raw

Is Velus really a lock? I would hope they acquire enough assets to at least make it possible he’s off the team by the time summer comes along. He’s done nothing. He’s older and there cannot be much of a cap hit by cutting him. Yeah, he's a lock. He's not a lock to be in the offensive rotation as more than a gimmick player, but he will be on this team. He's been playing special teams on coverage and returns. He has a pair of 40+ yard returns (actually leads NFL in average, but small sample size), so he has some value even if he's never an actual NFL WR.

Separate for defense. DE- Gipson, Robinson, Muhammad, Charlton Muhammad has to go. He's been terrible this year. Gipson went from potential extension candidate to just a body. Robinson went from potential steal of the draft with 1.5 sacks in Week 1, to 0 sacks since. You keep both because they are young and cheap, but they should be guys getting 35% of the snaps instead of 45-55% like they are. Means you need 2 good players here. I'd sign a solid FA, without spending huge money here. IDK if you can justify big money so soon after the Mack & Quinn trades, even if you have the money. Just a solid starter, better than Muhammad was supposed to be. Then you have to use 1 of the first 2 picks here. Will Anderson is an obvious candidate. But there's some Day 2 guys I really like as well, even if just pass rush specialists. Charlton can go back wherever he was 2 weeks ago. DT- Jones, Watts (FA), Pennel (FA), Blackson (FA), Brown, Coley (PS), Holmes (PS) Pennel and Blackson are horrible. I might bring back Watts. He's OK as a DT4, not a starter. Jones is OK as DT2, not DT1, cheap enough to give a shot playing next to better talent. Lot of good FAs here. While all of them may not make it to the market, the Bears 100% have to get one of the top guys. They have the most money and the biggest need. Jalen Carter an obvious draft candidate, but I'm thinking the Bears sign a FA so good that it takes DT way down the list of needs. Sign another depth piece in FA. Maybe draft a guy here late. Coley, Brown, Holmes and Watts compete for DT4 in camp LB- Sanborn, Morrow, Thomas, Adams, Weatherford, Gates Sanborn the only lock here. Weatherford you might as well bring back as a teamer. I liked Gates a lot in preseason. But he's depth at best. Probably need to add 3 guys here. I'd sign a MIKE LB to solidify the position, clear upgrade over Morrow so have to spend some money here. I'd draft a guy as well, Eberflus has a good history drafting Day 2 LBs. My ideal lineup would be FA MLB, Sanborn at SAM LB and a high upside draft pick at WLB. But Sanborn has shown fine as a WLB, so if the rookie isn't ready can put anyone at SAM for 30% of the snaps. CB- Johnson, Gordon, Vildor, Jones, Layne, Blackwell, Borders (PS), Hand (PS) Johnson and Gordon are obvious locks. Johnson potential extension candidate, but IDK if I do that just yet. Blackwell and Jaylon Jones have shown well when they've had to play for the most part. Not bad players to have as CB4-5-or-6. Key here is upgrading Vildor. It's fine if he's on the roster, but he has to be on the bench and special teams. I'd probably sign a moderately priced upgrade (nothing over 6-8Mil) and draft a guy on Day 3 here. Practice guys are older and have no purpose. S- Jackson, Brisker, Houston-Carson (FA), Hicks, AJ Thomas, Colbert (PS) Brisker is a lock, hopefully for a very long time. I love DHC and I hope the Bears bring him back. No ties to this regime, but I'd give him a modest multi-year (3) deal for the first time in his career. He's solid depth. Hicks has been better than I expected, hated the pick. Fine as depth. Thomas and Colbert are bodies, they can be replaced by other bodies if necessary. Jackson is a key here. Sounds like the injury isn't as bad as expected and no surgery. But has an ugly 17M cap hit. Do you pay him that because you have the money to do so? Do you restructure to move money and keep a 30 year old longer? Do you cut yet another defensive leader and find a replacement? I say the first one, let him play out next year at 17M, probably gone after 2023 though. Keep Jackson and DHC and you probably don't have to do much here other than back end of 53 man adds.

