Week 2 Official Game Thread - CHI @ TB, 9/17, 12pm CDT, CHI +3, O/U 41.5

[adam]

7 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

Reflecting on the game , yesterday I was ready to bail on Justin Fields and listen to Olin Kruetz this morning on the SCORE. He said the team has a bunch of young players that will get better in time.

He predicted this team to be around 500% not the 10 -12 win team I wanted. There is still time.

The game come down to a handful of plays that changed the game  example: Had Brisker held on to that int and had a pick 6, how would the game had changed  after?  Had Fields made the DJ Moore read instead of the the pick 6?

For the play calling for Fields, they are trying to grow him as a QB instead of  just open the box and go back to the QB on the run we seen last year in that 5 game run.  The growth of the OL after the changes they made needs some time. They we set with one rookie, Davis, Whitehair, at OC, Jenkins at LG and a developing LT. What we have now Is Davis and Jenkins out and Whitehair at LG. He said that takes a few games to get it together. Forget the 3rd  year for Fields, he is basically in his second yr with this regime.

He stated that this defense is predicated on the 3T and the two they drafted to play there, Dexter and Pickens are rookies, they will get better. They literally had 3 of the 5 starters  in the defensive backfield went out early in the game. Its a work in progress ,   not instant mash potatoes. Yannick had a sack that ended up being a pressure that turned into a big play for TB, had he held on, how would that have changed the game? 

In the preseason, Poles said this is a 3-4  year rebuild and still has work to do, we are in the second yr. Fields still has growth to do and everything will get better. We are only 2 games into the season . What I got wrong was my expectations not the actual state of the incomplete roster. Its about patience of which I dont have, this team will look better by midseason. As Ol;in said 7-9 wins by the end of the year will be progress.

 Here is some teams that made the playoffs last year.

KC 1-1, and not looked good.

Bengals 0-2 and not playing well.

Chargers 0-2 in close games

Det 1-1 and christened the next SB contender on the horizon.

Patriot's 0-2, always the contender.

Bills 1-1 SB bound?

Playoff team Vikings  0-2

Playoff Giants that was blown out for 6 quarters until its last 2 quarters 1-1.

We are not alone as NFL fans of a team with high expectations.

Tidbits: Claypool showed up, DJ Moore 6- 106 and Fields is on pace for over 3600 yards on passing.

I need to chill out, it will get better. Once I sit on a beach again, I will be smiling.

 

 

 

Nice view, I love the beach. 

With that said, Olin can say that, and sure, the Bears could win 15 games, unlikely but possible. Right now the Bears should be the underdogs in every remaining game this season. That is not optimistic. If Fields just blindly threw the ball to Moore on every passing play, the Bears would've had a better outcome. 

You could put any other NFL starter in his place and they make more plays than he is right now, and he is not saving any with his legs. So now he can't pass, can't run, and just takes sacks, fumbles, and throws INTs, just like he has the past 2 years. Nothing has changed. The flashes are out of shear athleticism, and not something that is sustainable. 

Bring in a real QB and keep Fields as your Wildcat gadget QB. 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

14 minutes ago, adam said:

Bring in *another QB and keep Fields as your Wildcat gadget QB. 

I would normally say this is crazy but things like this worked for the Saints when they had Brees and Hill playing together.  Deebo Samuel is a gadget player of sorts and works great in the SF scheme.  Maybe something to it.  It’s not like you couldn’t use him more as a RB anyhow.  He did get over 1,000 yards last year. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Stinger226]

36 minutes ago, adam said:

Nice view, I love the beach. 

With that said, Olin can say that, and sure, the Bears could win 15 games, unlikely but possible. Right now the Bears should be the underdogs in every remaining game this season. That is not optimistic. If Fields just blindly threw the ball to Moore on every passing play, the Bears would've had a better outcome. 

You could put any other NFL starter in his place and they make more plays than he is right now, and he is not saving any with his legs. So now he can't pass, can't run, and just takes sacks, fumbles, and throws INTs, just like he has the past 2 years. Nothing has changed. The flashes are out of shear athleticism, and not something that is sustainable. 

Bring in a real QB and keep Fields as your Wildcat gadget QB. 

Our choices right now are : let Fields play it out  until the bye week and  if he shows no progress ,play Bagent and see what he has ( see Prudy) or draft our QB next year. Anyway it goes we have the draft capital to have a win. YR 2 in a rebuild.

