicks. Neither are roster locks, but both of those slots will be playing ST. Hicks probably has the upper hand with a year under his belt. Thoughts? Did I jack something up? Did I miss someone. For me the surprise cuts would be ESB on offense and Gipson ($2.7M savings) or Vildor ($2.7M savings) on defense. If they can't make the 53-man, as vets, they would be cut, saving some cap.

You make your own luck. Poles put himself in this position with the cap flexibility and could at the same time outbid someone if needed, but still hold to his guns and get a decent value. Not only was Ngakoue one of the top free agents remaining, he was one of the top FAs for this offseason. If you remove the guys who resigned with their own teams, he ended up being a top 20 FA. It is funny because the media doesn't know how to handle it. Before the offseason, all they talked about was how bad Edge was, and now we go into the season with two new starters (Ngakoue 9.5 sacks and Walker 7 sacks), a new rotational guy (Green 3.5 sacks) and maybe even a new diamond in the rough in Terrell Lewis. So guys like Gipson and Robinson are pushed back down into the rotation where they are more effective too.

Checking on snap counts, the WR6 last season got a total of 34 snaps all season on offense, which was only over a 5 game span. Meaning, the WR6 did not have a single offensive snap in 12 games last year. So that guy is going to be a core ST'er.

The TE3 got 80 total snaps last season with a high of 13 in Week 10. Since Lewis is much better than even our TE2 last year, I expect him to have more, but 10 snaps a game is probably what he will average.

The D-Line is still probably the weakest unit on the team, but it shouldn't be the worst in the NFL, especially if Dexter is impactful. For the other units, you can go through each one, and most are top 15 units at worst. So say D-Line is bottom 5. LB Corps has to be top 5 with Edmunds, Edwards, Sanborn. Secondary is probably top 15 (may be higher if Gordon really improves). So the defense should be no worse than top 15-18. On offense, O-Line is probably top 20 at worst, as individually, they all graded out in the top 15. WR Corps is top 15 with DJ Moore. TE Corps is top 10. RB Corps is top 15. So it will come down to Fields. If he is top 15, the Bears will be a playoff team. The top 14 teams make the playoffs and it feels like the NFC is weaker this year. DET is favored in the North and every team in the South had a losing record last year. PHI and SF are probably the two best teams, and DAL and SEA are pesky. So that last WC slot should be up for grabs with NYG.