raw

Roschon Johnson runs hard. The CBs were mostly OK.

Nah. They let him throw down the field last year.....when they let him throw at all. But they were ultimately justified not letting him throw too much because there was nobody to protect him or catch the ball from him. I'm really not all that upset about the INT. Granted, he did every bad thing a QB can do (stare down a WR, throw late over the middle of the field, not see underneath coverage in zone), but he tends to only do those things in garbage time. Six of his 11 INTs last year were when they were down by a TD or more in the last 4 minutes of a game. That wasn't last 4 minutes, but obviously the game was over before that throw.

Agreed. But that's the thing that happens when you "punt" a whole season. I get the justification for NOT drafting Carter. You don't have the lockeroom/system in place for that guy to thrive without the pressure of being the best player on the defense. But nobody forced them to be in that position. Poles had every chance to put his team in position where they A) weren't desperate for a RT because he didn't address the position for 2 FA cycles or B) had defensive leadership and talent to make Carter a possibility. On a side note, I've seen people all offseason talking about how the Bears DTs are set with the 2 rookies because they will get better. But neither of them projects to be the dominant 3T, like Carter, that this defense needs. Even if Wright, Jones, and healthy Jenkins get it together this year and the back 7 on D step up, DT is still a big enough need to take a guy in the 1st round. Plus, they lose Billings and Jones (maybe already lost Jones, did anyone see him yesterday?) this offseason.

Eh. I couldn't care less about any of this. The only reason to go fast late in the game when it was over, was if you felt Fields was more comfortable going faster. They can't use the excuse that 2-minute offense needs to be practiced, when they had a change to practice things in the preseason and refused to for competitive advantage or whatever. They had a chance to in the 1st half but played scared (granted, they were also backed up in their own end).

People have argued before that he couldn't go thru progressions. Or if he could, he couldn't go thru them fast enough. I agree with you that he's always had trouble with pulling the trigger with anticipation. So, I wasn't thinking of that as "processing" necessarily, but yeah it's part of it. But he has seemed to be able to anticipate on vertical routes or "moving" routes. Like the slant to DJ, the fade TD to Mooney.

I watched all the drop backs on an all-22 video someone put together. And I don't think Fields' problem is reading the defense, per se. It's all about anticipation to me. There were some plays there if he would just grip it and rip it. Maybe that is part of processing, not seeing it quick enough, but he's looking right at WRs right as they gain leverage and are clearly about to be open for a long enough window to throw cleanly into. He seems to be too worried about what will happen if the WR isn't ready. He's gotta trust his guys, especially DJ, who is a great WR and Claypool who is a big enough target that he should be able to prevent any INTs with his size. But again, there were a lot of guys just not open. Route concepts were bad. Curls against tight man coverage. Crossers running into zone defenders. There were more vertical routes than I expected to see, but a LOT of them are decoys, guys not looking for the ball just running defenders off to try to open up the guy underneath. These things are never just 1 person at fault. For all we heard about Fields being more comfortable in the offense in Year 2.....he didn't look comfortable in the offense. IDK if it was because the gameplan wasn't geared to fit his strengths or if it only looked good because they were practicing against a crap defense all camp or whether they've been blowing smoke up our asses for 3 months.

Off the top of my head, the only other game they looked completely unready and unenthusiastic to play was the Detroit game late in the year. And that was deep into full-on tank mode. There's plenty of reasons to have issues with Flus, getting the team ready shouldn't be one of them.

Agree with this. It will be obvious. What won't be is if Poles is capable of finding the guy that is, if Fields isn't and if Flus and co. are capable of coaching the guy that is. Fields not making it, undoubtedly, will lead to another: Pace, Nagy, Trubisky or Emery, Trestman, Cutler or Angelo, Lovie, Grossman, or Hatley, Jauron, McNown.

Yes, which is exactly what I'm saying. *Yall was just a general thing, not you specifically.

