adam

It looks like the Bears created enough cap space for operating during the season after restructuring Jaylon Johnson's contract (saved $8M on this year's cap). However, I don't think there is room to add any big ticket guys like Zadarius Smith. At most it will be a vet minimum guy that doesn't impact the cap.

Week 1 is in Chicago.

Most of the sites overwrite the current odds, but leave the "Open" odds. So that is the only place I see the Bears -1.5 now is in the open column like in the pick. Then you can see all the others are swapped to +1.5 for the Bears.

Oh yeah, for sure, but even then, he wasn't that far off in the dysfunction last year.

The line opened with Bears -1.5, which is what it was when I created the thread. Since then it has gone 3pts in MIN's favor. So people have been putting more money on MIN as they are now giving pts to the Bears. Bears +1.5 is actually a pretty good bet right now.

I wanted to see how Dennis Allen's defenses have played to start a season, and they normally start out pretty hot. Here are Dennis Allen's last 5 Week 1 Games (5-0): 2024 - 47-10 CAR, Young 13-30, 161 yds, 0 TD, 2 INT, 4 Sacks, Hubbard 6-14 rushing. 2023 - 16-15 TEN, Tannehill 16-34, 198 yds, 0 TD, 3 INT, 3 Sacks, Henry 15-63 rushing. 2022 - 27-26 ATL, Mariota 20-33, 215 yds, 0 TD, 0 INT, 0 Sacks, Patterson 22-120 rushing, 1 TD. 2021 - 38-3 GB, Rodgers 15-28, 133 yds, 0 TD, 2 INT, 1 Sack, Jones 5-9 rushing. 2020 - 34-23 TB, Brady 23-36, 239 yds, 2 TD, 2 INT, 3 Sacks, Jones 17-66 rushing. 5 games, only 2 Passing TDs allowed, but 9 Interceptions, and 11 Sacks. No QB passed for more than 239 yds (T. Brady) 4 out of 5 games had 2+ INTs 3 out of 5 games had 3+ Sacks Only 1 rusher over 70 yds (Cordarelle Patterson lol) I also looked at how Aaron Jones played against Dennis Allen defenses. In his last two games against Allen, Jones is 21-78 yds, 1 TD, and 4-30 receiving. In the 3 seasons Johnson was OC for DET, they are 2-1 in season openers. They lost to PHI 38-35, beat KC 21-20, and beat LAR 26-20. All 3 games had super tough defenses to deal with and they still averaged 27.3 a game, while Dennis Allen defenses allowed an average of 15.4 pts per game over the last 5 seasons. On the flip side, KOC's Vikings beat GB 23-7 in 2022 (Donatell DC), lost 20-17 against TB (Flores DC) in 2023, and beat NYG 28-6 last season. So KOC's offenses have averaged 23.6 per game in Week 1, and Flores' defenses have averaged 13 pts per game allowed over the last two seasons. However, Johnson's offenses, in 4 games, have never scored under 30 pts against a Flores defense. The Eagles, Packers, and Rams have scored 30+ on a MIN+Flores team each once, but Johnson's Lions were 4 for 4 over the last two years. So Ben knows something. One time could be a fluke. Two times, there is smoke. 3 times? Fire, but 4 out of 4? Inferno.

So the line has moved 3 pts in MIN favor since the opening line. Odd considering their true WR2 is suspended, Jefferson has been dealing with a hamstring issue, and Nailor, their projected WR3 has a hand injury. So it seems like there is going to be a lot of Jones and Hockenson, putting a lot of pressure on the LBs. Since the swap, I actually like both Edwards and Edmunds better.

Caleb was 17th in Passing Yards and 15th in Passing TDs in a completely dysfunctional offense as a rookie QB. Now entering his second year with better coaching and weapons, to me, it would seem like you could expect him to improve enough to be near the top 10. He would've needed 310 more passing yards and 5 more passing TDs last season for 11th. That is 18 more yards per game and basically one extra TD every 3 games.

Vegas is normally in the ballpark on these because they make the most money when they are closest to the middle. So plus or minus 2-3 spots. So they think Caleb will be somewhere in the range of 8-14, which to me, checks out. He was 17th in Passing Yards last season and tied for 15th in TD Passes. So a few spots with a better coach and more weapons is not that far of a reach.

