2021 Bears season

[minnesotacubsfan]

What's wrong with Adams being the #4?

[UMFan83]

While the Chicago sports world is clamoring about how horrid the OLine is this year, my concern is with the WR corps not named Allen Robinson or Darnell Mooney. I've now got Rodney Adams as the #3 on our depth chart, because I have no reason to put much faith in Byrd or Goodwin or Newsome for that matter. I get running Wims out of town, but trading Anthony Miller was my least favorite move of this offseason. Hopefully there will be something on the waiver wire, because one injury to a starter, and ugh. Maybe Cohen can just shift to the WR slot permanently, because outside of a gadget play once or twice a game, he's fallen on the depth chart as well. I like the TE room, but am really concerned about the receiver position.

Well at this point, I'm expecting Cohen to be PUP and out the first 6 weeks at least. Haven't heard any update.

 

I think Byrd and Goodwin are fine as replacements for Miller. While Miller showed flashes he was pretty inconsistent, didn't seem terribly smart, and has continually had shoulder issues.

 

Not expecting much from Adams, but if Fields is a star we'll eventually get to regularly experience that thrill of no name WR becoming household names and solid contributors.

 

Even with Cohen still out, the RB room looks deeper too. Really I think all the skill groups got deeper. It's on Kmet and Mooney (and perhaps Montgomery) to elevate their games to improve the high end. I'm very high on Mooney personally. Less so on Kmet and Montgomery, but if one of those 3 had a huge breakout year, the other two would be fine as is, probably.

 

Goodwin was solid with SF - when healthy. Im actually pretty excited to see him play and am fine with him as a number 3

[Old Style]

Starting OLine looked like horsefeathers there. Ifedi and Peters both got beaten like a drum on 3rd down.

[Old Style]

New season, same shitty Nagy play calling.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Would have been a nice opportunity for Fields to make a play there

[Tryptamine]

You have an ultra mobile QB and choose to call a run up the gut on 3rd and 4th. I just don't get it.

[Old Style]

This tackling is atrocious.

[Tryptamine]

36 total yards with 2 minutes to go in the half. This feels very familiar.

[SpongeWorthy]

that was a dime

[Old Style]

Man, what a throw by Fields. =D> =D>

[Tryptamine]

That was an incredible throw. He constantly puts it where only his receiver has a shot at the ball.

[17 Seconds]

[UMFan83]

I am at a BBQ and thought I was recording the game but just realized it didn’t record. How did fields look overall?

[mias_tisg]

I am at a BBQ and thought I was recording the game but just realized it didn’t record. How did fields look overall?

Didn't play much because the defense sat on the field most of the time. Not sure how many starters the Titans were actually playing and for how long. He looked good the last drive but everyone was likely out by then and was aided by penalties. I think most decent NFL QB's can torch these backups in preseason, it's why I put little stock in preseason. Nick Foles is doing it now.

[UMFan83]

I am at a BBQ and thought I was recording the game but just realized it didn’t record. How did fields look overall?

Didn't play much because the defense sat on the field most of the time. Not sure how many starters the Titans were actually playing and for how long. He looked good the last drive but everyone was likely out by then and was aided by penalties. I think most decent NFL QB's can torch these backups in preseason, it's why I put little stock in preseason. Nick Foles is doing it now.

 

Probably shouldn’t put any stock in preseason like you said but the 1st and 2nd teams getting noticeably destroyed in TOP in all 3 games is interesting

[We Got The Whole 9]

Boy that decision to keep Graham over Leno sure looms large

[mias_tisg]

I am at a BBQ and thought I was recording the game but just realized it didn’t record. How did fields look overall?

Didn't play much because the defense sat on the field most of the time. Not sure how many starters the Titans were actually playing and for how long. He looked good the last drive but everyone was likely out by then and was aided by penalties. I think most decent NFL QB's can torch these backups in preseason, it's why I put little stock in preseason. Nick Foles is doing it now.

 

Probably shouldn’t put any stock in preseason like you said but the 1st and 2nd teams getting noticeably destroyed in TOP in all 3 games is interesting

Yeah I think the O-Line and defense are legit question marks based on how they played against top guys. They both took major steps back last year and the only legit change that was made was losing Kyle Fuller and Charles Leno and replacing Pagano with an internal candidate. It sucks because even if Fields is good, the Bears probably wasted their last window and it's going to take time to get back to where they were, and do so without a first round pick next year.

