Week 18, Bears at Packers, noon Sunday, Fox

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Lol it's finally, blessedly over. 

They should probably pull Caleb Williams if he gets to 8 sacks. He needs ... I can't even be bothered to do the math... about 175 combined rushing and passing yards to set the franchise record. 

The Packers still have seeding to play for. They need a win and a Washington loss (or win/tie or tie/loss) to get the 6th seed, which would mean traveling to the Rams instead of the Eagles, which feels like a notable difference.

 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Oh yeah, draft status.

Bears currently pick 9th. If they win (lol I know) and the Saints lose, that drops to 10th.

When they lose, they can move up one spot each for each win from among Jags, Panthers, Jets, and Raiders.  The highest we can move up to is 5th (there might be some scenarios where Panthers lose but we move past the Giants on SOS?  I doubt it, but I'm not gonna bother doing that math to be sure. We can't pick higher than 5th either way).

 

 

[minnesotacubsfan]

"when"

 

sigh

 

[We Got The Whole 9]

I cannot believe how many sacks he's taken and the fact that he hasn't relinquished any time to Bagent lol

 

He has to get so much better at reading the rush and throwing receivers open. His accuracy is awful and he hasn't been on page with his guys all year. That makes me question his leadership and effort. 

 

I guess I have some meathead tendencies still but there's a lot to question.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

2 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I cannot believe how many sacks he's taken and the fact that he hasn't relinquished any time to Bagent lol

 

He has to get so much better at reading the rush and throwing receivers open. His accuracy is awful and he hasn't been on page with his guys all year. That makes me question his leadership and effort. 

 

I guess I have some meathead tendencies still but there's a lot to question.

The fact that he's taken this many hits and not relinquished any time to bagent is exactly why you shouldn't question his leadership and effort 

[We Got The Whole 9]

3 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

The fact that he's taken this many hits and not relinquished any time to bagent is exactly why you shouldn't question his leadership and effort 

I disagree. I've not seen him develop a rapport with 2 pro-bowl receivers, a pro-bowl caliber TE has been laregely invisible, he takes more sacks to take potential points off the board than anyone in the league, anyone we've ever seen, and it's repeating the same mistakes over and over. It's pretty easy to question his training and studying habits.

[minnesotacubsfan]

11 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I disagree. I've not seen him develop a rapport with 2 pro-bowl receivers, a pro-bowl caliber TE has been laregely invisible, he takes more sacks to take potential points off the board than anyone in the league, anyone we've ever seen, and it's repeating the same mistakes over and over. It's pretty easy to question his training and studying habits.

I think if anything, he is always looking to hit a hr than take the walk to parlay it into baseball talk

 

 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

27 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I cannot believe how many sacks he's taken and the fact that he hasn't relinquished any time to Bagent lol

 

He has to get so much better at reading the rush and throwing receivers open. His accuracy is awful and he hasn't been on page with his guys all year. That makes me question his leadership and effort. 

 

I guess I have some meathead tendencies still but there's a lot to question.

This comes back to overreacting to rookie seasons. If he still looks like this in year 2, it's justified 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Williams could sit this coming week and he will still have a top-20 passing yards season for a rookie all-time.

He's got a better qbr (if you care about that stat instead of the volume ones) than Lamar Jackson, Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford or Josh Allen did as rookies.

I know it's frustrating to see Jayden Daniels doing a CJ Stroud or Bo Nix being carried by his defense, but this isn't a fields or trubisky rookie year 

[Tryptamine]

On the optimistic side of things, the Bears currently pick 9th, but can move up 1 spot per win by the Raiders, Jets, Panthers and Jaguars meaning they could pick as high as #5.

[WrigleyField 22]

It's a disappointing year for him, but yea it's not like throw in the towel bad.

