raw

No Zeke Elliott. No Noah Brown. No Malik Hooker. No Trystan Hill for the Cowboys. Some starters missing, but Parsons is playing.

Also, per the ESPN and NFL app alerts, Larry Borom has been ruled out for this week with a concussion. Riley Reiff will start at RT in his place. Alex Leatherwood will be added to the active roster from the NFI list.

Well, I just hope they overpay some good players. Because they will definitely overpay, as we talked about. Going to be forced to be like Jacksonville, but hopefully they get the top tier guys instead of overpaying 3rd tier players.

Yeah, it really depends on how he approaches this offseason. He probably planned on making incremental improvements next year to be ready to make big splashes in 2024. But with 135Mil or whatever, he can't really build thru the draft for multiple years like he wants. We only have 1 offseason of extremely conservative moves and Ridley would definitely be a risky move based on his suspension and potential rustiness. Wasn't the past off season one of extremely conservative moves? At the very least, both lines must be addressed in a big way this next offseason. Appears that's possible with the draft and FA. Yeah that's what I meant. We can't really determine what kind of risk/reward Poles will take in free agency based on the 1 offseason of conservative moves we have. Does he stay with low risk, low reward players at affordable contracts? Does he throw big money around, maybe even overpay for the top FAs? I think he underestimated the market last year (I'll blame the previous offseason during pandemic when values were down) and honestly think he thought he would be able to do more. But it could be that he's just bad at the job.

The name that keeps going thru my head is Calvin Ridley. Obviously more of an offseason move, but I wonder A) what it would take and B) if Poles would even make that dice roll. Ridley is probably the best way to get a really good WR without giving up a super high pick. There's literally 0 in free agency that are as productive as he was a couple years ago. He's due 9Mil for his 5th year option. Falcons were close to dealing him to Philly before his suspension was announced, so he'll be going somewhere. I'd imagine he'd be treated similarly to like a Robert Woods, who coming off a missed year w/ an ACL tear went for like a 5th and 6th or something. I wouldn't expect Ridley would cost much more than that. He's going to be almost 2 years removed by his next game. And he's also going to be 28 so not a spring chicken (he was almost Velus age when drafted). For the Bears, he'd provide a competent WR. He also probably wouldn't cost an immediate contract extension, which is an issue with Mooney likely getting an extension this offseason. He has the incentive to let his play on the field earn his next contract in line with the elite WRs. The Bears would be able to franchise tag him in 2024 and then let him walk at 30, with Mooney's big numbers starting to kick in and hopefully a draft pick performing well. But I wonder if Poles would add a guy that was suspended for a year for gambling. Seems to be a big image guy and IDK if he'd want Ridley on an otherwise pretty young roster. But man, I think the prospect cost and the financial obligation would make him a spectacular value if you can get him on the field. The 2023 WR Free Agent class doesn't look all that strong, WR is either going to be addressed with the draft, trade or most likely both. I like the Ridley idea, could be something Poles may get heat for that'll turn out well. Yeah, it really depends on how he approaches this offseason. He probably planned on making incremental improvements next year to be ready to make big splashes in 2024. But with 135Mil or whatever, he can't really build thru the draft for multiple years like he wants. We only have 1 offseason of extremely conservative moves and Ridley would definitely be a risky move based on his suspension and potential rustiness.

The name that keeps going thru my head is Calvin Ridley. Obviously more of an offseason move, but I wonder A) what it would take and B) if Poles would even make that dice roll. Ridley is probably the best way to get a really good WR without giving up a super high pick. There's literally 0 in free agency that are as productive as he was a couple years ago. He's due 9Mil for his 5th year option. Falcons were close to dealing him to Philly before his suspension was announced, so he'll be going somewhere. I'd imagine he'd be treated similarly to like a Robert Woods, who coming off a missed year w/ an ACL tear went for like a 5th and 6th or something. I wouldn't expect Ridley would cost much more than that. He's going to be almost 2 years removed by his next game. And he's also going to be 28 so not a spring chicken (he was almost Velus age when drafted). For the Bears, he'd provide a competent WR. He also probably wouldn't cost an immediate contract extension, which is an issue with Mooney likely getting an extension this offseason. He has the incentive to let his play on the field earn his next contract in line with the elite WRs. The Bears would be able to franchise tag him in 2024 and then let him walk at 30, with Mooney's big numbers starting to kick in and hopefully a draft pick performing well. But I wonder if Poles would add a guy that was suspended for a year for gambling. Seems to be a big image guy and IDK if he'd want Ridley on an otherwise pretty young roster. But man, I think the prospect cost and the financial obligation would make him a spectacular value if you can get him on the field.