[pitchcs]

New season, same horsefeathers Nagy play calling.

 

It’s preseason, the totals in these games are like 36

[David]

Didn't play much because the defense sat on the field most of the time. Not sure how many starters the Titans were actually playing and for how long. He looked good the last drive but everyone was likely out by then and was aided by penalties. I think most decent NFL QB's can torch these backups in preseason, it's why I put little stock in preseason. Nick Foles is doing it now.

 

Probably shouldn’t put any stock in preseason like you said but the 1st and 2nd teams getting noticeably destroyed in TOP in all 3 games is interesting

Yeah I think the O-Line and defense are legit question marks based on how they played against top guys. They both took major steps back last year and the only legit change that was made was losing Kyle Fuller and Charles Leno and replacing Pagano with an internal candidate. It sucks because even if Fields is good, the Bears probably wasted their last window and it's going to take time to get back to where they were, and do so without a first round pick next year.

 

if fields is good, the window is always

 

especially so during the rookie contract. but either way, always.

[WrigleyField 22]

 

if fields is good, the window is always

 

especially so during the rookie contract. but either way, always.

Yep I hate when people wanna waste good cheap rookie scale years for a QB. Zero downside to trying right away.

[UMFan83]

Interesting article about the approach to developing 1st round QBs. It's heavy on 'sit the QB for a year if you can afford to' but its a good read overall

 

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2021/8/30/22647741/nfl-quarterbacks-nature-nurture-trevor-lawrence-zach-wilson-trey-lance-justin-fields

 

Just look at the best quarterback draft picks from the last 10 years and the teams they landed on.

 

2018: Josh Allen went to the Bills, who had made the playoffs the previous season.

2018: Lamar Jackson went to a Ravens team that had just gone 9-7.

2017: Patrick Mahomes went to a Chiefs team that had won 12 games with Alex Smith.

2017: Deshaun Watson went to the Texans, who had won their division two years in a row.

2016: Dak Prescott took over a Cowboys team with perhaps the league’s best roster (and definitely the league’s best offensive line).

2012: Russell Wilson joined the Seahawks, who had one of the greatest defenses of all time.

2012: Andrew Luck landed on a Colts team that was awful in 2011 but made the playoffs with Manning in 2010.

 

The last quarterback who was the primary force in turning around a bad situation early in their career was Cam Newton, who did so with the Panthers in 2011. Aside from him, just about every quarterback who’s been widely considered a “good” pick from the last 10 years went to a team that was building on some kind of preexisting success.

 

The Bears are rolling with Andy Dalton as their Week 1 starter, and the 49ers are sticking with incumbent Jimmy Garoppolo.

 

Bears fans are desperate to see Fields play, as he’s the team’s long-term solution at quarterback, but head coach Matt Nagy has decided to keep him on the bench, at least for now. Pederson, who worked with Nagy under Andy Reid in Kansas City and visited the coach at Bears camp earlier this month, believes that is the right move.

 

“Fans see the young quarterback, the shiny new car, and they want to drive the shiny new car,” Pederson says. “Sometimes that car is not ready to play. It’s not ready to perform, especially if there’s a veteran guy there that can help the team along that first year.”

 

Pederson thinks Dalton is the perfect veteran to help Chicago bring Fields along slowly.

 

“I was fully prepared to let Carson [Wentz] sit the first year and just watch Sam Bradford go play and be the starter,” Pederson says about his time with the Eagles. “[Let Carson] learn how to be the face of the franchise, learn how to speak to the media, and the media obligations, and the fans. How do you handle adversity in the city of Philadelphia when it comes? When you talk about being a pro, that’s what being a pro is.”

 

The Eagles ended up trading Bradford to Minnesota when Teddy Bridgewater got hurt just before the 2016 season, thrusting Wentz into the job in Week 1. But Pederson thinks sitting can benefit Fields. “If Justin doesn’t have to play the first year, I think that would be unbelievable to his development and his growth in the future.”

