adam

Yeah, that was me on the TO. What the hell was that? It was a low scoring game, and you just scored and would get the ball back after half. The Saints were going to let the clock run out, or let them call the timeout. That was the difference in the game, 7 pts right there. Yes, 4th Down inside your own Red Zone, you are not going to fool anyone. It's embarrassing. They were on their own 32 and ended up punting from the 13? They lost 19 yards in that sequence. A false start on CP, wtf was that? Then NO gets a 42-yard return on a 45-yard punt. Then somehow the defense holds the Saints to a FG. That was an epic stop.

There were two things that really stood out to me about the game, amongst a million things going on. First, why would Nagy call a timeout when the Saints have the ball at their 40 and a 3rd down up 13-3 when it looks like the Saints are content to let the clock run out and get into half? I understand the thought process of getting a stop and getting the ball back, but how realistic was that going to be with under a minute left and having the ball inside your 20? It would've been totally different if the Saints were inside their 30, but not at the 40. I thought that was too risky and sure enough, the Saints have enough time to score a TD before half and cut the lead to 3. Terrible. Then when we are down 10 with 6:24 left, at the Saints 12. It took 3 minutes to score a TD, 3 minutes to get 12 yards. That is insane. Some of the worst clock management I have ever seen. We needed two scores, so why are wasting that much time? In those 3 minutes, the Bears ran only 6 plays, 3 runs, a pass behind the LOS to Miller (loss of 3), the Graham DPI, and the TD to Mooney. WTF was that? Then you get the ball back and now only have 1:51 left to get in FG range to tie the game. So now you are moving the ball and get to the Saints 49 with 1:12 left with 2 timeouts left, and you decide to RUN THE BALL for no gain, and just like that you have to burn a timeout and now only have 38 seconds left at the 47. 34 seconds, 2 yards, seriously.

The problem with Nagy and Pace is they both think they are the smartest guys in the room, and you can't convince them otherwise. Think of all the cute stuff that Nagy has tried, Sowell as a TE, CP as a RB, Coward conversion to OL, and even when that doesn't work, they keep going back to it regardless of the outcome. There is no way you can look at the tape of Coward and say he is doing anything beyond what some guy on another team's practice squad can't do. There is no way he should be a starter in the NFL, but they keep sending him out there. Look at how Nagy handled Long last year, he had one bad game, and was shit canned for the rest of the year with a phantom injury that he didn't have. The undisciplined play, penalties, etc, all point to coaching failures. Those are not because Nagy is calling plays. Something has to give. Fire Ragone, somebody. Looking back, the crazy thing is this team has underperformed every season under Nagy. When they went 12-4, they had the best defense in the NFL in a decade, but still lost 4 games and couldn't win a single playoff game. That was a 14 win team with nothing less than a SB appearance talent. Then in 2019, there was no way that same team with a few injuries regresses like that. They were barely winning games last year. They won 6 by 7 pts or less, 1 by 10, and beat WAS by 16. The other teams only scored more than 24 twice, yet we only won 8 games. Now this season, and we have a top 5 defense and we keep losing. To me the common denominator is Nagy.

The skill of the players has overcome inept coaching for the last few years. It is so clear to see out on the field. Nagy replaced Trubisky with Foles and now after a few games, it is clear that QB was not the problem. If Nagy is unwilling to have someone else take over playcalling and admit fault (which started in KC), he needs to be fired. If he is willing to do that, then he can stay on as the HC. Otherwise, I am done with him. I don't care about the record, we are underachieving.

We also lost to a team without their top 3 WRs. Think about that for a second......

