adam

They do a good job of showing a lot of different things in a short amount of time.

I am really excited about this. The entire series is well put together and will go nicely with what the Bears already do with their 1920 stuff.

We might get to see Caleb for a series or two in this one. Another decent opponent in the Bills, and an away game.

When is the last time the Bears had the best record in the league? They are currently the only team with a win. Amazing. Also, when is the last time the Bears had the leading Passer, Rusher, Receiver, Tackler, and Sacker in the same week?

Just using a relative comparison, the Bears and Texans seem to have fairly even rosters. On offense, the O-Line surprised me and did not allow a sack while Herbert had 8.8 YPC, Johnson had 4.0, and Felton had 4.7. For the passing game, there were only 5 incompletions. I expected a lot worse of a showing against the Texans who are a very good defensive team. So kudos to that group. We may have a QB2 controversy. Remember this is a new offense, one that Rypien is familiar with. It sure looked that way last night. Bagent did not look near as crisp as Rypien. I know we are splitting hairs talking about QB2, but if the Bears need the best support for Williams, Rypien may have the edge over Bagent in that respect. Pettis muffing a punt already makes him an easy cut candidate with so much competition at WR5/6. His only way on the team was with his PR ability and he can't even do that. As much as Scott has looked great in practices, he just doesn't look as good in games. For me, he is just a bit too small (weight) to play WR. He feels like a lighter Johnny Knox, which is scary. He can never stay on his feet and will never break a single tackle if the defender even has a pinky on him. If anything Poles will give him the Velus treatment and keep him on the roster just because of draft position. It seems like the Bears will use 2x spots on WRs that have limited utility. I always wondered why Poles doubled down on a smaller Mooney after Velus clearly was not it the year prior. They tried a jet sweep with Scott and he went down on initial contact which was his own guy. I am still not impressed with anything he does. I think he makes the roster, but has limited impact on the season. His only hope is KR and even then he can barely get the ball out to the 25 yard line. Even though Johnson can't get separation with speed, he may end up sticking as a hybrid WR/TE type of guy. His size in the Red Zone with Kmet would be interesting. The challenge for him is WR5/6 have to play ST. He is the tallest WR by a few inches. On defense, I heard Hicks name called a few times. I was trying to watch Booker every play. He actually reminded me of Hutchinson with his relentless motor. Now he just needs a few moves and a little more weight to anchor. I did see him totally miss keeping the edge which allowed for an easy gain for the RB. However, for his first real pro action, the needle is still pointing up for him. The end of the roster LB, Jones, played pretty well. He seemed to be in on a ton of tackles. Out of the entire roster or position group, the one thing that stood out was the lack of a consistent pass rush. This was more evident than any O-Line deficiency. So when we were all thinking they may go out and get another O-Lineman, they may actually still go out and get a Vet Edge player to play across from Sweat.

Chicago Bears football today!

I think the DJ Moore extension freed up some cap for this season. Normally that is not done for no reason. Connor Williams anyone? A line of Jones-Jenkins-Williams-Bates-Wright with Coleman, Carter, Amegadjie, and Borom as the subs is a lot better. Davis just needs to be cut at this point. Take the loss. He is a waste of a roster spot.

From the Giants Hard Knocks stuff, it looks like Poles primary target in the draft after Caleb was Alt, but once he was drafted, it was Rome. Honestly, I think if Rome was drafted, that Poles would've traded down and then taken an OT. My assumption is he goes OL and DL with the first 3 picks next year (1st and 2x 2nds).

DJ was one of the players for the media availability today. He basically said he thought he outplayed his current contract and wanted the guarantees over the bigger pay day. He also alluded to the fact that he took a team friendly deal and was very excited to play with Caleb and Rome. He mentioned Rome several times. He also ask Keenan how much is it going to take to get him to extend. So we will see. I don't think the Bears can afford him after this year unless he takes a team friendly vet deal to play for a winner.