 

The best version of Caleb in college, in his Heisman year, he was a 16% sack to pressure guy.  That is basically the absolute highest he probably needs to be at as an NFL guy, which is still a lot higher than other off script merchants like Allen and Mahomes (usually around 10% though Mahomes has career high 17% this year). But it's a very sticky stat so we shouldn't be surprised that it's high.  It's an actual area he always was gonna need to improve. If he doesn't improve that you have to really coach the quick hitting/on schedule plays in him until he's a lower TTT guy and is just taking easy first reads and check downs at a higher rate.  Another skill he's shown he can do, but favors his play making too much.

 

He's just a triple whammy of (1) long TTT because he's extending plays and thus (2) creating pressures, but (3) letting too many pressures into sacks.  Daniels isnt a star in any of these areas, by the way, he just bails out of pockets quick and runs, which he's very good at. TBD if he can hold that up health wise or scheme wise. But that helps cover up what's a pretty meh pressure to sack rate himself (not as bad as Caleb though). And he's had good accuracy on the deep ball unlike Caleb - a departure from NCAA where both excelled in 2023.

 

But they treated him like a 10 year vet from the beginning instead of a rookie with actual bad habits.  That's he still has managed 3,600 yards and set a rookie INT streak record speaks to his talent to overcome his weaknesses. But on the INT front probably also speaks to how they coached a lot of the wrong things into him (200 club! 😒). He's all the wrong kinds of aggressive right now beecause they acted like he'd just automatically know every easy read and when to extend/bail when he actually has shown really poor understanding of that.  A few more agressive/decisive early throws that led to picks might actually get him learning about when to hit those early reads with tempo.  But all his aggression goes to extending plays right now. Which often leads to excessively bad drive killing negative plays.

 

Another areas:

Jayden Daniels top 3 PA percentage, 30%

Bo Nix: Top 8, 28%

Cj Stroud in 23: 12th 25%

Caleb Williams:  bottom 3. 17%

 

The biggest concern with Caleb right now is the deep game

Caleb Williams : 6th highest rate of deep passes.  Absolute worst PFF deep pass grade, by a huge margin. Top 10 in worst twp% .  2nd worst Adjusted comp% on deep passes. Bottom 3 comp%. Worst ypa on deep passes. Just absolute junk.  Funny enough Mahomes has also been junk here this year. But he's good enough and experienced enough to be overcoming that.  

 

On intermediate depth he hasn't been great either, but not as atarkly bad.  

 

Hes been good at short passing depth, but a pretty mid rate of attempts while he's 6th highest rate at the godawful deep throws.  Not sure how much it's coaching and play calling verse him "playmaking", or even due to playing from behind, but it's been a drag on his production.  

 

 

Edited December 31, 2024 by WrigleyField 22

[WrigleyField 22]

Oh and while Bears OL is probably underrated at this point (they're bad but prob not even bottom 3 in league), Washington and Denver had legitimately strong lines.

 

Washington added about 15M of APY across 2 guys in 24 and a third at $8M in 2023. Plus another investment in retaining Cosmi at 18M APY. They aren't getting anything more than market value for most those guys, but that's good enough. Denver is spending like 70M on their top 4 guys included 2 guys they added in 2023. They're actually getting negative value from that investment but it is actually a good line.

 

Chicago, I'll be generous and say Wright is valued at his expected APY of ~13M instead of actual contract value. Thus they're allocating like 30M to their top 4 paid OL and a third of that is Nate Davis 😔. So despite guys like Pryor, Shelton, Jones, and Jenkins actually providing a lot of surplus value their total line value just sucks because it's under invested in. But hey, they'll have top 5 cap space number for third year running!

Edited December 31, 2024 by WrigleyField 22

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The sacks worry me way more than the deep ball. You don't need a great deep ball to be a great QB. You do need to stop taking sacks on 11% of your dropbacks.

 

If that's not under like 8.5% next year, concerns start to be warranted 

 

[WrigleyField 22]

9 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

The sacks worry me way more than the deep ball. You don't need a great deep ball to be a great QB. You do need to stop taking sacks on 11% of your dropbacks.

