WrigleyField 22

Okay, how about, "the Lions have proven they can't be out-tanked" ..again...its too early in the season to say that when teams like Chicago, Cleveland and Atlanta are out there Your optimism/pessimism (depending on perspective) is admirable.

nah, the Bears haven't proven anything yet Okay, how about, "the Lions have proven they can't be out-tanked"

The Bears have proven they can't out-tank the Lions. Lawrence dream is dead (unless we can flip Mack for a first still and use that with our mid-round first and 2022 first for a RGIII like Trade-up). Maybe Justin Fields is the realistic dream. Feels like there's been a lot of investment in high end QBs the past few years, so hopefully that dampens the market as teams like the Jets or whatever are still deciding on their investments. Justin Fields is awesome. But looking around the league.... Have Franchise QB: BAL, HOU, TEN, KC, PHI, DAL?, MIN, GB, DET?, ATL, SF?, SEA, ARZ, LAR Recently drafted promising QB: MIA, BUF, CIN, DEN, LAC, WAS, NYG, GB, Probably needs a long-term QB: NYJ, CLE, PIT, JAX, LVR, NO, TB, CAR, Definitely need long-term QB: NE, IND, CHI Not a lot of sure fire QB needy teams. Dallas could join the QB needy, but that would likely take off one of the others. Jets, Browns, Jags have QBs on 15-game auditions and they will all either go down to absolutely need a QB or up to promising QB depending on results. Maybe throw Washington, NYG and Denver here, but I doubt they go QB very early. Detroit SHOULD probably see what they can get for Stafford and start over, but remains to be seen if they will. Teams like NO and TB have HOF QBs on short deals, could draft an heir. Carolina has big money in Bridgewater, but could conceivably move on. That's a good list, but you're also only needing to compete in the top half of the draft, generally. And several of those needy teams will have lower picks and would need to agree to part with multiple first round picks during a competitive window to acquire a QB for a couple years away. I could see CLE, CHI, CAR being the main lower teir teams. DET is a possibility (I think they'd draft Lawrence if they finish 1st (as would many borderline teams), I'm not sure they accelerate Stafford out to move up in a Lawrence or Fields battle.

It would take more than luck. It would take a commitment from the team. Plus you still gotta outtank the Browns too.

Let the Browns sign him and get the comp pick. Draft a QB. OR tank the season, give him to the Lions and draft Lawrence The Bears have proven they can't out-tank the Lions. Lawrence dream is dead (unless we can flip Mack for a first still and use that with our mid-round first and 2022 first for a RGIII like Trade-up). Maybe Justin Fields is the realistic dream. Feels like there's been a lot of investment in high end QBs the past few years, so hopefully that dampens the market as teams like the Jets or whatever are still deciding on their investments.

Let the Browns sign him and get the comp pick. Draft a QB.

I mean really the only reason to extend them is if you always planned to blow it up in 2021, knowing 2018-2020 was the prime window when you made the Mack trade. Their cap is a mess for 2021, but gets a bit more flexibility in 2022. Ideal mini-reset time (complete with a new QB drafted in 2021). With that plan, you'd be trying to pocket some 2022 comp picks, perhaps as high of a 3 with ARob. I doubt that's Pace's plan though.

Fwiw

Wow, Massie graded pretty well too. I remember one big pass rush whiff, but the run game doing well probably meant he did his job there.

Doesn't surprise me at all. Dude has been tweeting really cryptic quotes for the last month. Presumably related to a lack of extension. But at the same time, while some athletes do this to force a trade it is also the go-to move for trying to gain leverage in contact talks Yea, I doubt its for a trade. Definitely seems like it would be more extension related. I know Pace has signed a lot of pre-season extensions the past few years... not sure if he's done any once the season kicks off though. I say extend him. The new TV deal is coming and whatever extension he signs now would probably be immediately a 20% discount when new TV money comes in.

Don't jump on the hype train. Just watch and enjoy the good plays and know even if they fluke into a 10-11 win season they'll ll blow their divisional playoff game, hopefully just not with a double doink.

