Chocolate Milk

Maybe they do one of the 2nds from this year and trade a second from next year. To be clear, I'm not advocating this approach, it just seems like this kinda thing is in Pace's nature.

I could see Pace packaging the second rounders to jump into the back half of the first round.

I hesitate to post this because I know this is a giant meatball take and that these press conferences are ultimately meaningless. But it's bizarre to see them effusive with their praise about things that were objectively terrible. There is a middle ground between trashing players publicly and saying stuff like "This season gives me even more confidence in Matt Nagy as a play caller and coach" and "I really appreciate Nagy's development of Mitch. He's done a great job." Mitch was one of the worst QB's in the NFL and their offense was bottom 3 in the NFL? I guess the explanation is they are just lying about all this stuff. That's...great I guess?

They are also pleased with Leonard Floyd, who got 1 sack over the last 15 games of the season.

Nagy basically saying that Mitch can't read coverages in the press conference. But they are behind him 100%!

I know that the most practical and logical approach to next year is to roll Trubisky out there and again and just hope it gets better, but horsefeathers, I don't want to see him anymore.

I think about this a lot. How much different is this team really playing compared to last year? They went from a last place schedule to a first place schedule. A lot of their games were close last year - they really only blew out the true bottom feeders. Turnovers aren't 100% luck, but their last season was a major outlier in terms of the number of turnovers they produced. They had 27 interceptions last year. 27!!!! They have 8 this year. They have been without their second best defensive player for most of the year and have had a lot more injuries to deal with than last year. I think there is a belief that this team is massively underperforming from last year. They are underperforming, but I'm not sure how much. They are a running into the punter and a missed FG from being 9-6 right now.

I've been struggling with this too and I think it's clear they share the blame in some proportion. But I still think Mitch is the main problem. To be blunt, I think he's a dummy and I think Nagy is really struggling to design an offense around a guy who doesn't know where to go with the ball, can't read a defense, makes the wrong decisions on the read option, etc. When the stars align and you have a wide open WR streaking into the endzone, Mitch airmails it. You see a lot of single option plays where it's just designed to go to one guy with no other options. He's not calling those plays for no reason - he's calling them because he knows Mitch can't read the defense and throw it to the right guy when he has multiple options. Other teams know this and I think it just compounds the issue. The narrative that Nagy is just stubborn and would rather watch his offense repeatedly humiliate itself on national TV rather than call plays that suit Mitch's strengths seems lazy to me - I don't buy it. I put the blame 60-70% on Mitch for the offensive struggles this year. Out of qualified QB's, Mitch is 28th out of 32 in QB rating. He's 32nd out of 32 in yards per attempt. Despite being last among all QB's in yards per attempt, he's still only 20th in the league in completion percentage. He's 29th out of 32 in QBR. And this is with 4 games with a rating over 115! Think about how bad he's been in all the other games to end up where he is. He's not just below average, I think you could make a decent argument that he's the worst starting QB in the NFL. Where I do think Nagy fucked up was not recognizing this going into the season. I think he deluded himself to thinking Mitch is going to take some big leap and he rolled out a gameplan week one that Mitch had 0% chance of being able to execute. Think about that game. Nagy comes in with a game plan calling for Mitch to throw it 50 times. The Packers defensive game plan was literally "Let Mitch play QB." They understood what Nagy didn't. With all that being said, I have no idea where they go from here. They were all in on Mitch and doubled down with the Mack trade. You have to hope for some miracle Tannehill-esque reclamation project. The future looks pretty grim for this team.

On the Bears subreddit, a surprising number of people seem to think that there is some secret to unlocking Mitch's hidden powers. If the play calling was just so, and the Oline was better, and the WR's were better, and if they'd get him out of the pocket, and run a hurry up offense, THEN we'd see the real Mitch. Everyone else has been holding him back, you see.

It's weird that you have an issue with this. They have 2 starters that are exactly 30 (Amukamara and Massie) - it's not a team of geriatrics. The point I'm making is that some of these guys should have improved and basically none of them have - most have gotten worse. I just think it's kind of pointless to make the distinction that none of the young guys are on the back half of their career. It would be meaningful to suggest none of the starters are, but that's not the case here. Also, it's football, 30 isn't the start of the back half of a career. But my point wasn't to define when the back half of someone's career starts or ends. I'm talking about the regression across the board that, to me, isn't primarily explained by aging. Most of the key contributors of this team are between 24-28 years old.

Not really. If you want to quibble with "none", I'm talking about the young guys they expected to be key contributors this year and the years following - the supposed foundation of this team: Daniels (22), Cohen (24), Miller (24), Jackson (26), Roquan (22), Whitehair (27), Trubiksy (25), Fuller (27), Floyd (27), Goldman (25). Who in this group is playing better than last year? I'd expect to see some regression but it's pretty surprising to see it across the board. Okay, none of the young guys are on the back half of their career, okay. It's weird that you have an issue with this. They have 2 starters that are exactly 30 (Amukamara and Massie) - it's not a team of geriatrics. The point I'm making is that some of these guys should have improved and basically none of them have - most have gotten worse.

That's a bit of a stretch. Not really. If you want to quibble with "none", I'm talking about the young guys they expected to be key contributors this year and the years following - the supposed foundation of this team: Daniels (22), Cohen (24), Miller (24), Jackson (26), Roquan (22), Whitehair (27), Trubiksy (25), Fuller (27), Floyd (27), Goldman (25). Who in this group is playing better than last year? I'd expect to see some regression but it's pretty surprising to see it across the board.

