adam

Double standard to the nth degree from the national media. Every major talk show and media outlet had only negative things to say about Williams on Tuesday, yet watch the narrative today, it will be about GB's defense. There won't be hosts discussing benching Daniels, concerns about his accuracy, missed reads, not throwing to open receivers, etc. If you didn't watch the game, Daniels looked 10x worse than Williams, and outside of a few series last year, I don't know if I ever saw Williams that bad. Only after GB was up 3 scores late in the 4Q when they pulled starters, and stopped blitzing, did Daniels do anything. One other thing to watch on Daniels is his sack count, he took 4 last night, could've easily been 7, but he got back to the LOS so they didn't call it a sack. Over his last 6 games dating back to last season, he is getting sacked at rate higher than any 6-game stretch for Williams did last year. My fear with Daniels was always injury. I thought he would be a better version of Fields because he was a better passer and comparable runner, but his frame always concerned me.

88 passing yards, 4 sacks, 3 pts thru 3 quarters. Watch how many garbage time stats he accumulates.

Where are all the "bust" cries for Daniels? National stage, Prime Time Game, 49 passing yards, 3.3 per attempt in the first half. WAS has as many pts (3) as punts. Their only scoring drive was 9 plays, 37 yards, lol. Williams "bad" half he threw for 98 yards and 1 TD. It is just funny to me that all the praise is on the defense when it is not Williams.

Yeah, now we will see if we can turn those turds into at least turdsicles.

There is a good chance that the Bears win if Gordon plays in Week 1 vs McCloud. I didn't mind the extension because they needed to lock up some of their drafted players but Gordon is still the highest paid CB2 in the NFL by a big margin, and will probably still be the highest paid CB2 next season (unless 10+ CBs sign new contracts that exceed his).

Line now at Bears -6.5. Now the 2nd highest spread of the week. Bears +6.5 seems like a great bet because it feels like a game that will be within a TD.

and to put salt in the wound, the NFL decides to give McCarthy the Offensive Player of the Week honors for 143 yards passing and a Pick-6. Williams couldn't get one after throwing for 340 yards and 2 TDs against MIN last year or 4 TDs with 79.3% Comp rate against JAX last year, but somehow McCarthy's 143 yards was worthy enough in Week 1 over all other NFC offensive players. I know these are basically meaningless, but it does show the strong national sentiment towards Williams compared to all other QBs in his class.

Just to put a bow on the Week 1 disappointment. The Bears had more first downs, total yards, time of possession, a net positive in sacks and INTs, a defensive TD, and still lost. If the Bears do this reguarly, they will win most of their games.

Looks like Gordon and Jarrett might be out this week. Jaylon a full participant is promising. Did Poles jump the gun on the Gordon extension? He averages 3 missed games per season and already has one this year, with #2 looming. He is 22nd in the NFL for CBs in AAV, which is normally the range for your CB1. We will see how that plays out, but it sucks that he is out with a soft tissue injury considering he is so athletic.

They can, if the booth calls down, they can pick up the flag. That's what makes the 2 phantom calls even worse.

The 538 creator has another QB Rating system (QBERT), Williams is currently 7th after Week 1:

I know that quote is mentioned a lot but it is very subjective. If both teams are "good" neither can overcome an external variable. Unfortunately the refs are the one thing your team cannot control. Missing calls is bad, but happen, calling something that didn't happen is inexcusable and that is what the booth or NY should be doing.

Wording order. They have no good reason to hate on him. All he did was bring winning to the franchise.

Good point, more hollow yards.

Lions favored by 6, the 4th biggest spread of the week. For how bad the Bears looked, the Lions looked worse in Week 1. For EPA/P for the offense and defense, after Week 1: Bears 23rd and 6th Lions 22nd and 26th The Lions defense was bad and lucky they didn't give up 40. The Bears were unlucky and gave up 27. I don't think the Bears defense allows that much again. I also think the offense musters at least another TD (to replace the defensive one from Week 1) but I don't trust Santos at all. So I am going with 24-20 Bears. One of these teams is going home 0-2 on Sunday, both overall, and in the Division. Hopefully the team rises up for Ben as he got a lot of hate, for no good reason, for leaving Detroit.

