Thrilho

The [expletive] on Mitch to start every game thread can’t be good mojo. Big game here. Can we get a Butters thread?

no kidding [tweet] [/tweet]Doesn't he always heap praise upon his opponents? I feel like that's his schtick. I remember him having glowing things to say about Sexy Rexy but after searching, I can't find evidence. The key difference is that Sexy Rexy sucked and Mitch is good. He missed a couple open receivers but he made some really on point deep passes. This article highlights the two to Gabriel, which were each right on the money 45 yards downfield. https://theathletic.com/594687/2018/10/17/film-study-mitch-trubiskys-increased-confidence-is-showing-with-the-deep-ball/ Mitch was throwing with rhythm, hitting passes with defenders in his face, hitting guys in stride where they’re in position for YAC. And after starting out the year looking timid he is number 1 in pass attempts over 20 yards. That’s going to result in some misses, like the early one to Miller. But boy howdy did he make it look easy on that fourth quarter TD pass to Miller. 13 completions over 20 yards the last two weeks. 9 TDs and one interception, on a play that should have been called his 4th TD of the day and a game sealer. Dude is looking worthy of praise. Sign up for the Athletic if you want to read some of that praise because those guys are over the moon on him right now. And the imbedded gifs make football articles a zillion times more interesting. After predicting the win in Miami I’m going to sit out the prediction game, but this should be a fun one. Fingers crossed on Mack’s health.

Huh? He had a couple of bad throws/decisions but ended with a 122 passer rating. Hes hardly the reason the Bears lost. I don’t think he was bad but Nagy still didn’t trust him to make plays with the game on the line Yeah it was a bummer that the drive that ended with nullified TD followed by pick in the end zone really ended up being his last shot. Cohen fumbled right away on the next drive and then Nagy passed on taking a shot to drive with one timeout and a minute left. Then he only got to throw one pass in OT. Hopefully that sticks in Trubisky’s craw sufficiently that he doesn’t take those kinds of unnecessary risks in the future. He was playing great the second half until that point. 28 points plus a nullified TD in a half on the road against a defense that was playing pretty well. Lots of good deep throws. Some that were right on the money to covered guys but also some throws that led guys into yards after catch. I don’t know how Nagy got from his normal aggressiveness of going for it on fourth and throwing deep consistently to not passing on 3rd and 4 when not making it means a Cody Parkey 50+ yarder. Or if you don’t trust Mitch to drop back at least running some tricky jet sweep or option or something. Howard up the middle worked for a few plays but this was coming out of a timeout and the box was stacked. Hopefully in Nagy trusts Mitch with those situations in the near future and hopefully he delivers. Edit: I watched the highlights again and I had it all wrong here. He threw the pick in the end zone at 21-13. Then got another chance at 21-21 and drove down for the Miller TD. Then came the Cohen fumble and the rest. So he threw the costly pick at the beginning of the fourth and then drove for a TD and didn’t really get another chance to throw again. Slightly better than the way I remembered it, but the pick and the jump ball to Cohen were both bad decisions late.

It was a bad decision and I absolutely wish he hadn’t thrown it. Could have been the choke moment that defined the game. But just for the record it did hit Cohen in the chest.

I’m the biggest Mitch apologist there could ever be but yeah for sure. On first down up 8 throwing to a triple covered receiver, you can’t do that. Terrible throw.

Bright side is now we get to see what new Mitch has in a 4th quarter tied situation.

Mitch stayed strong in the pocket on that one Edit: talking about the throw to Cohen up the middle, for anyone catching up later

Yessir I think this Mitch Trubinsky is going to be good

Well that was easy I’m enjoying Greg Jennings broadcasting here btw. Good insight, no trace of [expletive] on the Bears as an ex-Packer. The whole booth really today has been pretty good.

What a grab

Yeah he’s got to get more comfortable stepping up in the pocket. He’s been turning his back on the LOS too often, usually 7+ yards behind the line. Then he turns around and predictably there are rushers there. Or floating back into the path of guys who would otherwise be getting pushed around the pocket but since Mitch isn’t stepping up they’re getting funneled right to him. Not sure if I see him figuring how to step up in the picking this game but I’m confident he will. And the Bears can still win this by 10 without him figuring it out IMO.

I think this is the “it wasn’t a mirage” week for Mitch. 2 air TDs one ground, something like that. Some might be cheapos because Osweiller + Mack = Turnovers, but I’ll take em.

Nah this is going to be a stomping

I didn’t see the first half of that game but Cousins looked pretty bad in the second half. 24 points at home against a SF team that turned it over four times. He didn’t turn it over but also really didn’t keep the offense moving. Lots of short drives and missed third downs. Also, feeling good about Pace’s QB selection vs Lynch’s. Vikes D is good but Garoppolo looked statuesque and bad.* Edit: To clarify bad, he looked inaccurate and way to sloppy with the football. Could’ve been because of the oressure in his face but that was the first time I saw him play and it wasn’t impressive. He’s still a developing guy though so maybe he’s better than I think. I prefer the Bears guy though.

