BigbadB

I was skeptical when Caleb was saying he never gets nervous. He looked nervous out there, which should be expected. While he was practicing weekly with the Bears strong D, they had to play a bit soft and not attack the star QB. He played very little in preseason. And then Tennessee found some weaknesses on the OLine and exploited them. I was most disappointed with the OLine. I saw several TE's run routes without hitting anyone and sure enough, the guy they were covered up with pre-snap was the guy making Caleb run for his life. I saw Blasingame miss blocks. I get it, it's going to happen because the other team has play makers, too. But, jeez..... The overthrows seemed more like a guy feeling overwhelmed in the best league for football players in the world and his big eyes when he saw an open receiver weren't communicating with his overzealous arm. I wanted to see some first down passes, which the OC seemed to be shying away from. The times they did try to throw on first down, the OLine was issuing free passes to the DLine. So frustrating. Caleb was bad today, but he didn't have turnovers, the team won with bad offensive play, so there is some confidence builders in there leading up to a game they will have a tough time winning. This one will be a good test, because Houston is a playoff caliber team and the OC has a lot of bad film to show to improve things in week 2.

Seasons like the last two makes me believe the season is about 100 games too long. It's amazing how quickly a season can flash by you when a team is playing good. It's painful to see them playing so badly and then realize there are still 5 months left of the season. Congratulations to Original Ivy Walls for reaching Old Timey Member status with only 3 posts, with the 3rd one being today. My hats off to anyone who can still be watching games at this point. Let down after let down early in the season just makes me find other things to distract my day. I still peek in on scores and watch how the young future talent is doing, but I just can't sit down and watch "the Professor" take the hill in a game I'm pretty sure I already have an idea of the outcome. He's a Cub HOFer in my book, but that he is still getting starts on a major league team is not good. 20 starts with a 6.60 ERA, YUCK! Then we are looking at not having a single player reach 100 RBI this year, and the potential of no one else making it to 75. YUCK! I'm not the slightest bit interested in sitting down to a Cub game right now, and yet here I am trying to figure out how to get Marquee Network on my tv's for next year now that I no longer have DirecTV. I always start the year excited, and by midseason, I'm "Meh". It's quite possible that 2016 made it harder for me to watch baseball, because I now know what it feels like to win it all, and now that we have done that, less than playoff caliber play turns me right off now.

There isn't a chance Pitt trades him to GB. Fields is starting for Pitt today. Many sportswriters in Pitt feel Fields should have been starting anyway. It's not that Fields played well, but Wilson did next to nothing in preseason. With that said, I'd be surprised if Love misses less than 6 games.

If those are my options, I'm going with White. And that's based on who I think will get more reps more than anything else. Volume means a lot to me. More chances to score points or bust a tackle. That's also ignoring that the Chargers defensive unit is ranked as a bottom 5-10 team while Dallas is top 5. ESPN Fantasy projections has White getting about 13 points this week and Ford 11. I don't own either guy, so that's the best I can offer on them.

Yep. Bring in Derrick Henry as a decoy and let Lamar ad lib his way into the endzone, either by run or pass. Did Lamar ever NOT get 2 yards on a running play last night? Granted, it's different on the goal line, but his ability to run or pass while also having a 250 lb RB in his backfield makes their offense pretty unpredictable. Andrews was a forgotten man out there, also. Possibly still healing from his late season injury. Just a fun game all around. Xavier Worthy looks like a serious weapon for Mahomes.

News just popped up last night that D'Andre Hopkins is trying to play through an MCL tear. He injured it July 31 and was expected to be out 4-6 weeks.

I was with DirecTV until this past Monday. They had Marquee. Now I have Starlink/You Tube TV. I get NBC Sports Chicago, but not Bally's or Marquee. Don't care about the Cardinals, but would definitely like to be able to put a Cubs game on whenever I want. I googled Fire Stick and Marquee app and it appears you can get Marquee that way. I'll probably just do that and maybe cancel Hulu/Apple during the Summer months next year to balance out my monthly spending.

My prediction is 12 wins. A split with Det and GB, losses to Hou and San Fran and then one more loss among the following games: Indy/Jax/Sea/LAR. Not because any of those teams are better than the Bears, IMO, but because it's tough to win every winnable game.

