Bears4Ever_34

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the Bears keep missing on these background evaluations. I'd be willing to give him some slack if we didn't already have to go through the Nate Davis/Chase Claypool drama. What a joke.

Worried about their run/play action game. Aaron Jones always kills them.

Me too. I'm hedging my Bears cynicism with a QB making his first career start on the road. If they win, it probably won't look pretty. The only thing I'd be shocked by is if either team won in a blowout.

I tend to think this becomes a defensive struggle for both teams with the Bears narrowly winning because McCarthy turns the ball over more than our quarterback. I imagine it playing out very similarly to week 1 last year, hopefully with not as inept QB play from Caleb. I might be on suicide watch if he throws for under 100 yards again, and McCarthy outplays him in his first career start. Early prediction: Bears 20 Vikings 17, offense rallies from down 13-17 in the 4th and the defense holds at the end.

In minor defense of the offense last night, I think it was fairly obvious Johnson was trying to focus more on the run game and under center formations. Caleb's just not as comfortable with that as he is in shotgun. All of the explosives in the game against the Bills came from Shotgun. I didn't see as much of that until the 2 minute drive in this game. Frankly, if it were up to me, I'm running a mostly no-huddle, shotgun heavy system for Caleb to start the season, and will sprinkle in more of the Detroit stuff that Ben wants to run as the weeks go by. Just don't do the Luke Getsy/Shane Waldron thing and force your system on the QB right out of the gate and have to peel back after you start the season 0-1/0-2. I am worried that's what's going to happen.

Defense got abused by KC on those drives with the starters. DL running in quicksand, Nashon Wright getting exposed at CB.... Officiating has been horrible though. KC got away with multiple holds and they were calling every ticky tack thing on the Bears. Offense predictably came back down to earth against the Chiefs #1's. Caleb had a rough go until the final drive against their backups. Botched handoff, took a bad sack on 2nd and 3, and missed a wide open checkdown to Swift in the redzone that would have kept the drive alive that they ended up settling for 3. Good ball placement on the deep throw to Rome on the last drive. Rome has to start coming down with those.

Wright wasn't good at LT in college, like Trapilo. I don't know of many comps of RT's in college who became good LT's in the NFL. Wright is a mediocre RT as it is now. It'd be crazy to think he'd do a better job on the other side. If they were going to mess with the rotation, moving Thuney to LT would make more sense because he's done it before. Personally, I think there are no good options. They're going to have to accept being bad at LT for the season and hope Ben Johnson can scheme around it. They also better hope it's the only position on the line that is a liability or they are in much deeper trouble.

Scrolling through some of the tweets from practice today, it seems like it was a better day for the offense than the joint practices against Miami, but LT has become a major bottleneck for their ability to sustain drives. Way too many false starts and sacks given up. Braxton Jones with another subpar practice. On the positive side, OZ keeps making plays as WR3. Another 40+ yard TD reception in one of the final 11 on 11 drills today, and the Caleb/Rome connection is apparently red hot right now. Multiple TD's for Rome in team drills on the day. Oh, and Shamar Turner came back to practice, which is good to see.

This is the guy they had to have instead of Jalen Carter. Not a great news day for Ryan Poles' OL draft picks. Trapillo seems destined for the swing tackle position as he continues to lose reps to Braxton Jones and an undrafted free agent at LT.

That was a rough watch. Brutal offensive execution down the stretch, especially after the big sack to set them up in FG range. My only real observation/takeaway from that game is that Keenum looked a lot more comfortable than Tyson Bagent. I'd elevate him to QB2 for the next pre-season game, at the very least.

Booker with the hat trick today. He's a pre-season demon. If only he could translate this to the regular season.

Not a good day for the Bears secondary or Tyson Bagent. Monongai looked great, though.

Sounds like another rough practice for the offense in joint practice with Miami. From what I was reading, he threw a pick on the first play of 11 on 11's, followed that up with a 70 yard TD to Zacheus, but then not much success after that in any other team drills. Sacks, false starts, and throwaways seemed to be the theme of practice. I wonder if Johnson is going to regret not having #18 out there in pre-season on Sunday. I understand his decision, but I feel like he needs to play better in these practices to justify it. On the flip-side, the defense dominated without Kyler Gordon (and Johnson, of course). Miami also didn't have Tyreek Hill, which shouldn't be discounted. Tua had 3 picks today after reportedly only having 1 the entire training camp.

What the hell is going on with Zah Frazier? He's been MIA since before camp with a "personal issue." Whatever it is, it's kind of crazy he'd potentially throw away his NFL career over this, because I can't imagine him making the team at this point.

