bukie

My Bears draft snap thoughts/analysis: 1-1: Caleb Williams, QB USC - Easily the best QB prospect in a QB heavy draft (that teams made even more QB heavy by reaching on QB picks worse than a fantasy draft). Still yet to be seen if this round of coaching staff can maximize his abilities, but he's already endeared himself to the team and the franchise, and there's effectively an entire offense in place for him already instead of hanging him out to dry for two years. Love the pick and the situation. 1-9: Rome Odunze, WR Washington - Top tier WR prospect, one of 6 blue chippers in the draft, old high school buddy of Caleb Williams, they hoped to play together, took a picture together getting off the plane on thew ay to the draft, and everything fell into place with the QB frenzy to leave him available for the Bears, and they didn't overthink it. 2-40: Traded for EDGE Montez Sweat - They effectively used the pick to upgrade their defense, and with the extension, it's effectively the same as it would be to draft an edge rusher, except this one's already playing at a Pro Bowl level. No complaints. 3-75: Kiran Amegadjie, OT Yale - A huge OT physicality that lacks technique, seems like a Poles special. Bonus that he grew up a Bears fan and has been wanting to play for the Bears his whole life. Even already has a relationship with Eberflus and told him a year ago he'd be playing for the Bears. Depth at OL is always good, and developing offensive tackles might be the best thing about Poles overall, so this is a good depth pick at worst. 4-110: Traded for WR Keenan Allen - One of the best slot receivers in the game, and paired with DJ Moore and the Odunze pick allows him to be that slot receiver. Injury concerns cause a bit of hesitation, but it's at worst a one year flyer on a high level WR target, and if they don't extend him then that probably means Odunze developed faster than expected and this year was really special. 4-122: Tony Taylor, P Iowa - Drafting a punter is typically a puzzling decision, especially with limited picks overall, but a few things are intriguing...first, this is the best punting prospect in a long time that was effectively and unironically the best offensive weapon on a Big Ten champion. Secondly, this draft really had a dearth of talent depth, and if you can get the chance to get by far the best player at a given position, it's worth a flyer. It would be nice to have a punting game that's a weapon instead of a penalty on special teams. 5-144: Traded for C/G Ryan Bates - I don't know exactly how special Bates is, but it provides depth at guard and center, and that was the weakness of the team's offensive line in recent years, because as soon as Jenkins went down with injury, the middle of the line was an instant sieve, so using late-round draft capital to bolster OL depth is a solid play, especially with this lack of depth in the draft. 5-144: Austin Booker, EDGE Kansas - Bears traded back into the draft (to get the same pick they traded away for Bates) to snag a potential steal in the late rounds, someone with potential that slipped in the draft. At worst, it's defensive depth for a line that is probably the biggest weakness on the team right now. At best, it's a steal of a pick for the 5th round in a thin draft. 6-184: Traded for OL Dan Feeney - Hey, they can't all be winners. Waste of a pick on a guy who really didn't help the team all that much, then left in free agency. 7-231 - Traded for WR N'Keal Harry - Yep, two clunkers overall. At least they've since upgraded the WR corpse to the point where this mistake doesn't end up long lasting. So to sum up, their draft capital this year was spent on the top QB, a top tier college WR, a top tier NFL slot WR, a Pro-Bowl EDGE, a toolsy OT prospect, OL depth, an undervalued EDGE prospect, and Robo-Punter, while taking a swing and a miss with 6th and 7th round picks for OL and WR depth.

This is how I watched the draft last night. Some may be famliiar with Robert Mays, a lifelong Bears fan who was super excited about Fields when he was drafted, but he had a fun night last night as well. Full draft analysis at the end (each draft pick is time-stamped in the video):

Going into the draft I felt like there were maybe 5-6 blue chip top tier offensive players available to draft (Williams, Maye, Harrison, Alt, Odunze). For the Bears to get two of them without trading up or losing draft capital is outstanding. For all the draft trading and positioning experts expected, it was a relatively calm top of the draft (aside from an insane amount of QBs drafted in the top 12, of which I don't know that even two are going to be successful). If anything, I wish the Bears had a second rounder here because there are some high level defensive players around here for great value that nobody drafted while everyone went on an offensive skill player bonanza yesterday.

Yes, Jerry Reinsdorf is all about showing fans he gives a horsefeathers for all the teams he owns.

It's related to just how much time there is between the end of the football season and the start of the draft. People invent controversy just to pass the time.

We are now 25 games into the season, and the White Sox have scored a total of 20 runs at Guaranteed Rate field. The Reds scored a total of 26 runs at Guaranteed Rate field in 3 games.

Coventry has overcome a 3-0 2nd half deficit to tie ManU 3-3 on a Haji Wright PK conversion, and are now in ET in the FA cup semifinal.

Rumor has it one of Stoors commitment demands was to get his GF a spot on the women's team. BU said no, so Kansas swooped in.

Kentucky losing their coach to Arkansas, because Arkansas lost their coach to USC, because USC lost their coach to SMU, is some kind of backwards coaching carousel that's somehow getting all the way to NBA coaches.

As expected before the season, the NL Central is by far the best division in baseball.

Bulls sweep the season series with the West-leading T-Wolves, because of course they did.

There were only going to be two ways to beat UConn - rain 3's and stretch the defense so Clingan would leave the lane, or get Clingan in foul trouble off drives. The 3's weren't falling, so they went with option 2, and the officials called an extremely loose game, so they were 0 for 19 at the rim with Clingan in the paint, and 1 for 19 from 3 if their name wasn't Marcus Domask (until the garbage time when Hansberry drained two after they were down 30 and had given up). It was just a bad game for their shooting to completely escape them. They ended up being completely unable to do anything offensively for a 10 minute stretch early in the second half.

I guess if you can't solve the final third, just skip it.

Fun fact, Illinois just passed UConn for first overall in adjusted offensive efficiency, and their 126.7 number is 4th highest in the KenPom era. There is good news about the NCAA tourney outcomes of the 3 teams with adjusted offenses higher than that...

This feels like one of those really top heavy years with 2-3 elite teams significantly better than everyone else. I'm having a hard time not having UConn, Houston and Purdue in the Final Four, but it might just be one of those years. If you have to fade UConn to differentiate, then Houston or Purdue would be the next best bets. I might take those 3 teams over the field this year.

Yes, Virginia definitely should have been in this tournament.

This is a crazy top heavy field this year. UConn, Houston and Purdue were about 3 games better than anyone else. After that, UNC, Tennessee and Arizona were a tier better than the rest. Iowa State made a late run in the conference tournament to shore up the 2 seed, but it was never going to be enough to get into the top 6. It's actually an OK matchup for Illinois if it shakes out. On the other hand, they did get a 6 seed in BYU that should have been a 5, but got reseeded because they can't play on Sundays. But that's par for the course for tournament pods for this program.

7 goals in back to back games where the Hawks were the better team? What year is this?

0 for 2

DePaul is an MVC team stuck in a major conference.

Kane hits the game winner in OT on a breakaway for the Red Wings. Feels worse.

Tying goal from DeBrincat from Kane. Feels bad.

I feel like this is a bit premature, since Bedard is a rookie and everybody knew going into this season it was a bottom 5 NHL roster, and since then they've lost their only other 2 players of value. With Taylor Hall they would probably only be one of the 5 worst teams in the NHL instead of the worst.

Meanwhile at DePaul: Can anyone win/turn things around at DePaul, or are they just permanently a mid-major program stuck in a major conference?