Time to start thinking about the offseason if you're the Bears. I've been looking at some stuff and figured I'd start with analyzing the current roster. QB- Fields, Siemien, Peterman, Boyle Obviously, Fields is QB1 next year. Siemien stays as QB2. Peterman and Boyle get jettisoned back to coach HS ball unless you need them again as a camp body or injury replacement next year. RB- Montgomery (FA), Herbert, Evans, Ebner, Blasingame (FB-FA) Tough decision here, but I let Montgomery walk. Personally, I'm looking for more of a big play guy to compliment Herbert. I'd probably do a 2-for-1 here and get a speed guy and a big short yardage guy, unless you do something crazy like sign Barkley or Jacobs (which I wouldn't dislike). Bears have a ton of money, this could be a fun place to spend it and get a dynamic talent next to Justin. Evans is a RFA, keep him for a camp body at worst. Ebner, if the regime is tied to their draft pick can be RB4, but should have to fight for a roster spot next year. Can take or leave Blasingame. Can be upgraded. FB isn't necessary though I acknowledge they probably have one. WR- Mooney, Claypool, Jones Jr, St. Brown (FA), Harry (FA), Pettis (FA), Pringle (FA), Fountain (PS), Webster (PS) First 3 guys are locks for the roster. Interesting will be if either, neither, or both are signed to long-term deals. My guess is Mooney = yes. Claypool = no. The last 2 on the 53-man are locks to be gone. I think maybe you keep 1 of the big guys (ESB, Harry), but obviously not married to either at this point. Harry has more upside but can't get on the field on a bad unit. Pettis and Pringle getting so many snaps leads me to believe the Bears may focus on a slot WR in this draft, in an odd place because not going to take one top 5 and may not get one late 2nd. Practice squad guys are no good. TE- Kmet, Griffin (FA), Wesco (FA), Tonges, Chase Allen (PS) Kmet obviously a lock and possible extension candidate. Griffin, Wesco and Tonges can be easily replaced. Allen is an intriguing 6'6 practice squad guy, that might get a look next year but shouldn't be more than TE3 or TE4. OT- Jones, Borom, Reiff (FA), Leatherwood, Diesch (PS) Jones is a lock, probably going to remain at LT. IDK that there's any prospect in this draft that could move him to RT, unless Fashanu from Penn St changes his mind. Reiff goes. Leatherwood stays as depth. Borom is probably a trade/cut candidate. Diesch is actually really intriguing and had a good camp in Miami. But he shouldn't be better than OT4, with Leatherwood OT3. Gotta add a FA or early draft pick to start opposite of Braxton. Depth seems fine w/or without Borom. OG/C- Whitehair, Mustipher (FA?), Jenkins, Schofield (FA), Eiselen, Patrick, Carter, Niese (PS), Kramer (inj) Jenkins should be a lock. But the staff effed with him a bit early this year. His performance seems to suggest he should be at RG next year (wouldn't hate him getting a shot at RT again, but whatever). Mustipher and Schofield are gone. Tough decision is Whitehair vs. Patrick. I think I cut Whitehair and his 14.1Mil cap hit and keep Patrick to play the C position he was brought in to play. Spend money to upgrade LG (Elgton Jenkins seems like a no-brainer), Teven at RG. Upgrade RT and Patrick is fine as a cheap-ish weak link on the line. Carter, Niese, Kramer and Eiselen are fodder. Bring in at least 1 really good vet depth piece. Maybe even draft a guy early Day 3. Maybe 1 of those 5 (fodder and rookie) makes the roster.

Yeah, I would love Leatherwood to be a thing. But he can play 60 snaps each of the last 4 games and pancake his man every play and I still wouldn't feel comfortable with him in a starting spot. Bears have had a lot of OL injuries this year. If he can be a versatile backup, that's a win in my book.

Completely agree. I'm excited about the cap space and high draft pick and all of that but like 90% of the Bears roster is currently marginal NFL talent. They have a lot to fix. You can rebuild quickly in the NFL, but Poles will need to have a very high hit rate IMO to be a contender next year. But its interesting that there's this conflict between Poles taking time to add pieces through the draft and FA and building out the roster to be set for long term success and the ticking clock that is Fields' rookie contract. My guess is that Poles would prefer to be slow and deliberate, but you also have to try to take advantage of an elite QB on a rookie deal because that dude is getting paid eventually. It's not even that IMO. He actually can't take his time because he has way too much money that HAS to be spent this offseason. Be one thing if he could just hand out extensions but there's not much on this team to extend (traded away 1 major extension candidate) and players with less than 3 years can't even be extended. He can want to be slow and deliberate all he wants, but he put himself into a situation where that's not even possible.

It's a surprise to a fraction of Bears twitter who are fixated on the 2 INTs and Fields not coming thru in the clutch.