What a horrible loss. The wheels are off the dumpster. Bears now 5-3 and out of the playoffs. Easy loss next week to the Titans to go to 5-4, then a possible loss against the Vikings who just beat the Packers and we might end up 5-5 at the bye after a 5-1 start. 4 straight losses is a firing offense for me. Garbage game plan, the same stupid calls. I still don't understand why they go away from what is working to run into the back of your offensive lineman on back to back plays to burn time off the clock to give you no chance to win the game. Nagy is the worst play caller in the NFL. Bears up 13-3, the Saints have the ball at their 40 with a 3rd Down and Nagy calls a timeout. Guess what happens? The Saints get the first down, then go down without any resistance to score a TD to close the half. I get that you are trying to get the ball back, but you just scored and were getting the ball after halftime. At least make NO call the timeout there. Then the defense, what kind of coverage is that? Cook wide open with Johnson 5 yards behind him in the end zone? A backup QB gets an easy TD catch? We paid all that money for Mack and Quinn and Quinn is a ghost out there. That looks like wasted money right now. I get that the defense has to deal with the bad offense, but they don't do themselves favors. Skrine's penalty basically sealed the game for the Bears in OT. It was a bad pass and would've been incomplete. The penalties, the Wims crap, this is an undisciplined team, and that points to coaching too. I would not mind seeing a coaching change sooner than later. It is just not going to work with Nagy. He is too stubborn to make the changes that are needed to get over the hump. This is going to be a rough season. I am thinking 7-9 or 8-8 at best and nowhere near the playoffs.

Rams down by 18, Stafford threw a pick-6, now down by 21, Packers down by 14. These early games are going perfectly for us. Now a win would be huge for us as we would move ahead of the Packers in the Division and Conference.

Dalvin Cook has more yards than the entire GB team. We need to use Monty the same way. This is the blue print to dominate them.

Some interesting early games. Rams down big in Miami (Goff with 4 turnovers in the 1st half), Vikings and Packers tied at halftime, and the Lions losing badly against Indy.

This is a huge game for playoff implications. New Orleans is the 8th seed and with a win, would knock us from the 5th seed to no better than the 8th seed (outside looking in). With a Bears win, they would still be the top non-division leading team and would be keeping pace with GB with 2 games against them (which may ultimately decide the division). With a loss, the Saints would fall to 4-3 and would be 2 games out of a playoff spot with 9 to play.

Lucky, the percentage does drop but the biggest dropoff happens after pick 11-12. After that, there are groups who perform relatively similar. So trading down always yields better odds. Also, you always have less higher picks, and based on how the Bears have picked in the first and second rounds over the past 25 years, it would seem like a pretty easy decision to move down. Now again, you can't do it every time, and if there is someone there with high value, you take them. However, if there is no consensus shoe-in pick at that point, you look to move down and gain draft capital. You can look at different drafts and take a common sample size and compare two points in the draft where you could not tell which group was drafted first. In 2015, Pick 122 (4th Round) to pick 149 (5th Round), in those 28 picks, you had Zadarius Smith, Kwon Alexander, Grady Jarrett, and Jay Ajayi as Pro Bowlers with Stefon Diggs, Adrian Amos, Max Garcia, Mark Glowinski, Shaq Mason, and Mike Davis. If you don't count injury (Ajayi), 9 of those 10 players could be starting on the Bears today. Smith, Alexander, Jarrett, Ajayi, Diggs, Amos, Garcia, Glowinski, Mason, and Davis, those 10 players draft slots are equivalent to a mid-2nd Round pick. Pick 50-52 = Ronald Darby, Nate Orchard, Jordan Phillips that year. So I know this is not exactly how it works, but if I can trade 1x mid-2nd Rounder for the equivalent to 10 late 4th, early 5th rounders, the odds of me hitting on a few are way higher than hitting on the single pick. You also don't have to take the capital in the same year. So move back in the 2nd, add a 4th this year and a 4th next year. After doing that for a few years, you now magically have 7 picks in the first 5 rounds every draft. Now you have the flexibility to move back up or move down as needed. Another factor that shows with a lot of teams is depth. You mention filling your roster with good players. That is exactly how you win. The odds of injury is so high that unless you have quality depth or good players beyond your starting 22, you are going to get beat. Just think of sub packages, a defense needs closer to 15-16 starting quality players nowadays. You will never get there drafting the way Pace has since he came to Chicago.

Great news, no more Ginn. With the wind, there may be a chance for some returns.

Hell, lets put in Mustipher, Bars, and Kmet and roll with an ND party against the Saints.