Schefter supposedly said on the radio yesterday that he drafted Trubisky in both his leagues. Never heard of him being a noted Bears homer.

This is a good interview. He says his hamstring is better and while he’s obviously not giving anything up he seems to me like he’s confident he’s going to play a lot. https://youtu.be/bzyEJ6BYLYA At 2:13 you’ve got this response to how he’s coming along with the playbook. The look he gives when he says “very comfortable” looks like some good confidence to me. Hoping he’s giving the honest answer and that an honest answer from Mack would sound about the same.

i would take Burton over Graham and PFF does not think highly of GB's secondary also Yeah I was trying to give them the ones I thought were close in an attempt to seem like less of a homer. I honestly didn’t know who their second safety was and after seeing the 40 grade from PFF I’m taking Jackson/Amos. The corners, again I like what the Bears have especially considering that Callahan is a good nickel, but they spent a first and two seconds on corner over the past two years. That PFF article basically considers them as unknowns, so they could be better or worse. The nice thing is that this will be their rookies’ first game and you’d think Nagy will do his best to confuse them. TE I’m not sure but I’ll give it to them for now, since Graham had 10 TDs and Lewis had 5 last year and is supposed to be a pretty good blocker. Still, I think position by position looks good for the Bears. The one I’m most curious about is the o-line. Hopefully Nagy can help out the Bears with heavy sets, misdirection, screens, and quick hits. And hopefully the Packers are a disaster. We hear every year for the last couple that the Packers line is injured or whatever and then they curb stomp the Bears D. This is obviously the best shot the Bears have had to win the matchup in quite a while.

Ok well anyone here can go find it. That’s probably the best Bears piece I’ve read this offseason. Maybe my favorite part is this: The Xs & Os of how this offense works, complete with videos, are top notch. Really gives you an idea of it’ll cut down the reads Trubisky has to make.

This is the good stuff. https://m.cheeseheadtv.com/blog/bears-acquisition-of-khalil-mack-sends-shock-waves-throughout-the-nfc-north-659 That’s a pretty grim assessment from someone who should know the Packers pretty well. Bulaga is coming back from an ACL tear and hadn’t played many snaps in the preseason. For some reason, all the talking heads seem to think the Bears are just going to do the Packers a favor in maybe their biggest game of the season and play Mack sparingly due to conditioning concerns and his short time with the playbook. Maybe that’s the case but it doesn’t seem like a great idea to me, and I doubt Mack is very far out of game shape. And if the options are vanilla plays with Mack or getting fancy with Acho I know what I’m gonna hope they do. What would make sense to me is pretending that Roquan Smith isn’t going to play much when the plan is actually for him to get the majority of the snaps. And hiding your offense as much as possible in the preseason, even to the point of sitting most of them. I think the Bears come out hot on offense and defense and win this game. It doesn’t come down to stuff like this usually I know (especially when one team has Rodgers) but how many of their position groups would you take over the Bears? QB, TE, CB, safety? I certainly prefer the Bears WR, RB, LB, and DL. I prefer the KC scheme to what the Packers run, and I prefer Fangio’s system to most. One thing people don’t seem to be considering is that the Vegas lines are a reflection more of what betters think of the two teams than what Vegas thinks. The Packers have stomped the Bears forever, so I don’t have as much confidence that they’ll win this as I do that the Bears will gel and make the playoffs, but I do think the Bears are better. Also David, are you DavidH on ChiCitySports? That guy posted a great write up on Nagy’s KC offense and how it will set Trubisky up for success. I don’t want to repost it if it’s yours but it was real good and would fit nicely right here.

Cool, I think his team will have an 0-2 record against the Bears this year

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches? Lucky? No. A combination of talent along with great teams and coaching? Yes. Had Brady been drafted by the Browns or Bucs do you think he has the same career numbers? Same number of Super Bowls? Come on, dude, don't die on this hill I'm good with the hill. I may not be articulating my point in the right way, and may be unintentionally setting up a strawman argument for the opposing side. So I'll try and tamp back hyperbole and use examples. Yeah, Brady needed some support, but in the big moments he has made big plays consistently. It's a spectrum, and I consider Brady to be the best I've seen at making the plays necessary at the end to win the game. I don't consider Manning to be a loser, but in their head to head games I thought Brady outperformed Manning in key moments and that most of the difference in the game. I felt like the Colts frequently had a better team but Brady elevated his over the other QB. But that doesn't mean I think super bowl wins or "clutch" are everything. I have a ton of respect for Rodgers as a QB, and don't consider him to be a choker or loser or anything despite only the one SB sin. I just consider the NFL to be a bit like the NBA. If you can get a truly good QB you dominate the division for years and have some shots at a super bowl. Get a high mid-level guy like an Andy Dalton and you're not really going to be in the mix for winning your league each year.

