adam

It was weird seeing Mitch vs Justin both play against each other. I thought it was fitting that both players highlighted exactly why they are no longer Bears QBs.

The Preseason finale is in 3 days! So we get Hard Knocks on Tuesday and Bears football on Thursday. Obviously with the quick turn around, I can't see the Bears playing any starters. So it will be curious to see how the team handles guys like Velus. If they don't suit up, they are basically on the 53-man roster. So we should know who the bubble players are on Thursday night.

The Bears may end up flipping him in a few years like Matt Flynn to SEA. I hope they don't because he has already shown he can be a solid NFL QB.

This is almost porn, lol.

That's fine we can agree to disagree. I just don't see anything where you would want him running the ball over someone like Wheeler. He would be the worst RB on the roster and if he is a WR, he would be the worst WR on the roster. So why keep him? If he was a 4th round or later pick, he would've been cut this offseason. What did you see from him in this game? He had one 7 yard run, then had 6 rushes for 6 yards after that. Just from going over his entire body of work, and after 2+ years and 3 training camps and this NOW they are experimenting with him at RB tells me we are nearing the end.

Possessed.

Wheeler is a better runner than Homer, but worse pass catcher. Both play ST about the same. Wheeler has more juice. Homer looks tired when he runs the ball. At that part of the roster it is maximizing what you need them for. With Swift as the primary 3rd Down back and Roschon able to catch passes, I would go with Wheeler over Homer and Pettis over Velus.

Pettis is taller than I always imagine him. He ran some really nice routes today. I would not mind if he makes the team.

Another overall great team effort. Swift and Johnson did not play, so it seemed the first offense lacked a receiving threat out of the backfield. Homer is terrible and the Velus experiment has to end. He is taking reps from others for no reason. Now, if they were looking to trade him, they are not doing him or the team any favors with his trade value. The defense hasn't allowed a TD in 8+ quarters of football. I don't care if it is the preseason, that is impressive. They continue to get sacks and INTs which is great to see regardless of the players on the field. It is a mentality thing. I am still concerned about the run and screen defense. I would say it was an off day for Caleb, but his stats are worse than he actually played. If Scott catches the deep ball instead of the penalty, Williams' stats basically flip on one pass. Also, Odunze gets his feet inbounds and Williams might have 2 passing TDs to go with the rushing TD. His improv stuff is off the charts. If he can play in system, he is easily a top 5 QB. Only 1 sack given up by the offense and that was on Caleb. So the O-Line is holding up, which is shocking.

So compilation videos will be a breeze. Before we had to wait for other to post in. Now they are basically on-demand. If someone wants to see something like that, all they have to do is ask.

With Preseason Game 3 being the last preseason game, this will more than likely be the last game we see Caleb and most of the starters in until Week 1 against TEN. Btw, the early line for Week 1, Bears are 4 point favorites as of today.

New stat site at NFL.com if you have NFL+ Premium. https://pro.nfl.com/ Besides every stat and next gen stat, it also has sortable videos, with filters. So you can say player: DJ Moore, Season: 2023, Regular Season, Route Type: In Route and it will bring up every play with both the normal video and all-22 of that play. The crazy part is, it's every route, even ones where he was not targeted. Insane.

Without Billings, that would probably be a huge liability against the run. With the Bears secondary, I actually worry more about run defense than the pass rush with the DLine.

It's possible, but I would assume CIN is closer to a SB run than the Bears, so wouldn't they need the elite Edge player instead of the draft capital?

There are very few places left on the internet that you can "Talk" "Bears" intelligently with sane people. Reddit, Discord, Twitter, Facebook, are all brutal and seem to get worse every day with some insufferable people. So I have no prob moderating here to keep this place alive.

I am looking at Sep 1st - 4th for the league draft. More than likely 7PM Central. If there are days that you absolutely cannot make it please let me know as soon as possible. I will do my best to accommodate everyone, but if not possible, I will try to impact the least amount of GMs. If I don't get any responses, I will schedule it and we can adjust as needed up until a week before the draft, which is when it has to be locked in. Also, for league dues, Leaguesafe is open: https://www.leaguesafe.com/join/4225329/2024-talkbears-keeper-league Right now only 2 GMs have paid, so 8 left.

I would rather have Wheeler to be honest. Compare Wheeler and Velus and tell me one thing Velus does better? The 3 guys that are most likely on the bubble are: Borom - $3.1M in cap savings if cut (83K in dead money) Homer - $1.8M in cap savings if cut (225K in dead money) Jones Jr - 900K in cap savings if cut (555K in dead money) That would free up $5.8M with only 860K in dead money and 3 roster spots for guys like Pryor, Wheeler, and a WR or TE. If they cut Davis, they would have an extra $1.397 against the cap compared to his current cap number. However, if they cut the other 3 with him, they would still have $4.4M extra in cap space and filling the spots with more than likely league minimum guys who would not effect the cap.

Wow, this might be the best Bears Podcast show out there. Cole Kmet and Adam Hoge, then they bring in DJ Moore. Awesome info.

JJ McCarthy needs knee surgery. Tough break for the kid. Darnold will start for MIN. I don't expect them to win more than 6 or 7 games this year. After McCarthy, the only other draft pick of significance was Dallas Turner. They didn't have any other pick in the first 3 rounds. Turner is replacing Hunter, and if McCarthy is out, they essentially went from Cousins to Darnold and Hunter to Turner and the rest of the team is basically the same as last year.

Waldron had 3x TEs in Seattle (Fant, Dissly, Parkinson). I wonder if they model the offensive roster off of what Waldron did in SEA, since it is his offense? This is the offensive roster breakdown for opening day 2023 for Seattle: 2x QB 4x RB 6x WR 3x TE 9x OL So they only went with 24 offensive players (instead of 25). RB would be interesting if they only kept 4 (Swift, Herbert, Johnson, and Homer?).

Fearless forecast: Booker will be better than Leonard Floyd was with the Bears.

It feels like the top 4 of every position group is locked. The questions are RB5, TE4, WR6, DL4/5, LB5, and S5.

Top PFF Grades for Buffalo game: Offense: 1. Kramer - 91.5 2. Wheeler - 90.7 3. Jenkins - 90.3 4. Moore - 81.3 5. Murray - 77.1 Defense: 1. Baskerville - 97.0 2. Ogbongbemiga - 89.1 3. Q. Johnson - 86.6 4. Kareem - 84.6 5. J. Johnson - 83.2

Fieldman might actually play his best ball in Pittsburgh but mainly due to his supporting cast. I don't know how much better that will be, but I do think he is going to be a result of his surroundings more than anything else.

You know what's crazy, Trubisky turns 30 next week.