[adam]

3 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

I would normally say this is crazy but things like this worked for the Saints when they had Brees and Hill playing together.  Deebo Samuel is a gadget player of sorts and works great in the SF scheme.  Maybe something to it.  It’s not like you couldn’t use him more as a RB anyhow.  He did get over 1,000 yards last year. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Just think if you had 2 QBs, like Bagent taking the snap, but the RB was Fields who runs to the flat, Bagent can pitch it to him and he can still pass the ball from there or run, or pass it back to Bagent. Limitless options really. 

[Stinger226]

Its nice to dream that's why I play FF.(so I can pretend I'm smart). X and sports radio today are  having Bears  doomsday .

Poles is in his second year of a 3-4 year rebuild of the worse  roster of 2022, plus cap hell. I dont remember him saying we were going to the playoffs or be a SB contender 19 games into a 51 game rebuild. He said this is year 2 of a 3-4 year rebuild and he has more work to do.  He didnt lie to us. Yes he will make a few mistakes along the way but will that matter if we end up being a winning team for several years in a row. 

Experts predicted any where from worse team in the league to 10- 11 wins (me). If we end up with 5-9 wins , will any of that be progress ? 

A win is if we find out for sure if Justin is that superman or a bust. He has the draft capital to draft a new one.

A win is if  the new players get better as the year goes on.

A win is if DJ Moore, Nate Davis, and Edmunds are the players we thought they were.

A win is if we have 6-7-8-9 wins in a season. We are not going 0-17.

Its a little premature to fire GM,HC,OC,DC, and Justin Fields. 

I was doomsday man yesterday but today I stand with more patience.

 

[50england50]

I know we are disappointing that Fields has not turned into a star, but we don’t know the actual play that has been called. Do we know that Moore is the first option in his progression, he should be, however Getsy may want to be cute thinking he is the greatest offensive mind in the league. 
 

I hated the screen pass and why didn’t we take a play out of the Bucs playbook with Moore faking to go deep and then coming back to a ball that Fields has already let go. 
 

I don’t know if we struggled yesterday having Mooney leave the game. I would like the offense to pass further down the field and only use screens occasionally at least until Davis and Jenkins return to be active. 

[adam]

1 hour ago, Stinger226 said:

Its nice to dream that's why I play FF.(so I can pretend I'm smart). X and sports radio today are  having Bears  doomsday .

Poles is in his second year of a 3-4 year rebuild of the worse  roster of 2022, plus cap hell. I dont remember him saying we were going to the playoffs or be a SB contender 19 games into a 51 game rebuild. He said this is year 2 of a 3-4 year rebuild and he has more work to do.  He didnt lie to us. Yes he will make a few mistakes along the way but will that matter if we end up being a winning team for several years in a row. 

Experts predicted any where from worse team in the league to 10- 11 wins (me). If we end up with 5-9 wins , will any of that be progress ? 

A win is if we find out for sure if Justin is that superman or a bust. He has the draft capital to draft a new one.

A win is if  the new players get better as the year goes on.

A win is if DJ Moore, Nate Davis, and Edmunds are the players we thought they were.

A win is if we have 6-7-8-9 wins in a season. We are not going 0-17.

Its a little premature to fire GM,HC,OC,DC, and Justin Fields. 

I was doomsday man yesterday but today I stand with more patience.

You are correct, this team was not meant to contend this year. Odds said 7.5 wins, 9 if they were lucky or good, 5 wins if they struggled.  They were not expected to start 0-2 going into KC though. After 0-3, they would have to play .500 ball 7-7 to finish with 7 wins. The odds of that are super low, like 1%. That's just facts. 

Justin does need more time to develop, but I don't know if doing it under constant duress with live bullets is what he needs. If they really want to fix him, he needs to sit and observe, fix his flaws, then come back to the live action. This on the job training is not working for him.

It's good that we get players experience, but every team does, so the Bears do not gain anything.

At the end of the day, the Bears need a better roster, better scheme, or better execution to win games, or at least two of those at any given time. However, right now it seems like they are on the short end of those every game so far. That is the concerning part for me. If one of the units was playing well and they still were 0-2, there would be some promise. However, every unit has looked outmatched, the game plans look disjointed, and they are still getting penalties on a team with zero room for presnap penalties. 

[adam]

PFF grades:

Herbert 84.0
Kmet 77.3
Moore 76.9
Lewis 73.1
Claypool 66.4

Jaylon Jones 79.2
Edmunds 76.9
Billings 76.7
Robinson 74.4
Edwards 74.3

The most consistent offensive players is Lewis and Billings on defense. 

