Hairyducked Idiot

I'm not sure NFL hell really exists like it does in basketball. It may be that I'm just in general very emotionally detached from the Bears these days, but I just don't care. The draft slot between 8 and like 15 isn't gonna end up being the difference maker. NFL hell is when you don't have a franchise QB.

Other than wanting Pace fired, we've screwed our draft pick enough that I might as well root for them to make the playoffs.

No rain down there? - we are finally getting a decent storm. Still people out playing today but not for me! Can’t remember the last time we had rain

Finally got the chance to take the new driver to the range. My driver swing is all out of whack right now, I'm back to slicing like crazy (but I'm hitting a nice little draw with everything else). But man did that ball ever fly off the face. I love the sound of it too. The few I did catch clean were an easy 220 fly. A couple of them even hit the back net of the range at 240.

135

"What if Trubisky plays himself into a new contract?" is the new "They should move Coghlan to 2b."

Just got back from other stuff, wonder what the Bears score is... lolololol of course

That's amazing. How'd you get it?

At the range I go to, there's a big 15-feet-tall circle target at 110 yards. I always used to aim for it with my 7-iron but never actually got it on purpose. Today, I was taking 5 swings with each iron. 7-iron was flying way, way past it. I hit it twice in 5 shots with the 9-iron, and the other three were all within 10 feet. I cannot *believe* how much addressing the hand-flip improves iron accuracy.

I'm starting to get really deadly with the bump and run around the green, too. I spent about an hour today just practicing those, with a special emphasis on lie. I tried to account for whether it was uphill (assume higher ball flight), downhill (assume lower) and how much grass was behind the ball (less grass = less swing speed needed, more grass = put a little extra on it) and that really seemed to help me get it from "well that's on the green" to "I have a chance to make the next putt."

Let me emphasize that I am *not* advocating keeping him around because I think he has any hope whatsoever to be a starter. I can't speak for anyone else. I just think he's a cromulent backup and I like him.

I love this game so much. Flush off my success last week working on the slice, I've been taking aim at the next big beginner flaw: the club flip. Slowing down my swing on video, I've got the classic beginner club-flip, where I stand up a little bit at impact and flip my hands to get the club to the ball. This causes inconsistent strike and loss of power. I've been doing a bunch of drills at home to try to get the feeling right. The goal is to stay down, clear the hips more cleanly. strengthen the forearms, lead with the front wrist, and use body turn to deliver the club instead of hand flip. I got to try it out at the range today for the first time, and the results were astounding. With 6-iron and shorter, I was adding more distance even on top of the distance I added last week, and the way they stayed online was amazing. I usually have swings where I feel like I did everything right but it just mysteriously flies way offline left or right. None of that today, almost everything was straight and pure. The only miss was I was thinning about 10% of them and getting a super low line-drive that would still go straight and bounce/roll most of the way to where I wanted. I kept checking myself on video, and it's not even *that* good. My hands have gone from behind the club at impact to slightly ahead, when eventually I'd like them quite a bit more ahead. It got a little tougher with the longer clubs. 5h, new 3h, driver didn't see as much benefit as the irons, I was having trouble getting the timing right of hips then hands then clubface. I think I just need more practice. So a month ago, these were my distances (carry only, average but excluding mishits): Driver - 160 5h - 125 7i - 100 9 - 75 Today I was at: Driver - 195 (and this is still the old driver, I'm really hoping to get that past 200 with the new one, and there's plenty of swing improvement left to be made) 5h - 160 7i - 135 9i - 110 Oh, I've also got a little work to do on my grip. I think I'm using too much thumb pressure to hold the club, not engaging the fingers as much as I should. And I'm not entirely sure I like where my trail hand is placed. What feels natural is a little more closed (underneath) that it's supposed to be, so I'm not sure if I want to just go with that or put it back to neutral and get used to it.

Wanna hear something really dumb? I know it can never happen, but I wouldn't hate Trubisky hanging around as a backup after this year. He's fine as a backup, he's fun to root for, and he's "homegrown." It would be too weird/distraction-y and Foles is already under contract, though.

