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UMFan83

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Everything posted by UMFan83

  1. UMFan83
    Also get a bit sad but then I realize that a) I've watched about 30 minutes of Cubs baseball per week since July (basically if I happen to check the score and its an interesting situation or the 9th inning and the Cubs have the lead) and b) we get to watch playoff baseball almost every night for the next month
  2. UMFan83
    Certainly helped that 8 of those 11 games were against the Reds and Pirates Also 3 of those games involved a starter going 4 or less innings with 2+ runs allowed, but only 1 was earned Now that I've horsefeathers on it, that's still a pretty cool stat and one of the reason Cubs fans can be optimistic heading into the offseason
  3. UMFan83
    Yeah seeing the 4 road games in 5 stretch ticked me off when the schedule was released. But don’t worry we have our own 4 home games in 5 stretch in beautiful December. That combined with our late bye means that the Bears don’t have to leave Chicago between November 28 and December 31. Last oddity, we are in a 9 week stretch where we play almost as many games in the Meadowlands (2) as we do Soldier Field (3)
  4. UMFan83
    Looks like they'll finish the season 74-88. Seems like roughly what people were thinking before the season, though we got there in an unusual way.
  5. UMFan83
    PFF grades from last week. As many people have speculated Justin Fields did play well last week, at least according to PFF grading. Also for those wondering why Ebner was in so much last week look at his pass blocking grade compared to Herbert's (also sad LOL at Mustipher): Defense:
  6. UMFan83
    No Jaylon at practice today, not great for his chances of playing on Sunday but we'll see what happens. My fantasy team is really excited about this development though.
  7. UMFan83
    Yeah I'm just not that excited about this season, though I reserve the right to pretend like I was should they prove to be good.
  8. UMFan83
    Bote just hit a 3 run HR oppo
  9. UMFan83
  10. UMFan83
    Yea agree, would love to see how many times we’ve thrown on first down. https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/passing-first-down-pct The Bears are 32nd in the NFL with a 28.81% pass percentage on 1st down. To compare, the Jets are 1st in the NFL at 71.95%. Only one other team besides the Bears is under 44%, the Giants at 35%.
  11. UMFan83
    I have no idea if this theory is actually sound but given the Bears ridiculously high reliance on the run, I imagine that leads to less possesions/overall plays. If that theory is correct then I'll make another assumption that less possessions means less opportunity to separate from your opponent, thus a spread that is lower than you might expect.
  12. UMFan83
    horsefeathers my life. Just imagine the first time a Cardinal gets a big strikeout of a Cub and seeing Willson hopping up from behind the plate and pumping his fist in celebration.
  13. UMFan83
    In another tweet he calls Jenkins a top 10 guard in the league already.
  14. UMFan83
    This will be the first of 2 games in 5 days as the Bears will quickly return home to prepare for the Commanders next Thursday (and then get a nice break before MNF in New England in week 7 to conclude Chicago's primetime appearances). I'm seeing Vikings -6.5 so far which seems fair because despite being 3-1 the Vikings have looked a bit rough at times
  15. UMFan83
    Cobs are back!
  16. UMFan83
    Dilfer’s segment on the score today:
  17. UMFan83
    Seems to be the general consensus that the top 3 teams in the Big Ten are Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State and probably in that order. My question is: who is the 4th best team in the Big Ten? Candidates are probably Illinois, Maryland or Minnesota. Illinois is playing the best football and their defense is legitimately good. Their best win is a solid win. Yes Wisconsin probably sucks, but Madison is still a hard place to come and win much less completely blow them out. Their loss was at Indiana which is not a great loss but could be worse Maryland has only lost at Michigan, and they kept the game annoyingly close throughout. They looked good in that game. Their offense is good, their defense is not but still seems a little better than many expected. The problem is that their best win was either against MSU or SMU. MSU is in a free fall but SMU seems decent (they lost to undefeated TCU by 1 score after falling to Maryland) Minnesota was likely many people's number 4s before last week. They pulverized their first 4 opponents, which included 2 P5 teams, but came home and lost to a decent Purdue team. Their defense remained really good even in the defeat but it was a bit deflating coming off the MSU road win (further devalued because MSU lost again the next week and clearly seems to not be good) I could be talked into all 3 of them to be honest.