I think what's most concerning to me is how, other than Allen Robinson (maybe RRH?), the team appears to have regressed across the board. Who is playing better this year than they were last year? None of these guys are players on the back half of their career. A bunch of these guys were due to take at least a small step forward, yet they have taken a step back instead. It's a huge indictment of this coaching staff. Also Roquan Smith is trending rapidly towards being a bust. He got pushed around all over the field on Sunday.

The league's best offensive system (Shanahan / McVay) is reliant on running to set up the play action pass. Yes, we all know that passing is more efficient than running but it's obviously extremely important strategically. No one is saying the Bears need to be a completely run focused offense, but they have zero chance to be a competitive offense running the ball 7 times a game. "Running is irrelevant in today's NFL" is a pretty wild hot take.

[tweet] [/tweet] Cut off on the preview here, but Kyle Long is 67th out of 69 (nice).

From Brad Biggs postgame column below - might be some smoke here.

Here is a somewhat hot take: Are we sure Roquan is an impact player? Because I haven't really seen much evidence that he is. He was fantastic early in the season, in on everything. But he's also an inside linebacker, so the level of impact isn't the same as some edge rusher extraordinaire. He made a couple of plays in the first series against the Packers. I'm not a big PFF guy, but they had him graded out terribly for the first three games of the season. Prior to the Vikings game he had a 48 grade, which is pretty horrific (Mitch was 47.2). Last year they had him as decidedly average. The beat guys were penciling this guy in as an all-pro this offseason. I don't see it.

Totally agree with the bolded. I'll add that Kyle Long is a massive issue. It's not that he's not playing up to his usual standards, he's playing like one of the worst guards in the league right now. He needs to sit.

yeah and kwiatkowski was making all kinds of plays that roquan didn't. i assume roquan will be fine if he actually wants to keep playing football. Something's wrong with Roquan and I don't think we can assume he'll be fine. The coaching staff has said he's been acting weird for weeks and now we finally saw it in the game. If Roquan is still acting unlike himself these next two weeks, I think you have to go back to Kwiatkowski until Roquan gets himself figured out. Here is a somewhat hot take: Are we sure Roquan is an impact player? Because I haven't really seen much evidence that he is.

Mitch's 5th year option will probably cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 21 million so if something like 15 million will be financially restrictive, than Mitch's option year will be even more so. That 5th year option is a 2021 thing. The lack of space to find a veteran stop gap was presumably, a 2020 theory. There's no point in targeting a stopgap veteran for 2021, that is when they'll finally have picks to address the issue. Mitch already accounts against the 2020 cap, so if you bring in a free agent you are paying All-Pro QB money for non-All Pro QB play. Gotcha - I thought we were weighing the options between Mitch or someone else in 2021.

While not flush with cap space, as long were just talking "stop-gap", I don't think cap space is going to stand in the way of them adding a new QB. Even a little more than stop gap, they could probably swing it (like if Rivers or Brees didn't return, both are FA. Nor will the draft picks stand in their way. Neither would be an easy pill, but you're talking about the most important position to fill. A note on Mitch's 5th year option. I forgot that until his option year actually starts, it's only guaranteed for injury. So unless he's rehabbing some major injury, it will be pretty low risk to pick it up this offseason, and they can always get back out of it in 2021, as long as he is healthy by the time year 5 rolls around. That fact opens up an extra wrinkle in Paces ability to maneuver the cap, as necessary. Yes, yes it will. A Mike Glennon like stopgap cost 15Mil. That's obviously not an upgrade to Trubisky. A slight upgrade like Alex Smith costs 23Mil. A guy like Rivers/Brees would be upwards of 30Mil. The Bears don't have the money for even Mike Glennon if they want to keep guys like Floyd, Robinson, or fill open spots on the OL, ILB, safety, and corner.....because they also don't have draft picks. Mitch's 5th year option will probably cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 21 million so if something like 15 million will be financially restrictive, than Mitch's option year will be even more so.

This might be overly optimistic, but my hope is that they went into the season optimistic that Mitch would be able to build on the successes he had last year and refine some of his issues and take a major step forward. I don't think their preseason praise of Mitch was insincere - I think they were legitimately hopeful. Their game plan for the Packers supports that they expected a lot out of Mitch this year. Their rapid about face after that game shows me that they have changed their outlook on him. They are stuck with him this year so disregard what they say about him publicly. They can say whatever they want but when the games roll around, their plan is to put a leash on him and hope he doesn't lose the game for them. Ultimately their confidence in him is reflected in the game plan. They don't have confidence in him. I don't get the sense from this regime that they will just bull ahead with him next year and just cross their fingers. That's what they did this year and they got burned by it. Barring some miraculous turnaround, I expect them to either bring someone like Mariota in for competition, or package those 2nd round picks to jump up into the first to get another QB.

Yeah, they are brutal against the run.

He had one good season and was probably the worst 'feature' running back in the league last year (maybe Carlos Hyde was worse). Glad to see he had one good game with the Eagles, though. Tough one for the Packers last night when you consider the injuries. Adams is so key for their offense.

I think he's a headcase. Whether that is being dumb, or lacking or having fragile confidence, or whatever. It's just so jarring to see him make an incredible throw to Gabriel to end the half, then just completely horsefeathering up a gimme TD to Robinson in the 3rd. It's like you can see his brain get in the way of his body.