Yea, the offense seems like it has a game plan, it's just going to come down to consistency or lack there of each week. Hope Kmet can get involved, but that's a minor thing. Defense they need to figure some things out. Hopefully Quinn is back soon, but they need to figure out some other things. Danny T did not look like a starting player, let alone a 3 down LB. I'm assuming he's still the primary D play caller, but based on Sunday, they need to hand those reigns over to Eddie Jackson or Roquan Smith and make Trevathan a part time player. They could experiment in the nickle with 3 down looks, or Pagano apparently used a lot of 3 S looks in the past which he hasn't really done yet in Chicago. Maybe see if Iggy or Woods have anything to offer in sub packages too. Mingo spent some time inside in Seattle I think too, if Quinn is back maybe he can play ILB in the sub. Run D, are there any FAs who might shore up the NT spot? I like all our DEs, but making them slide into the NT seems like it's gonna be bad for the run D all year. Or see what Jenkins can do.

Bookmark this for when NFL owners start crying poor because of the pandemic: https://football.realgm.com/wiretap/44798/NFL-Could-See-75-Percent-Increase-With-New-TV-Contracts

I definitely tried to do something like that at a very basic level. Looked at seasons 1-6 and 7-12 as two queries and crossed the references against each other to. Include guys who only made one list. Obviously wanted to keep out the 1 year wonders so 5-ish cumulative seasons is probably a decent target to even get into an elite list, but I went with 6 just because that was where Mack was starting at. Also, as mentioned guys like White and Dent who were very strong through 6, I noted that even if they dropped off, they still had strong numbers. So they didn't age well from a comparative point, but did still in an absolute sense. Definitely there could be more sophisticated ways to do it (for one, trying to do a rolling 6 season as you might find a guy who was elite in years 3-8 and made neither of my lists). Also perhaps need my second leg to meet a slightly more generous threshold. For example if a guy went 12, 12, 10, 9, 4, 0 his last 6 seasons, he still aged fairly well (and such a result I think most Bears fans would be happy with from Mack considering the contact), but he'd miss my second list threshold. So, doing this again "properly" and not quick and dirty, I'd probably try something like "best 4 seasons" against rolling average 3 seasons over their remainder of their career, or something like that. Which would probably make me feel better about Mack, but kind of prove the "elite" part is self fulfilling and that Mack just doesn't belong with the likes of truly elite pass rushers (but still very good in other harder to measure areas... But also isn't being paid for his run D). But I do agree with your last point, which is what I suspected when I started this list in my reply to David. It's self-fulfilling and a selection bias issue that created that particular myth. The drop for Mack has been precipitous, he went from someone who could change the outcome of a game to nearly invisible. He had no effect in yesterday' game, they'd won with or without him, and he'll probably make no difference in this Bears' season. I guess its a combination of the items mentioned above, injury and a difference in what constitutes holding. During the game, on both sides, most especially on Mack, I've seen the OL' arm under chin 'block', Mack' essentially by the blocker however, the blocker is using Mack' chin and neck to hold him back. I do not know how the hell that isn't a hold. Here's the optimistic view on Mack; There still can be a lot of game to game noise for pass rushers. And he can maybe be like age 30-35 Julis Peppers, but it's almost a certainty the Defensive MVP we traded for ain't gonna be there consistently going forward. And many other parts of the D unit are probably on their downside already too. At least most of their picks are intact again going forward.

Its one of the easiest drops we'll see all season in the whole NFL, IMO.

I definitely tried to do something like that at a very basic level. Looked at seasons 1-6 and 7-12 as two queries and crossed the references against each other to. Include guys who only made one list. Obviously wanted to keep out the 1 year wonders so 5-ish cumulative seasons is probably a decent target to even get into an elite list, but I went with 6 just because that was where Mack was starting at. Also, as mentioned guys like White and Dent who were very strong through 6, I noted that even if they dropped off, they still had strong numbers. So they didn't age well from a comparative point, but did still in an absolute sense. Definitely there could be more sophisticated ways to do it (for one, trying to do a rolling 6 season as you might find a guy who was elite in years 3-8 and made neither of my lists). Also perhaps need my second leg to meet a slightly more generous threshold. For example if a guy went 12, 12, 10, 9, 4, 0 his last 6 seasons, he still aged fairly well (and such a result I think most Bears fans would be happy with from Mack considering the contact), but he'd miss my second list threshold. So, doing this again "properly" and not quick and dirty, I'd probably try something like "best 4 seasons" against rolling average 3 seasons over their remainder of their career, or something like that. Which would probably make me feel better about Mack, but kind of prove the "elite" part is self fulfilling and that Mack just doesn't belong with the likes of truly elite pass rushers (but still very good in other harder to measure areas... But also isn't being paid for his run D). But I do agree with your last point, which is what I suspected when I started this list in my reply to David. It's self-fulfilling and a selection bias issue that created that particular myth.

