adam

It seems most if not all of the 2nd year QBs have struggled at some points during this offseason. We will see who is legit when the actual lights come on, but at least from a Fields perspective, he is not the only one who had a bad day or two this offseason. Lance: Jones: Wilson: Lawrence seems like the only one that has had a decent camp throughout, which is good for him. It makes sense going from Urban Meyer to Doug Pederson.

Promising to see progress.

Rumor is he wants more than what Leonard got to reset the market knowing someone else will get more than him next year. However, to me, he is a notch below Leonard and should not be getting top 3 LB money. If I am Poles, I leave the offer there and allow him to lose his peak 3 yrs to a contract dispute. Most players lose these battles. Remember LeVeon Bell? 5 yrs with Pittsburgh, 25 yrs old, back-to-back 1200-yard seasons. Contract dispute, holds out a year, signs with Jets, does make some money from them, but doesn't even make it a 1 year and a half before he is released. Plays one more year for two teams and is out of the league before 30.

True, but I felt his statement was odd given that he had no leverage. He still has a year left on his rookie deal. If the team doesn't budge, does he just magically all of a sudden back down and agree after he said the current deal was disrespectful? I just don't think he does. He really backed himself into a corner here. Requesting a trade with one year left on your deal seems a little drastic.

Now David Moore, who was fighting for the last WR spot: So it looks like Mooney, Pringle, ESB, Jones, and probably Sharpe as your top 5. Dazz Newsome or Dante Pettis as WR6 if they go with 6. Harry starts season on IR.

I am just thinking if the Bears did give him a take it or leave it offer, and he said no, what other path is there? The whole point of a take it or leave it deal is that there are no other deals and Roquan is not the type of guy to compromise. If you remember, for his rookie deal, he was making a stand for all rookies, and in his message, he again said if signed it would be bad for the entire LB market. It is a contract to play a game. He is not a player personnel rep, and he doesn't even have an agent. Why is he worrying about others' contracts? Worry about yourself. He actually has zero leverage here. He can sit out the entire year, then the Bears can tag him the next year. Losing $1-2M a year on a 5-year deal, when you make $16.5M per year is not much to comprise compared to losing a potential $26M over the next two years ($9.7M for 2022 and potentially $16.5M in 2023) and two of your prime years in the league. The Bears could actually tag him again after that.

Poles clearly reads PFF lol: I know this can only be seen as a negative, and I agree at this point not having Smith on the field is a negative. However, there are a lot of factors. Smith never signs a deal until it is exactly what he wants, that was clear when he held out as a rookie over some pretty minor stuff. He doesn't have an agent. So there are things in contracts that he may not have known about. The Bears will not get a comp pick for him if he leaves via free agency because they will sign too many FAs next year cancelling the comp pick out. With teams knowing that, I don't see them getting more than a 3rd for Smith. Also, how many teams have the cap space to sign him to a $20M year deal? Very few teams have the cap space to add someone like Smith for $20M a year. Besides the Bears, only NYG, NE, HOU, SEA, CIN, BAL, ATL, and ARZ have over $25M FOR NEXT YEAR's CAP! That already limits the amount of teams. NE is out because they never sign players like that. ATL has Deion Jones, so they are out. ARZ will be out once they have to resign some of their own players. BAL has to pay Lamar. CIN will have to pay Burrow, so I doubt they take on a big contract. So realistically, it would come down to NYG (most cap), HOU (Lovie connection), and SEA. If Smith wants a trade, he is likely going to a worse situation.

Figured this would come once a deal wasn't struck by last week. Not a good look for Poles after all the other little things this off season. What sucks is Smith is gone, no way is he playing for the Bears even if they up the offer.

There was a pretty funny incident a few years ago with one of the guys, he had 100s of burner accounts and was pumping up his followers and posting from the other accounts to give himself praise in his own tweets.

He has the most accurate and timely info. I like his takes, never too extreme.

Yeah, those guys help a lot. I would be happy with top 15.

We are beating the Giants, this team is a mess, another fight:

Bears came in at 11: The additions of Reiff and Schofield helped out a lot. The line could be even better if Jones or Jenkins beat out Borom. Then the 2 that don't win the starting job become super subs with Mustipher as depth. That is a very solid O-Line and a lot better than last year.

Head coaching goes to NE, but the jury is still out on Matt Patricia as an OC and play caller.

Hoge and Jahns, CHGO w/ Hoge, Locked On Bears (daily pod), and then follow the entire beat on Twitter, Brad Biggs seems to be the fastest.

Good point. I guess it comes down to overall value, including Special Teams.