IDK about that. The Broncos have won 1 game since Sept, and seem to find more miserable ways to lose than the Bears right now. They got the Chiefs twice and a Chargers team that will be desperate Week 18. Rams/Broncos do play each other, but I wouldn't count on the other winning another game if they can't win that one. Rams schedule is easier, but have no Stafford or Kupp the rest of the year. Donald is missing time now. They have incentive to win (no 1st rounder), but may not have the ability.

Yeah, I thought about the Chargers when I made my post about Fields covering up stuff. But to be fair, even though they were 9-8 last year and 6-6 so far this year, they competed for a playoff spot last year until literally the last play of OT. They are a game out right now. They are underachieving in general, but seem to be pretty poorly coached (and I loved the hire of Staley). That franchise may just be cursed. That being said, there's nothing to say the Bears aren't cursed either so.....LOL.

OOF. I'm sorry to hear that. Not sure if you watched that Cowboys game, but they had a scoop and score called back late in the 4th because the person who recovered the fumble was just barely touched by a Colt as he was recovering. I have the Cowboys defense so I was annoyed though I didn't need the score to win. Ouch. I didn't watch the game after the Colts went up and down the field the first couple drives. I figured I'd get too pissed.

The play calling was just so drastically different in the 2nd half. They were driving at will in the 1st half, then suddenly in the 2nd half they change things and can't move the ball. If that's not intentional, then I'm very concerned about our OC's ability to help this become a winning team. I am concerned as well. Thankfully like Poles, Eberflus and Fields he has an offseason to figure it out. This is really an unfamiliar situation. LOL. If Fields is the real deal (and it looks like he may be), then he makes everyone else's job easier. Obviously, they need to get the talent around him, but that doesn't seem especially difficult now that they have actual draft picks and tons of money. Sure they can still screw it up by spending and drafting wrong, but Fields covers up a lot of that. He covers up bad GM'ing by improving. He covers up bad coaching if he can win in spite of it. He covers up bad playcalling if he can run 50 yards at the drop of a hat. Obviously, I'm hoping this is a collaborative effort and the GM is decent enough, HC just stays out of way, and OC lets Fields be Fields, but Fields has a chance to make them all look like geniuses if they can just get the rest of the team to a baseline level.

So pissed about my work (money) league. My team is terrible, but Justin Fields has single-handedly put me in contention for a playoff spot. This week 6-6, tied for the last playoff spot. A win and needed to outscore the 6th place team by 20 points to get into the last spot (there is next week as well). Playing another 6-6 that I have outscored this year. So, pretty huge game. This MF'er has been waiting all year to start Deshaun Watson, and rightfully only got 5.6 points out of that POS. But he also has the Browns D and ST, who scored THREE horsefeathering TOUCHDOWNS! 31 points! He also picked up the Steelers backup kicker due to injury and he put up 16 points. So, I go into the night game needing a HUGE game from the Cowboys defense. 21 points. I know I needed either a bunch of sacks, a few turnovers, and 1, if not 2 scores. 3 sacks, 5 turnovers, 1 score. Instead of 21 points, they fall just short and put up 20. I lose what is essentially and elimination game by 0.6 points.

We joke about it because the reality that he's just bad at his job is horsefeathering scary.

Claypool seemed to start having a connection w/ Fields. He had those back to back catches, including the play he fumbled, before he got hurt. Those were the only 2 plays that weren't designed to go to him just for the sake of using him. His other 3 catches were all screen passes, and all 4 of his other targets were. Speaking of screens, damn this felt like Getsy was really trying to not win this game. Getsy called pass on 6 of the 9 first down plays that Fields lined up at QB (there was a 1st down wildcat play, which why are you running wildcat when your QB is the biggest run threat there is?). It was 16-3 thru that point, and then a kneel down before going to halftime. First drive on the 2nd half- End around, penalty, 2nd and 14 run, 3rd and 5 throw behind the LOS to Claypool, without extreme off coverage nor was it an actual screen play with blockers set up. Just a behind the line, 1-on-1 throw. Second drive of 2nd half- Run, Run, again behind the line pass that's not a screen, QB run (may have been a scramble), 24 yard pass to Kmet on 3rd and long, run, run with Evans, 3rd and long run w/ Evans that works, wildcat formation penalty, 1st and 19 run, 2nd and 24 short pass to Montgomery (essentially designed to work as a run play) Third drive of 2nd half- deep to Harry 49 yards, checkdown to Montgomery for negative yards, 2nd and 12 run, 3rd and 5 run up the middle By the time the Bears get the ball again, they were behind with less than 5 minutes to play. Fields was damn near perfect throwing at that point with just 2 incompletions and at least 3 completions over 20 air yards, so it's not like he was having a bad game or his numbers were being boosted by a bunch of run after catch plays.

