BigbadB

This one reminds me of 1989 when the Illini with Nick Robinson, Kendall Gill, Kenny Battle, Marcus Liberty and Lowell Hamilton faced off against Michigan in a final 4 matchup vs. Michigan with Glen Rice and Rumeal Robinson. Close, but Michigan made their free throws to win it at the end.

NFL exec and ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum has put out a mock that has the Bears getting Harrison Jr. That's pretty outlandish. But, it gets better. He also has the Vikings trading the 11th pick to AZ for Kyler Murray while AZ takes McCarthy at #4. The Vikings currently have 11m in cap surplus, but rookie cap will eat into most of that, even after trading the 11th pick. So, please tell me, Mr. Tannenbaum, how exactly you expect the Vikings to squeeze Murray's 50m a year contract for the next 5 years onto their roster?

It's the perfect time to snooze all of those pages for the next 30 days and block those that you aren't actively following, but show up in your feed anyway. The draft is still 30 days away and we know who the Bears are drafting first.

The Cubs are going with Assad, the guy with an ERA of 3.05 in 109 innings pitched last year. What teams in the major leagues had better stats than that from their backup 5th starter? I feel like they have good enough pitching to go into the season, and then save whatever money they have left below that tax threshold for improvements to the roster at the trade deadline to gear up for a playoff run. They have the talent in the minors to get cheaper arms or bats than what Montgomery will cost, and they wouldn't need to be one year rentals.

I think it's better that your rookie QB comes into camp with a little swagger. If they take advantage of him, he'll get humbled a little bit, but you still want him to keep that confidence level. I don't care how good you can throw the ball or avoid a pass rush, you also need confidence to make plays. Fields clearly didn't have confidence to stick that ball in tight places or to make the throw to the right place. And it's nice that he'll be competing against a potential top 5 DB unit throughout camp. I also hope he keeps painting his nails for those homophobes out there.

Wait, this baseball announcement on my phone at 5am was for a regular season game?

Should make enough for gas money to California. Smart move.

I saw someone's mock yesterday with no trade downs. He had Caleb, Turner, Van Pran, Brendan Rice. I thought that seemed like a pretty good draft. Should be other WR's there if you don't like Rice. Goony went somewhere in his last post that I thought about when he talked about the 4th QB falling more than we might think. If McCarthy makes it past NYG without being drafted, I'd say there's a good chance one of Denver, Minny, Las Vegas or some other QB needy team tries to slide up to 9. Those first 3 are all within the 13th pick, and could still get you a top EDGE if the top WR's are off the board. The comp for moving from 9 to 13 is only about a 4th rounder, but a more QB needy team might offer more. Vikings only have a 4th after their two first round picks. Minny has Darnold. Denver has Stidham and might sign Tannehill?. Las Vegas has Minshew. Penix and Nix are still there, so maybe it comes down to how much one of those teams likes McCarthy more than the other two. If you aren't getting decent offers to move down from 9, I'd prefer they take either the top EDGE or WR there and call it good. It would seem like Minnesota would want to just draft McCarthy with their 11th pick, but that's pretty risky for them. it almost seemed like their trade to pick up a second first rounder might be to jump up even higher, like 3rd overall.

Exactly. It says a little something when a team pays you nearly 38m dollars to play anywhere else. He also got benched for Jarret Stidham. Pittsburgh isn't going to just dump the season. They have two guys at QB that are likely better than any of the guys they had last season, and they only owe those two guys 4.5m total this year, which is less than Trubisky, Pickett and Rudolph made. If Wilson isn't getting it done at league minimum, I doubt they wait too long on giving Fields a go at it.

Bulls announcers got duped last night on a fake Derrick Rose retirement announcement that they then announced on the air. So much crap out there. That's what I was trying to say earlier in this thread and maybe I shouldn't have included actual journalists/reporters, but there are a lot of people trying to pass themselves off as exactly that.

There were plenty of guys whose numbers spiked during the steroid era. Maybe not to the 60 HR level, but there were guys who had never hit much more than 20 in a season that were hitting 40 and 50 all of a sudden. Bonds, McGuire and Sosa were already prolific HR hitters, so it would make sense that their numbers were still more impressive than the Greg Vaughns and Brady Andersons in the league.

It would probably be more court of public opinion than legal repercussion, but I'd venture to guess that very little of the public would somehow be shocked or dismayed if Sosa finally admitted his guilt. Basically, there really is no reason to hang onto the lie any further. Lying was always the thing I hated most about the steroid era. Sosa, Bonds and Clemens were the guys I hated most about the lying. Andy Pettitte pretty much admitted right away that he took them, and I don't put him in the same group as the liars.

I so wanted Justin Fields to be the guy we've been waiting for all this time. They gave him 3 years to try to be that guy, and he just wasn't. The franchise definitely didn't help him, and I do believe having confidence in yourself to make those hard throws is part of being a good QB, and he didn't possess that, or lost it somewhere along the way. The idea of trading back from 1 again for a historic haul was tempting once again, but I think it's been known by Poles since Lovie Smith engineered that comeback victory that Caleb Williams was destined to be the next Bears QB. Poles has patiently waited 2 previous drafts to get "his" guy to lead his team. And he wants Caleb to be his guy so much, that he's loaded up the weapons room with guys to help him achieve that goal. I'm assuming another WR will be drafted that can possibly help immediately. I have a feeling Poles will try to extend Allen's contract to 3 years. It's a good retirement age for a WR and will help give the Bears more financial flexibility this year to sign some post June cuts and camp casualties for depth instead of counting on non factor free agents and UDFA's.

