adam

Pace seems like a guy that won't admit mistakes. It's never his fault. So I doubt he brings anyone back.

It was a cut and paste error on the Excel Operator, it's fixed.

Yeah, the old cut and paste error. He was in my spreadsheet, but didn't make the cut

I would say a season for 2 QBs in the same system with relatively the same supporting cast is a pretty good comparison. I actually thought both QBs in the SB played average at best. Mahomes had two huge throws to wide open receivers that accounted for most of his yards. Outside of those two plays, he really didn't do too much. I just thought the stats were too similar to pass up the comparison. This is truly the year where we find out about Trubisky. There are literally no more excuses. If you count college and pro seasons, he will be in his 5th, in the system, his 3rd. We will know by the 3rd game if he is the problem.

I like Rivers, but he can't run the RPO, which Nagy refuses to abandon.

Smith is a true wild card. If healthy, and cheap, he would be a viable option that has history in the offense and with Nagy. Take a look at Smith's last full year with KC (2017) and Mahomes 2019. The comparison is uncanny actually. Mahomes 2019 > 319-484, 65.9%, 4031 yds, 26 TD, 5 INT, 105.3 QB Rating, 8.3 Y/A, 218 Rushing yds, 2 TD. Smith 2017 > 341-505, 67.5%, 4042 yds. 26 TD, 5 INT, 104.7 QB Rating, 8.0 Y/A, 355 Rushing yds, 1 TD. Can you tell they are in the same offense? How is Mahomes otherworldly if a game manager like Smith could put up identical numbers throwing to Hill and Kelce? If you like PFF, Smith had a 85.9 Grade in 2017 and Mahomes had a 90.2 with those stats. To me that's kind of funny since the stats were so close. This does not get enough attention really. Mahomes is Smith 2.0 with a little more flair. Ultimately, it makes me think that the Bears offense, O-Line, TEs, and play calls were more of the problem than Trubisky was in 2019. Trubisky still was a problem, but the other factors seemed to restrict what he could do.

So here is comparison #1. Look at how similar all these QBs really are: 1. Trubisky (26) 23-18 Record, 811-1280, 63.4%, 8554 yds, 48 TD, 29 INT, 6.7 Y/A, 85.8 QB Rating 2. Mariota (27) 29-32 Record, 1110-1765, 62.9%, 13207 yds, 76 TD, 44 INT, 7.5 Y/A, 89.6 QB Rating 3. Keenum (32) 27-35 Record, 1304-2091, 62.4%, 14368 yds, 75 TD, 47 INT, 6.9 Y/A, 85.3 QB Rating 4. Dalton (33) 70-61-2 Record, 2757-4449, 62.0%, 31594 yds, 204 TD, 118 INT, 7.1 Y/A, 87.5 QB Rating So do we want Mariota who has 6 more wins and 14 more losses than Mitch? The best thing he has going is a solid Y/A. Outside of that, are we really getting an upgrade? His best season was 26 TDs and 3426 yards. That would be career highs for Trubisky, but only a slight improvement. Since he and Trubisky share the same agent, this one is highly unlikely as that agent would be putting two eggs in one basket which would be counter to trying to maximize contracts for themselves. Next up, Keenum. I think he would be the cheapest option for bringing in competition. However, he is almost identical to Mariota with a worse Y/A. Keenum had a solid stretch with MIN and then the next year in DEN, where he threw for 3890 yards. The odd part was he only threw for 18 TDs? His career-high is 22 (less than Mitch). So this would be an acquisition to push Mitch and fill in better than Daniel if Mitch shits the bed or if Keenum looks better in TC, he gets the nod and Mitch watches from the sideline. Then we have Dalton. Definitely the most accomplished out of the group, with a solid record on a typically bad Bengals team. However, it just seems like he is where Mariota will be in 4 more years. He did have two 4k passing seasons and threw for over 30 TDs once, but looking at his overall career, that year seems like the outlier. In the two years he broke 4k in passing yards, his QBR was 55.1 and 50.8, basically, league average. His last solid year was 2016 (4 seasons ago), so who knows which player you would be getting. Can a guy at 33 who has never really been great change schemes like nothing? I don't know. For the QB situation, I think it would be good to bring in a solid vet to push Mitch and play better than Daniel if they need to start. Another wild card is Fitzpatrick. More on that later.

That's fair, I haven't looked too hard at them yet. Anae looked really good at Senior Bowl. I was just targeting TE and Edge early.

