BigbadB

Bakhtiari being out is probably already changing the way Rodgers plays this game. Rodgers will be getting the ball out of his hands quickly, which will make blitzing less effective. There is no way he will trust his LT to protect his blind side against the Bears.

Jags not only have the #1 pick, but they have an extra first rounder and 4th rounder from the Jalen Ramsey trade, an extra 2nd round pick from the Yannick Ngakoue trade, and an extra 5th rounder from the Ronnie Harrison trade. They are also the team with the most cap space at $75m. They can make a pretty quick turnaround.

Only down 6 with Josh Allen left to play. He averages 60 in our league each week. Barring an early injury, I should be good to go. I don't understand how any fantasy league plays in week 17 with so much riding on their finals. Players sitting or playing very little is a major concern.

On sorta kinda a related note, I was at the game when Howard Griffith scored 8 TD's for the U of I in 1990. That was fun.

Could have been 8 if he catches that td throw.

Playing in the finals this week. I assembled a record breaking team. My opponent in the semifinal didn't know what hit him. Darren Waller went off on Thursday night, Josh Allen went crazy on Saturday afternoon and Aaron Jones went berzerk on Saturday night. I was up 187-24 (3 players each) before the Sunday games started. That 187 was more than 3 teams in our league scored in the entire previous week with all 9 of their fantasy starters. Then with Kamara, Montgomery, Jarvis Landry, AJ Brown, Bears D and Bears kicker, I scored 343 points. I had nearly a 200 point lead going into Monday night with Ben Rothlisberger as the opponents only remaining player. Not bad for having the 8th pick in the draft. I'm only favored by 24 points in the final. Kamara needs to do better this week. On Monday, I hope to not be complaining about my fantasy team. Good luck to everyone still in.

Youngsters. I had a Halloween costume of the early '70's Bears. I don't recall if the jersey even had a number. I had a Bears helmet though. My favorite players at that time were Gale Sayers, Brian Piccolo, Bobby Douglas, Dick Butkus and Doug Buffone. Piccolo and Sayers was for the movie rather than NFL, since they were really before my time. I would have been 6 in Piccolo's last year and Sayers barely played in the '70 and '71 seasons. 1971 was my first memories of the Bears. Was just looking at Bobby's passing stats. Wow! A whole lot of nothing. But he threw left handed and ran a lot, which I thought was cool at the time. I had a football card of Buffone, and it looked like they took the photo after a game, as his face looked all jacked up. 1975 and beyond is when my focus became complete fandom as Walter Payton made every Sunday a must watch game. Still my favorite RB of all time. Don't think anyone will take that away from him. ETA: I'm actually thinking that Brian's Song might have been what drew me to the Bears first. I just noticed that movie came out in 1971, which may have even been before the '71 season started.

The Tankathon mock has us taking Trask in Rd 2 with a G and T in 1 and 3. I'd be OK with a 2nd rd QB. As for the line, I think Massie is cut this offseason but Leno is back. I'd resign Ifedi to another $1M deal to back up RT and try to draft a T in the first two rounds. Take a QB that falls in round 1-3 but don't force it. Interior line actually seems OK with Whitehair/Mustipher/Bars knowing that Daniels will push one to a back up role. I don't know if either Simmons or Hambright are worthwhile developmental pieces but I think both profile as G, and we're currently pretty darn thin at T. Yeah, Massie can't stay on the field, so I'm guessing he's the one who gets cut. Draft a T in the first round and move Leno to RT.

They released him. Oh yeah. Forgot about that.

What kind of draft pick did the Jets get for LeVeon Bell?

If you made the playoffs with Christian McCaffrey on your roster, consider yourself probably one in 50 that accomplished that feat. My "other" fantasy league I had the first pick, and I took McCaffrey. My second pick was Golladay at 24. I took Allen Robinson in the 3rd with the 25th overall pick. I then took LeVeon Bell, Leonard Fournette and Kerryon Johnson with my next three picks with hopes that one of them would pair up nicely with McCaffrey. Instead, I got a whopping 3 games from McCaffrey, 4 games from Golladay, LeVeon Bell became a backup, Fournette became a backup, and Kerryon Johnson became 3rd string RB. Yes, my team finished in dead last place.

Me too. Taysom Hill is going to kill my fantasy playoff chances by continuing to ignore the value of Kamara to that offense. There you go. That makes me quite giddy!

Me too. Taysom Hill is going to kill my fantasy playoff chances by continuing to ignore the value of Kamara to that offense.

That was a really long horsefeathers. He missed one entire series and part of another. I'm not buying it.

The play calling yesterday was pretty solid. Mitch was actually much better at hitting his targets. He even saw the field better, but with all of that said, it was the Texans. It's going to be interesting to see who gets to make the decision on how this team improves this offseason, and how they go about it. I don't see any team wanting Trubisky to be their starter next year, so bringing him back on the cheap makes some sense if he truly is starting to finally turn a corner, especially if Nagy and Pace keep their jobs. A new coach may want to clean house with the QB stable.