After the Claypool saga, I don't know if Poles would target a disgruntled employee again. Also, if Judon is already going to be 32, he is on the steep decline in the NFL.

Wright as well. I like to do it in 3-yr blocks. That is normally the amount of time it takes to refresh an entire roster. So here is the currently signed players on offense, defense, and ST thru 2026: Offense: Williams, Swift, Johnson, Moore, Odunze, Scott, Kmet, Wright, and Amegadjie. That is potentially 8 starters locked in for the next 3 years. They just need to lock down the O-Line. Jenkins may be next. Defense: Sweat, Dexter, Pickens, Booker, Edmunds, Sewell, Johnson, Stevenson, and Smith. At least 7 potential starters for the next 3 years. ST: Santos and Taylor So 17 potential starters out of 24 spots locked up for the next 3 years. Poles is really building a sustainable roster. Extend 2-3 guys a year with overlapping deals so guys are coming off contracts while other guys are getting extended. I honestly doubt he ever goes big in free agency again. He will make some deadline trades and then recoup comp picks so he can have enough players on rookie deals when he has to pay Williams $60M a year.

Man I love this signing. Also to note, the guaranteed money is actually just guaranteeing what he had left on his current contract. So technically only $50M of new money guaranteed. That is a bargain for a guy of Moore's caliber. He didn't have to sign an extension now either. So he literally took one for the team here. He could've made $5-10M more per year if he signed next offseason. His contract won't even be a top 10 deal next year. Crazy good deal for Poles.

It says extension, and he was already under contract thru 2025, so I wonder if this pushes him out until 2029 or if they are overwriting 2025 and this really goes from 25-28. Either way, DJ is locked in thru at least 2028, which is Caleb's 5th year option year. Great move as the WR market was exploding. He would get $5M more per year next offseason. Poles locks him up a year early, and he will be a bargain in 2 years. DJ will become the Bears all-time leading WR in just about every category.

The Bears play football in 3 days.

Just seeing those two together is still crazy. Both are Pro Bowl caliber WR1s on the same team. Like picture Moore on LAC last year with Allen, Everett, and Williams, which is basically what the Bears have this year plus Kmet, with Odunze in place of Williams.

GB could've extended him during the season or even before the season for Daniel Jones money. They basically lost $15M per year by waiting. They also could've negotiated a price lower than the highest paid QB in the NFL for a guy with 7 good starts. Rich Eisen posted a picture of the top 8 highest paid QBs (including Love), zero Super Bowls for the entire group, and now that they are paid, it is that much harder.

If Dexter can be a threat from the inside at 3T, this is probably a 12-win team as the DLine was the biggest weakness. Right now from all reports, Sweat, Dexter, and Billings have been dominating and Booker looks legit. Now they need to get the O-Line settled. The projected starting 5 have not played together yet.

The schedule really works in the Bears favor with easier opponents earlier in the season when Williams is still figuring things out. I honestly would not be surprised if he throws for 3 TDs with 300 yards in Week 1.

Caleb is a rookie. Love was in his 4th season, 1st starting. Yeah, they are going to have to do something, and if they do that, it will help the Bears immensely when it comes time for Bagent's next contract.

Yeah, he was really bad to start the year, 3-6 record, 14 TD to 10 INT (and probably should've had 2-3 more). Also, even though they turned it around the last 8 games, he only had 2x 300 yard games (CHI and LAC), both at home, and in fact, he only broke 280 yards 4 times. He was also very mediocre in the 4th quarter (close and late) where he had a 66.3 Passer Rating, 5 TD, 5 INT with 50% comp average with a Y/A of 6.5.

Bingo. I believe they started 3-6 and Love was terrible. Then, to me, he got lucky. I can't tell you how many times he just lofted a ball 30 yards downfield to a wide open receiver. On almost all those plays were a blown coverage and had nothing to do with Love's skill. I get that every QB gets plays like that and they need to convert those chances, I just feel like Love got a ton of those and seemed to convert on almost every one.