IDK why that matters. They were picking up ALL the salary if they kept him on the team, plus carrying whatever dead cap next year when they inevitably cut him after this season. A 4th is perfectly fine. the cap space you gain is worthless if you don’t spend it and it will be nigh on impossible for Poles to spend the cap space he has available. There are only so many Lucas Patricks out there. It's certainly possible. Not sure if likely. But even if it's not spent, it gives the team flexibility if they wind up competing next year. It also can rollover to the following year. So, it will get spent eventually.

Yep. Annoying to spend as little as they did and not design a comp strategy around ARob and Daniels departures. Basically the entire FA prioritized familiarity with the coaching/FO staff. That's worth a 3/4th and 5th comp pick I guess. Ah horsefeathers, I forgot all about that! Yeah kind of sucks. And they probably aren't getting a comp pick in 2024 either because they need to spend the 125M they have next year.

I wonder if this extra pick (now gives them a full 7, and five top 140 picks), gives them some ammo/incentive to get involved in a trade for a long-term piece. I'm guessing the asking prices are too high right now for Jeudy and Claypool, but as it gets closer to Tuesday, those prices may come down. And if a bunch of teams are offering picks, the Bears pick will likely be higher than teams in competition with them. I'd certainly be willing to part with a 2023 2nd and a 2024 4th for Jeudy, now that they have an extra 4th and Poles has shown the willingness to trade back.

Monday's win put top 5 on life support, IMO. They are probably going to have the best SOS of the bad teams, so they are going to have to finish a game worse than other teams to get into the top 5. IDK if no Quinn makes that much of a difference as far as making them worse. But they are probably going to finish with a better record than Detroit, Houston and Carolina for sure. Colts appear to be tanking, though they are a 1/2 game better than the Bears right now. Already beat NE, who's tied with the Bears. But it does seem likely that teams like the Raiders, Cardinals, 49ers, Browns and Saints finish with a better record. Likely worse- Lions, Texans, Panthers Likely better- Raiders, Cardinals, 49ers, Browns, Packers Competition for top 5 spot- Steelers, Broncos, Colts, Patriots, Commanders, Jags, Saints (if Dalton gets a couple more games). The Bears are behind all of these teams in draft order already, except for Washington.

IDK why that matters. They were picking up ALL the salary if they kept him on the team, plus carrying whatever dead cap next year when they inevitably cut him after this season. A 4th is perfectly fine.

I'll take it. May be the last pick of the 4th at this point, but I honestly was expecting a 5th and change. And even that was a whole lot better than letting him walk after the season for nothing in return.

You can put Borom down for a bad PFF score already. He has no chance of containing Parsons. Wouldn't he be matched up mostly against Jones? He'll line up everywhere. He'll get reps against the LT, RT and against the interior.

Another thing, is this work league has been going for a while, and when a person leaves the company, they leave the league. The other person to join the league is my teammate, who's a woman, and is the only 6-1 team in the league. She also was randomly given the last pick too. So extra sad for me.

Did that in my other money league, but I'll make the playoffs in that league. I'm only 3-4, but I feel good about my team.

Yikes, that's a rough go of it. You've mentioned a lot of the names but what does your full team look like now? Also how many teams make the playoffs? The one thing I like about my league is 8/12 teams make the playoffs so a doomsday start is not the end of the season. The 2-5 team in my league is 1 game out of the playoffs. 6 of 12 make playoffs. I'm tied for 9th (aka 2nd to last) and actually am about 8 points from top 1/2 of the league in scoring. There's a 5-2 team with the 2nd lowest point total. I am 2 games out of playoff spot. But my team is: QB- Brady, Mariota (hoping to add Tua off waivers) RB- Aaron Jones Rb- Dalvin Cook WR- DJ Moore WR- Tee Higgins TE- David Njoku (now out 2-5 weeks), claim in on Geisicki Flex- Dameone Pierce Flex- Allen Lazard K- Seattle Def- Cowboys Have Mattison (Cook handcuff), Hardman, Romeo Doubs, Darnell Mooney, and Elijah Mitchell on my bench. Have had some injuries and underachieving, but I don't see a roster that gets me in the money.

I'm in the same place. He's shown definite improvement in the last few weeks in some of the areas of concern. His pocket presence is way better, he's shifting away from the pressure consistently instead of running into it half the time. He's throwing the ball away more often when he should, he's pulling the trigger a little more consistently. He's made some successful hot reads against blitzes. I don't know if he's ever going to be the pocket passer of my dreams, but he looks like he can be a useful NFL quarterback. But I don't wanna get *too* effusive with the praise from yesterday. He made some bad decisions, he has accuracy problems, and he fumbled four times. I have to laugh at his short throws sometimes. And I actually GET what's happening. His footwork is really out of whack on short throws. I have learned teaching my son to pitch, if you step into your throw properly and you have a really good arm, you can really throw the ball extremely hard. So, I feel like he's trying to throw "easy" on these quick throws and is not trying to put his all behind it. But he's aiming and his footwork is a mess. Footwork seems mostly fine on long throws. But then later in the game, after a couple bad short ones, he did step into one on a WR screen to Mooney and he threw it about 95 mph from 15 yards away and it was about a foot over Mooney's head. Mooney caught it, but the play only went for 3-4 yards instead of probably 8-9 if the throw is in his chest.