Ok. Then who is that on? And for the record, I'm not absolving Fields of anything. I said he was bad. I said all-22 probably shows guys open down the field. I also said he wasn't good enough last year. But most normal teams help their QBs more than the Bears have the last 3 to 115 years. The OL isn't good enough. The WRs weren't good enough last year. The playcalling wasn't good enough today (it was probably good enough last year). Fields may very well be not good. But all I want to know is definitely if it's him or if it's everything around him. Jordan Love probably still isn't any good (made 1 completion in tight coverage), but GB, knowing his WRs are young and maybe not that great, surrounded him with a great OL. Granted, the OL was already there when he took over, but we still don't know if our GM knows how to GM, our coaches know how to coach, so obviously we aren't going to know if our QB knows how to QB.

I mean, yall complained last year he wasn't checking down enough and looking to run and took too many sacks. Obviously, we all want a happy medium but Fields stated that this was the gameplan in the tweet I posted.

And you assume he checked down because he's incapable of the only thing he did well last year, throwing wise? You really don't want to know what you are the ultimate guy of

Better QBs definitely would have chosen to simply throw like 8 of those 14 called screen passes down the field. I mean, you can say the issue is they don't trust Fields to throw the ball down the field more (in which case, it's an even bigger indictment on the team that passed on a chance to upgrade him with the #1 pick), but you saying a better QB would have chosen to throw deeper more often is you talking out of your anus, per usual. Also he had 0 problems throwing the ball down field last year. He had a high ADOT and as I pointed out was pretty accurate from 10-20. And if he is still incapable of processing and making throws down field, again, indictment on an organization by moving on from him and consistently talking him up all camp.

4 throws over 10 yards. 5 throws over like 6 1/2 yards. This is the gameplan with statistically the most accurate QB of 2022 between 10-20 yards. I mean, maybe he would have still been bad (1 of those 4 throws obviously was), but you spent all offseason preparing for this game just to base your gameplan on trying to play to the defenses weaknesses instead of playing to your QB's and new WR acquisitions' (Claypool included) strengths.

To add on......2nd lowest intended air yards, which was the gameplan. Said gameplan also included a healthy inactive for their best blocking WR who's only purpose is to block. https://twitter.com/sean_hammond/status/1701026811897950403?s=20

I'm not even down on Fields. He didn't play well, and I suspect all 22 shows he missed some open guys down the field. But this loss was a clear indictment on Poles and his coaching staff. The most FA money and high draft capital went to a RG that doesn't like to practice and 1 draft pick at the position (albeit a top 10 pick). If you're scoring at home that is 1 fewer FA and the same number of draft picks that the Bears spent on off-ball LBs. I will also accept this being referred to as 1 more draft pick and FA spent on the edge rush before training camp. But to be fair, OL and DL weren't huge needs. As for the coaching, the offense only had success with the screen pass in preseason. What else did they practice for months? Because they sure as hell kept going back to that well over and over again. 0 creativity in the pass game other than the TD to Mooney when the game was on the verge of being over already. 3rd down QB sneak with your TE. A telegraphed 4th down QB sneak, after a failed QB sneak, with a QB that can do so much more than try to fall forward behind an undersized interior OL. I understand they couldn't pass block well enough to do too much, but how many moving pockets did we get? How much playaction while actually not leaving a guy schematically unblocked? I mean, they also had free runners they were supposed to block, which again comes back to not having put enough resources to the worst position group in the league last year. The defense sat back in zone all day against a QB that has only shown he can make throws in wide open windows (TD vs Stevenson, the exception) and didn't do anything to generate a pass rush. They played a good OL, but this again comes back to not having the horses when everyone knew you didn't have horses and trying to get to a baseline level of pass rushing performance by signing a guy in August.

Daboll wanted to be in NY. The GM NY hired was from Buffalo. They were a package deal. He wasn't coming to Chicago.

Linebacking corps is going to be legit!