I haven't heard anything out of camp this year that feels any different than in year's past. It's always the same story about the struggling offense and quarterback. There's still a few weeks left to turn a corner, and maybe they will after the install period is over later this week, but the vibes don't feel great to me with the quarterback. Way too many delays of games and lack of anticipatory throws.

Saw this play pop up on social media yesterday, but this angle adds a layer of context that makes the play look even better. I think Jenkins is correct here. It's a designed sprint action throwback towards the opposite sideline. You can see the route the receiver runs is synced up perfectly to Caleb stepping back up into the pocket after fooling the defense with misdirection. These are the kinds of plays I imagine Ben Johnson is designing specifically for Caleb to take advantage of his mobility. More of this please.

Yeah, I saw that late last night cycling through my feed. Not surprised. Eberflus tried to do some of that last year in camp, but he wasn't/isn't smart enough to learn anything from it the way I'm certain Ben Johnson can. It sounds like they are trying to drill in the under center aspect of the offense, and he's not reacting to it particularly well, at this point. I'll be curious to see when the season starts if they abandon that idea and keep him primarily in the shotgun while mixing in some tempo to keep him comfortable. Hopefully he starts to take more to the things he's struggling with now, because that will make the entire offense more dynamic, but it also wouldn't surprise me if they started the year off super basic, running variations of the same few plays that the QB likes and expand from there. Peyton Manning made a HOF career out of that.

All good. I'm very optimistic about Ben Johnson. I'm still a Caleb fan, but the honeymoon phase is over, at least on my end. No more excuses. He needs to look like a #1 pick, and I think he needs a fast start to the season to maintain any chance of a potential playoff spot.

It's not one particular play, but a general vibe of how the day has gone. It's always the same story. Slow out of the gate, disjointed, clunky, quarterback struggling to get rid of the ball, taking sacks, etc... The defense has "won" the vast majority of practices since 2018, and before that, 2013—the last truly great Bears offense. It's not a coincidence that those two seasons were also good training camp years for the offense, especially 2013. You're right that it's too early to make any declarations, and there's still ample time to turn things around before week 1. I'm not saying the Bears or Caleb WILL be bad this year, but I am saying that if history is any indicator, if this trend of bad practice performance continues, it will translate into bad regular season performance, and I expected the #1 pick in the draft to be able to adapt more quickly than he has, not just this year, but last.

We're 3 days in, or 6 if you count mini-camp, and everything feels exactly the same. The offense is struggling, the quarterback sucks, the defense is dominating, and the excuses are beginning to form. It's all so tiresome. I was optimistic about Caleb when we drafted him, but the rough practices are beginning to pile up for him already. If history is any indicator, we better get ready for another rough offensive season if these reports don't start changing in the near future. Part of me is beginning to wonder what his work ethic is really like. There are rumblings out there that haven't gone away. At this point, I have more confidence in Ben Johnson than I do Caleb Williams.

Burden needs to stay healthy. He's already way behind other players who were able to practice during the off-season program. Both Loveland and Burden need to be factors this year for the Bears to do anything special. Sometimes I wonder if Ben Johnson thought Burden was milking his injury a little bit during mini-camp, based on the things he said at his press conference. I wouldn't be surprised if Burden started out behind Zaccheaus at the beginning of camp, just to make it clear that he needs to earn his position, and it starts by being available. Soft tissue injuries are sometimes an indicator of poor weight training habits in the gym.

Yeah, he said something like "The Bears can find another CB, but my daughter can't find another father", as if he's the only dad playing in the NFL.

It's probably nothing major. He could be sick, or have one of those "personal" issues that always conveniently occurs during off-season practices. I don't think he's dumb enough to demand a new contract already after 1 year, but I guess we'll see. He totally seems like a guy who just doesn't put much value in off-season programs at this stage of his career, similar to guys like Aaron Rodgers. He's always going to be looking for an excuse to miss as much time as he reasonably can to save his body for the games that count. You'd like to think he'd show more of a sense of urgency to be there for the new staff, but whatever..

I meant that they could fast track his hiring should they lose next week, or whenever that is. It's better to get the procedural crap out of the way as soon as possible so another team can't offer him the job before you can.

Upon review, the rule is you have to interview two external minority candidates, and they have to be in-person. So, Thomas Brown wouldn't count. That would explain why the Patriots interviewed Pep Hamilton and Byron Leftwhich. I wasn't aware it changed to 2. Means they need another one of these sham interviews to fast track the hire, if that's what they want to do.