What do you think? Adding Hopkins and Anae in the 2nd Round: QB - Trubisky, Keenum RB - Montgomery, Cohen, Rookie or cheap vet RB WR - Robinson, Miller, Ridley, Wims, Rookie (Speed) TE - Hopkins, Burton, Holtz OL - Vaitai, Daniels, Whitehair, Glasgow, Massie DL - Hicks, Goldman, RRH, Williams LB - Mack, Smith, Kwit, KPL, Anae CB - Fuller, Fuller, Skrine, Tolliver S - Jackson, Bell We get upgraded at backup QB, TE, OL, Edge, CB, and Safety. Keenum over Daniel, Hopkins replaces Shaheen/Braunecker, Vaitai replaces Leno, Glasgow replaces Long. On defense, Anae replaces Floyd, Fuller replaces Prince, and Bell replaces HHCD. We bring back KPL and Kwit for ILB. Then fill out the rest of the depth slots.

Here is the current list of top 100 FA's for 2020 from The Athletic. I excluded the top 30 due to the expected salaries and/or projected tags. This is the remaining list. If you could pick 4 guys off this list to target, who would they be? After reading some articles about FA TE failures, I am avoiding TE in FA. I selected Fuller's brother at CB, Vonn Bell to play SS, Vaitai to replace Leno, and Glasgow at G. All are young enough to play out a full contract. I also re-signed Kwit (not counting that as a target). Then in the draft, the team can address TE, Edge, speed at WR, and depth. Top 1-30 Excluded: 31. Chris Harris Jr., CB, Broncos (31) 32. D.J. Humphries, OT, Cardinals (26) 33. Devin McCourty, S, Patriots (33) 34. Trae Waynes, CB, Vikings (28) 35. Bradley Roby, CB, Texans (28) 36. D.J. Reader, DT, Texans (26) 37. Jason Pierre-Paul, EDGE, Buccaneers (31) 38. Teddy Bridgewater, QB, Saints (27) 39. Robert Quinn, EDGE, Cowboys (30) 40. Joe Schobert, LB, Browns (26) 41. Hunter Henry, TE, Chargers (25) 42. Austin Hooper, TE, Falcons (25) 43. Andrus Peat, OG, Saints (26) 44. Jarran Reed, DT, Seahawks (27) 45. Marcus Mariota, QB, Titans (26) 46. Kendall Fuller, CB, Chiefs (25) 47. Germain Ifedi, RT, Seahawks (26) 48. Blake Martinez, LB, Packers (26) 49. Leonard Williams, DT, Giants (26) 50. Eli Apple, CB, Saints (25) 51. Logan Ryan, CB, Titans (29) 52. Breshad Perriman, WR, Buccaneers (27) 53. Jimmie Ward, S, 49ers (29) 54. Vonn Bell, S, Saints (25) 55. Maliek Collins, DT, Cowboys (25) 56. Halapoulivaati Vaitai, OT, Eagles (27) 57. Danny Shelton, DT, Patriots (27) 58. Ndamukong Suh, DT, Bucccaneers (33) 59. Graham Glasgow, G/C, Lions (28) 60. Eric Ebron, TE, Colts (27) 61. Melvin Gordon, RB, Chargers (27) 62. Ronald Darby, CB, Eagles (26) 63. Bashaud Breeland, CB, Chiefs (28) 64. Jordan Phillips, DT, Bills (27) 65. Mackensie Alexander, CB, Vikings (26) 66. Shelby Harris, DT, Broncos (29) 67. Vic Beasley, EDGE, Falcons (28) 68. Shaq Lawson, DE, Bills (26) 69. Markus Golden, EDGE, Giants (29) 70. Mario Addison, EDGE, Panthers (33) 71. Jamie Collins, LB, Patriots (30) 72. Kyle Van Noy, LB/EDGE, Patriots (29) 73. A’Shawn Robinson, DT, Lions (25) 74. Kenyan Drake, RB, Cardinals (26) 75. Rodney McLeod, S, Eagles (30) 76. Jimmy Smith, CB, Ravens (32) 77. Carl Nassib, EDGE, Buccaneers (27) 78. De’Vondre Campbell, LB, Falcons (27) 79. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, S, Bears (27) 80. Gerald McCoy, DT, Panthers (32) 81. Derek Wolfe, DT, Broncos (30) 82. Karl Joseph, S, Raiders (27) 83. Jason Peters, LT, Eagles (38) 84. Andrew Whitworth, LT, Rams (38) 85. Damarious Randall, S, Browns (28) 86. Michael Brockers, DT, Rams (29) 87. Nick Kwiatkoski, LB, Bears (27) 88. Kevin Johnson, CB, Bills (28) 89. Brian Poole, CB, Jets (27) 90. Randall Cobb, WR, Cowboys (30) 91. Nelson Agholor, WR, Eagles (27) 92. Devin Funchess, WR, Colts (26) 93. Demarcus Robinson, WR, Chiefs (26) 94. Connor McGovern, G/C, Broncos (27) 95. Jalen Mills, CB, Eagles (26) 96. Tre Boston, S, Panthers (28) 97. Kamalei Correa, EDGE, Titans (26) 98. Quinton Jefferson, DT, Seahawks (27) 99. Michael Pierce, DT, Ravens (27) 100. Daryl Williams, OT, Panthers (28)

