adam

The Bears Beat Reporters have almost become a cult. They are so self-focused. They tried to make a story out of nothing a lot, like the Caleb book excerpt thing even though every fan said "we don't care". The latest one was repeating that Johnson called the 1s off the field as a punishment when it was a timed thing and their time was up. Courtney Cronin, who used to be good, has consistently fallen into this category lately.

Yeah, and the Bears first real game is September 8th, 44 days, or 6+ weeks of constant work. Everything up to this point was light work, or on paper. We should have 6 weeks of incremental improvement.

For the first time in a long time that I can remember, it seems that the coaches are making it harder on the players than they normally would be at this point in the offseason. Up downs on defense, applying max pressure on offense to start off practice. From previous camps, they were used to easy practices, which led to mixed results on game day. I like this new approach a lot.

The Jets extended both Wilson and Gardner. Wilson is getting paid as a top 5 WR and Gardner is now the highest paid DB. Gardner is funny, 1 INT in his last 39 games. In comparison, Jaylon Johnson has 6 INTs in his last 2 seasons. Jaylon is now the 13th highest paid CB. Gardner basically makes as much as JJ and Gordon combined. So Wilson and Gardner or Moore, Odunze, Johnson, and Gordon. Total AAV within 2M.

I also see a lot of detractors bringing up the Bears record with Poles, and they are not wrong that his record is bad, but I think his biggest mistake was keeping Flus an extra year. Flus cost the team at least 7 games over the last 2 years. There were probably more, but that's why we should expect a quicker turn around. This is not a 5-win team, and they just added the best coaching staff possible. I think his true eval starts now, because if Johnson flames out as the HC, or Caleb is a bust, then that is the nail in the coffin for Poles career as an NFL GM.

It's rabbit holes. I look something up really quick, and it leads me to something else. Good for trivia, because it makes me remember stuff. Kevin Carter is now forever ingrained in my head as the last Sack Leader to win a Super Bowl.

Garrett Wilson just signed an extension paying him $32.5M AAV, so basically the same as Moore+Odunze combined, making him the 5th highest WR in the NFL. Crazy.

Also, it's a team game with individual stats. So there are numerous ways to measure success. If you just look at raw stat leaders, the only player that finished 1st in a standard category that played in the Super Bowl was Saquon, who led the NFL in carries and rushing yards. Top Passing stats: Burrow and Jackson. Top Receivers: Chase, St. Brown, and Jefferson. Most INTs: Joseph and McKinney. Most tackles: Franklin and Baker. How about most sacks? Hendrickson (9-8 team) and Garrett (3-14 team). Interestingly enough, of the top 4 teams, the ones that played in the AFC and NFC Championship games (BUF, KC, WAS, PHI), not a single one had a player in the top 10 in sacks. Fowler-WAS had 10.5, Sweat-PHI had 8.0, Karlaftis-KC had 8.0, and Rousseau-BUF also had 8.0. So one team, had one player with double-digit sacks and finished tied for 12th in the NFL. To extend this sack thought further, in the last 35 seasons (1990-2024), there have only been 3 players to lead the league in sacks and play in the SB. So 3/70 (4.2%), and only one player won the Super Bowl (Kevin Carter) - 1.4%. So that is so bad that you would actually prefer not to have the league leader in sacks on your team if you want to go to or win the Super Bowl.

Nah, ultimately they hated the Dayo and Jarrett signings, and the Jackson trade. So those were so negative, that they weighed down on everything else. Jackson played some Center for the Rams and was not used the same way that he was in Detroit. Jarrett wasn't even a Wave 1 signing. So Dayo is the only question mark, but the 49ers can trade for Bryce Huff, who had fewer sacks than Dayo in 2024, yet their spin on that is much different: "San Francisco also made a win-win trade for Bryce Huff, giving up a Day 3 pick for the former Jets and Eagles pass rusher." So the Bears can't bet on Dayo's potential because the pressures are there, but the 49ers can trade for a guy and it is spun as a positive, lmao. Yeah not bias at all lol: "The 49ers suffered significant losses in free agency -- Aaron Banks, Charvarius Ward, Jaylon Moore, Talanoa Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw -- but I thought most of these departures made sense for the team."

True, just glad he wasn't there when the Bears picked Burden.

Yeah, it is all hot takes now. Yep, and it is pretty obvious.

The Bears may have dodged a bullet not drafting Quinshon Judkins.

