adam

I wouldn't even call it a terrible INT, the defender had to make a great catch, then get a toe tap and drag just inside the line to make the play. Also, early reports are Miller gave up on the route too early and faded into the end zone. When Mitch released the ball, Miller was in position to continue to run to the sideline to make the play, he peeled off and literally stopped running.

Right now, the early line has the Packers favored by 7.5. I assume it will fall to 6 as the money pours in on the Bears. Based on something like DVOA, technically DAL is a tougher opponent than GB will be. For DVOA, DAL had the 2nd best offense and 20th defense, GB comes in at 7th and 22nd respectively. Also, Rodgers has been struggling of late: last 4 games passing yards: 243, 104, 233, 161 last 4 games comp%: 63.6%, 60.6%, 58.6%, 65.7% The difference for the Packers is their offense. That unit determines the outcome of the game. So it's going to be up to our defense to stop the Packers like some of the other teams have done in recent weeks. For their defense, they have held 2 opponents to less than 300 yards total offense, 299 to the Lions, and 254 to the Bears in Week 1. So with our offense clicking a little better now, we should be able to put some points up on the board. Weather is going to be a factor next weekend, which makes it a crapshoot. Right now it looks like high 20's to low 30's with winds between 5-10mph, and 1-3 inches of snow expected.

Connor, that's sorted by points. If you take away kicks inside 30, which are shorter than an XP, and those longer than 50 because those have a success rate lower than other kicks, and only look at kicks between 30-49, which is where NFL kickers attempt the bulk of their kicks, Pineiro is at or near the bottom. There might be a few below him, but some of those guys are no longer on their teams. Eddie has missed 7 kicks between 30-49 yards. That puts him in Vinatieri, Maher, and Rosas territory. The team is content on giving Eddie a chance, but I would just hate to lose a game because of our kicking situation. The sad part is Nagy is avoiding kicking beyond 40 yards. So if the Bears have the ball between the opponents' 25 and 37 (normal FG range), he is electing to go for it on 4th down. If you haven't noticed, Eddie has not attempted a kick longer than 36 yards in the last 3 games. He missed an XP in the NYG game. The game before that, he missed 2x kicks in the 40's (we lost by 10). Remember, he missed 2x FGs against the Chargers, we lost by a point. After that game, Nagy went two games without attempting a FG. Here is the bottom line, it doesn't really matter how he relates to other kickers. The last kick he has made over 40 yards was a 46 yarder against the Saints. That is the only kick beyond 40 made since Week 2. Think about that for a second. He has made one kick longer than 40 yards since Week 2, we just played in Week 14.

So SEA and CHI took care of business. We are in much better shape at 7-6 on a mini-bye waiting for GB. I know a lot of people are talking about how hard it is to win 6 in a row in the NFL, but looking at all the good teams in the league, that's exactly what they do. Here are all the largest win streaks by all the teams with at least 7 wins coming into today: BAL 8 (current) SF 8 NE 8 NO 6 SEA 5 (current) GB 4 MIN 4 PIT 4 KC 4 BUF 3 (current) TEN 3 (current) CHI 3 (current) LAR 3 HOU 2 (current) We can win out and only get to 6. If SEA beats LAR, they then they hit 6, making them the 5th team to reach 6 straight wins this season. I know the competition matters, but if you look at some of the other streaks, they also beat good teams (besides NE and SF who had creampuff schedules). Baltimore's streak has been the most impressive, in their 8-game streak, they have beaten (PIT, SEA, NE, HOU, LAR, and SF), wow. So ultimately, it's very possible for us to beat GB, KC, and MIN to end the season.

It wouldn't have been a loss but I don't know if it was going to the house. I would rather have Patterson on the move presnap as very few people are keeping up with him from a stand still.

Stinger, I believe he has. The question that comes up is why did he wait so long? Everyone could see in the first few games that his plays were not fooling anyone other than his own team. He still tries to get a gadget play in from time to time, and it still doesn't work, but at least those are few and far between now. The Wildcat formation with Patterson at QB where Leno misses the block and Patterson takes a 4 yard loss is a prime example. Just take that crap out of the playbook. Also, stop being cute when you need a yard. Put a jumbo package in there and push for 3 feet. I do think he has slowly adapted the playbook to highlight Mitch's strengths and I also think it's due to the personnel. We have had no TE production, and with Gabriel out, he had to highlight Miller more and look to get the new TE's into the action. Magically all that worked. Now if you are GB, you have no clue what to do defend against. I assume they will make Mitch beat them over the top, so our receivers will have to win someone on one matchups, which they have shown they can.