MFers killed the LumberKings?!?!?!

I think we should try to find a franchise QB

I don't think borrowing from the future will be a thing you have to worry about. Ryan Pace did that because he was desperately trying to win to save him and his coach's jobs. Assuming he's fired, I don't know of too many situations (maybe some past Cleveland GMs) where a guy comes in and starts throwing tons of money around. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm worried about Pace not being fired, then? I think we're being over-optimistic about the offense though, outside of Robinson, who probably won't be back. The offensive line is a dumpster-fire and it's *all* of them. They range from "below-average starter but definitely a starter" to "why is this guy in the league," but none of them are good. Montgomery is aggressively ordinary and average. Kmet and Mooney look like they could be useful guys but it's a long way from "useful" to "above-average starter." Everyone else can go away forever and not be missed for a second. And we still don't have a QB, which is by far the most important position. Foles is just Trubisky but with mobility instead of intelligence as his dump stat. You could probably fix all this in a couple of drafts, but by the time you do, the defense that is already too old will be in need of a complete overhaul. But focus on the offense first anyway because who cares about defense?

I’m not saying this team is 1-15 quality or anything. It’s just definitely bad, it’s old, and there’s not a lot of resources for them to get better. There’s some talent (mostly on defense) but it’s not enough and it’s not going to become enough. I’m including this year when I say multi-year tank job. Take your cap medicine this offseason, quit frantically restructuring to try to buy enough band-aids. It should have been done last year instead of spazzing out on Quinn and Foles, who accomplished nothing whatsoever except making the cap problems even worse this coming offseason. I’m not expecting them to dump vets for picks or anything. I doubt you could even get much for anyone except maybe Hicks or Fuller. Just stop aggressively borrowing from the future to try to salvage this rotten core. You either draft your QB this coming draft or the next one, and then you see where you are entering 2022.

I hope you'll be able to have the lessons. Will it be both you and your nephew getting lessons? Good luck! I was talking to my best friend who's an asst golf pro in your area and she was saying that her golf course (Los Serranos) is probably going to stop having lessons for at least 3 weeks. She said that it's not a definitely yes, but looks like it from reading between the lines from her boss. Also said there's a 50/50 chance that the course will be closed, but she doubts that'll happen. She's supposed to know sometime today from her boss. Oh yeah, that stuff is for sure up in the air. Although for now it looks like we're OK. They don't seem to be inclined to close outdoor stuff, and my county has more or less taken a "we aren't enforcing any of this, do whatever you want" stance anyway. If we have to wait a few months, nbd. We're going to do a lesson-for-2 setup, although I'd rather him mostly focus on nephew.

The flaws on this team are so much deeper than some of you guys think. This isn't a matter of just slap a couple band-aids on the black holes and get to winning. Once Robinson leaves, I'm not sure there's a single legitimately above-average player anywhere on the offense.

+9 38 for me today, tied personal best. Hit my first 200+ (202 yds) drive on the course, and driver is still leaking right a little bit. I should strengthen grip a tiny bit more but I'm scared of developing a pull hook. 2 pars, 2 doubles, 5 bogeys. Iron shots were usually the right length but spraying a bit both left and right. Bump-and-runs were getting me solidly into the middle of the green from everywhere. I decided I have way more faith in my ability to hit a partial 8- or 9-iron than I do a wedge, didn't even get out a wedge except for one sand shot. Nephew had an amazing fifth hole. It's par-4 280 yards, but his drives usually go about 100 so he has no prayer of getting on in two but insists on playing from the tee box. He absolutely striped one 130 yards down the center of the fairway, then hit hybrid + 7-iron to get to the middle of the green in three. Two-putt for bogey. As good as he possibly could have played a hole that long. I finally heard back from the coach I wanted and we're going to start lessons first week of January.