That is totally fake. The Bears would have a bigger gap hit by trading him than just keeping him. He is untradeable thru 2021 due to dead cap.

I would say he was average with the blocks he made, but if you add all the penalties and the missed assignments, that puts him the bottom third of the league.

If you cut Floyd (No Dead Money), Gabriel ($2M), Leno as a June-1 cut ($3.7M), and Prince ($1M), that would save $23.1M with $6.7M in dead money. Cohen is another candidate, he would save $2.1M with only 158K dead money. Shaheen should be cut, which would save $1.2M with 600K in dead money. There is also some restructuring that can be done with the core guys (Mack, Hicks, Fuller, Goldman, and Whitehair) that can free up cap space this year, if needed. So I don't think we are as bad off as some think. Losing Long saved a chunk of cap as well.

I watched a few games on Game Pass and besides Floyd looking overmatched on every play, Mack didn't seem to have the same explosion like he did last year. He was a Tazmanian Devil in 2018, but in 2019, it looked like he lost a step and wasn't as powerful. I know the defense for his regression was these double and triple teams. However, even when he had one on one matchups, even against a rookie, he didn't really do anything special. My fear with some of these guys is once they get a payday, they cruise. It really looks that way with guys like Leno, Massie, and Mack. Fuller seems like the only one who has consistently played to his contract, except for the fact that he played 10 yards of the WR every snap. So we will see what EJack does. Looking at Mack's contract, we got him thru age 33, and he is in his prime right now going into 2020 at age 29. This should be his year. Hopefully, he gets back to form because we really need him to be dominant regardless of the other players around him, that's what he is getting paid for.

I am going to post some info in here to discuss the QB situation. First I was looking back at some past League MVPs, and one season popped out at me. Take a look at this recent league MVP and two similar Pro Bowl QBs from different years: League MVP: 1. 67.0 QBR, 59.8% Comp, 239 Y/G, 7.8 Y/A, 39.8 Rushing Yards/G Pro Bowlers: 2. 65.0 QBR, 62.6% Comp, 252 Y/G, 8.1 Y/A, 56.3 Rushing Yards/G 3. 70.8 QBR, 66.6% Comp, 230 Y/G, 7.3 Y/A, 30.1 Rushing Yards/G #3 was Trubisky in 2018, and he had a better overall QBR than Cam Newton's 2015 MVP season and Michael Vick's 2010 with the Eagles. They were the closest comps in multiple statistical categories and all three made the playoffs. The biggest outliers were TDs. Next post is going to be all the available QBs and some of their numbers.

I don't even know if he is worth that but it reasonable. To me, especially with Mack's cap hit, it might be too much for that output. Looking at other 3-4 OLB deals, anything between $7.7M-11.4M would be a top 10 contract for 3-4 OLBs. The 9th highest is $11.5M and the 10th is currently at $7.6M. Floyd is not a top 10 3-4 OLB. If you add 4-3 DEs into the mix, as a group, the top 23 make over $10M, #24 makes $9M (Ansah). I think a good comp to Floyd is Clelin Ferrell (LVR), he is 28th in Edge and just signed a new deal with his current cap hit at $7.8M a year. I would not pay more than $8M a year to Floyd. If Floyd is the #2 Edge player on the team, he should be somewhere in the 30's for Edge salaries as every other team should have their top Edge player making more than him. Also, with our needs elsewhere, we might not be able to commit over $30M a year to 2x Edge players with Mack's cap hit.

I don't know if it would work the same way during the draft. Like what freedom does he have to trade picks and who needs to approve? It seems like he has had a lot of freedom to trade up, which would be the same thing here. I think free agency will be telling.

