adam

It should be that way, and makes the defense more flexible and makes it harder for the QB to determine the coverage. With Jackson back there, it was very easy, pre-snap, to determine what the Bears were operating in (single high, cover 2, etc). Now that won't be the case. So all the divisional teams will feel that change the most, and not in a good way for them.

GMs, I have renewed our annual TalkBears Fantasy Football Keeper league, which is now entering its 15th season (which is crazy). At the end of last season, there were 9 GMs that said they would be returning. An email invite went out on June 17th from Yahoo, but I definitely want to get confirmation on the 9 GMs returning from last year and ask if there is any interest from the board or you know of someone else for filling in the 10th spot. If so, please let me know here and I will send out an invite (will need email address). Once we get 10 confirmations, we can schedule the draft and I can send out the LeagueSafe payment dues ($75 per team). The winning payouts are as follows: 1st - $440 2nd - $200 3rd - $75 4th - $35 The payment deadline is usually by Week 4 of the season, so people have some time to pay the dues. If you have any questions, let me know, we normally conduct the draft a few days prior to the kickoff game around 7pm Central. I will send out a weekly reminder until the last week of July or until we have 10 commitments.

The best thing for the Bears are these comps: DJ Moore > DJ Moore Keenan Allen > Keenan Allen Rome Odunze > Rome Odunze

Those are all insane. None of them are even in the same tier as any of the WRs they listed as comps. Their best WR was Reed and he only had 64 rec and 793 yards. No other WR had more than 60 recs or 700 yards or in the top 50 in terms of recs or yards. Kmet had 73-719 and would've led GB in receptions by 9.

I still feel like Poles thinks they are a year away from contending for a SB, which is crazy to say considering where the team was just 2 years ago. However, if he thinks that, then I think he won't risk the cap flexibility until next year. So if they add someone, it is going to be a rotation vet to go with Walker and Booker. I would bet that he tries to hold out until the trading deadline and if the team has a good record and looks to be a playoff team, he pulls the trigger on another trade to go for it this year.

I was expecting middle of the road, so top 12 is impressive as that was arguably the 2 worst unit behind the DL.

Bears O line ranked 12th here: https://twitter.com/SharpFootball/status/1806392211380318351?t=kvL9NDhdu88JgQMxXyM1JQ&s=19

The volume sure is different, but what would you say is statistically different in terms of percentage of kickoff return TDs? In 2010, the KO TD rate was 1.13% and that dropped to 0.68% last season. So with all the changes, the TD difference was 0.45%. That is one fewer TD every 223 returns. I would be curious how much this impacted starting LOS, because the raw returns ultimately equal yards that equal the starting LOS. So it would be interesting to see how much the starting LOS changed over time and if the kickoff changes actually impacted that, which would impact scoring (shorter field = more points).

Prisco is a known Bears hater. He is terrible at his job. Jaylon is 34th and not a top 5 CB. Montez is 73rd, and Moore at 84, and that's it? Keenan Allen was a top 10 WR last year and magically he is not in the top 100 anymore?

They hype is legit this year. I know we have said that in the past, but this year really is different. A 7-win team that lost 3 games they should've won, added the best QB prospect in a decade, one of the best WR prospects in the last few years, a perennial 1K Veteran WR, a top 10 RB, and an upgrade at Safety. All of that added to the existing team. The hype is legit. Caleb is coming in light years ahead of Mitch and Justin. It is not even close. The team upgraded the coaching staff as well. This is also not a Getsy offense. If any team has a chance to go worst to first, it's the Bears this year, as wild as that seems.

It is crazy to think the Bears have a chance to have 4 of their 5 draft picks be impactful as rookies. We already know Caleb, Rome, and Taylor are going to be. If Booker becomes a solid rotational Edge rusher who is not a liability in the run game, this is easily a top 10 defense.

Two of the funniest things in this regime is the "T" in HITS as "The Ball" instead of turnovers or takeaways, and this A-Score.

If he can improve his "get off" he will be a wrecking ball. He has picked up on the personal goals as your phone's background (from Caleb maybe), and on it, he has 4 lines: 8 Sacks 15 TFL Pro Bowl All-Pro For TFLs, Aaron Donald led all DTs with 16 last season.

Taylor is going to be a top 10 Punter, and huge upgrade over limped legged Gill. There has only been 1 rookie punter ever to break 50 yards per punt. I think Taylor joins Stonehouse with his average per punt. Due to a better offense, I don't know how often he will be punting, but I don't think averaging over 50 yards per punt is out of reach for him. The other thing he excels at is pinning team inside their 20. Last season Stonehouse (again), averaged 52.8% of his punts inside the 20. Wishnowsky was the only other punter over 50%. I think Taylor can go 50/50% this year, which would be a top 5 punter in the NFL.

