UMFan83

lol

They can't get the ball down the field. They have Bears level OL talent and their QBs have noodle arms. They were doing that out of necessity to get him the ball. From a 14.5 ypc career guy to about 9 this year. I don't see any reason he can't be that 14ypc guy again right away. There's no way Trubisky and Pickett are more noodle armed then end of career Ben right? Kind of what I was thinking. Not sure about Pickett's arm but Mitch has above average arm strength. Not as strong as Fields but he could get it down the field.

Poles is talking...a few things I've seen

He ended up +1 on draft picks after both swaps. Good arbitrage, even though the net pick value ends up being like a mid 4th to low 3rd when factoring in the 2nd swap. And he got an extra 17 cheap games out of the player swap, independent of how you see the value between the two. We basically gave away 510 "points" of capital plus 1/2 season of Roquan and got back 348.2 plus 1.5 seasons of Claypool, so basically like losing a mid-3rd. This is based on the Bears finishing in the 8th slot and Ravens in the 27th slot. If its more like the 20th slot then we're looking at 510 vs. 418.2 and a loss of an early 4th round pick in terms of value. So basically just affirming what you've said

Less relevant now after the Claypool trade, but the Jags are trading for Ridley Looks like a 2024 2nd rounder and a pick that based on incentives can be as high as a 5th rounder in 2023.

It's kind of crazy though. Claypool was the 49th overall pick in 2020. He's been good but hasn't become a star (though has the ability to become one) and he's 1.5 years from FA. How often do you see someone in a situation like that traded for a better pick than the one used to select them? Definitely a win-win deal for both sides. Steelers have to be thrilled.

there's some value to locking in your big WR move right now. You get him in now, he learns the system and develops rapport with Fields. And now in the offseason you don't *have* to use a 1st on a WR, though you can, and you don't have to worry about the thin WR market as much.

I bet the Packers were also offering a 2nd which is why the Bears had to offer their 2nd rounder to get it done.

Ugh...now they are saying it is the Bears 2nd rounder. Not as great

This really seems like a pretty big vote of confidence by the FO for Fields doesn't it? I get that you need WRs anyways, but seems like they'd be much less likely to trade for one in season if they were on a rebuilding path where they still needed to get a QB.

So basically we traded Roquan for Claypool and a 5th. I can live with that.

Just posted this in the Week 8 thread. whichever thread works. LFG!

!!!!!!

Thus begins the Bears season ending stretch of 6 of their last 9 games being at home. This will also mark the first game since Week 1 that the Bears are wearing their traditional Navy home jerseys. Get used to them because there are no more jersey scheduling quirks this year so they will wear them in.... 6 of their last 9 games. Dolphins are 5-3 which breaks down to 5-0 with Tua starting and 0-3 with anyone else starting at QB. Barring something unforeseen, Tua will be starting.

Fwiw Jeff is claiming there is smoke for trading Monty

lol that’s not going to happen

Montgomery should be next. I want to see Herbert with a full workload. Eh. I posted that I wanted them to within the last couple of pages, but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. He's not going to cost much to keep around (and they have to spend a LOT of money), and the return would be trivial. No point, and they need his ability in pass protection. I agree as much as I’d love to see it as a Herbert fantasy owner. Dangle him and see if some team makes a crazy offer but most likely he has more value to the Bears as a piece that can aid in developing Fields.

Yeah Jags type spending spree with very limited damage 2 years down the road is pretty solid plan. You quasi compete while you continue building in the background, by the time that wave is moving on you hope to have several more pieces in place. The thing that scares me about this is that this plan heavily relies on the assumption that Poles is a good talent evaluator and we just haven't seen enough to say that with any certainty yet.

Not sure how the hell the Bears are going to spend that money to be competitive soon. figured a chunk of that was earmarked for a Roquan extension. We'll probably have a decent team by the time Fields is ready to get his massive extension.

I've seen a lot of hype for Oregon the last 2 weeks. SP+ has Oregon 7th with the number 3 offense. You are right though that if it comes down to comparing 1 loss teams, getting absolutely demolished by a likely CFP team will hold them back.

The real question is, will they be ranked in the CFP top 10 come Tuesday? I'd figure probably not, but maybe? They're definitely behind Ohio State, Georgia, Tennessee, Michigan, Clemson, TCU and Alabama. So they're in the discussion after that with Oregon, USC, UCLA, Ole Miss, Kansas State, LSU, Utah, Oklahoma State, and Penn State. I'd probably put them just behind Oregon and USC, even with UCLA and Ole Miss, just ahead of the 2 loss teams. Here's my prediction: 1. Georgia 2. Tennessee 3. Ohio State 4. Michigan 5. TCU 6. Clemson 7. Alabama 8. Oregon 9. Ole Miss 10. USC 11. UCLA 12. Illinois 13. UNC 14. LSU 15. Kansas State 16. Penn State I got bored after this. I could definitely see the committee putting Clemson or even TCU ahead of Michigan due to Michigan's NC but while it will mildly annoy me, it ultimately doesn't matter because Michigan's path (and Illinois) is pretty clear. The only way that Michigan has a shot at making it with a loss (IMO) is if they lose to Illinois, beat Ohio State and then avenge the Illinois loss in the championship (or to a lesser extent beat Purdue). Illinois has to win out and if they beat Michigan x2 or Michigan and Ohio State they should be close to a lock. Alabama could still slide in beating an undefeated UGA/Tenn in the SEC game, but hard to not select a team that lost the first week of the season and then beat 2 top 8 teams, one on the road and one at a neutral site.

Just looking at QBR, 3 of his 6 best QBR performances have come in the last 4 weeks (not including the Rams game last year when he had 85.7 QBR but was 2-2 passing for 10 yards): 1. 79.1 - 2022 vs. Minnesota 2. 77.2 - 2021 vs. Detroit 3. 72.5 - 2022 vs. Dallas 4. 72.3 - 2021 vs. San Francisco 5. 64.0 - 2021 vs. Pittsburgh 6. 60.8 - 2022 vs. New England Strangely enough, after these 6 games his next best QBR performance drops to 45.5 (last year vs. GB at home)