One crazy thought on Pace. What if, with his back against the wall, he says screw it and tries to make one last hail mary move to save his job? I could see him trading away future picks to do that. If he guesses right, the future picks won't matter as much. If it doesn't work, he doesn't have to deal with the loss of picks anyway.

and how do they grade that? He lets the first guy run free but then makes a nice block on the 2nd guy as the first guy pancakes Trubisky. He gets a good grade for his block.

For Leno, it's easy, he got paid, got married, and had a baby. Most non-elite players drop off after a pay day, a good amount never recover. Leno's penalties were also directly related to his conditioning. I think he knew he was not as fast or as strong, so he would jump and false start against a speedy Edge guy or hold the stronger one. His penalties in terms of % of team penalties was 4th worst in the NFL, that is insane. Tunsil and Bolles were two of the three worse than him and they were flat out terrible players. I don't like PFF, but O-Line seems like one of the easier positions to grade (in relative terms), and his PFF grade dropped from mid-70's to mid-50's from 18 to 19. Mid-50's is replacement level and below a backup: The Player Grading Scale: 100-90 Elite 89-85 Pro Bowler 84-70 Starter 69-60 Backup 59-0 Replaceable I am going to go thru the entire season over the next month and grade out the entire O-Line myself. I watched the first quarter of the Packers game and already saw a few bad plays from Leno. To me one of the biggest issues was he gave up on his blocks too quick, then didn't attempt to block anyone else or run with the play. It's easy to see where some would call him lazy from that type of display. Hopefully Castillo will get more out of him, but with a new sheriff in town, he will be riding the pine if he continues playing like that. Another weird twist during the season was with Leno's wife defending his play. I thought that was interesting.

Yeah, I feel like you can only hope to expect a starter in the first 4 rounds. Getting one in the 5th or beyond is rare and not something you should plan for. With that, the Bears only have 3 picks in the first 4 rounds, so trading down in the 2nd to pick a 3rd up makes too much sense. Then you can potentially fill 4 need positions. For me those would be TE, OL, Edge, and S. Fill the rest via free agency. If you do address one of those 4 in free agency, then go after the speedy WR, CB, or QB in the draft.

It's funny how much of a different assessment can be made on the same player, here Robert Schmitz breaks down Leno and says he is perfectly average. Then there are articles about how he sucked: https://www.si.com/nfl/bears/news/chicago-bears-offensive-line-needs-include-tackle. So what gives. How can so many people come up with different opinions on the same player. To me, it was clear that Leno was part of the problem last year. I will have to track down the totals, but I know he allowed a lot of hurries and hits, and had a ton of penalties.

Adam Hoge's Mock Draft 1.0: 2nd Round, No. 11 (No. 43 overall via Raiders) — TE Harrison Bryant, Florida Atlantic (6-4 3/4, 242) 2nd Round, No. 18 (No. 50 overall) — EDGE Bradlee Anae, Utah (6-3 3/8, 257) 4th Round, No. 41 (projected comp pick) — OG Damien Lewis, LSU (6-2, 329) 5th Round, No. 17 — CB Dane Jackson, Pittsburgh (5-11 5/8, 180) 6th Round, No. 17 — RB Antonio Gibson, Memphis (6-0 1/2, 223) 6th Round, No. 21 (via Eagles) — WR Binjimen Victor, Ohio State (6-4, 199) 7th Round, No. 12 (via Raiders) — QB Stephen Montez, Colorado (6-4, 240) 7th Round, No. 19 — OL Calvin Throckmorton, Oregon (6-4, 7/8, 310) https://wgnradio.com/2020/02/04/hoge-2020-bears-mock-draft-1-0/ This would be a solid draft. I would like to have a Safety, especially with EJack getting a big contract (hard to pay 2x at one position), but other than that, it looks good.

Yeah that is the worst thing a team can do, pay a terrible player AND keep him on the team. At least cut your losses and let someone else step up. At worst you are no better off than you were before.

Yeah I agree. On another note, I saw some post game breakdowns the last few days saying that on one of Mahomes INT's that he was intentionally throwing behind Hill "to protect" him. It's amazing how they come up with instant excuses for his mistakes. Definitely on Floyd, we can't afford to have his weak pass rush on the opposite side of Mack. We need them to at least honor the other side, not completely abandon it. Out of all the outcomes, I am fine with Reid getting one. Now doesn't get any more.