adam

What a crazy roller-coaster season and game for that matter, perfect for 2020. It has come down to a 2-game season. The Bears need to win both and hope ARZ loses one of their remaining 3 games (winning right now).

If NO loses, I doubt GB risks injury, but you never know. A cold Chicago in early January. It is nice to be playing meaningful football this late in the season. Another note, the Bears just unofficially eliminated the Vikings with that win.

Man that was close. Crazy that the games end on only a 35 yard hail mary. Fuller holding in end zone, DHC and Gipson watching and only Jackson going for the ball. That was way too close for me. I don't understand this defense. Pagano is terrible. This scheme does not work. 27 pts and a chance for more on that last drive. The offense scored in every quarter (even the 3rd). I love that they fed Montgomery. However, once they started sending extra defenders to clog those lanes, the Bears kept running into them. They have to go to some play action on those, but beggers can't be choosers. 33 pts and another win. This time against a legit team on the road. Bears now 7-7 with Jacksonville next then GB at Soldier Field in Week 17. We need one ARZ loss and there is a legit shot at the playoffs.

Holy crap, what a play by Urban, who single-handedly made the 4th stop.

He is a free agent, and if he plays well, he is going to get a big contract. A team like Indy would make a lot of sense, they have a ton of cap space. Even if the Bears want him, I think he is gone. On queue, Trubisky throws a pick in the end zone. We needed pts, and now a FG ties the game.

Bears settle for a FG, Vikings sending an extra guy inside to stop the run. Bears need some play action and take advantage of the open space.

Bears need a score here to make it a 2 score game.

Huge drive by Bears offense, Montgomery running hard and O-Line making some holes. Great response to make it a 10 pt lead. Then Minnesota drives right down the field easily but the defense doesn't break and holds them to a FG. Bears 27-20.

And the Bears have to know they are running. You can't have only one guy in a gap with a lead FB, you need two defenders or it's 5-7 yards on every run. The Bears need to respond with a TD or this could get ugly.

So the Bears have another halftime lead, 20-10 against Minnesota. The offense looks great, now we need to keep the pressure on and put this game away. So far so good, Lazor's playcalling and the play of the overall offense has been very solid. On pace for 40 pts is pretty good. All of Minnesota's losses were when they allowed 26 or more. They are undefeated when holding opponents to 24 or less. So the magic number is 27. That would require Minnesota to score 2 TDs and Bailey to kick a FG. The defense has to stay engaged, make tackles, and limit penalties. It is crazy that I am more worried about the defense than the offense.

The tags will be between $20-25M for QB. I don't think they can afford anything over $10-12 for him unless someone is gone that I am not expecting (Fuller or Jackson).

Oh man, they would have to do some crazy type of deal with a super low salary next year but a huge bonus (which is pro-rated over the contract). The longer the deal, the easier it is fit it in.

Quinn with a strip sack on 3rd Down, wow he has been visible today.

Offense looks solid, are moving the ball pretty easily. Decent drive ends in a FG 10-7 Bears.

That was Shelley or Vildor, terrible drive for the defense. 7-7.

Wow, Trubisky with a dime to ARob who toe-taps for a huge gain, then Trubisky to Mooney with pressure in his face. 7-0 Bears.

Me too, he still does it a little bit but it's quicker now. Before he would do 3-4 stutter steps, now it looks like it is only 1 or 2.

Offense gets good field position, but can't do anything after a quick pass to Kmet and it's a 3 and out. Then the defense does the same thing to the Vikings, and Quinn is in on two stops (Nichols gets the sack) and Vildor makes an open field tackle to force 4th down. Bears start their 2nd drive with more good field position.