I was coming around to Goony wanting to just keep him if they didn't find a good deal. But, I was always a bit skeptical that they'd want a distraction of "former starter" always looking over the rookie's shoulder, and that was pressure management didn't want to put on him. I especially liked the idea of possibly moving him at the trade deadline or after a playoff caliber QB went down to injury. Oh well. I can forgive this knowing he's making the right choice in drafting Williams. With that said, it's a very disappointing return. Has anyone seen what kind of playing time will kick in the conditional terms? Russell lost his job to Stidham last year, so maybe Fields will get the necessary playing time. That would be 3 4th's next year if you include the Mooney compensation along with the Carolina 2nd. They also get an extra 6th for the Claypool trade, so they need to make a good pick on that one.

I saw a combination of what they got in return for giving up the first pick and CMC to San Fran and it's pretty bad.

Given Shelton was a one year deal, I'd add Center as the other position they should draft in the first 4 rounds. It could technically be done without trading back. Fields could still net a pick, too.

Ah crap. You are correct, sir.

They traded back with Phily and picked up the 4th rounder used to trade for Allen. Phily drafted Jalen Carter at 9.

Here is the updated trade of the 2023 first overall pick..... Bears give up the first overall pick (Bryce Young) Bears receive: - OT Darnell Wright -WR Keenan Allen (trade of 9th pick in 2024 draft) - CB Tyrique Stevenson (trade up from 61st pick in '23) - WR DJ Moore - First overall pick in 2024 draft - Second round pick in 2025 draft

I wanna say that his injury last year was concussion related. I feel like I saw the hit and that it was brutal. I could be wrong, though. ETA: Nope. AC Joint/Shoulder sprain

Do the Bears really want the entire Chargers starting passing attack from last year? No. Williams is very injury prone, and I'm not sure it's in the budget to pay Williams what he'll be asking for. I think you can probably expect someone along the lines of a Donovan Peoples-Jones or Laviska Shenault type of budget minded WR to battle it out with the rookie draft pick and Tyler Scott for playing time. Might even bring back ESB.

Will Tyler Scott start a bidding war for #13 in Chicago or will he be a nice young man and give it up. And who gets it? Williams or Allen?

Here's the deal (in my best Biden voice). The Chargers were over the cap. They already cut Mike Williams and let other players walk that they likely would have kept around, Everett for example. They were going to have to cut one of Bosa, Mack or Allen. Turns out, Bosa restructured and Allen was going to be cut. The Bears swooped in and gave them a 4th rounder. Both teams win. Chargers get a draft pick, Bears get a guy that was never going to sign with them if he was released. This benefits the Bears another way, too. If you want Odunze or Nabers still, one of those guys is almost guaranteed to be there at 9. It's now down to AZ, LAC and NYG to draft WR in the top 8. Atl has stocked their WR room with London, Mooney and Moore, so it would be quite strange for them to draft there. Tenn picked up Ridley and still has Hopkins and that dude they drafted two years ago that likes to be hurt. They need Oline protection more than they need another WR. QB's are going 1,2,3 and then MHJ 4th. Falcons and Titans are probably not going WR and either one or both the Chargers and Giants should or need to trade down. My prediction is Minnesota trades up to 5 to take the threat of drafting McCarthy way from Denver and LVR. So, the Bears could still get one of those top 3 WR's at 9. However, I think Keenan is such an improvement to the WR room, I now think Poles pivots to DE and trades back at 9 for Turner, Latu or Verse. He picks up a better pick in the trade down than he gave up for Keenan. The WR class is so strong, he can still get a Center in the 3rd, a DL with the added pick and a WR in the 4th. Sign another veteran WR to compete with Scott and the rookie for WR3 and 4. I'm am so excited about this pickup. Allen is not really injury prone. He had over 100 catches in his age 31 season. They have the option of extending him or letting him walk and they have all of their draft picks for next year to continue getting more weapons for Williams. Swift and Johnson catching balls out of the backfield, Kmet and Everett catching balls out of the TE position, Moore and Allen and possibly some other stud WR in the draft while also fixing the Center position spells good things for the passing game this year. We might just have our first 4000 yard passer this year.

Atlanta now has Drake London, Mack Hollins, Darnell Mooney and Rondale Moore at WR. We can probably remove them from the list of teams ahead of 9 that take a WR. Chargers cut Mike Williams and may still cut Keenan Allen since they are still over the cap. One of Mack, Bosa or Allen will need to be cut most likely. AZ will most likely be taking MHJ. Titans signed Ridley and still currently have Hopkins. Giants have crap. But they did sign Isaiah McKenzie. I feel like one of the Giants or the Chargers are candidates to allow Minnesota to move up and make sure they get JJ McCarthy. Still a chance the top 3 WR's go before the Bears pick, but it would require the Chargers and Giants to go WR with their picks and not trade back.

Do we have any idea where they stand as far as cap space at this point? I feel like they still have about 35m left to spend minus the rookie money. Spotrac is showing 57m, but they haven't calculated Everett, Byard, Pryor or Obgombemiga into the totals.