Impressive:

Last two games: Trubisky 52-69, 75.4%, 582 yds, 291 YPG, 8.4 Y/A, 6 TD, 2 INT, Rushing: 14-67 yds, 1 Rushing TD, 3 sacks

Last 5 games (4-1): Trubisky 117-176, 66.5%, 1223 yds, 244.6 YPG, 6.9 Y/A, 11 TD, 5 INT, 2 Rushing TD, 11 sacks

Add Burton, Shaheen, Long, Massie, and Gabriel on offense.

A few more drops by the receivers, Miller with one that would've sealed the game. Roquan left with an injury early and was getting burnt on the field before the apparent injury. For how well he was playing coming in, it was really odd that he was getting burned left and right on the Cowboys first drive where they scored a TD. Interestingly the Cowboys didn't score again until the 3rd quarter with Roquan off the field. Trubisky hit a bunch of different receivers and used his legs for several first downs and a great TD run. Now teams will have to account for his running.

Huge win for the Bears, Trubisky looked great and if the defender doesn't make a toe drag INT, he would've had an almost perfect game. The one negative outside of the horrendous officiating was the defense taking the 4th quarter off again. 10 late pts given up and needing to stop an onside kick to seal the game. A win is a win but we can't let teams hang around like that.

He has some bad luck with the throwback uniforms. If it's a tear, he will be out for 6 months, then 3 months for rehab. If he has surgery immediately, he could be back in time for Week 1.

Bears have a 2.2% chance to go undefeated and a 6.5% to go 3-1. Odds that Vikings and Rams both go 1-3 AND Bears go 3-1 = 0.2% chance. The odds are actually better for Bears to go 4-0 and MIN/LAR to go 2-2.

Eddie leading the league in touchbacks? Where did you hear that? In raw TB's, he is 30th with 16 (out of 32 for 50%). O'Donnell has 10 out of 15 TBs (66%), so technically Pineiro is 2nd on our team in TB% and he is the only Kicker. I don't understand how he can kick 80+ yards on YouTube, but can't kick it 68+ yards consistently off a tee during a game? Most NFL kickers should be able to kick a ball off a tee 75 yards consistently. Pineiro does lead the league in one kicking category, Kicks Out of Bounds with 3. The problem with those? The other team gets the ball at the 40. My issue is Kicker is a problem and the team just flat out will not address it. Pineiro is the fix and that's it. Have we not seen enough? He is a nice kid, but clearly doesn't have it in him to make clutch kicks. The team has zero faith in him, passing up mid-40 yard kicks for weeks now. So the team can IR Shaheen and Burton "with injuries", which was their way to address the TE position. You see Massie and Gabriel going the same way, but you do absolutely nothing with the kicker position and it has literally cost the team at least one whole game this year. Can you imagine this team trying to win their next 4 to make the playoffs and lose any of these games with a missed kick? Pace should be fired on the spot.

Ain't this the truth lol. We need to score TDs to even have a chance to go for two. That's the problem, Pineiro is cold from the lack of kicks.

Also, consider you only have to make 1 of 2 2pt conversions to get the same amount of points as 2 XPs made. If you do the math with 58% success rate on any 2-pt conversion, the odds of getting one 2-pt conversion out of 2 attempts is 82.4%. An XP has a 93.2% chance of being made, but making two? Now you are down to 86.9%. So if you have a league average or better kicker, you take the XP. However, if you have a crappy kicker, you should always go for two. Any team that has a kicker with an XP% less than 91% should go for two every time.

Check out this tweet pointing out how bad Maher is (Pineiro is worse). We got rid of Parkey and downgraded to Pineiro. Between 30-50 yds, Pineiro is ranked 37th, why is he still on this team? Only 6 kickers are worse than him for XPs. He has missed two. So if you figure the league average from inside 50 for any kick is around 80%, and XPs are 95%, Pineiro has cost us no less than 7 pts and one loss (LAC). So we are in for a treat on Thursday, a bad kickers duel. The over-under on missed kicks is 2. I have the over.

I still think it's crazy that we could be a 1/2 game back of Minnesota on Thursday with a win. Having Kwit in I think works to our advantage, Elliott only gets about 3-4 targets in the passing game (screens and dump offs) per game. Teams seem to be doing the whole two double team trap game with the first two blockers slipping off to take on the 2nd level. We have faced some pretty good RB's this year (Jacobs, Cook, Lindsay, Jones, Gurley) and for the most part held them in check. We need to do it for one more game without Hicks, then we get a fresh legged big man back in the heart of the defense. My biggest concern outside of kicker is Gallup or Cooper, whoever is not on Fuller's side.