I think they would restructure or extend before they cut Hicks. He is too important on the defense. Games are won in the trenches. He is easily one of the 3 most important players on the defense with Mack and Smith. Everyone else is expendable or replaceable. If you go with Goldman, Nichols, Urban, McCullens, RRH w/o Hicks, you are nowhere near the same level of production as you have with him. So you do save $10M but lose production that far exceeds that price tag. I would seriously consider trading Fuller and Jackson while they have value. Neither are playing at their contract level. To me the easiest savings are to cut Skrine, Leno, Massie, and Graham. Just by cutting those 4, you save $20M. That gets you under the cap with basically the same team with the rookie pool but without ARob and Trubisky. You have to restructure Mack and get his cap down $8-10M, if you can't move Fuller, you do the same with him. The cap should rebound the following year, so it will be easier to take on the bigger parts of those deals. It looks like you can safely restructure Mack and Fuller and save another $16M. That would give the new GM about $25M for 13 players to fill out the 53-man roster. If you figure 8-9 of those are vet minimum deals, you are looking at 4-5 other players with $16-17M to use. Another guy I would consider trading is Miller, he would save $1.7M if traded. It's not much, but there is almost no point paying him and guys like Ridley and Wims.

Mustipher has actually looked pretty solid at Center as well. I think between Whitehair, Daniels, and Mustipher we are actually decent inside. We just need a lot of help on the outside.

You definitely play to win because at this point there are several paths to the postseason. The Bears have the tiebreaker against TB, ARZ, and MIN with a win. So this is probably the biggest game for the franchise since the double doink. It would then be followed up by an even more important game in Week 17. There is a chance that Week 17 is the Bears playing for the #7 seed and GB is playing for home-field advantage and a first-round bye. GB has the tiebreaker against NO but may not to the Rams if GB loses to the Bears and the Rams win out. They would have the same record at 12-4 but the Rams would have the better conference record. So the best scenario is NO losing to KC, and LAR losing to SEA, while GB wins vs CAR and TEN. In that case they would have the #1 seed wrapped up. I just don't know if they would want to rest their players for 2 weeks? TB's schedule is a joke (who makes these schedules?), ATL, DET, ATL to close out the year. 2 dome games and a home game in TB to close out the season. How convenient. So as much hoopla there is about playoff chances, the only chance for the Bears is to win out and hope ARZ loses one of their next 3 (PHI, SF, @LAR). It is crazy how bad that loss to DET was.

Mitch was the safest pick. The biggest issue with Pace was not doing his due diligence on all the QBs. Watson was never brought in for a private workout. Just from all the stories coming out about the secret visit with Mitch and things like that. Pace really thought he was fooling everyone, then the trade up 1 pick was ridiculous given that there were no teams with enough draft capital and the need to move up to #2 without giving up their entire draft class and next year's pick.

Both teams come in tied at 6-7, with only 3 games remaining, this has become an elimination game. The team that wins has a 50/50 shot at a playoff slot while the loser is pretty much eliminated from playoff contention. It really comes down to which one of each of these teams shows up.

In July the NFLPA agreed to a floor of $175M and the expectation is that it will end up very close to that floor. It was $198M this year, so a $23M drop + the loss of the normal annual growth and you are looking at anywhere from $25-$30M less than what most GM's had projected.

Based on a 1/3 of the league being in cap hell for next year, I expect there is going to be a ton of short term deals with super high guarantees. In a way, the teams with a ton of cap space will have an extra advantage like never before because some teams are going to have to cut guys or trade them for peanuts just to get under the cap. The following teams will have over $20M in cap space: JAX - $75M - need QB NYJ - $68M - need QB IND - $58M - need QB NE - $58M - need QB WAS - $47M - need QB CIN - $35M MIA - $26M CLE - $22M BAL - $21M DAL - $21M - Prescott? LAC - $21M Cincinnati is really postured well with some nice cap space AND a QB. With how much cap space JAX has, I would seriously consider trading one of our Mack ($26M), Fuller (20M), or Jackson ($11M) to them just to reduce the cap hit. I doubt they would take Quinn or Leno, but those two are boat anchors right now. Pace should be fired for this alone, in 2021 Mack and Quinn will account 23.5% of the cap, with Mack, Quinn, and Fuller accounting for 36.5% of the entire team's cap space. 3 players out of 51. The new GM will have to fit 48 more players in 63.5% of the cap, that is absolutely insane and borderline criminal.