all the great ones that come to mind (and i get that this is sort of self-fulfilling as that's why their greatness comes to mind) did. peppers, strahan, white, LT to some extent, bruce smith Yea I think the self fulfilling prophecy is definitely going to be true here. Here's a list of all guys with 50+ Sacks through their first 6 seasons. 60 names, Mack is 21st on the list with 61.5. Perhaps ill do something later with this list and see how well they age (and maybe I can also compare to 60 great NFL QBs through 6 seasons and see how well they actually age). Link Bump from this. I analyzed this list a bit, and it really isn't as great as you'd like to see. Obviously its solely focused on sacks and Mack is definitely a great all around DE, but... The top 10 does fairly well over all, with guys like Reggie White, Demarcus Ware, Bruce Smith, Richard Dent, and Jared Allen. These guys all met the 50 sack threshold over their next 6 seasons, but still with a sack/game decline of about 20% (but with sack numbers that still are on par or better than Mack's first 6). However, Mack is 21st on that first list and from 11-20 you have names like Pat Swilling, Adre Tippett, Dexter Manley, Charles Haley, Elvis Dummervil, and Kevin Carter. Only Simeon Rice actually met the threshold for 50 sacks in his next 6 seasons of guys in that 11-20 range. And he's actually the only guy on the whole list to significantly improve. (one more guy, Lawrence Taylor technically was 20th on my list, but sacks weren't a stat until his second year, so he's obviously actually top 10 guy on the list, and he stayed steady over his next 6 seasons, with little to no decline in overall sack/game numbers). From 22-60 it definitely looks less like an elite list than a "pretty good list" Overall, taking out the current players who haven't accrued years 7-12 yet, there's 49 guys left from the list. Only 18 met the 50 sack threshold over the next 6 years and an additional 2 met the 50 sack threshold the whole rest of their career. So 29 of 49 top pass rushers didn't meet 50 sacks the whole rest of their career. Along with Simeon Rice, the 3 guys who saw minimally stronger sack/game numbers over their 7-12 seasons are Jason Taylor, Julius Peppers, and Chris Doleman. So you're basically hoping Mack is like a Julius Peppers or Jason Taylor career curve, or that his overall skill set makes up some for a drop off in pass rush numbers. I'm going to say "Myth Busted" on the "Elite Pass Rushers age well". ETA- On big name who barely missed the cutoff was Michael Strahan, who only had 47 sacks through his first 6 seasons, and still had age 29-32, 34, and 36 seasons of 9.5, 22.5, 11, 18.5, 11.5, and 9 sacks. But he's obviously a unicorn. There's 10 other guys who got 50+ sacks in years 7-12 after not doing so in years 1-6, but its definitely more of a "pretty good" list than elite list. Edit 2- I was actually initially using a sack/game started metric. Which maybe was a questionable metric to use, but you had a few guys who spent at least one, or many, seasons as pass rush specialist who didn't "start" (John Randle, Robert Mathis, Terrell Suggs). These guys all go into the "aging well" metric for pash rushers in that they all improved their sack/game numbers (along with Peppers, Taylor, and Rice). But if Mack is a better comparison through 6 seasons to guys like that rather than a LT, White, Dent, the list still is definitely not as strong, as the Peppers and Suggs types become exceptions and not rules.

Uh, it's a Tom Brady team, now. Still a valid heartwarming sentiment.

Yep, he really stood out in a bad way.

But then those pesky Lions will be sitting there at like 1-15. true, but do you really think they'd be smart enough to pick Lawrence? 100% But maybe the Bears can just sign Stafford then and lock into some nice 7-9 and 9-7 seasons for a while.

I'd probably rather role the dice on them than let McCaskey potentially hire another Emery.

give it a chance, they only play the Lions once more. 2-14 is totally possible But then those pesky Lions will be sitting there at like 1-15.

Bad. But not bad enough for a Trevor Lawrence tank.

This is about how Mitch looked against real defenses last year, except this isn't a real defense. Nick Foles for QB.

Bears stink.