adam

If Aiyuk is out in SF, that really hurts their WR Corps as Deebo would be their WR1 with 892 receiving yards last year. The next best was Jennings with 265 yards and rookie Pearsall. I know they have Kittle and McCaffrey for receptions, but as a WR Corps, no Aiyuk really knocks their roster down.

Yeah, I think they are going to see how Bates/Shelton look, but they will have space to add someone, but I doubt they can afford 2x additions. So I assume it would be C or Edge, not both.

Yeah at the end of the day, that made a ton of sense considering Hard Knocks.

Yeah, I am reading that a lot now. People close to the facility said Hard Knocks crews were there, so this makes a lot of sense to get this on tape.

I did not consider the Hard Knocks effect, that makes sense. I am just saying from the competitor side, if these guys are true ballers, they are not going to let something contractual get in the way of their performance, especially with a rookie deal that is largely locked in based on draft position.

Right now, as far as I can remember, Rome and Caleb are the only two rookies left to sign their deals. I would be more concerned if it was just Caleb left, but if Rome is still unsigned, then this might just be a formality thing where they show up on Monday, the 15th and sign their deals to start work the next day. I believe it is tied to restrictions that are set in the contracts. There are certain things they can't do once they sign their deals, so I am sure they are just trying to maximize the amount of freedom they have before they are locked down in the contract. Most of the stuff is safety related, but I am sure there are more things in there that they are required to do once they sign it. So signing on Monday makes the most sense. If by Monday night, they haven't signed, I will have concerns.

Thanks Stinger. It looks like we still need 2 more GMs if anyone is interested. If you know anyone interested in a paid-pool Keeper league, please let me know. I will try to fill at least one of the spots.

Taylor is 6'4" 225 lbs, the same weight as Roschon Johnson, lol. Obviously thinner due to the height, but it does make sense to have the best tackler that can kick do the kicking.

Ouch, sad to see you go Mongo. That leaves two spots available for the 2024 season.

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.