Barring any last-minute stat updates, Nopper gets the win of the year, after losing 10 straight, they come out and beat PapaBear by the smallest margin of victory that I can remember in our league, eeking out a 0.02 pt victory over PapaBear 149.68 to 149.66 as Chris Carson loses a yard rushing in the last few seconds of garbage time vs Minnesota on MNF. If he doesn't lose the yard, PapaBear wins and is the #5 seed. SuperBearsSuperBowl beats MadLith, knocking him out of the playoff picture and jumping up to the #5 Seed. Seeds 1-4 were unchanged by the games this week. Week 14 Week 15 Week 16 (Championship) 1 --- Run Dem Pockets 10-3 ------------ | | | -------------------------- 4 --- Cali Bears 7-6 ---------- | | | | | | -------------- | | | 5 --- SuperBearsSB 7-6 ---- | | ---------------------------------- (1st Place) 3 --- Pepe 8-5 ------------------ | | | | -------------- | | | | 6 --- PapaBear 6-7 ----------- | | | --------------------------- | | 2 --- Domination Inc 10-3 ---------------- The Consolation Bracket (starts Week 15) The Winners play for 7th place and losers play for 9th: 7 - The Mad Lithuanians 6-7 --- | ------------------------------ 10 - Nopper 2-12 --------------------- | | --------------------------------- (7th Place) 8 - El Dragon 5-8 ---------------------- | | ------------------------------ 9 - The Bunny 4-9---------------------

Miller's numbers between last year and this year are fairly comparable, except for one huge hole, TDs. Miller caught 7 TDs in 15 games last year, and thru 12, has yet to catch one. In other words he is due. I would not be surprised if he gets 2-3 in the next 4 games or has one of those Gabriel games where he gets 3. 2018 - 33-423, 7 TD 2019 - 38-489, 0 TD He has a chance at 50+ receptions and over 600 yards. Miller has an interesting comp with Antonio Brown, both around the same size, Brown's two year totals were 85-1275, 2 TDs. So Miller would need 362 yards (91 per game) to match Brown after year two. He only needs 14 receptions to match him (3.5 per game) which seems much more achievable. He already has 5 more TDs than Brown had thru two years. If you go to 3 years, Brown only had 66-787 and 5 TDS that year. If Miller keeps trending up, he should hit that mark easily. Brown exploded on the scene in Year 4, that's when he started a run of 100 catches and 1200 yards per year for 6 straight years before becoming bat shit crazy and wiggin out of the league. In terms of production, I am hoping Miller takes the same arch. What do you think?

AZ, I agree. I still find it funny that Watson gets all this credit, yet is throwing to Hopkins or Fuller, Mahomes is throwing to Hill and Kelce, and until last week Trubisky has only had ARob (who was not 100% last year). We got a glimpse of what he can do with some protection and a couple of competent receivers in ARob and Miller.

LOL, that was the intended effect. To me, these next 4 games will define Trubisky's career, at least in Chicago. If he plays above average (so QBR 50.0/ QB Rating 88.6 and above) and helps the offense produce 20+ pts per game the remainder of the year, then I think you roll with him next year, and bring in a legit TE. If he underperforms, then he is, what he is. You bring in competition, draft one, and let the best one start next year. I don't think we need to go 4-0 to keep Trubisky, because there are too many other things that have to go right to go 4-0. However, the team has to go at least 3-1 for me to legitimately consider bringing him back. The worst outcome is if he plays well and we still lose. That would suck, but we would at least know he is not the problem. In 4 games, I want to see 10 TDs (Passing or Rushing), less than 3 INTs, 257 yards per game average, and a Y/A over 7.5.

That's true, and none seem any closer to winning it this year compared to last year. We are worse, KC is worse, and HOU is about the same but missing Watt and Clowney. Baltimore looks unbeatable, but it's hard to win like they have consistently. All it takes is for one hit on Jackson and they get RG3.

Bears are two-point dogs at home. The wheels have fallen off the Cowboys in their last two games and the Bills and Pats have given the Bears a blueprint for success. Dallas has 1 win against a team with more than 3 wins, the 5-7 Eagles. Trubisky is playing for his career. He will get a full week to prep for the Cowboys playing outside in the cold. The Bears need this game more than the Cowboys. Bears 20-12