I know these grades are off when they give Braxton Jones a solid grade of 63.4 and say he was better than Wright at 58.2. Carter got 48.5. Ngaokoue had the lowest starter grade with a 35.1, which is odd because he did have a lot of pressures, but couldn't finish. 

[Stinger226]

I always say PFF is just a tool to help measure a persons worth. It's like saying 4.4 speed  guy is slow and then you watch him outrun a 4.3 guy that is faster. I just watched the slower guy win a run to the end zone. The eyes can speak to.

[adam]

13 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

I always say PFF is just a tool to help measure a persons worth. It's like saying 4.4 speed  guy is slow and then you watch him outrun a 4.3 guy that is faster. I just watched the slower guy win a run to the end zone. The eyes can speak to.

The more I look at their advanced numbers, the more I think they are made up. They basically grade without context, so if an OL gets beat on a sack, even if the guy who beat him was not his responsibility, he still is knocked for the play.

Ngakoue is a great example of context, he couldn't bring Mayfield down on a few potential sacks, but still blew the play up. He was graded negatively for those pressures. So PFF would rather have the DL not get pressure than get pressure and miss the sack. The odds that something bad happens for the offense is much greater with the QB under duress, so even if the play didn't result in a negative for the offense, Ngakoue shouldn't be penalized. 

It's wild when the grades are so off in the same game for the same positions. Christian Kirk - 11 receptions, 110 yards, 45 yard long. Rashee Rice - 2 receptions, 20 yards, 15 yard long. Kirk 66.6 - Rice 70.1. So without any context, you would assume Rice had a better game, but it was not even close. Like to me there needs to be a minimum for each position group, otherwise the grade should be N/A. 

They also don't care about the defense. So if you are playing against an All-Pro or a rookie the output is graded the same. So if one player gets a creampuff schedule, he looks like the second coming of Randy Moss instead of Javon Wims.

 

They would've been better off if they just made composite grades from existing stats, so the grades would be objective and based off actual stats. 

[Mongo3451]

1 hour ago, adam said:

The more I look at their advanced numbers, the more I think they are made up. They basically grade without context, so if an OL gets beat on a sack, even if the guy who beat him was not his responsibility, he still is knocked for the play.

Ngakoue is a great example of context, he couldn't bring Mayfield down on a few potential sacks, but still blew the play up. He was graded negatively for those pressures. So PFF would rather have the DL not get pressure than get pressure and miss the sack. The odds that something bad happens for the offense is much greater with the QB under duress, so even if the play didn't result in a negative for the offense, Ngakoue shouldn't be penalized. 

It's wild when the grades are so off in the same game for the same positions. Christian Kirk - 11 receptions, 110 yards, 45 yard long. Rashee Rice - 2 receptions, 20 yards, 15 yard long. Kirk 66.6 - Rice 70.1. So without any context, you would assume Rice had a better game, but it was not even close. Like to me there needs to be a minimum for each position group, otherwise the grade should be N/A. 

They also don't care about the defense. So if you are playing against an All-Pro or a rookie the output is graded the same. So if one player gets a creampuff schedule, he looks like the second coming of Randy Moss instead of Javon Wims.

 

They would've been better off if they just made composite grades from existing stats, so the grades would be objective and based off actual stats. 

Great summary.  That's why stats should only be used as reference material.  The eye test always wins.

[adam]

3 hours ago, Mongo3451 said:

Great summary.  That's why stats should only be used as reference material.  The eye test always wins.

Yeah, the eye test is undefeated. Players can have comparable stats, but if you watch the games, you can actually see how they achieved them. 

[AZ54]

1 hour ago, adam said:

Yeah, the eye test is undefeated. Players can have comparable stats, but if you watch the games, you can actually see how they achieved them. 

This is known as the Mark Anderson rule.  

[BearFan PHX]

7 hours ago, adam said:

The more I look at their advanced numbers, the more I think they are made up. They basically grade without context, so if an OL gets beat on a sack, even if the guy who beat him was not his responsibility, he still is knocked for the play.

Ngakoue is a great example of context, he couldn't bring Mayfield down on a few potential sacks, but still blew the play up. He was graded negatively for those pressures. So PFF would rather have the DL not get pressure than get pressure and miss the sack. The odds that something bad happens for the offense is much greater with the QB under duress, so even if the play didn't result in a negative for the offense, Ngakoue shouldn't be penalized. 