  18. UMFan83
    Great to hear re: Fields. I've come to accept that improvements are going to come gradually. I was thinking today that they are probably looking at Fields as a 1-2 year project. And while I'm not sure how giving him nothing to work with and getting destroyed by opposing defenses helps him, I think they are content with doing what they do best (run the ball) and slowly bring Fields around as he (and the team as a whole) gets more comfortable with the offensive system. Maybe the FO never saw him as the answer and are trying to prove it but I also think that the team has so many holes and are committed to building through the draft so the last thing they want to do is use a high 1st on a QB at this point. Seems like a very old school approach to QB development when we've seen quite a few young QBs figure it out quickly (especially ones with multiple years starting at a major P5 school) so don't take this post as me necessarily being on board with the plan. Just trying to make sense of whats happening out there.
  19. UMFan83
    I think its more newsworthy when he doesn't melt down
  20. UMFan83
    https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/jason-heyward-chicago-cubs-mlb-baseball Cool article from JHey. He could have been down about his time in Chicago. I'm sure he heard people critical of him or his contract. But he kept it positive and expressed what seems like genuine love for the Cubs and the city. Says this is his home and will remain his home (I'm assuming that's figurative but I could be wrong). I'm still a little peeved about the vaccination thing, but can look past it enough to say that he seemed universally loved as a teammate and probably made a bigger difference behind the scenes than we give him credit for. Bad contract, disappointing seasons, but (mostly) good dude and I'm glad he had such a great experience in Chicago
  21. UMFan83
    Beating a dead horse here but
  22. UMFan83
    Yeah, talent helps. But put Kmet's big ass out there or EQ St. Brown, they are good blockers and big enough bodies to muck things up a bit for Pettis or Mooney to get 4-5 yards. Then you just have to worry about Fields actually seeing it fast enough to throw it before a penalty for blocking and then them actually catching the ball. The Bears are just 4 easy steps away from being able to complete a competent NFL offensive pass! Kmet is a good blocker? Here are his PFF pass and run block grades in the first 3 games this year: Week 1: 70.2 pass block, 64.3 run block. Pass block seems solid but everyone had a good grade week 1. Kmets was 4th worst on the team. Run block was actually 5th best on the team. Week 2: 29.6 pass block, 65.5 run block. Pass block was 3rd worst on the team ahead of only Mustipher and Jenkins (Patrick was just ahead of Kmet). Run block was somewhere in the middle of the team Week 3: 51.0 pass block, 55.1 run block. These were both the 2nd worst on the team, behind Patrick in both cases (who was significantly worse than any Bear) I'm leaning towards 'no he's not a good blocker'
  23. UMFan83
    Yeah, this is why I don't understand fans who watched yesterday's game and decided "Yes, this game shows Fields is the problem" The line was awful, up and down, both ways, and the reason the Bears lost this very winnable game. Maybe this is what he meant when he said that the passing game improved yesterday and when questioned on the stats said 'stats don't matter'. It improved but didn't show up on paper because of other issues.
  24. UMFan83
    More from Brad:
  25. UMFan83
    Given this wouldn't it be reasonable to minimize the number of drop backs, if not altogether, at this point, remove them for the playbook in favor of some sort of quick passing game? Something along the lines of run, run, run, then under center, one step throw, I've seen every other NFL QB, even horsefeathering Mitch do this, its possible. Yeah, I said that before the season. But I don't call plays. I watched Aaron Rodgers get absolute freaking layups yesterday against the Patriots. Off coverage? Take the snap and throw it outside for 5 yards. Blitz coming? RB doesn't chip, just goes outside the tackle box for a quick swing pass, gets 5 yards. That's Getsy's former team. He was on the team that did that horsefeathers last year. Why he isn't doing it for his young QB, I will never know. Isn’t that not Fields’ game? I’ve seen him throw quick WR screens and they seem to get thrown inaccurately like 70% of the time. I also feel like he’s not reading defenses well enough to do that right now.
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