One year? More like a great 8 weeks. Defensive Coordinators really had no tape on him so they had to play vanilla defenses and MLF was able to exploit those basic coverages. Now DCs have an entire offseason to get some trend analysis done to determine what Love does the most and take that away. They also can determine his weaknesses and exploit the hell of them. I think Love regresses this year due to this, it might not be much but he will play worse. GB is taking a huge risk here but they really had no choice. Next year will be really telling for GB as Love's cap hit goes up 43M LMAO. Right now with all their current contracts, they have $40M available cap, so this already puts them over for 2025. They also only have one or two players that they can restructure to gain space (Jenkins and Smith), so that ultimately means players with expiring contracts won't be back in 2025.

Yeah, it is unfortunate, because he had all the physical traits to become Cam 2.0. However, there is too much missing in his passing game to overcome in today's modern NFL offenses. Both the offenses and defenses are becoming so complex these days. There are plays within plays and QBs need to be able to process so much so fast that there is a clear demark point between the haves and have nots. Some guys just can't do it, like Fields. They can still be an NFL starter and win games, but rarely do those guys ever go on perennial playoff runs because their success is dependent on too many external variables. I would say any given year that no more than 10-15 QBs have "it" (Mahomes, Jackson, Burrow, Allen, Herbert, Prescott, Stafford, Rodgers) with the jury still out on Hurts, Stroud, Love, Tua, Lawrence, and Purdy. Caleb can easily enter the "jury still out" category this year and get into that group. There are a group of vets like Goff, Cousins, Murray, and Mayfield that have it sometimes, just not consistently enough for me.

It still is hard to believe because if you really look at the entire 53-man, this may be the most talented group top to bottom since 2006 or as far back as 85 or 87. Here are the last 3 seasons when the offense and defense ranked in the top 10 in scoring: 2018 had the #9 scoring offense and #1 scoring defense. They had Trubisky at QB though so it almost takes this year out already, and the leading WR was Taylor Gabriel. Jordan Howard was the RB1 and Trey Burton was TE1. Gabriel would be WR4 or 5 on this roster. Howard may be RB3, and Burton (who never lived up to potential) is probably TE3. The D-Line (DTs and Edge) is better in 2018, but that's it. Edge - 2024. 2006 had the #2 scoring offense and #3 scoring defense, but again, Grossman at QB. Muhammad at WR1, Berrian at WR2. Nowhere near Moore and Allen. The defense was stacked but I like the current secondary better. The 2006 DBs had Danieal Manning at FS and Ricky Manning at CB2. The 2006 DL was definitely better with Anderson, Brown, Ogunleye, Harris and Tank Johnson. 5 deep. Then Urlacher and Briggs at LB. Overall, the defense still better in 2006, but offense better in 2024. However, when you go to subs, 2024 wins. Sanborn is LB3, Terrell Smith is CB4, Owens is S3, Pickens is DT3, and Booker or Walker are Edge3. So the 2024 depth is better. Edge - 2024. In 1987, The Bears had the 9th highest scoring offense and 4th highest scoring defense. Payton was 34 yrs old and was outrushed by Neal Anderson. McMahon only played 6 games. The leading WR was Gault with 35 receptions, McKinnon was 2nd with 27. Emery Moorehead at age 33 had 24 receptions to lead TEs. The 2024 offense is much better on paper right now. The defense in 1987 was still elite with Marshall, Dent, Singletary, McMichael, Perry, Wilson, Hampton, Duerson, Gayle, and Bell. The 1987 defense has the edge, but the current secondary is probably better as the CBs were not good in 1987. Considering the declining offense, 2024 looks to have the edge here too. So you really have to go back to 1985 when the Bears had the #2 offense and #1 defense to find a team, on paper, top to bottom with the quality of players compared to this 53-man roster. Obviously 1985 is the gold standard when it comes to complete teams, but that was only 3 teams in between that really stack up to the current roster. Am I crazy or is that a valid observation?