It's wild when the grades are so off in the same game for the same positions. Christian Kirk - 11 receptions, 110 yards, 45 yard long. Rashee Rice - 2 receptions, 20 yards, 15 yard long. Kirk 66.6 - Rice 70.1. So without any context, you would assume Rice had a better game, but it was not even close. Like to me there needs to be a minimum for each position group, otherwise the grade should be N/A. 

They also don't care about the defense. So if you are playing against an All-Pro or a rookie the output is graded the same. So if one player gets a creampuff schedule, he looks like the second coming of Randy Moss instead of Javon Wims.

 

They would've been better off if they just made composite grades from existing stats, so the grades would be objective and based off actual stats. 

Amen. PFF is a joke. I an sure they are well meaning, but something about their analysis protocol or the algorithms they use to correlate the data is deeply broken. The output is basically random.

I dont hate them, I just think they are silly.

[adam]

1 hour ago, BearFan PHX said:

Amen. PFF is a joke. I an sure they are well meaning, but something about their analysis protocol or the algorithms they use to correlate the data is deeply broken. The output is basically random.

I dont hate them, I just think they are silly.

Very slick business model. Come out of nowhere and just start publishing player grades where everyone makes fun of you. Then bring on a reputable celeb, Cris Collinsworth, who then starts quoting your grades on broadcasts, then eventually the league basically recognizes your grading system and teams actually pay big bucks to view the data. 

Early on they were an absolute joke. Anyone who referenced PFF was like referencing Wikipedia as your source. 

So many of their grades are hilarious. Right now Adam Thielen has a better receiving grade than DJ Moore, JaMarr Chase, Calvin Ridley, George Pickens, Tee Higgins, Christian Kirk, Michael Pittman, and Terry McLaurin. I don't know if you watched the CAR game yesterday, but Thielen created negative separation with his routes. He literally ran into DBs and closed the gap before the pass. It was comical, it looked like he was running in quick sand.

 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

3 hours ago, adam said:

Very slick business model. Come out of nowhere and just start publishing player grades where everyone makes fun of you. Then bring on a reputable celeb, Cris Collinsworth, who then starts quoting your grades on broadcasts, then eventually the league basically recognizes your grading system and teams actually pay big bucks to view the data. 

I’m not sure whether you knew this (and you’re being facetious) or it was pure coincidence but apparently Collingsworth owns PFF.  I just learned this this morning when listening to LeBatard and Stugotz.  

[adam]

10 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

I’m not sure whether you knew this (and you’re being facetious) or it was pure coincidence but apparently Collingsworth owns PFF.  I just learned this this morning when listening to LeBatard and Stugotz.  

Yeah, he bought into it after he was just initially brought in to promote it. PFF was started by a Brit (which is another reason it received so much flak) in the middle 2000s. Then team's bought in on the data, and Collinsworth eventually bought a majority stake in the company in the middle 2010s, a decade after it started. However, he was promoting it on telecasts long before he bought into it.

[AZ54]

There are some positives to build on.  Not that it was all great  news as he highlights some bad mistakes but this team is not the same s*** show in talent that we watched last year.   If Fields was just making the easy plays, not even the right "reads", just took what was there,  then this would have likely turned out differently.   Same thing goes for Getsy if he'd have just called more run plays... which would have helped Fields.   

W

[Stinger226]

4 hours ago, AZ54 said:

There are some positives to build on.  Not that it was all great  news as he highlights some bad mistakes but this team is not the same s*** show in talent that we watched last year.   If Fields was just making the easy plays, not even the right "reads", just took what was there,  then this would have likely turned out differently.   Same thing goes for Getsy if he'd have just called more run plays... which would have helped Fields.   

W

Good  watch, glad we have some positive posts to go along with worlds collided Wednesday.

[BearFan PHX]

12 hours ago, AZ54 said:

There are some positives to build on.  Not that it was all great  news as he highlights some bad mistakes but this team is not the same s*** show in talent that we watched last year.   If Fields was just making the easy plays, not even the right "reads", just took what was there,  then this would have likely turned out differently.   Same thing goes for Getsy if he'd have just called more run plays... which would have helped Fields.   

For sure. I think Wright has been playing well, and the OL hasnt been as bad as reported. I dont love Patrick and Whitehair, but that's because of injuries. I expect some tinkering on the OL too.

But the whole team isnt terrible, they may not have gelled yet, and they have holes - like a lack of consistent pass rush - but on paper we are a much better roster this year for sure.