Is what it is. He's trying to make a play in an unwinnable game. The 1st INT was on St. Brown and the worse job coming out of a break I've ever seen. It sucks that the OC took the ball out of his hands and ran the ball repeatedly when he was in the midst of 11 straight completions and throwing the ball as well as he has all season.

Eagles will lose 1 more game. Vikings will lose again too (even though schedule isn't difficult). Week 18 will be meaningless and the Bears will win.

Green Bay is still bad against the run and particularly against the QB run. Honestly, the Bears should have the similar approach that they did last game (GB should as well, TBF). I'm actually mostly fine with Fields running, as long as he doesn't get hit. Most of the scrambles, he doesn't take hits. It's the designed off tackle QB runs that are the most dangerous. I'd love to see them drop back as well, but that also scares me. Go to Claypool deep early and often.

Yeah, he's playing. Flus all but said so. The whole, "he's trending towards and if no setbacks" stuff. Trevor Siemien apparently is having oblique surgery and is out for the season. Peterman is QB2 this week. Tim Boyle is QB3 this week.

I'm so torn. I would love nothing more than Fields to singlehandedly beat GB this week, and my fantasy team needs a win in 1 of my money leagues. But the defense couldn't stop this same bad GB offense earlier in the season, and they had Quinn, Roquan, and Jackson then. So, they're going to lose anyway and now I have to actually care if Fields plays.

I know I’m not the target audience, but I already tune out college football by the time the championship comes up. I generally watch sports to watch my teams and since I don’t really have a college team, I’m really only interested in big matchups. We’re lucky to get two good games in a regular season weekend, by the time bowl season rolls around I expect garbage. I’ll maybe watch parts of each playoff, and some of the big name bowls. With expansion that’ll just make me less interested. Yeah, IU is pretty meh as usual, after a couple solid years. But I do like college football, and watch NFL prospects in general, so I will watch. But I usually turn games off if it's 28-0 in the 2nd quarter, which is likely to happen when you have your typical 5/12 matchups. And going forward, I don't see many scenarios where 5/12 and 6/11 aren't going to be Michigan/Ohio St loser and whichever SEC West team isn't in the championship game (LSU, BAMA, Auburn & A&M occasionally) vs. a 3-loss Power 5 or mid major teams.

I hate the playoff expansion. I understand why it's being done and I know "any given Saturday" but in the 8 years of the playoff, we've only seen 4 of the 16 games featuring just the top 4 teams finish within THREE SCORES. Only 1 in the last 4 years has even been competitive.

Reiff and Borom have injuries and different levels of suckitude. I wouldn't mind Leatherwood getting a look at RT, especially if no Fields. I'd rather give Whitehair the boot (if he can't play C) and let Leatherwood play LG. Hell, put him at RG and give Jenkins another shot at tackle.

Oh yuck.

He’s a free agent. They could franchise him, which would make him no longer inexpensive, and still leave them with no long-term solution and thus likely still wanting to draft a qb. Otherwise he hits the open market and who knows? I was thinking he might get some 2/40-2/50 offers. Seems like a reasonable risk. Bridgewater signed 3/63M with Carolina a couple years ago. With contracts increasing again, I think it would take closer to that 2/50M for Geno. They can guarantee him a little more than the franchise tag (~31M), create an out after the year if necessary, and Geno gets his big payday and everyone should be happy with that.

Houston's impossible to catch. With that tie, the Texans have to win 3 more times if the Bears lose out. They end with Jacksonville and the Colts, but have Browns (Watson revenge factor), Cowboys, Chiefs and Titans in the next 4. Actually I think they only need two more W if Bears lose out. That tie basically acts like a half win doesn't it? Yeah, you're right. I'm thinking in terms of wins instead of in terms of losses. Bears would be 3-14 if they lose out. Texans 3-13-1 if they win 2 more. So Bears would get the #1 pick.

I know it's a long shot but I'm keeping an eye on the Houston scores. mineaswell dream big Houston's impossible to catch. With that tie, the Texans have to win 3 more times if the Bears lose out. They end with Jacksonville and the Colts, but have Browns (Watson revenge factor), Cowboys, Chiefs and Titans in the next 4.