Which roster would you take, Bears or Pats? The Pats went 10-7 last year. Here is how our roster stacks up: CHI vs NE Offense QB - Fields vs Jones - I like Jones, but he was the guy that was the most NFL-ready but with the lowest ceiling. I think we will see that take shape over the next two years. I will take Fields here, just based on upside. Pats were 8-1 when they held opponents to 17 or less. They were 2-7 otherwise. So Jones didn't have to do much for 10 wins. Fields by a few. RB - Montgomery/Herbert vs Harris/Stevenson - This is a fairly even group, especially with the Bears having Blasingame and probably Ebner. Monty is probably the best of the bunch, followed by Harris and Stevenson. However, as a group the Bears are deeper. Wash. WR - Mooney/Pringle/Jones/St. Brown vs Parker/Meyers/Bourne/Agholor - Pats win easily here, though Mooney would be WR1 or WR2 on this team. Pringle probably WR3/4. The jury is still out on Jones and St. Brown. Parker only had 515 receiving yards last year. Pats by a big margin. TE - Kmet vs Henry - I like both, Henry is very consistent, 3 straight with over 600 yards, 4 yrs ago had 579, and never had less than 4 TDs with a high of 9 last year. Kmet had more receptions and yards his 2nd year than Henry did in his. Also, Kmet's 60 receptions last year ties Henry's career high. So I will call this a wash, but I would put Kmet's name first. Wash. OL - Reiff, Whitehair, Patrick, Schofield, Borom/Jones vs Wynn, Strange, Andrews, Onwenu, Brown - For as bad as some make our line out to be, I would take it over the Patriots. Bears by a little. So for offense as a whole, with the large gap at WR the Pats have a lead that dries up with the QB and OLine. Offenses are basically too close to call. Defense DL - Muhammad, Jones, Tonga, Quinn vs Wise, Godchaux, Guy - A slightly different defensive front, but I will go with the Bears here with Quinn, Muhammad, and Jones over their guys. Bears by a few. LB - Smith, Morrow, Adams vs Judon, Bentley, Wilson, Uche - Smith is better than all of them and it is not even close. Judon would be second, but way back from Smith and closer to Morrow. Bears by a few. DB - Johnson, Gordon, Brisker, Jackson vs Mitchell, Mills, Dugger, McCourty - Bears have a stronger group overall, McCourty is 34. Mitchell and Mills combined for 1 INT last year. Bears by a little. Even if you called one of DL, LBs, or DBs a wash, most people would take the Bears defense. ST - Santos, Gill vs Folk, Bailey - A wash here, I would take Santos and Bailey. Also note that McDaniels is gone, so it is now Matt Patricia as OC? He was a terrible HC and I didn't know he was an offensive guy. Thoughts? Little nugget about Jones.

You are correct, they updated their stories. It went from this tweet, then others said severe as well and could be season ending: Now they are all back tracking. High ankle sprain is 6-8 weeks like you said, so he could miss the first 4 weeks of the season. At that point, would he be that much better than Sharpe that you would want to bring him off IR and bump someone like Sharpe off the roster? I just don't think he is that high up on the depth chart to matter.

Here is a vid of Jenkins on one drill, seems to be moving good for a big man:

Someone to watch that I liked early in free agency is Tajae Sharpe. If Harry is out, I can see Sharpe making the roster as WR4/5 (Mooney, Pringle, Jones, St. Brown, Sharpe).

It looks like Harry's injury is serious, probably out for the year (or most of it). I wonder if Poles will bring someone else in like Emmanuel Sanders, Adam Humphries, Will Fuller, Kenny Stills, or Cole Beasley?

Jenkins at RT and RG, then RT with 1st team. I am glad to see him getting reps.

Absolutely true. If Fields doesn't improve, nothing else matters. For the run game, Blackson and Tonga were pretty good last year, and they added Justin Jones who was good for the Chargers last year. Then we have speed at LB to make up for some mistakes up front. Roquan and Morrow are the fastest duo in the league.

Gotta love how people get paid to write this crap: They have several guys on rookie deals, signed Reiff for $3M with incentives, Schofield for $1M, and Patrick for under $2M. If anything, Poles should be praised for doing that much with the limited cap space he had. Then he drafted 5 OL and 2 may even make the 53-man roster and Jones may even start. Then for WR, again Mooney, Newsome, Jones Harry on rookie deals, Pringle, St. Brown, Pettis on smaller deals. So if the signed Kirk to $20M a year over Pringle, would that make the team better? Maybe, but enough to warrant an additional $18M on one player? For TEs, again Kmet, TE1, on a rookie deal. Griffin and O'Shaunessy are solid backups. This is the silliest argument for success. Then in the article he says these nuggets on why the Bears won't win 6.5 games: He listed Goldman as "a significant player" on the front-7. The dude was a ghost in 2021 and didn't play in 2022. LMAO. He said "the Bears have one of the weakest secondaries in the league" but didn't mention the upgrades with Brisker, Gordon, and Young. He said Poles "did not prioritize upgrading one of the league’s worst offensive lines" but didn't mention they signed Patrick, Reiff, and Schofield, and drafted 5 OL. So you sign 3 starters and draft 5 with the hopes that one or two stick, and that may actually occur. With the team carrying 8 or 9 OL, you could potentially have 5 new OL out of 9. Whitehair, Jenkins, Borom, and Mustipher would be the only carryovers.