Week 5 Bye Week Open Thread

[Bears4Ever_34]

Pretty shitty day for the Bears. MIN and WAS both won. Bears can't even win next week and get out of the basement of the NFC. Frustrating.

[adam]

7 minutes ago, Bears4Ever_34 said:

Pretty shitty day for the Bears. MIN and WAS both won. Bears can't even win next week and get out of the basement of the NFC. Frustrating.

With all 4 NFC Division leaders at 4-1, the playoff race for the Bears is going to be for one of the 3 WC slots:

GB 2-1-1 (Bears have 2 left against them)
MIN 3-2 (Bears need to even up the series)
SEA 3-2
-----------------------------------------
WAS 3-2 (Bears need to beat them next week)
LAR 3-2
DAL 2-2-1 (Bears already beat)
ATL 2-2
CHI 2-2

The WAS game is huge because it is a conference game and the Bears are 1-2 in the Conf. A Bears win and they would own H2H tiebreakers with both WAS and DAL, but since DAL tied, they will more than likely not end up with the same record as them.

It seems like all 8 of these teams will be "in the hunt" in late December.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

It is hard to believe Baltimore is 1-4.  I believe they were the preseason favorites to win the SB and Lamar the MVP.  They were still sitting 4th highest odds before getting destroyed at home by Houston today.  

Looking at the schedule, the Bears can really shake their odds with a win in Was, then Saints, Ravens, Bengals, and Giants.  I expect Lamar back after their bye, so him and Jayden will be the qb tests 

[BearFan PHX]

54 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

It is hard to believe Baltimore is 1-4.  I believe they were the preseason favorites to win the SB and Lamar the MVP.  They were still sitting 4th highest odds before getting destroyed at home by Houston today.  

Looking at the schedule, the Bears can really shake their odds with a win in Was, then Saints, Ravens, Bengals, and Giants.  I expect Lamar back after their bye, so him and Jayden will be the qb tests 

It does look like we are gonna be one of those teams that can win or lose any game on our own for the next stretch. We have it in us to win or lose to each of these teams depending entirely on ourselves, and more and more this team is starting to believe.

[Bears4Ever_34]

And now Drake Maye has a career game against the Bills on national tv, because of course he does. Nix has a 4th quarter comeback against the best team in football... This really has been the worst week for the Bears.

It's beyond frustrating to see Caleb grow as a quarterback and still make up almost no ground on anybody else in his class. And it's not just that he hasn't made up ground, it's that those other guys are all arguably top 10-12 quarterbacks now with the exception of McCarthy and maybe Penix (for now). It pisses me off.

It almost feels like next Monday night is becoming a must win, just to stop the media circus that will certainly ensue if Caleb doesn't play well while his peers have all gotten their statement games out of the way.

[Stinger226]

1 hour ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

It is hard to believe Baltimore is 1-4.  I believe they were the preseason favorites to win the SB and Lamar the MVP.  They were still sitting 4th highest odds before getting destroyed at home by Houston today.  

Looking at the schedule, the Bears can really shake their odds with a win in Was, then Saints, Ravens, Bengals, and Giants.  I expect Lamar back after their bye, so him and Jayden will be the qb tests 

From year to year, the preseason predictions always change. I'm very curious what changes BJ can make in us running the ball and do a better job at stopping the run. I think everyone will be healthy but JJ on defense so that should help. I think Monangai gets more touches.

[BearFan PHX]

47 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

From year to year, the preseason predictions always change. I'm very curious what changes BJ can make in us running the ball and do a better job at stopping the run. I think everyone will be healthy but JJ on defense so that should help. I think Monangai gets more touches.

It's definitely time for Monangai to get more touches, and I personally would like to see them bring Brittain Brown up from the practice Squad too - I thought he looked really good in preseason action. There's a lot of buzz around a trade, but I dunno what will happen with that, whether it's really real inside Halas Hall, what theyre thinking.

I dont think Swift is very good. I mean hes better than a lot of backs in terms of having a wider skills set, but he doesnt have great vision when he's got the ball, and he doesnt get north/south fast enough to blast through.

I saw some stat that we were #1 in the league in yards before the HB is first touched - which says decent things about our line - but we've all also seen the line fail work together to make it happen especially on the left side before Benedet got in there. But Swift has a 3.3 yards per carry, so that somewhat points the finger at him.

Also reading that Johnson may tinker with the scheme during the bye, some guess to move to more outside zone blocking scheme and fewer power run schemed plays. 

All this to say there are a lot of tweaks in terms of players and scheme that could be tried, and using Monanagai more is probably strongly on that menu. And like I said, I'd love to see Brittain Brown get some carries and see how he is in there, and I wouldnt turn my nose up at a guy like Breece Hall from the Jets (assuming his injury this week isnt bad).