I posed the question in a few different AIs and this is what they came up with: GPT - GEM - GROK 1. CHI NE PIT 2. BAL CHI CHI 3. WAS LAR LAR 4. PHI DEN NE 5. PIT MIN WAS So top 2 in all 3 major AIs, which now crawl the web for some consensus (make less stuff up), but somehow the smooth brains over at ESPN think the Bears were 16th?

Yeah, in some of these cases, it is just pure bias. The top 4 teams are west coast, and top to in CA. The Rams were #1, and their best move was retaining Stafford? Like seriously. I should've stopped there. The 2nd team was SF, and their biggest move was resigning Purdy. This has to be random AI stuff, because it makes no sense.

Thanks, I hope the recovery is going well.

I have no way of knowing unless they post on the message board or make a payment. When the league renews, it auto-renews all the teams with an active GM. So we are still down one team.

ESPN is an absolute joke. New Coaching Staff: Johnson, DC (name a bigger upgrade in the league in the last 5 years?) New FA/Trades: Thuney, Dalman, Jackson, Jarrett (trenches) New Draft Picks: Loveland, Burden, Trapilo (BPA) There is no other team in the NFL that upgraded as much as the Bears did. It is still on paper, but that's what they are grading on. ESPN has the Bears as the 16th best offseason. They are smoking crack. It is all clickbait now. ESPN hates Caleb too.

Yeah, the one thing Williams had was the unteachable traits, which is what makes good players great. Now with the proper coaching staff and scheme around him, he can improve on the teachables. There has never been alignment between GM, HC, and QB. The next 4 years will determine if that matters, and I think it will.

Nope and I thought about that. Ultimately the best stat is the % inside the 20 from all punts capable of landing there.

His raw inside the 20 was 4th but on 82 punts. His average inside the 20 was actually below league average.

Hopefully Stinger's surgery went well and he is recovering today. Ice up son, we got some Fantasy Football coming up.

I will add one extra player, but from Special Teams. I think we are going to see an elite Tory Taylor with fewer total punts, but his yards per punt and % inside the 20 will go up.

That 84 Team was wild. The defense held opponents under 10 pts, 7 times. Every win, including the playoff win against WAS, the defense allowed 14 or less. In every loss, they allowed 20 or more. So they were 11-0 allowing 14 or less and 0-7 when allowing 20 or more for the season (including playoffs) What is even crazier is that followed a season where they went 7-0 when allowing 19 or less in 1983, and then followed it up with the 85 team that went 16-0 in those games. Check out how good Dikta's teams were when they allowed 19 or less: 7-0 in 1983 11-0 in 1984 16-0 in 1985 13-0 in 1986 7-1 in 1987 (NO 19-17) Strike season - Bears blew a 17-3 halftime lead. 13-0 in 1988 5-1 in 1989 (GB 14-13) - Bears blew 13-7 lead in 4th quarter. 10-1 in 1990 (WAS 10-9) - Bears blew 9-0 halftime lead. 82-3 when holding opponents to 19 or less from 1983-1990 and led in all 85 of those games. Wow. The team was also highly dependent on McMahon's health. Fuller was the only QB to lose in 1985 and 1986 regular seasons. McMahon was 17-0, Tomczak was 6-0, Flutie was 1-0, Fuller was 4-3. McMahon was 36-5 as a starter from 84-88 but missed so many games. Putting those two together, from 83-88, McMahon never lost a game when the Bears defense allowed 19 or less. In an odd mirror to that, Fields has never won a game when his defense has allowed 21 pts or more, he is 0-22 in those games.

Doing some stat comparisons, it really is hard to find a way for the Bears to not have a top 10 offense. If Johnson's offense only brings last year's offense halfway to his annual totals (for EPA/Play), then when you nudge it further considering the offensive roster upgrades (Thuney, Dalman, Jackson, Loveland, Burden), it could easily be a top 5 unit.

For sure, on the wait-and-see. There are way too many offseason champions that never work out. I remember the Philly Dream Team that flamed out. That was pretty funny. On Davis though. He had a ton of red flags, more so than any FA the Bears signed or traded for this year. I would say the biggest question mark is Dayo and that is just because his contract value. Also, as much as every team has a goal for the Super Bowl, I think the Bears are at least one more year away from being perennial contenders. I think that is where the wait and see is for me. I know they will be improved, but I just don't know by how much.