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Cousins and Stafford had on average 97 QB ratings the last 3 years with a 3:1 TD to INT rate (85:30) while throwing for about 4,500 yards per season. Trubisky is not better than that by a large margin. Gentlemen’s bet on who scores the most fantasy points between the three in a standard league? This is actually a pretty lazy response that I made on my phone while I was out. The reason I pick Trubisky over the other two is that I think he’s going to prove to be a winner where the other two have been losers up to this point in their careers. So it was silly for me to try to frame the comparison in terms of fantasy ratings, as it would have been silly for me to frame it in terms of QBR. Cousins has a 26-30-1 record with a playoff record of 0-1. Stafford also hasn’t won a playoff game and leading into the 2017 season he had a record of 5-46 against teams over .500. I could probably find it updated for the most recent season but I can’t imagine the 9-7 playoff missing season moved the needle that much. Cousins and Stafford have had some decent enough seasons, but a lot of both of their yards have been wracked up in garbage time trying to catch up. The last two years Stafford has averaged 26.5 TD / 10 Int. Cousins has average 26 TD / 12.5 Int. That is middle of the road production, in my opinion. Especially considering how long they’ve been in the league and in their current offenses. Cousins maybe hasn’t had that much to work with but he really hasn’t elevated the team. Stafford has basically been junk, IMO. Not a dumpster fire but not elite production and not capable of regular winning in any capacity despite having consistently good offensive skill players and scheme plus an intermittently good defense. The guys I’d compare Trubisky to in terms of physical traits, style of play, and what I expect out of them in terms of ability to win a game are guys like Wentz and Goff. In terms of production, Wentz was at 33 TD and 7 Int in 11 games, which translates to 48 TD / 10 Int. Goff was at 28 TD / 7 Int. They have both had some nice success winning a high percentage of regular season games in their second seasons. I’d personally say they are both better than Cousins and Stafford by a wide margin. I see Trubisky as a bit more like Wentz both in terms of skill set, and expect him to be a top 5 type guy once he gets rolling. So that's the level of head over heels Kool aid I'm on with Trubisky when I say he'll be markedly better than the non-Rodgers QBs in the division. It's tough to do too much with his numbers from last year since he was so hamstrung by the embarrassing lack of tools both in terms of offensive coaching creativity and skill position players. But he showed an ability to protect the ball in the same way as those other two guys with his 28 TD / 4 Int ratio leading into the bowl game in his year at UNC. And look.at.these.highlights. https://twitter.com/i/moments/982075388758147072 (credit to David on the original post) Try and tell me this there’s no way this guy is way better than Kirk Cousins or Matt Stafford. You never know how it'll shake out, but all I can do is call it like I see it and I see some great QB tools there. And then when you watch those highlights remembering that Nagy made Alex Smith the best deep passer in the league. And consider what level of confidence you have in the offensive tools the Bears have put together. I could be wrong for sure, but I think we’re in for a big jump out of Trubisky. Not to Wentz style 50 TD MVP craziness but more a 35+ TD type of thing (counting running TDs) on a real nice interception ratio. Plenty of rushing yards. So still well into the top 10 in fantasy QBs, but for me his biggest difference will be in his putting games away. Since he hasn’t had much NFL footage that would support the concept that he's this great winner, I’ll just leave this here. Seems like he's got the winner thing in him somewhere if he's able to make these types of plays with the game on the line. He didn't make them last year, but again...that was some embarrassingly bad coaching and the receiver/TE position was a smoking crater.

This post is awesome

Cousins and Stafford had on average 97 QB ratings the last 3 years with a 3:1 TD to INT rate (85:30) while throwing for about 4,500 yards per season. Trubisky is not better than that by a large margin. Gentlemen’s bet on who scores the most fantasy points between the three in a standard league?

Yup, what you think of the Bears depends mostly on what you think of Trubisky. I think he’s the best non-Rodgers QB in the division by large margin and he’ll prove it this year. But aside from him, you’ve now got Nagy and he may be the biggest key to how good the Bears are this. His offense looked really good this preseason and he probably kept quite a bit of his playbook of the table. I think the Bears weapons at RB, WR, and TE are better than anyone else’s in the division. One who guy I think is really being underestimated is Miller. Him, Robinson, and Burton are going to be a handful even for getting about Cohen and Gabriel as a deep threat. Howard in the running game. Lots of loving pieces for Nagy’s offense. Then I think Trubisky has a similar skill set to Wentz, so I think he could have some great success right out of the gate. And there’s a lot there for Nagy to work with if they want to treat him like Watson last year and keep to one and two read plays with a moving pocket. I think we’re going to see offensive success day 1 against the Packers. Then the defense just picked added a guy who can single handedly collapse a pocket to an already pretty good defense. And Smith is supposed to be pretty good too. This linebacking corps is going to be ridiculous if it can stay healthy. All these are just my opinions and I’m usually pretty optimistic. But the Bears just keep doing what I’m hoping that they’ll do. Hopefully it works out!