Been at my current job about 15 months. Joined the work money league this year. And my team is embarrassing me! I didn't know how these people drafted and waited too long at QB. Ended up with Tom Brady (typical top 8 QB) and Trey Lance (thought would have a chance to surprise like 2021 Jalen Hurts). Week 1- League low 72.48 points. Three of the players in my lineup got hurt and held to less than 5 points, not including DJ Moore who had Baker Mayfield ignoring him. Also not including Brian Robinson who got shot, and who I had to cut and who is now on another team. Week 2- Ran into a buzzsaw. 177 points against. Whatever, it happens. Week 3- Lost by 9. Aaron Jones, DJ Moore and Hunter Henry combined for exactly 10 PPR points Week 4- Hey, a win. Week 5- Lost by less than 9. Tee Higgins hurt in 1st quarter, puts up a 0. Also, didn't realize the Eagles kicker was out so got a 0 there as well. Week 6- Won! Beat the worst team in the league by 13! Week 7- Season high 150.5 points! 2nd highest point total of the week.....but guess who I played? Yep, high score of the week. Watched my team lose Sunday night as Kenny Pickett threw an INT late (actually threw 2 so I lost by 2.4 instead of just 0.4). Opponent had Miami D and Jaylen Waddle. So, either Pittsburgh score (-2 for Dolphins D) and no more than 3.6 more points from Waddle on the ensuing drive OR a turnover on downs and Miami runs out the clock with the lead is what I needed. He gave 4 points to Miami D.

Lamar ran for 107 yards against the Pats in Week 3. Multiple patriots players said the Bears were running the same stuff the Ravens were. Great of Eberflus to recognize and take advantage. I guess the question is why the Patriots were not better prepared, unless they just don't have the scheme/talent to stop it. I mentioned early in this thread that the Pats have had trouble with running QBs, and pointed out that 107 yard game as my only example. But I do believe it's historically a thing too for Belichick defenses. My thinking is that the Pats team speed, specifically at LB, is below average. They don't have guys that can really spy a guy like Fields or Jackson without getting run by. Bill seems unwilling to go big nickel or dime either to have a safety spying the QB. Edit: yeah their LBs are 260 & 250 lbs respectively and both ran over 4.75 at the combine. Patriots have historically had big ILBs.

Gordon basically refused to score a TD on that one. He certainly could have outrun everyone down the sidelines if he wanted to. I thought that was odd, but he was tired and the game was over at that point. Didn't Tywuan Thornton run him down? He was the fastest receiver at the combine with a 4.28 or something crazy Yeah it was Thornton, but Gordon wasn't letting it go either or running away from him (into the field).

One went out of bounds.

Yeah, the fumbles are bad. Some of the short throws are horrendous. But there was a concerted effort to design power runs for him (Getsy must have watched some Bills tape with the time off). They moved the pocket just enough, but when they didn't, Fields was able to maneuver in the pocket. Just consistently do this is all I want. He's going to hold onto the ball, he's going to get sacked a lot. Just let him play ball the way he plays ball. I have 0 idea what they do against Dallas though, if they can't run the ball well. Luckily the Cowboys don't seem to be too great defending the run. I'd imagine their DVOA isn't great vs. the run, but they are 20th ranked in counting stats. The teams in similar situations with bad offenses/QB issues (NYG, WAS, DET) were all able to run the ball pretty well against them on a YPC basis. The Bucs in Week 1 had BY FAR their best rushing day of the year against them. But when the Bears pass, it's gonna be ugly. One thing in their favor is the Cowboys pass rush mostly comes off the edge. Their interior is not very good. Of course, they blitz a ton, so yeah Fields is going to take a beating.

Mustipher is better as a reliever. That pretty much matches up with what I thought I saw last night. He played pretty well. Schofield was good. Jenkins again was strong. Honestly, he's the only clear starting level OL on the roster right now. I thought Jones also did well, but he saw like 0 of Judon who only rushed against Borom, who's pass blocking grade is better than I thought it'd be.

Nah. I think they'll try to make it work with one of them. Jones was a 1st round pick. He had 1 solid year, and so far 3-4 iffy games. He has a better foundation thru 1 1/2 years than Fields at this point. They probably won't pick high enough where they HAVE to take QB as the BPA. And I don't see any reason for them to trade up for one. Give Jones 1 more year and Zappe 2 if he actually takes over and plays decently.

Short week, so getting this started. Plus, I'm hot! 1 in a row! I believe the Bears are wearing orange w/ orange helmets again the day before Halloween. Adjust your expectations accordingly.