Odunze looks even better than advertised. If not for Caleb, Rome would be the talk of the town. Recently, he talked about breaking Puca's rookie receiving records and talked about how they played together at Washington. That is a great personal goal, but with Moore, Allen, Kmet, Everett, and Swift also looking to eat, I don't think Odunze will break the records, but I still think he will have a better season than most are projecting. There are 28 rookies who broke 1K yards, I think Odunze will do that. There are only 3 players to break 100 catches, Nacua, Waddle, and Boldin. What is interesting to me is there are no other players over 92 receptions, as Michael Thomas comes in 4th at 92. Rashee Rice had 79 for 14th and Zay Flowers had 77 for 15th. I think Rome is better than both of them. So I could see him getting 85-1050, or something like that. Other recent rookies: Olave - 72-1042 Wilson - 83-1103 Waddle - 104-1015 To hit 85 catches, all he would have to do is catch 5 balls a game. I don't think that is unrealistic. Moore and Allen are going to draw a lot of attention leaving Odunze on either CB2 or CB3 every game.

The extra game is huge. For Caleb to hit 4,043, he would only have to average 238 yards per game. In a 16 game season, that would only be 3,804 yards. So he could technically break the franchise mark for yards, but still have a per game average lower than Kramer's mark for a full season since Kramer averaged 240. I feel like there are too many weapons for him not to hit 250 per game.

There have only been 5 rookie QBs to throw for more than 4K yards, 3 are active, 2 starters. For TDs, surprisingly, only Herbert has thrown for more than 28. For QB Rating, there have only been 4 QBs to end the season over 100. So to have a top 5 rookie season ever, Williams would have to throw for 4,043 yards, 25 TDs, with a QB Rating of 98.4 and a Comp% of 66.5%, for each category. I feel like he has the potential to achieve all of those, especially with 17 games. I was surprised to see Mac Jones on there for yards and Comp%. Top Passing Yards (over 3800) 1. Luck - 4374 2. Herbert - 4336 3. Stroud - 4108 4. Newton - 4051 5. Winston - 4042 6. M. Jones - 3801 Top 5 TDs (over 24) 1. Herbert - 31 2. Mayfield - 27 3. Manning - 26 4. Wilson - 26 5. D. Jones - 24 Comp % (over 65) 1. Prescott - 67.8 2. M. Jones - 67.6 3. Mills - 66.8 4. Herbert - 66.6 5. Roethlisberger - 66.4 6. Griffin III - 65.6 7. Burrow - 65.3 QB Rating 1. Prescott - 104.9 2. Griffin III - 102.4 3. Stroud - 100.8 4. Wilson - 100.0 - Italics for players in more than one category

If they trust that Dexter and Pickens will improve, Edge seems like all that is left to address. The WR battle is going to be a fun one, but instead of figuring out who is going to be WR2 or WR3, we are now talking about WR5 or WR6. That is a great place to be. What do you think about Scott, is he a bubble player too? We know the top 3 are locked in, but WR4 could easily be Scott, Jones, Pettis, Carter, or even Jackson (played with Williams). They are only keeping 3 from Scott, Jones, Pettis, Carter, and Jackson.

Yeah, I don't like to use them but they are normally in the ballpark, meaning Shelton was definitely a mid-tier Center. However, that is a huge upgrade from Patrick.

I am just wondering if Bates was really brought in as an insurance policy for Davis, and I don't know what Shelton is getting crapped on. Shelton started every game for the Rams at Center last year, had the 2nd most snaps for the Rams, and was the 16th rated Center according to PFF. In comparison, Patrick was 27th. Shelton's PFF Grade was comparable to SF's Brendel, DAL's Biadasz, and CIN's Ted Karras. John Michael Schmitz, the Center most wanted from the 2023 draft, was the worst in the NFL last year.

Davis only played meaningful snaps in 9 out of 17 games. He had zero snaps in 6 games, and 10 and 13 in the other two. Interestingly enough, Davis played 100% of the offensive snaps in the 3 meltdown games (Denver, Detroit, and Cleveland). Wright, Jones, Jenkins, Patrick, and Whitehair all had more snaps than Davis. He was 6th on the OL in snap count ahead of Borom.

If you go off fumbles lost, it is a huge gap. Carter has 5 career fumbles lost on 374 touches (1.3%), Jones has 3 fumbles lost on 71 touches (4.2%). So Jones is 3 times more likely to lose a fumble than Carter.

It's wild that the Falcons can tamper with 3 players and only lose a 5th rounder. It feels like they got off too lightly.

I like Carter, and from what I am hearing, Special Teams coaches are planning to use two guys back deep. I thought that was not allowed, but I guess it is.

and the messed up, they have Miami as the wrong playoff seed on the inside of the ring.