I also want to say I like how Pace consolidates future picks for top level young players today. He did it with Trubisky last year, Miller in this draft, and now Mack. It makes a ton of sense for where the team is to make these moves and I don't think you're really giving up any future value either, because these guys could play at a high level for a long time. And to me, there really aren't any glaring holes on the whole team. The players individually may not be good enough to get it done, but there's no position on the team that I see as a huge weakness. Depth may not be the best in the secondary or maybe on the o-line, but the Bears second and third unit just mopped up the Chief's first unit, so you've gotta figure they have decent depth in general.

Highway robbery. No idea how Pace pulled this deal off when so many other teams were trying. The Packers weren't willing to give up their two first rounders next year? The front seven is now STACKED and they've got a guy who got Aldon Smith 20 sacks in a season running the show. The Bears were 7th in sacks last season where their top edge rusher played 10 games and got 4.5 sacks. Now add in Roquan and Mack and maybe a healthy Floyd. Think about something like this article comparing Fangio's use of Floyd-Hicks to Smith-Smith annnnnd replace Floyd with DPOY Mack. https://sportsmockery.com/2017/09/how-leonard-floyd-is-the-biggest-reason-to-extend-akiem-hicks/ I don't know that much about the Raiders' front but I've got to think that this Bears front, along with Fangio takes Mack to another level. Given that he had 70 pressures last year, you'd think that he could have some much bigger sack totals if Hicks, Goldman, and Floyd demand more attention than his teammates in Oakland. Now think of what this means for the number of turnovers the Bears will generate. Despite that high sack total they only had 100 pressures. Watching those highlights, it looks like Mack will up the havoc level pretty markedly, resulting in some nice picks off of pressure. Mack also seems pretty into the idea of the strip sack, so hopefully that becomes contagious like when Lovie's Bears always went for the strip. And you figure the offense is going to be much better, so the Bears will be playing with more leads and the opposing teams will have to throw. I already thought the Bears were a playoff team, but now I think they win the division if they stay reasonably healthy. Regardless, Pace has really put together a good young team. He didn't hit in FA much the first couple years, but he left himself with a lot of cap space and this offseason when they were ready to compete he really made some incredible use of that cap space. What you think about the Bears chances this year and for the future hinges largely on what you think about Trubisky, but it seems that regardless of where you view them on the Super Bowl contenders list this is clearly going to be a fun team to watch. Gadgetty offense with lots of talent at the skill positions and a very fast 3-4 defense with good young talent on every level, run by the DC who ran my favorite defense of the 2000s out in SF. I'm ready to see this thing against the Packers.

You want to make that $20 bet again now that they’ve got a coaching staff that isn’t actively destroying their chances at ever taking a lead? Top 5 YPC top 5 yards Smart money would still be to take the bet, just because it is hard to be top five in both categories. It is really hard to be "elite" But I don't want to be betting against the team this year. Yeah I don’t think I would call my end of the bet the smart money, but I think they’ll be right in the mix for top 5 in both so figured why not double down. I’d be much more confident in betting on the Bears as a top 10 scoring offense and playoff team. Feeling real good about the offensive skill players.

Okay, last time, I swear... elite. You want to make that $20 bet again now that they’ve got a coaching staff that isn’t actively destroying their chances at ever taking a lead? Top 5 YPC top 5 yards

Truckloads of cash and draft picks. Do it. This article says multiple firsts plus. I’m in. It would fill one of the few glaring holes on roster for the long term with an elite young player at a critical position, and could put them in the playoffs this year. Basically name a price and I’d pay. https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2018/08/01/chicago-bears-khalil-mack-oakland-raiders-trade/

Inglewood man gets bad public education. Ha ha funny joke.