 

The same logic applies to Lance, though Lance has an even stronger supporting cast than Fields. While Fields has a shaky offensive line and a massive question mark at left tackle now that rookie Teven Jenkins has undergone back surgery, Lance has All-Pro Trent Williams guarding his blind side. He also has a coach in Shanahan who’s gotten career-best performances from about a half-dozen different quarterbacks in just 12 years. Consider what Shanahan did for undrafted free agent Nick Mullens in 2018 and 2020, raising the passer from relative obscurity to no. 2 on the list of quarterbacks with the most passing yards in their first 16 starts.

 

Again I'm dubious about some of this, and don't think the Bears are in a situation to sit Fields but its interesting to read different perspectives.

[Bertz]

There are a lot of very reasonable explanations I would buy for sitting a rookie QB for part of their rookie year:

 

- There's legitimate physical health/safety stuff from not knowing the playbook or NFL defenses yet. Like in the Bills game when Fields completely whiffed on the blitzer on his right and got decked

 

- I could see, especially for a mobile QB like Fields, where if you put them out there too early they'll lean on their legs too much and develop bad habits in the name of short term success

 

- The NFL season is LONG, and in fact just got longer. I'd buy that the ideal is for a guy to get 8-10 games out there, long enough to get into a groove and have both some ups and some downs, and then head into the offseason with some tape and some experience to learn off of

 

- Players do appreciably learn and grow during trainings and practices, unlike something like baseball

 

And I'm sure there's more. The problem is that NFL coaches are so far up their own asses that they think everything they do is a highly valuable trade secret. Combine that with how conservative they often are (even when it's fairly objective that they're wrong) and you have no way of knowing if the team's reasons for sitting a guy are sound or if it's the player development equivalent of punting on your opponent's 38 yard line.

[UMFan83]

Speaking of learning from practices:

 

 

Scout team?

[David]

Speaking of learning from practices:

 

 

Scout team?

 

well, that's better than having him do what most #2 QBs do, which is basically nothing

[raw]

There are a lot of very reasonable explanations I would buy for sitting a rookie QB for part of their rookie year:

 

- There's legitimate physical health/safety stuff from not knowing the playbook or NFL defenses yet. Like in the Bills game when Fields completely whiffed on the blitzer on his right and got decked

 

- I could see, especially for a mobile QB like Fields, where if you put them out there too early they'll lean on their legs too much and develop bad habits in the name of short term success

 

- The NFL season is LONG, and in fact just got longer. I'd buy that the ideal is for a guy to get 8-10 games out there, long enough to get into a groove and have both some ups and some downs, and then head into the offseason with some tape and some experience to learn off of

 

- Players do appreciably learn and grow during trainings and practices, unlike something like baseball

 

And I'm sure there's more. The problem is that NFL coaches are so far up their own asses that they think everything they do is a highly valuable trade secret. Combine that with how conservative they often are (even when it's fairly objective that they're wrong) and you have no way of knowing if the team's reasons for sitting a guy are sound or if it's the player development equivalent of punting on your opponent's 38 yard line.

 

The Bills ran that same blitz 2 more times in that game. Fields caught both of them and I believe had 1 completion and 1 drop if I'm not mistaken.

 

Fields isn't really a "lean on your mobility" type of QB. He's not a 1 or 2 read and go type like Mitch was when he was most dangerous in 2018.

 

I get the 3rd bullet. But that's only the ideal situation if you aren't wasting time on another option. If this was last year and you had Trubisky, who still could have turned into something or even with Foles, playing the "won SB MVP with this offense" card and with multiple years on his contract...then it makes some sense. But Dalton is 35 and on a 1-year deal. Even if he's great, you aren't re-signing him. Even if he had another year or two on his deal, you aren't going to be able to trade him for anything worthwhile because of his age.

 

I'm not saying Fields HAS to start or even that Nagy is handling this all wrong, but most of these reasons are bad. Fields could definitely read blitzes better pre-snap. He needs to improve feeling pressure and getting rid of the ball quicker. He can definitely stand to go thru his progressions a tick faster. He could use a bunch of work on throwing with anticipation. If those are the reason he's not starting, then that's fine. And I know they don't have to tell us the reasons, but it makes 0 sense to never give him a legit shot to start because of a predetermined plan of some sort.