Hairyducked Idiot

If it's a conspiracy when a player goes to a big market, and it's a conspiracy when they got to a struggling market, then there's not a lot of places left they can go where it's not a conspiracy.

If it's not that difficult to rig the ping-pong balls, then surely you can explain a simple way to do it. It's not hard, right? Who is this "NHL" you are talking about as if they're a single person who wants a single thing? The NHL isn't a person. The NHL is a confederation of 32 owners, none of which became billionaires by sitting around letting another billionaire make money that could be going to them.

I think there's a very small handful of actually good coaches in the NFL, a very small handful of actually bad ones, and a whole lot of them who are sort of whatever and will rise and fall based on whether they happen to have good players or not. Nagy, Lovie, Fox were all in the "whatever" category. Trestman and now Eberflus are truly bad.

I mean, I got what I asked for from Fields. He looked decisive today. It's hard to believe how bad Denver's coverage was on some of those plays, but he was hitting them decisvely in the first half. There's been times where he hesitates and wide open guys become contested catches in the past, but I didn't see much of it in the first half. A little regression in the second half. Like I said during the game, that 1st and 15 in the first half where he hit Moore was *exactly* what I've been wanting to see from him. Moore wasn't "open." It was man coverage and the defender was pretty close. If Fields doesn't throw that ball, we spend a day this week looking at screenshots and arguing that it's not his fault on that play because no one was open. But good NFL Qbs consistently throw guys open against coverage like that. The turnovers? I mean, Justin FIelds has a fumbling problem and if he's your QB you just have to live with that. The interception doesn't bother me *that* much. If you want a QB who gives his receivers a chance and drives the ball down the field, you have to live with a few of those. Not a lot, but not zero. I'm not like going out and buying a Fields jersey tomorrow, but I can't ask for him to do X-Y-Z and then not say "OK, he did it" when he does X, Y and Z. Kudos to the coaching staff for making the right decision on Claypool and not giving in to sunk cost fallacy. The defense is just LOL fun bad. I bought into the "maybe Poles" is a secret genius hype, but really this is exactly what you get when you run an outdated scheme and refuse to invest in a profesional pass rush. Being 1-2 in the tank standings is low-key impressive and i hope we hold it the whole way.

I'm not a footballologist, but my understanding is that most modern offenses will have players cut off routes at different points depending on what the defense is doing. I find either Kmet or Fields being wrong about where the ball should go to be plausible. Plus it looked tipped at the line to me.

Just caught up on the game. Lull. Fields did everything we've ever asked of him against a historically bad defense. I have no idea what to make of that, tbh. The interception looked like it was tipped at the line to me. He still has a fumbling problem, though. I actually kinda like the call to go for it on 4th and 1.

Before anyone says 'omg kyle stops posting when the bears are winning', my special-needs teenager is having a violent meltdown that might be the last straw before hospitalization, so I'm gonna be missing the rest of the game.

Can't believe you're gonna throw away his completion streak on that.

Fields halfway to Trubisky's team record for TD passes.

First TD was a meh throw and a defender fell down, but a great catch by Moore. Second TD was a busted coverage, but I liked how quickly Fields identified it and pulled the trigger. None of that hopping hesitation he usually does. But what I really liked was the 1st and 15 completion to Moore. If he doesn't throw that, we spend the week arguing over screenshots about how no one was open on the play. Moore had a defender right there. But good NFL QBs can beat good NFL coverage with good throws, and that's what Fields did.

Bears fans may be forgiven for not remembering the name of that obscure play is a "quarterback sack."

That was busted coverage, but he hit it *quickly*. Normally I'd expect Fields to stutter-step twice before making that throw and maybe get the TD anyway. I haven't seen this Fields since the Pittsburgh game of his rookie season.

That first and 15 was my favorite Fields completion of the season. if he doesn't throw that, people would say "well there was no one open." Good QBs make those plays many times a game.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/columns/clayton_john/1354105.html Never mind, clean TD.

This is the Bears game thread, not the "i have opinions about a person" thread. Blocked.

I never want to hear anything about refs being against the Bears again.

I'm generally skeptical of that sort of argument because it's something fans of every bad team say, and NFL defenses are really good at handling the kinds of gimmicks people want to run to cover up for bad players.

That's not a catch. Helluva try.

I'm generally a "play calls don't matter that much, it's how the players execute them" guy, but I'm genuinely stunned they went to the Kmet direct snap again.

This is actually worse than the Trestman defense.

I'm down for sports conspiracies. Give me cold envelope Ewing tinfoil all day. Jordan's gambling suspension. But there's literally no way the NHL draft lottery was rigged last year. The idea is "Well the NHL would want a big star in a major market, there's so much money at stake." That's kinda true, but the NHL is the least national-revenue reliant of any major sport. The NFL operates like a single entity where 32 owners get rich off the national tv contracts. The NHL is much more of 32 separate businesses making local revenue and cooperating with each other. No one is getting rich off of Bedard in Chicago except for the owners of the Chicago Blackhawks.. None of the other owners in the lottery have any incentive to give up their chance to get rich off Bedard for a minor uptick in the national revenue stream. The other issue is there's no plausible mechanism by which it could be rigged. You can watch the video of the ping-pong balls being drawn in a room that includes independent auditors, representatives of every team, and independent journalists. Either more than a dozen people who have nothing to gain were in on the conspiracy, or there was some kind of Ocean's 11-level zany shenanigans with, I don't even know how they would do it? I've seen some people talk about weighted balls, but 1) they would visibly behave differently on camera and 2) The order they come out matters, so the same four balls that gave it to Chicago could have easily given it to someone else if they came out in a different order.

By what mechanism was it rigged?

I mean it's real in the sense that he might be better than Nathan Peterman

Clutch team shows up in a must-win game

It might be legit the best shot I've ever seen from a prospect/rookie. If you're asking me about prospects I've seen in my lifetime (I can remember about to maybe 1990ish, so post-Lemiux), I wanna place him third behind Crosby and McDavid. And if someone wanted to put him tied with McDavid, I wouldn't argue too hard. Still wouldn't quite put him on Crosby, who I think is the *actual* definition of "generational," not the watered-down version sports fans have been using. Just as elite offensively as any of these guys *and* came into the league an already polished defensive player.