Looks pretty good defensively here

This is nice. He looks pretty fluid and explosive for a guy coming off an ACL surgery. Especially compared to how rusty and ineffective Lavine was. I've skipped the NBA the last couple years, so I wasn't all that familiar with his game, but watching these highlights the guy I kept thinking about was Melo. Then I went back to check his nbadraft.net profile and that's the guy they comp him to. To me, that comp comes through most in the way he bullies guys inside to get easy shots, whether it's a layup or dunk or a hook. He's got such quick feet on his pivots and spins, and seems to have a great feel for getting a creative shot up. Then the little quick dribbles at the elbow to get space for his shot, and even his three looks a bit the same. One of the videos I watched during my Jabari video binge was his 35 point game against the Nuggets on 4/1. It was one of the last games of the season and he hit 5/8 from three. Not a bad one to check out. Seems like his offense is solid enough that they could give him the late career Luol Deng treatment and say work on nothing but threes all summer. Long term, he probably does need someone better defensively than Lavine at the 2 but I'm getting pretty hopeful that Parker could be a long term #1 option on a team that can go deep into the playoffs. And with this East, you don't need much to say you're a finals contender. Here's that nbadraft.net profile, btw. I didn't read it before writing that stuff above, because I figured I'd just end up parroting what it said. But it does seem to agree that he's got a good power/finesse game. Another guy he reminds a bit of is a SF version of Elton Brand. http://www.nbadraft.net/players/jabari-parker Then I also wanted to comment on Wendell Carter Jr. I meant to make a post after the draft and never did. But I was originally all over the idea of MPJ, then was hoping for Bamba during the draft, but after reading about WCJ I'm real happy we got him. Especially considering that in Parker the Bulls got basically the top end of what you might expect out of MPJ while ALSO getting a very well rounded and NBA-ready center in the draft. This was my favorite article, where they detail why they think Carter will be better than Bagley. Real nice read for Bulls fans. https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/6/18/17473842/wendell-carter-marvin-bagley-duke-nba-draft Here is WCJ dominating Ayton's team in HS. WCJ had 30 and 16 vs Ayton's 19 and 10. Here's a scouting video. There are others. I'm suddenly pretty excited about the Bulls. The Lavine signing may be a mistake, I'm not sure about that part. I think if he accepts an off ball role similar to the one he had earlier in his career and tries to mold himself after Klay Thompson he could be pretty good. In his second and third years in the league he shot .389 and .387 from three. That third year was on 6.6 attempts per game and he had 18.9 ppg on .576 TS%. A super efficient high volume three point shooter with excellent athleticism is pretty valuable, if you can get him to be that guy. Buuuut even with that he had shitty defense from all accounts and only pulled in a 14.6 PER. I personally believe that if Parker stays healthy he's a keeper, so Lavine is going to need to fit in next to him. Maybe you can fit his money in as a bench guy, with a more defense oriented SG starting next to Parker? I'm wondering about the possibility Jimmy coming back next year if the Bulls get a decent playoff seed and look good. The bridge is probably burned, but the team looks much better to me and a much better fit for him. It's filled with offensive options and needs some defensive glue on the perimeter. That's probably a role he could fill pretty late into his career. The nice thing for this year is that you've got a good defensive PG and what should be a pretty good defensive center. Probably a middle of the road defensive 4 in Lauri. So I'm not so sure about this idea that the team is going to have an atrocious defense. I honestly didn't watch a single game last year, so I'm not going to go bonkers making predictions, but after watching videos on all the individual players and looking at the stats I'd say they look in the neighborhood of a 5 seed. That's with a starting roster with an average age (I saw somewhere) of 23 years old. I haven't been a fan of this front office, but this has been a very quick rebuild and I think the future of the team looks real bright. And it's with a lot of high upside offensive players rather than a bunch of grindy guys, which should make for some cool basketball. But more than anything, I'm pumped about this Parker thing. That is a good video up there. Could be a big day for the Bulls franchise.

I love this deal. In order to go anywhere in the playoffs you need some guys who can score in isolation. Parker was a 20 ppg guy in 2016-2017 and has a very wide array of offensive skills. He is yet another front court player who can hit a 3 (.383 last year, .365 the year before). Efficient scoring (TS% of .550 and .563 last two years). PER of 19 two years ago, 17 last year coming off the ACL. He’s done all this stuff and he’s only 23. Of course there is a large chance he gets injured again but on a 2 year deal so what? He’s played very heavy, but he’s been playing PF. Now he’s on a 2 year prove it deal with his childhood team that he’s been vocal about wanting to play for. A team that has an entrenched 4 on the roster. So if he wants to stay long term he’s got to be able to defend 3s, which likely means slimming down. He’s got to show that he can play within the team concept. But they got a guy who can score efficiently and who is very young. Maybe he can’t play next to Lavine defensively and you have to let go of whichever of them is least valuable. Or if Lavine is untradeable he becomes a bench spark plug until his deal is up. To me, this is exactly the type of gamble they should make. This idea of holding 2 maxes for the 2019 while sucking real bad in 2018-2019 was a pipe dream. We’ve seen that story before and it always ends the same. Take the guy who wants to come here now and plan your cap space to try and get another Chicago guy in Anthony Davis in 2020. And at this point, they’ve got a lot of assets who could conceivably pan out. So they could be in a good position to make a major trade at some point. And when they do they’ve got a lot of other guys who could be great supporting cast members. Two thumbs up.

The most important words in that post Keep hammering on Almora and I’ll just be sitting back waiting for you to fade out of the conversation when keeps having a valuable career as a first division starter with the first division Cubs.