Everything I am reading is that it is considered a penalty. Here is a snippet from an article talking about it comparing it to a touchback: "By contrast, a kick that goes out of bounds would be flagged as an illegal procedure penalty, and the ball would come out to the 40-yard line, a difference of five yards." So if it was deemed a penalty, then it would've been pointless to do that as MIN could just decline and ask to rekick. The best option was probably the onside, but then with MIN's kicker they are almost already in FG range with a normal recovery.

One other thing to note. Williams took a hit to his right shoulder on his rushing TD. It seemed like every throw after that was a chore. Might be unrelated, but if he had any kind of tightness that could affect his throwing motion, that might account for him overcompensating.

Williams now has 597 passing attempts in his career with only 6 INTs. With 4 more attempts without one, his INT% will be under 1.0. The only QB under 1.4 is Jacoby Brissett at 1.36. Aaron Rodgers is at 1.4. Justin Herbert is the only other QB under 1.7%. To put that into perspective, Williams could throw 2 INTs in his next 3 passing attempts and still have the lowest INT% in NFL history.

I know people love PFF grades. Top 3 and Bottom 3 players from both sides: 1. Wright - 77.9 2. Williams - 77.1 <insert eyeball emoji here> 3. Zaccheaus - 72.1 14. Loveland - 52.1 15. Monangai - 51.4 16. Jackson - 31.0 > very concerning. It felt like he either had a false start or missed a block. 1. Owens - 74.9 2. Wright - 74.4 3. Stevenson - 69.1 > played surprisingly well 15. McCloud - 44.1 16. Williams - 42.2 17. Billings - 34.3 > concerning considering his RDEF grade was 37.7.

From what I have seen online, since it would be a penalty, MIN could just decline and make him rekick. So the only other option was to go for an onside kick and try to tackle them within 3 seconds, which is not a guarantee.

Here is the fake holding call on Wright, it is one of the worst calls I have seen in a long time, with the ref looking right at it:

Yeah, absolutely, luckily Owens made a great tackle on the next play so it didn't cost the Bears points. It just sucks because now this hangs over everyone's heads. The game is over if the Bears score a TD with first and 10 at the 12 if Wright is not called for touching a defender as he falls to the ground. To me it just felt like the league didn't want a blowout on MNF and all of a sudden, in the 4th quarter, they start making all of these phantom calls, but only on the Bears. Mason had 2 long runs (both in 4Q, both on TD drives) where there was clearly holding right at the point of attack, which is an easy call because in order for the hole to be that big it's either a missed gap assignment or a hold. The Bears were held both times, no call.

So I think we can safely say that some of the preseason can be correlated to the regular season. Special Teams was an issue in the preseason, and it was also in Week 1. On punts, MIN's PR Price averaged 17.0 on his returns (which is crazy). Duvernay averaged 9.3. The Bears lost 31 net yards in punt coverage. Wright was 7-333 on punts averaging 47.6. Taylor was 6-266 for only 44.3 per punt. So the Bears lost another 20 net yards in just punts. That is 51 lost yards without the offense or defense on the field, which basically equates to at least 3 pts. I don't know how a punter loses 10 yards off his punts from college to the pros. Then our glorious Captain Kicker got to watch Reichard go 2/2 on FGs and hit a 59-yarder while Santos missed a 50-yarder going the same way and couldn't kick the ball out of the end zone to save his life. He also barely made his lone FG. All in all, not good. At some point will Hightower ever be held accountable?

Time of Possession: Bears 32:53 Vikings 27:07

Penalties: Bears 12-127 Vikings 8-50