 

If that's not under like 8.5% next year, concerns start to be warranted 

 

In a vacuum I'd agree but:

 

He hasn't been just run of the mill bad on the deep ball. Far cry from "you don't have to be great" to perhaps "above and beyond the worst" Also it was unexpected from his baseline.

 

Conversely we knew he'd be a high sack guy.  Exactly how far down he can get those numbers will determine his ceiling, but even a year two deadline to get it to a certain % is ultimately pretty arbitrary.  But yea 8.5% is that career average Russell Wilson line which generally feels like the limit of sack rate and still being a good QB. But year to year it could be a little higher dependent on non QB factors (and would need to be lower some years too). 11% is high, but I'd hardly blink at 10% as long as it wasn't every year like that.  Being a rookie and all I'm optimistic it can be cleaned up with better coaching.

[gflore34]

4 hours ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Williams could sit this coming week and he will still have a top-20 passing yards season for a rookie all-time.

He's got a better qbr (if you care about that stat instead of the volume ones) than Lamar Jackson, Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford or Josh Allen did as rookies.

I know it's frustrating to see Jayden Daniels doing a CJ Stroud or Bo Nix being carried by his defense, but this isn't a fields or trubisky rookie year 

I believe Caleb will ultimately be the best of him, Daniels and Nix.  Most especially if the Bears address the line and pair Caleb with a Ben Johnson, Joe Brady or Kliff Kingsbury.   The Nix talk is irritating as horsefeathers, just going to have to take it until next season.

Edited January 1, 2025 by gflore34

[WrigleyField 22]

16 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

I believe Caleb will ultimately be the best of him, Daniels and Nix.  Most especially if the Bears address the line and pair Caleb with a Ben Johnson, Joe Brady or Kliff Kingsbury.   The Nix talk is irrigating as horsefeathers, just going to have to take it until next season.

I'm not super confident in the long term staying power of Kliff but I think he'd be perhaps the best short-term boost.

Hopng it's ultimately Johnson.  Coen and Slowick are right there with Brady where you feel a little bit like you're just pinning the OC wheel a bit. Kliff is a bit more known commodity.

[Rex Buckingham]

I don't want anything to do with Kingsbury. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like his teams have faded too often

[jersey cubs fan]

1 hour ago, Rex Buckingham said:

I don't want anything to do with Kingsbury. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like his teams have faded too often

That was a weird storyline for about a week this year then Washington finished strong and it went away. It’s not a thing. You’re either good or you are not. Guys don’t just start strong and finish poorly as some sort of trait. 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Kingsbury just got done sucking as a head coach.

If it's a choice between him and defense, sure, but he's pretty low on my list of offensive guys 

[SpongeWorthy]

 

i choose to believe that this is a good sign and that johnson is actively putting feelers out there to let the bears know he is keen

 

 

 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

 If Ben Johnson wants to come here and we choose Ryan Poles over him, I give up 

[gflore34]

8 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

 If Ben Johnson wants to come here and we choose Ryan Poles over him, I give up 

If true, I'd like to think the Bears are capable of firing Poles into to the sun.  But, the realist part of me says there's no horsefeathers way the Bears are choosing Johnson over Poles.  With the Bears and McCaskey' inane notion of organizational stability, stupidity reigns supreme.  An owner truly committed to winning, when whats currently in place is not working, would be willing to try anything to get on the path to competitiveness.  Unfortunately, for us that's not McCaskey.

[Wilson A2000]

26 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

 If Ben Johnson wants to come here and we choose Ryan Poles over him, I give up 

If true, I would hope George or Warren would fire Poles. If Johnson wants Poles out, I like him over more. 

[jersey cubs fan]

29 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

 If Ben Johnson wants to come here and we choose Ryan Poles over him, I give up 

Not sure a Walter football guy is somebody I’d pay attention to 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Just now, jersey cubs fan said:

Not sure a Walter football guy is somebody I’d pay attention to 

This specific guy has a long history of accurate reporting from before he went to WF, mostly in draft stuff, but he definitely has contacts