This was true for April when he had a 23% hard hit and every squibber to the right was finding a hole, but in May he’s got a 34% hard hit. I haven’t looked at exit velocity or the statcast but however they calculate hard hit rate, KB is only at 37% for his career so 34% seems pretty good.

Surprising stat of the night, I was thinking about who needed to sit to get Almora into the lineup and I see that Zobrist is sitting on 1.2 f-wins in 36 games, largely on the excellence of his sparkling 51 UZR/150 in the outfield. Take outfield advanced metrics with a grain of salt, but he’s got 160 innings there so far this year (360 in 2017). Seems like saving him a littl bit is a good idea. It would be nice to have a fully functioning, good hitting Zo for the playoffs.

Keep going to right center Javy. It was great to hear that sound of Joe talking just before Javy hit that HR saying that he had gone to right center with “every ball, every single ball” in batting practice. I would love that to be a regular thing and I hope it’s something Joe & the crew are pushing with him. That would be a game changer with how much he loves to swing at outside pitches. Sure you want him to stop that but for now if he isn’t going to then at least work on going to right.

Agreed. You’d split your head open trying to make that as a diving play or at a full run, so I’d doubt Happ would have even tried it. That was really well played by Almora to get there in time to be slowing down so he didn’t have Aaron Rowand it into the wall. It’ll be good to see Almora learn that with more playing time. Dives are cool but with a brick wall you want to just get there as quick as possible. So these are Almora’s May numbers. .351/.406/.456/.862 .376 wOBA 136 wRC+ 9.4% BB% 14.1% K% The iso isn’t standing out but Slappy Almora has a 32.7% hard hit this month, and he’s smoked a couple balls tonight. He’s striking out at such a low rate lately that I’m guessing he’s going to start swinging for more extra bases. He was still K’ing at 20% the first month, which is pretty high for him. And he was also hitting the ball much softer with only a 23% hard hit. But with that hard hit at 33% now you’d think it would shake out in more XBHs. My guess is that with this warmer weather and with him getting more comfortable as he gets more of an every day role I could see him feeling more comfortable with putting the ball in the air. So if he can stay in the neighborhood he’s in now and adds some slugging, keeps the defense then that’s at least a 4 win player. Looking forward to seeing if these hard hit balls continue, how pitchers adjust to him, how hand adjusts back. But he’s been very good so far this year. I’d make him a regular starter and give him a run as the leadoff man to see if he can keep that .400 OBP going. Edit: when I say “if he can stay in the neighborhood he’s in now” I mean if he can maintain an above average OBP while adding to the walks. If he keeps up his May run and has a OBP close to .400, with his defense that could be a 4 win player by itself. Adding slugging would add more. Of course there’s a big old range of what Almora the hitter could be. Hopefully, he can maintain these recent walks and Ks as he inevitably starts hitting it in the air more.

Mostly stupid, but it’s got its uses. Used to be that couldn’t trust him with men on, let alone men in scoring position. Like many aspects of his game, he’s improved in that.

Word is George Ofman doesn’t have any sources. He does know the names of a few Cubs pitching prospects though, which helps when you want to throw horsefeathers at the wall and see if anyone pretends it has a chance of sticking.

Yeah no idea how Gabriel gets to pretend he’s an expert on anything but particularly on QB play.

Or if some of these rumors are true you could be trading up for Bagley, which would be cool too.

I’d be fine with this. Bulls need a star, and a guy in the mold of Durant sounds like a good fit. I don’t know much about these other guys who are likely to be available at 7, but doesn’t sound like most have star potential. Or if they do it’s at volume shooting combo guard, which doesn’t work out very often. If they like MPJ they ought to be willing to trade everything that isn’t nailed down to go get him. If the gamble hits and he’s really good then you can probably attract a big name FA. If it fails and he bust spectacularly then the “robbing Peter to pay Paul” aspect of trading everything for a bust will probably land them at the top of the lottery again in 2020. When your only shot of winning a title or even being in the conversation is hitting on a super star these are the types of gambles you’ve got to take, IMO.

By that same token, the tackles have been pretty healthy. And they’ve been decent enough. You can’t fix everything at once and the biggest problem with the o-line the last two years has been injuries in the interior. To me, that’s why the interior was the need. Plus, New Orleans always spent the most resources on the interior. Leno has been plenty good for now at a reasonable price and the I think if I could pick some place for the pressure to come from it would be off right tackle. With a lot of spots on the roster looking pretty good I’d think next year they address OT and OLB.

Sitton missed 3 games in each of the last two years and Long has missed a total of 14 over that time. Daniels isn’t guaranteed to stay healthy but replacing a 32 year old guard who hasn’t been healthy the last two years with a 20 year old makes sense to me. Especially when the 32 year old didn’t fit the offense very well. It does suck to be short on edge rusher but there are ways to cover for that. Lose both guards again and this fancy new offense is hosed.