And anyone concerned about Mustipher should watch this, I am surprised at how good he looked. I also watched/listened to his Zoom call, the kid is super smart and just gets it. I came away from that interview very impressed, then saw this: He may surprise some people, and we may have found our new Center. Then let Whitehair come back and play LG when he is healthy.

With their weak passing defense, especially against WRs, ARob is going to have opportunities. Now the weather needs to play nice enough to have some mid-range shots as any longer will probably be out of the question.

Yeah, everyone knows exactly why he did it. He is trying to right a wrong before he dies and feels like this is the last chance. Instead of putting out the best team possible to win at least one more, he does this. Talk about a culture shock. No player on the team was even alive the last time LaRussa coached the team. As a long time White Sox fan, I am extremely pissed off. There is so much promise with this team and Jerry does this. We have waited 15 years to get back to this point and this is what he does?

It is definitely situational but the numbers don't lie. Of equal draft trade value, more picks have a higher chance of success than a single pick. According to trade values, the 15th pick is worth 1050, which would be the equivalent to picks 31 and 45. Again unless there is some ridiculous talent sitting at 15, you would easily pass it up for picks 31 and 45. For the Bears, they have been on the giving end of too many trade ups, which has had the opposite effect on the team's roster. Now the team has cap issues and talent issues. Can't address one without the other. Trade ups: Floyd (4th), Kwiatkoski (6th rounder to move up 1 slot) Trubisky (2x 3rds and a 4th), Jackson (6th), Miller (4th), Montgomery (4th). There are a few other minor ones, but since Pace took over, he has traded away 2x 3rds, 4x 4ths, and 2x 6ths which is almost a year's worth of draft capital. He has Jackson and Montgomery to show for it.

ARob is playing:

It really is a shame because I think Mitch could've been right up there between them two if he was able to read defenses. Maybe he can find a fit somewhere and redeem himself, but odds are against him. Tannehill was a little different due to injury. In 2020, the QB with the highest AYTS (Air Yards to Sticks) is still Trubisky at 2.0, meaning he was throwing the ball 2 yards past the first down markers on average. Watson? 0. Mahomes? -1.2. Brees, the 2nd lowest in the NFL at -2.8. Trubisky's 2.0 is the highest of any QB in the last 5 seasons. All that means is Mahomes, like Brees has the skill position players to throw short of the sticks and let them do the work.

I agree that you have to win in the trenches. Future drafts in the first 3 rounds should be focus on O-Line and D-Line but that will be with a new GM. I don't have faith in Pace to do that. What I would like to see, regardless of where the team is at is to go into the draft with the mindset that unless there is some ridiculous talent at your pick, you look to trade down. If you watch the Patriots, that is what they do. Seattle does it too. You don't even need to do that every pick, but a couple of moves down in a draft, and magically, you have 2-3 more picks. Then you have the flexibility to move back up if someone drops. Like if the Bears end up drafting in the 20's, I would rather trade out of the 1st, pick up an early 2nd plus extra picks. You do lose the 5th year option, but for me the extra picks are worth it and there is rarely much difference between a player at 25 vs 35 nowadays. Trading up has really killed the Bears. They are going to have almost no choice but to blow everything up, maybe even as early as this offseason (with the lowered cap).

Graham, Hicks, and Edwards revenge game. Bear weather, Kmet used to playing in these conditions. Get him the rock.

Mack, Jackson, Patterson all questionable, but all expected to play. ARob doubtful sucks as the NO secondary is their weakness. Will need big games from Miller, Monty, and Mooney. The Killer M's?

So for the Saints, no Thomas, no Sanders (led WRs on team in receptions, yards, TDs). No Callaway (rookie WR w/ 13 receptions). That makes their WR1 Tre'Quan Smith and their WR2 Deonte Harris. This game is going to be all about Kamara.

No Michael Thomas:

Trubisky was terrible in that game. He has something like 100 yards passing and the longest drive was a 39 yard FG drive before those last two garbage time drives. This was also the notorious Nagy No-Rushing game where the Bears rushed 7 times all game (5 by RBs). 7 rushes and 2 3rd Down conversions for the entire game. Talk about a bad game. I think if the Bears lose again and the offense looks bad, Nagy will give up play calling. That's the hope at least.