It's our turn to give Fitzpatrick a go. Let that crazy bastard groom the rookie.

No thanks. His footwork, his inability to read defenses and his inaccuracy on anything beyond ten yards makes me want to move on without him. Bought my wife a Trubisky jersey thinking he was going to be the franchise guy for many years, so I wasn't always anti Mitch. I gave him chances. Foles will be decent enough to tutor the rook until he's ready, with hopefully some new offensive linemen.

Yesterday was the 80 year anniversary of the most lopsided game in NFL history, with the Bears beating the Skins 73-0 in the Championship game. Sid Luckman vs. Sammy Baugh. I was browsing the box score and thought I would point out some interesting observations: - The Redskins only punted 3 times - The Redskins threw 8 interceptions, with 3 of them returned for td's - The Redskins fumbled 4 times in the game - 7 different players kicked the extra point for the Bears - 12 different players had at least one carry for the Bears

I think a multi year concerted tank is never reality in the NFL. I honestly don't even like that "Process" style effort in the NBA (at least anymore with new lottery odds) but it's somewhat more defensible there. I think it should be a hard "reset" year where they do just shed as much of the dead caps as they can. To your point about replacing those guys the one positive is that like half the league is in a cap crunch this offseason because of covid. NO is going to be like 100M over and PHI 75M over before getting to cuts. So they will definitely be able to bargain shop for 1 year deals to replace those roster spots for a year, at which point, if they fully committed to it, cap sanity should be restored in 2022. So I'd say a mini tank. And figure out what your cost on Fuller and Mack is. Don't move them at any cost, but for a reasonable deal. Hicks get a late pick for if you can. Everyone else is young enough to keep or too worthless to trade. Of course there are ways for them to put together another half assed shot at it in 2021. I played around with it and they could free up enough to make a few second teir signings, maybe even for a new QB like a Brissett. Not a fan of that option AT ALL, but the cap could be manipulated to do such a thing. But anyways after that one year mini tank you'll have some cap space and a healthy balance sheet. You will have all all of your early picks in tact for two years. Should have several comp picks over 2 years and perhaps a few extra picks if you did manage to trade Mack/Fuller. The biggest question is QB, but teams frequently do quick builds in the NFL, without taking extreme shortcuts like a Khalil Mack type trade. I agree. You don't completely blow it up. In fact, I think with the right moves this team could compete for a playoff spot as soon as 2021. Wishful thinking, but fixing the Oline and getting a QB can turn this offense around in a big hurry. You have amazing youth at WR, TE and RB. You'll likely need to trade some aging defensive players like Fuller and Hicks. I've even seen the suggestion of tagging and trading Robinson if you don't find the cap space to keep him. Graham, Skrine and one of Massie/Leno will likely be let go to create some cap space. Goldman coming back is a boost for the defense. In general, I think they can trade some elements on D and still be competitive on that side of the ball (with a more aggressive DC) and if they can improve the OLine and get a competent QB, this team could be competitive with a soft rebuild. The Lions are a mess. The Vikings appear to be a mess. Green Bay is the thorn in the side.

I was cheering for a Lions victory. Got my wish. I hope the Bears can move into the top 10 for the draft by season's end. I'm ready for a new regime.

I sure hope you picked up Cleveland against Phily. It pushed my team to victory on the Bears bye week.

The last minute of that game was bonkers Not just for those teams, but for my fantasy teams as well. I had Josh Allen in one, and I was going against Hopkins in both. That play cost me wins in both leagues. Ugh.

Incomplete pass stops clock. Injury can stop play clock without run off. That's right. It was an imcomplete pass. Thanks!

I was curious why there wasn't a 10 second run off on the Foles injury. Is a QB injury exempt from the 10 second run off when you have no time outs?

I'd keep the secondary intact, they are young and good. draft oline, find a taker for Smith, Hicks, and possibly Mack. Dump Travathian, Quinn. If you can draft the Lance, then try him. need a rb in the mid rounds, and a speed rusher, #1 wr next year I wouldn't waste draft capital on an RB. Pierce showed some burst. Give him a bigger look. Miami tossed an UDFA on his third or fourth team into their backfield yesterday and he looked like a first round draft pick. Countless RB's have stepped out of the shadows this year while many of the top RB's sit on IR and have helped keep their team's offense keep moving. What the Bears need is draft picks during a rebuild. The real frustrating part of yesterday's game for me was Minny and their atrocious defense blitzing time and again, and the Bears offense unable to counter with passes over the middle. They didn't even try that. Then Pagano rushes 4 every single play and gives the opposing offense all the time in the world to find an open receiver. When Skrine is the guy covering Thielen, he's bound to get burned when given time for the play to develop. Pathetic on both sides of the ball. Some well planned blitzes by the Bears defense could have stalled many drives. Instead, the vanilla "bend but don't break" defensive scheme allowed first down after first down and enough points to put the game out of reach.