Hairyducked Idiot

ok fine i'm a little interested

We have a thin roster with a million holes. Waiting for bargain free agents is perfectly fine with me. I don't think the NFL supports pure tanking, but there's a time to realize your assets are currently allocated very inefficiently and further inefficiency will be counterproductive.

Objecively, you're 100% right. In the bigger picture, an offseason all works together, and usually a free agent signing like this leaves more room to draft offense. Picks are more important than cap space. I don't care though I'm still gonna hot take it.

oh yay I was worried we might not have too much of our resources tied up in late 20s defenders as usual

Obviously the hard part is doing the right things with the blank slate you create, but I'm psyched. This is two years overdue. Let's never build around defense again. I hope we never have another elite linebacker

I would like to register my standard complaint that best-of-3 opening rounds are horsefeathering dumb and that play-in games were awesome.

Well, I'm excited that this front office appears to undestand the situation the Bears are in and act accordingly. We needed to start this process two years ago. You're not getting a first-round pick for a 31-year-old defender coming off injuries and carrying a massive contract.

I'm more worried that 7-10 salvages Pace's job.

I guess having challengers who totally flame out under pressure solves the decisive games problem

Well that settles that. I was trying to figure out if there was some subtle line I was missing that just barely failed after b5, but then I read the commentary and post-match interviews and nope, he just straight miscalculated a simple tactics

Carlsen has made his entire career out of that sort of game. Create some sort of theoretically even but asymmetrical endgame and then just grind the crap out of it.

We're on move 70 in game 6 and it's RRN vs QB. This is the kind of position that engines will see as very drawn but I think there's a chance Carlsen can squeeze out a win.

I know I"m an old man yelling at clouds, but this is *exactly* why journalists need to go back to the old rules of not publishing until you have two independent sources confirming the information, and only using anonymous sources in serious emergencies at the highest level of public interest. The job used to be getting the source to go on the record. That way if your source fed you bad info, it's the source's credibility that gets hit, not yours. This guy's credibility as a journalist is torched now. And for what, a few minutes on sports radio and a few extra clicks to his patch site? Was it worth it?

Eh. I can see the argument for it, but I'm a traditionalist for stuff like this. (Give me Karpov-Kasparov with 34 draws or whatever) What tilts me more is that players like Caruana don't go for broke in sharp lines toward the end of regulation when they KNOW they are going to get stomped in shorter time controls. I wouldn't even mind if they played the longer time controls forever until they got a result. I just hate seeing the the entire match be drawn until they get to the blitz playoff every time. I think you could shorten the time limit while still keeping it long enough to be considered classical chess, and hopefully make room for more decisive play.

I'm not saying it will, there's a long way to go. But if this one goes 14 draws, they really do need to shorten the time controls.

Fair enough. I know my grasp on positional play is weak, so it makes sense I'd underestimate that advantage. [Or I'm secretly as good as the supercomputers. Either one.] This is why I hate how engine evaluations (while useful and important) have replaced analysis. It robs people of the chance to see *why* positions are good or bad for each side and replaces it with a single number. Take the position after 22. Rxc1. Black is up the exchange (rook for knight) and a pawn, which in traditional valuations is 3 points of material, or roughly equivalent to one full piece. What does white have to make up for that? First and foremost, an outposted knight on d6. That is probably the strongest knight you will ever see in a high-level game like this. Centralized on the sixth rank is probably the best spot a knight can ever have. It has maximum influence over the center of the board and over the back ranks where black's king is. And there's no good way for black to deal with that knight. It can never be attacked by any of black's pawns, and neither can the e5 pawn protecting it ever be attacked by one of white's pawns. The knight can never be traded off evenly, because black's only remaining minor piece is a light-square bishop and d6 is a dark square So black just has to awkwardly play around it forever or give up and trade it for a rook, giving back the exchange. The second big advantage white has is black's pawn structure. The pawn on e6 is isolated and could easily become a target someday. The black pawns on the queenside are vulnerable to what's called a "minority attack" where a smaller number of pawns is about to trade into them and bust them up, prevent them from comfortably advancing. The third big advantage white has is that none of black's pieces are well-placed, nor do they have obviously good homes. Well, the rook on f8 is fine. But where's the other rook supposed to go? It can't do anything on the d-file because the knight can squat in its way forever. The other rook can't double-up on the f-file because white has solid control over every single square on the f-file besides f1 (look at how the knight and pawn combo are dominating f7-f5). Meanwhile, the black bishop is even worse. It's the light-square bishop, but white's pawns are stick on light squares all over the place, roadblocking the bishop's influence. Compare that to white's bishop, which can exert pressure where it is now, or it could go to h3 and pressure down the diagonal that contains both the isolated black pawn and the black queen. Or it can go to e4 and put pressure on h7. Tons of options for white, while black has few obvious ways to improve his position. In a casual game against another human being, I would gladly play the white side all day long. Super-GMs are better at defending against dynamics than I am, so these guys would probably do better with black, but it's definitely not as good for black as the eval would imply. I hope all that made sense. I guess I could shorten it by saying: Super-strong knight on d6, black has no good way to double rooks, good bishop vs. bad bishop

Carlsen had tons of dynamic positional compensation for the material. He had the outposted knight, more space, a couple of weak pawns to attack. Black's pieces were pinned down and passive, not having a lot of influence A computer could take black's position and slowly unravel the tension with perfect defense until eventually the material advantage won out, but humans usually can't do that and would eventually have to give back some material to gain activity. After that, the amazing drawing ability of super GMs kicks in. I'm not saying there was no reason to be excited. Nepo had a clear advantage and a dynamic position. One misstep from Carlsen could have led to a loss. Carlsen doesn't make a lot of those missteps

That was a great example of a game that the engine evals may love the position but it was always going to be extremely difficult for a human to convert to a win against a high-level opponent. 12 more draws until the real world championship starts

Anthony Lynn was an offensive HC as well, so likely had a big hand in Herbert's success last year. I guess maybe the difference is that Herbert was lights out immediately while Fields has struggled but you are starting to see some legitimate development. There's a big difference between "should the Bears be willing to do it" and "does it seem like something the Bears will do"

It feels weird to let Pace and Nagy trade up to draft a QB in the first round, develop him for a year, then fire them after a year in which that QB developed well.

I only saw the extended highlights, couldn't watch live, but damn that was the best Fields has looked yet. I'm sold.

yes, we know that; you're entire being is having an outlook that is entirely hopeless Why would something good happen when something bad could happen instead?

I expect the Bears to suck at least next year and probably a little beyond that. None of these guys matter except Fields.

Trubisky had some absolutely crazy escapes too, especially early before he had that shoulder injury that made him gunshy: I'm absolutely not saying Fields is Trubisky, but we're not going to do that thing where we pretend the old guy had All The Flaws and the new guy is Completely Different

Honestly, Trubisky pulled a few of those jailbreak runs out as well. Fields has been off on a few throws. For a rook, I guess it’s good but I haven’t seen anything too much different than Trubisky. He's 16 for 20. This is as bad a take as I've seen, and I've read some bad takes over the years. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201712100cin.htm https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201909230was.htm Trubisky had plenty of games with high completion percentages.