raw

He was my (distant) second choice for Bears HC.

Man, this type of stuff doesn't happen to us......and against THIS team? Bears are the ones who's QB gets knocked out of the game early. Bears are the ones that just miss a sack and gives up the blown coverage TD. Bears are the ones that grab defeat from the jaws of victory.

Jacobs is playing. Only played 57% of the snaps last week, guessing similar this week.

All 4 safeties on the roster (all 5 if you include CJ Gardner-Johnson) are free agents after this year. I would bring back Byard for sure. He takes the ball away and is a leader on the team. Probably only takes a 2 year deal. Brisker is solid, but the injury risk (even though he's been healthy this year) and lack of takeaways historically leads me elsewhere. I'd also bring back one of the backups. I'd prefer Hicks. Then I'd bring back CJGJ. He has the ability to fill Brisker's role, plus is a good hedge in case Kyler continues his trend of not being healthy. Draft another guy between rounds 2-4 to be a long-term starter and also a hedge against CJGJ wearing out his welcome for the 5th straight team.

The Packers love playing a 3rd LB. Their LB3 has played 44% of the snaps. The Bears will obviously play a lot of 12 personnel. They play a lot as is and with WRs out, they'll lean even more into that. And honestly, I think our 12 vs their 3 LBs is a win for the Bears. Their DL is not only thin, numbers wise, they are thin weight wise. The guys that are getting the snaps are undersized. So if the Bears can single block the interior, they can get guys on the LB level and have success running the ball. GB's best run stuffing safety will also miss this game, so the potential for big runs, even when the Packers match the Bears big personnel will be much greater than it was 2 weeks ago. I also wonder if the misdirection and counter stuff will work more against GB this time. They didn't do a whole lot of it 2 weeks ago, either because of Parsons' quickness off the edge or because they had just shown that against the Eagles and Ben knew the Packers would be prepared for that. Their LBs are fast, aggressive and like to come downhill, so getting them going fast in the wrong way could lead to some gashes. The Bears had ZERO explosive runs last time (10 yards+). In the pass game, the Packers faced a similar depleted offense on Thanksgiving when the Lions lost Amon-Ra early in that one. Jamo Williams dominated in that one with 144 of their 256 passing yards. Their group of backup TEs (with Laporta hurt) caught 6 passes. Caleb isn't really the type to rely on 1 target, but unless they completely bracket DJ, I would hope he spams the ball to him especially out of playaction. There will probably be very little pass rush on either side. Packers are a bottom 5 pass rush team without Parsons. Bears obviously don't rush very well with everyone healthy, and last game showed they can't afford to blitz Love. So the Bears are going to have to make some plays in coverage or pretend they are playing Cleveland again up front.

Maybe unpopular, but why the hell not? The Bears are only playing Sweat, Booker and Tryon-Shoyinka there (Dom Rob a healthy scratch last 2 weeks). I wouldn't put in a claim or anything, but if he passes thru waivers, bring him in and see what he can do vs SF and Detroit. Maybe he finds the fountain of youth in a playoff race since its been 4 years since his last. If not, no harm, no foul.

Yeah, he's not very good, but seems to be the best WR at adjusting to scramble drill QB play.

Yeah, seems like Rome is done. Can't put him on IR though or he's out for 1 playoff game (if they don't get a bye). My original thought was maybe bring him back for the SF game next week since the weather may be a bit warmer and easier to deal w/ his foot issue. But it's not like SF is THAT much warmer and it goes right back to cold weather Week 18, so that would be pointless. Not having Burden this week would really suck, a lot.

"any sack with open WRs is too many"......for a perfect QB, which is the point I made earlier. Caleb is not a perfect QB, because that doesn't exist.

My concern wasn't that you said something negative about Caleb. It was that you said something factually incorrect. He doesn't "take too many sacks when he has wide open receivers", because he doesn't take too many sacks in general.

Again "having trouble" is relative. I wouldn't say 2 of 31 drop backs is having trouble. I'd say it's not perfection. Literally every QB holds onto the ball at times. And there's nothing excessive about the amount of times Caleb holds onto the ball. He's at a solid balance of playing in structure and making a superhero play. It can and will get better in structure. Also, I don't think there are as many checkdowns as a lot of offenses. I feel like Ben has kinda said "F the checkdown" and let Caleb just push the ball. If there are checkdowns, they are coming off of guys chipping or preparing to stay in a block for a blitz that never happens. There aren't really a lot of natural checkdowns in the play design.

Because it's 2x in 31 drop backs? I said it wasn't a problem, I didn't say he had perfected the art of not holding onto the ball.

While I completely agree, that's a defensive issue. I'm not worried about the Bears being able to score on their defense. More about the Bears D being able to stop their offense. They can't rush the passer (without a rookie QB and 4 backup OL playing) and they can't afford to blitz Love or count on him giving them the ball. They are going to have to make good ol fashioned stops in this game, which has been hard to come by.