I think a Mack trade saves a tiny amount still. About $4m I think. The trading team takes on guaranteed money, you just eat the dead cap hits from bonus pro-rations. Even if it was a slight dead cap in 2021 you could move around other stuff to reallocate cap hits and you're still saving in net a big chunk, and more importantly squeezing out some resources from him. The cap stuff is pretty fluid due to the rollforward nature of it and I think it's important to look at "unearned" savings rather than focusing too much on dead hits, which are a sunk cost. According to Spotrac, he costs us $26m if he's on the roster in 2021 and a $37m dead-cap hit if he's not: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/chicago-bears/khalil-mack-14414/ We used most of our wiggle-room on the cap last year. It's not an infinite well.

If the rumors are correct that the cap is dropping, then the Bears are already over it. If the league is generous and it stays flat, they’ve got maybe 15 million for the whole offseason. There aren’t really any good cap-clearing cuts to be made besides cutting Graham. Trading Mack adds ~12 million to his cap hit this year for us. Total non-starter

I think a multi year concerted tank is never reality in the NFL. I honestly don't even like that "Process" style effort in the NBA (at least anymore with new lottery odds) but it's somewhat more defensible there. I think it should be a hard "reset" year where they do just shed as much of the dead caps as they can. To your point about replacing those guys the one positive is that like half the league is in a cap crunch this offseason because of covid. NO is going to be like 100M over and PHI 75M over before getting to cuts. So they will definitely be able to bargain shop for 1 year deals to replace those roster spots for a year, at which point, if they fully committed to it, cap sanity should be restored in 2022. So I'd say a mini tank. And figure out what your cost on Fuller and Mack is. Don't move them at any cost, but for a reasonable deal. Hicks get a late pick for if you can. Everyone else is young enough to keep or too worthless to trade. Of course there are ways for them to put together another half assed shot at it in 2021. I played around with it and they could free up enough to make a few second teir signings, maybe even for a new QB like a Brissett. Not a fan of that option AT ALL, but the cap could be manipulated to do such a thing. But anyways after that one year mini tank you'll have some cap space and a healthy balance sheet. You will have all all of your early picks in tact for two years. Should have several comp picks over 2 years and perhaps a few extra picks if you did manage to trade Mack/Fuller. The biggest question is QB, but teams frequently do quick builds in the NFL, without taking extreme shortcuts like a Khalil Mack type trade. I agree. You don't completely blow it up. In fact, I think with the right moves this team could compete for a playoff spot as soon as 2021. Wishful thinking, but fixing the Oline and getting a QB can turn this offense around in a big hurry. You have amazing youth at WR, TE and RB. You'll likely need to trade some aging defensive players like Fuller and Hicks. I've even seen the suggestion of tagging and trading Robinson if you don't find the cap space to keep him. Graham, Skrine and one of Massie/Leno will likely be let go to create some cap space. Goldman coming back is a boost for the defense. In general, I think they can trade some elements on D and still be competitive on that side of the ball (with a more aggressive DC) and if they can improve the OLine and get a competent QB, this team could be competitive with a soft rebuild. The Lions are a mess. The Vikings appear to be a mess. Green Bay is the thorn in the side. For my rebuttal, please refer to everything we said last offseason about the exact same idea except now everyone is a year older and there’s even less cap space to fix it. Edit: oh, and no Robinson

How the heck are we only in line for the 13th pick? That's crazy. This is gonna have to be a multi-year tank. The cap situation for next season is an absolute dumpster fire. You're already over the projected cap before you even hit the offseason, and there aren't really any good cuts to be made. Someone will say "cut Massie and Leno," but you'll just have to replace them and that will cost you at least as much as you save. You basically can't do anything this offseason even if you wanted to. You just draft what you can and sit on your hands while everyone gets a year older. I'm fine with drafting O-line and trying to set up the next QB draftee with the best situation possible.

Yeah, I don't see what Phillips has done that's so wrong. Eventually you have to have a non-football guy at the top, and they won't be perfect at picking the football guys. If Nagy and Pace were unprofessional or completely out of their league or something, then that would be Phillips' fault. They're not that bad, they're just not good enough in an extremely cut-throat league where few end up being good enough. So we take another spin.