Ok, that’s a fair response for my dismissive tone on your first post. So in the article there, the teams that Stafford had the comeback wins against were the Bears, Rams, Jaguars, Redskins, Colts, Eagles, and Vikings (twice). No winning teams and combined records of 49-78-1. That’s why I’m trying to look at it with a whole career approach. That 5-46 against above .500 teams is really bad. But I decided to do a little research to see if I was way off on my expectations for TD/Int ratio. I looked at the top 30 QBs in TDs each year for the last three, then ranked them on TD/Int ratio. The cut off for top 10 each year was about 2.8 TD for every pick, top 5 are generally in the 4-6 range (except for Brady’s 14:1 in 2016). Stafford has had a ratio of 2.6:1 over the past three years. In 2017, that would rank him 11th just ahead of Watson and Dalton. His actual ranking for 2017 was 8th. It was an above average year for him, as his average ranking over the past three years has been around 11th. Cousins has had an average ratio of 2.3:1 over the past three years. In 2017, that would rank him just behind Watson, ahead of Dalton. But it was a down year for him and he actually only pulled in a 2.1, which was good for 14th. This conversation about Cousins and Stafford and winners/losers seems tiresome, but if the Bears are going to make the playoffs they are going to have to win a decent number of division games. And more than any other factor, it will come down to Cousins, Stafford, and Trubisky. So in my mind the question of how good Cousins and Stafford really are is an interesting one. Annnnd thank goodness they got out of that inning. The time spent on the research project seems a lot more fun if it was done during a Cubs win.

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches? We watched Cutler for years miss on down field passes when he just needed 5 yards to keep a drive alive at the end of the game. Stafford’s win numbers against good teams are atrocious. If there were an easy to navigate stat site like FG for football we could probably see how many times Stafford was within a TD with 5 minutes or so to go and still lost. The Lions have had decent enough teams and head coaches where Stafford’s record is largely on him. This isn’t baseball, where we’re debating the validity/weight of performance in clutch situations. In the NBA and for QBs in the NFL there are guys who consistently get the job done at the end of the game when it matters and those who don’t. It’s all a spectrum, so if the eye roll is for me viewing things in binary terms then maybe ok, but Stafford is at one end of that spectrum for me. We’ll see what Cousins can do with this talent but he’s going to have to prove he can go from a career sub-.500 QB to one who wins this division. I think you're wish casting here. Stafford's perfectly fine in the clutch https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/ranking-matthew-stafford-s-eight-fourth-quarter-comebacks-in-2016-020117 And I'd bet Cousins would do similarly given the same situations. I'd guess that, much like in baseball, clutch in football is just talent meeting opportunity with a splash of luck. So you're going to use an article about Stafford's one playoff season where he's team won 9 games while Stafford put up 24 TD / 10 Int and lost in the wild card round for your example about why he's good in the clutch? And he was losing at some point in 8 of those 9 wins? I didn't read the article, so maybe there's something that would convince me that Stafford makes the playoffs again at some point in his career, but probably not. And obviously, we're just going to have to disagree on the impact of QB performance in the 4th quarter.

Their defenses haven’t been THAT bad. Cousins hasn’t had that long in the league to prove it and he hasn’t had great teams around him, so I’ll give him a bit of a wait and see. But here are Detroit’s rankings on scoring defense since Stafford came into the league: 32, 19, 24, 27, 15, 3, 23, 13, 21. So while they only had one really good year, they’ve had an average of the 15th best scoring defense over the past five years. In Cousins’ three full years starting, Washington has been 19, 18, and 27. Average of 21st best. So yeah not the best, but it’s not like the NFC east and north have been powerhouses over the course of their respective careers. There have been opportunities to take the team on their backs. But when you say they’ve put up such good numbers on their own, what numbers are you talking about? Yards? I personally care a lot more about TD/Int. Last year Cousins threw 13 interceptions, good for 7th in the league. As I said earlier, he’s averaged 12.5 over the last three years. He was 8th in TDs last year, 13th in 2016 and tied for 12th in 2015. I don’t consider that elite production that is out of reach of Trubisky, or such great production that you can blame it all the on the defense. Trubisky is getting dropped into an offense where Alex Smith had 26 TD / 5 Int. I don’t know what that would get him in terms of fantasy points or QBR, but that’s what “elevate your team” production looks like for me. Look down the QB lines for the last few years and check out how many QBs have had 25+ TDs with under 10 picks each year. It’s kind of a lot. That kind of ratio is what I’m expecting here. Don’t care at all about the yards.

Lol so tell me, are guys like Brady and Montana or whatever other QB with a winning record just lucky? Getting by on the strength of their teams and coaches? We watched Cutler for years miss on down field passes when he just needed 5 yards to keep a drive alive at the end of the game. Stafford’s win numbers against good teams are atrocious. If there were an easy to navigate stat site like FG for football we could probably see how many times Stafford was within a TD with 5 minutes or so to go and still lost. The Lions have had decent enough teams and head coaches where Stafford’s record is largely on him. This isn’t baseball, where we’re debating the validity/weight of performance in clutch situations. In the NBA and for QBs in the NFL there are guys who consistently get the job done at the end of the game when it matters and those who don’t. It’s all a spectrum, so if the eye roll is for me viewing things in binary terms then maybe ok, but Stafford is at one end of that spectrum for me. We’ll see what Cousins can do with this talent but he’s going to have to prove he can go from a career sub-.500 QB to one who wins this division.