No he doesn't. He had 1, maybe 2 on Sunday that was from holding the ball too long. And he has only been sacked multiple times 4x since Week 2. I don't think many Bears fans realize how huge it is to NOT take sacks and also NOT throw INTs. Caleb is the cause of very few bad plays. He's always limited INTs in his career (fewest INTs thru 1000 throws in NFL history). If he's not taking negative plays on sacks, then there's no reason this 9th ranked scoring offense shouldn't be at it's lowest point in his and Ben's tenure together.

So Jordan Love is pretty good. He's stopped a lot of the TO worthy throws and it's become pretty imperative for the Bears to get takeaways to win games. He did throw 2 yesterday, but 1 was a fantastic play the other I believe was a tipped ball off a WR (I believe). He also threw 1 vs the Bears, but those 3 are 75% of his career post Thanksgiving INTs, Odds are, he's not going to give you the ball unless he's in desperation mode because you have a big lead...... Which brings me to the next point, HAVE HAVE HAVE to come out and score early. You can't get down multiple scores in this game, because there's little guarantee that you can make the multiple stops vs this Packers team that will be needed to make that comeback.

When he throws that ball, DJ is wide open. The DB did a great job of closing on that one, but Caleb put that high so DJ would have either bodied him for the catch if he was in better position, or he would have been able to cause an incompletion. It's really more of elite ball placement than risky throw, IMO

Contracts are complicated, but not impossible to figure out. In the layman-est of terms, dead money is created when a player is released from his contract before all of his guaranteed money has been paid. Dead money can also be created when a team converts some salary into a signing bonus. Signing bonuses give the player a bunch of money upfront, but the team can account for it over multiple years. 10M SB, 5 year contract = 2Mil in cap space each year. So if you cut the player after 3 years, you still have 2 years of 2M each year to account for. If you convert 10M salary into SB in Year 3 of the 5 year deal, it still gets accounted for as 2M over the next 5 years, just so happens the last 3 of those years, the player is not actually under said contract anymore. Very basics. I'm sure WF22 will correct me where I am wrong or oversimplifying.

They've literally won all these games. The only question is do good teams win these games by 3 on a last second game winning drive.

I imagine they'll be slightly favored at home vs Detroit against a Lions team playing their first really cold game and first outdoors since Nov 16.

The "yoffs" gotta stop. That's awful.

Fun thing about the DL, you can't really do much with it! Sweat, Dayo and Jarrett are contracts you can't cut (with any savings) or trade away for someone else to take on. So those 3 are set. Dexter, Turner, and Booker are on rookie deals, so you might as well keep them around for cheap. You can upgrade on the FAs/back of the roster types like Dom Rob, Tryon-Shoyinka, Hardy, Billings, Chris Williams...but the first 6 I named are going to get snaps. You can go crazy and add rookies early in the draft to boost this group, but you won't be picking in the blue chip prospect area of the draft. That's why I say you have to go big, either DE or DT and hope that 1 stud player makes everyone else better on the DL. Drafting a couple guys may take too long to develop. Not that the Bears have a small window overall if Caleb and Ben are the truth, but the rookie QB contract window is small, and this year has shown you are ready to make a run if you shore up the pass rush (and get some injury luck).

Oh and Caleb's 0-5 to start was 2 drops, 1 throwaway, and I'm pretty sure the first play was Burden not running his route at the correct depth, because after the 2nd time he did that (also in the 1st quarter), he was taken out of 2 WR sets (because he's used to being the 3rd WR) for Zaccheus.

If there's anything I hate, it's the "they didn't run the ball enough" takes. Running the ball is great when you can dominate at it like last week. Not so great when your OL is dominated like the 1st half Bears were. And most people seem to be talking about early in the game. The Bears ran 1x in their first 6 plays (2 drives). Well yeah, because they had 15 yards to go on exactly 1/2 of those plays. It would have been stupid to run just to say you're balanced. Ben Johnson has led top 8 offenses every year he's been an OC, including this year with a QB, top 3 targets, and RB1B all in their 1st 2 years of their careers, not to mention an OL playing together for the first season with mix and match rookie LTs. Maybe give the guy the benefit of the doubt?

I think the spread finished as Bears +6.5 last week. I think it's +7 now. But A) I said most likely loss remaining, Eagles game is over. and B) part of it is that teams don't often win B2B games as TD underdogs on the road and if they win this, they may not be underdogs for any game again this year. And part of my attitude today is "F it, IU won!". LOL. I was hoping just not to be shutout this weekend between IU basketball vs #6 Louisville, IU football vs #1 Ohio St, and Bears vs Packers.

Wasn't implying that, just saying that most teams don't win 14 of 15 games to end the season (not to mention potentially 16 of 17 with playoffs). They are probably going to lose a game soon. This is the most likely loss left on the schedule (odds makers likely agree).