Who is taking Dak at $60M APY? He has the biggest contract based on APY by over $5M compared to the next guys which are Love, Burrow, Lawrence, and Allen. His cap hit goes to $74M next year and is $50M this year. That is a big reason why they didn't want to extend Parsons to the biggest non-QB contract in NFL history. So they really had no choice tbh. The Bears are in a great place with the cap. The two highest players on the team are Moore and Sweat, Moore has an APY of $27.5M, but that is 48th in the NFL. Sweat has a $24.5M APY, good for 58th. They don't have another player in the top 100. Their next guy is Jaylon at $19M APY, 124th in the league. Parsons deal makes him 11th in APY at $46.5M, that is equivalent to Moore+Johnson. It seems that paying any non-QB a ton of money does not equate to championships. The only guys in the top of the top-25 non-QB contracts are AJ Brown and Chris Jones. The list is pretty damning: Parsons, Watt, Chase, Garrett, Hunter, Crosby, Jefferson, Lamb, Bosa, Metcalf, Wilson, Brown, Jones, Gardner, St. Brown, Hill, Stingley, Aiyuk, Hendrickson, McLaurin, Higgins, Slater, Waddle, Hines-Allen, Burns, Wirfs, Sewell, and Trent Williams before DJ Moore. In most cases, teams don't have a choice, but once your QB is off the rookie deal and you start having to pay your top non-QBs top dollar, it makes it really hard to stay competitive.

Higher than I expected to be honest. Considering Goff is lower, and only Daniels is higher as a 2nd year QB. So Maye, McCarthy, Penix are all lower.

For me it's (in no order): starting LT (can the unit gel in time to work as a cohesive unit?) Edge/Pass Rush (will it matter if DA likes to bring extra pressure anyway?) RB depth (after Swift, who is RB2/3rd Down back?) CBs (both Jaylon's health and CB2 - Stevenson again?) Special Teams as a whole (has looked like crap all offseason, can they afford to lose a net 5 yards per drive?)

Keepers are set for the 2025 season. For some reason Yahoo makes it a pain in the ass to view last year's keepers compared to previous seasons, so I am posting in here so there is record of them. 2025 TB Keepers The Bunny - Nabers & Hubbard Bum Fights - Pollard My Team Sucks - Thomas Jr. Trench Warfare - Hockenson & Burrow Nips&Tips - Henry & Brown Scotty Doesn't Know - Higgins & Williams Hock Tua on my Chubby - Bowers SAVAGEw/LOOSEMORALS! - Swift Nopper - Barkley & Jeudy Win in Rome - Cook

Damn, he is lucky, that looks bad, and will definitely need a front-end alignment! Glad he is ok.

Good to go on Thomas for Mike and Bowers for Chad. However, for Herbert, Chad did not draft him in 2024, so he is not eligible as a keeper.

I still think the Bears bring in a vet Edge because of the Booker injury, and another RB.

Crazy to see this sequence again. Bears down by 10 with 1:11, scored 10 pts in 19 seconds and still lost in OT. This was in the middle of the losing streak. With Johnson, there is no way the Bears lose this game. This was a Flus special.

So the trade off is Van Ness and Clark to Parsons and Wooden. So the overall upgrade is less because you have a downgrade at DT with the upgrade at Edge and backup Edge.

Looks like now I just need Chad's, Mike's, and Scott's keepers if they have any. I replied to Scott's message in the League chat window with his eligible keepers. Scott can also edit his team's name if he wants to.

This definitely helps GB this year, but they are going to have to make some tough cuts or not resign guys going forward. For this season, Love is making 29.7M and Parsons is 24M, so only 54.7M, but then a combined 83M in 2026, 90M in 2027, and then a hilarious 121M in 2028. I didn't think their roster was built for just adding one player, but they did. The only saving grace is Parsons is not as good of a player outdoors or in prime time. So we will see how this plays out.

Madness

Looking over some numbers between the MIN DEF and CHI DEF from last year. Surprisingly, CHI had a higher QBP% at 36.5% to 35.7%, only allowed one more TD (37 to 36), and CHI allowed fewer passing yards per game (218 to 242). MIN actually allowed the 5th most yards through the air in 2024, but they were stout against the run (2nd). This sort of plays into the Bears strengths as the WR/TE rooms are close to elite compared to the RB room.

Yeah, only Burrow and Hock are eligible as you have to draft the player and they need to be on your final roster, so McConkey would not be eligible. So it would be Burrow for a 7th and Hockenson for an 11th.

I got his confirmation.

Placed DB Zah Frazier on Reserve/Non-Football Injury. Waived the following players: DB Millard Bradford DL Xavier Carlton DB Alex Cook LB Power Echols DB Kaleb Hayes QB Austin Reed RB Ian Wheeler TE Joel Wilson Released the following players: DB Tre Flowers RB Royce Freeman OL Joshua Miles