I watched a TON of college football last weekend. And man is this QB class potentially one of the best ever. Caleb Williams- not much needs to be said here, clearly the top QB prospect since Lawrence, IMO. Drake Maye- I'm actually not as high on him as everyone else, don't think he should be a top 5 lock, but clear QB2 After that, I could see as many as 10 other guys between day 1 and day 2. Granted, some of them may stay in school and some may fall off after many had amazing Week 1s, but: Shedeur Sanders, Colorado- I've always liked his talent. Not the big arm, but he learned a new offense with new players that mostly came in like 6 weeks ago. Very intelligent QB. My QB3 JJ McCarthy, Michigan- big time talent, has always had the tools but looked to finally put together some NFL type throws last week. Could sneak into Round 1, if Michigan runs the table to the playoff like I expect them to Michael Penix, Washington- as an IU alum, I saw all his games in Bloomington. I'm not as high on him. Went from mobile to pure pocket passer due to injuries. I do worry about when he gets moved off his spot in the NFL. But scouts LOVE him Quinn Ewers, Texas- another big time recruit, 5-star, very high highs, still too many lows, but a big shot vs Bama this week to shoot up boards Bo Nix, Oregon- was bad at Auburn, but then great since transfer. NFL teams will like a 5-year starter. Big, mobile. Riley Leonard, Duke- big win vs Clemson Week 1, extremely mobile, good arm. Toolsy, but raw. NFL teams will love Jordan Travis, FSU- big game vs LSU. Similar to McCarthy to me, but not as highly recruited. If he can show more NFL level throws, he will get 1st round consideration Michael Pratt, Tulane- quietly had an awesome debut last week, 1 incompletion, which was called a draft. 100% effective completion percentage. Hearing 2nd round grades on him. Then you have guys like KJ Jefferson and Joe Milton who are Cam Newton/Anthony Richardson size, and as we know NFL teams love huge mobile freaks. Milton has one of the best arms I've ever seen. Neither is super accurate, but guys this big and athletic don't fall too far on draft day.

Same-ish. First year I've had it, but I shared it with a buddy of mine. On YouTube TV, you can watch up to 2 TVs at the same time, so hopefully there's no issues

Correct. But he got hurt like 2nd quarter of the 1st game. And they had to replace NFL players at WR, RB, and on the OL.

I knew Colorado was going to win. The QB position is extremely important (news flash) even in college. And even with those 86 new players, Deion carried his QB/son with him. TCU was breaking in a new QB, and I think I heard 8 new starters on offense. So Colorado had continuity at the most important position. Also, I think people dismissed Shedeur and maybe even Travis because they were playing weak competition at Jackson St. But you're still talking about a 4-star QB and the top recruit in the nation. These dudes could have gone anywhere they wanted. And Deion didn't bring scrubs with him in the portal or his recruiting class. They are a very talented team. They will likely lose 3-4 games this year, but it won't be from lack of talent. ***Side Note- I think the QB thing will make a big difference at the top of the rankings. Michigan is the only team that isn't breaking in a new QB in the top 4. And a couple of the top teams are starting off playing 2 QBs.

Travis Hunter played 129 snaps today.

I think lowkey, the OL looked pretty good pass blocking in preseason, with Davis getting 0 snaps and Wright/Jenkins missing last week. Guys like Borom, Kramer and Carter looked really good, IMO. (Braxton was solid too). From the sound of things in camp, it seems like Fields and DJ are further along than the rest of the offense. Flus seemed to blame a lot of protection and receivers in practice. And by all accounts, Fields looks much more comfortable in most areas. I would imagine still, the offense will likely get off to a slow start. Getting guys together on the OL for the 1st time, getting Claypool back up to speed may take a bit. I'm hoping, like last year, we really see the offense take a big step after the early TNF mini-bye week.

Worth noting, the Bears' Week 5 game is on TNF. It's probably unlikely the Bears bring back Teven Jenkins in a short week. So we may not see him until mid October.