Don't they blackout games when you are within the market? I'm still fairly new to being back in the Illinois area, so I don't quite understand the blackout rules.

I have about 3 Amazon Fire Sticks laying around the house. Does the Fire Stick have the Marquee app? I already feel pretty dirty having Starlink. I despise Elon.

I shut off my DIrecTV on Monday in favor of You Tube TV. Marquee was on DirecTV, but not on YTT. Does anyone have the Marquee app? Is it stable? Does it work well? Thinking about forking out $19.99 a month next year for the app if it works good. I was a bit bummed I couldn't tune into the Cubs game when I was notified about the no-no. But, as soon as I went to my Yahoo sports app to check in I saw they pulled Shota and I no longer cared about missing the game. LOL. I'm in the camp of letting Shota decide himself whether he could continue or not. The game ended in something like 19 more pitches. Can't say Shota would have done it in 19 pitches, but I'd have let him decide if he had the strength to finish it.

I wouldn't expect a huge improvement, but I did like what I saw last year. What I found odd was Eberflus or the DC had the Bears blitzing a lot in the preseason. Way, way, way more than last year in any game. If they do that more, then I would say we will see improvement, because I think they have the talent to pull off some blitzing schemes with success. What seemed odd to me was that they were employing so many blitzes in the preseason. It was taking place so often that you have to assume it's a policy change in Eberflus' defense. The Bears are facing some of the worst QB's in the league this year, so maybe they plan to implement more blitzes to force more turnovers. Can that be remotely tied to trying to create better field position and build confidence in the rookie QB?

I saw this too. It goes as far back as 2002, so I'm assuming they had a better record before that, but their point is not one has won their first game. Most of these QB's are getting drafted by the worst team in the league for that year, and expecting that QB to somehow turn everything around on day one seems like it tough task. Anyway, to the other poster asking who tied, it was Kyler Murray.

Plenty of bars with Sunday Ticket.

I shoulda tossed a few bucks at the Bears winning it all. I'm not anticipating it, but I was in Las Vegas for 2 damn weeks. I blame not doing it on getting Covid the moment I got there. Kinda ruined the whole trip.

Was just browsing the early power rankings and it's very nice to see Carolina sitting at #32. Having the first pick in the 2nd round would be wonderful. The gift that keeps on giving.

The Bears signed former GB WR Samori Toure to the practice squad.

Possibly. Seems like they were purposely practicing the kickoffs with returns, probably to get ST adjusted to it.

I reached out to him in May via DM. He responded that he would likely be back, but just wasn't much going on. Told him I missed his comments about the draft and such. I certainly hope he will be back soon. He brought a lot of quality stuff to the Bears threads.

I really don't have a problem with it. These new kick off rules seem to give pretty good field position and a very speedy runner like Velus could break open a lot of runs. Not sure if they use him there, but I wouldn't have a problem with it. Yes, he's fumbled a lot in that role, but I think you can forgive suckage in a season where nearly everyone sucked. Clean slate. He was a Poles draftee, and Poles is sticking with him, so try to use his speed in whatever ways he might be able to improve field position. If he screws up, next man up. Has anyone researched how different the field position is with this new kick off rule? I feel like it's going to lead to more points scored.

It's all over Facebook Bears pages. I'm annoyed by it. If he is a capable backup, I'd rather he be that here than somewhere else. The amount of missed games by NFL starters at QB last year was staggering.

I wouldn't mind seeing one of Moore or Colbert beat out Hicks for the backup safety gig, but maybe they like Hicks on ST better?

Seemed to have some promise that first year. He hasn't done anything since. I'm surprised he wasn't among the very first cuts. I also completely forgot about Jacob Martin, although with an injury that forced him to miss the entire preseason, he may be the main guy they are bringing in Taylor to replace. Booker and Hardy to me are better than Robinson, though.

George Pickens, Van Jefferson and Calvin Austin III doesn't seem like that good of a receiver group in Pitt. I know they are trying to trade for Aiyuk, but if they don't do something to improve that receiver room, it won't matter who they have QBing. Why have they waited this long to address the position?

I'm sure Poles kept checking in on Yannick, but the price probably never got down to where Poles felt like pulling the trigger. I thought Booker, Hardy and Kareem looked pretty good this preseason, so Taylor/Booker on one side and Sweat/Hardy or Kareem on the other side should be pretty solid.