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Billings is also a monster, and Dexter is coming along. Our DLine rotation is looking pretty good.

mostly inconsistent because they are good on the first drive or two in every game - the scripted plays. other than that, it's generally awful, .interspersed with amazing highlight hero ball plays and no read plays like rollouts and screens with pre-programmed reads.

too low to Mooney and then what is that body language by Fields rolling his eyes etc after the play? it's third down, wheres the leadership?? That's awful.

on that big run, Fields had a WR streaking across the middle wide open and didnt find him.

Right, and we are past the scripted plays where you can drill the reads all week too. So now we see who we are. Not that the Cardinals are so good on defense anyway...

Nice! What kind of trade down could we get to go from #5 to say, somewhere above #13?

Brisker looks like he got a stinger - shaking his arm out. Glad hes ok.

Gill is all over the place. Thats almost worse than just not having a lot of power in your leg.

sheesh! dodged a bullet there.

Sweat got in perfect position on that sprint option.

what hes wrong about is that hes saying we here on the board look to criticize Fields unfairly. He is saying that we take things out of context to blame him unfairly. But I havent seen much of anyone attacking Fields on stats. I've been talking about reading defenses and they dont keep a number on that. Im talking about plays where Fields has guys open and doesnt pull the trigger. If we are running more that doesnt affect that, so the snide comment makes no actual sense. It's just like he's taking criticisms of Fields personally. It wasnt a comment he was making about Fields or even answering a specific criticism, it was just a fighty, sarcastic personal attack on the character of people on the board. It's a small thing, but for many years they were aimed at me by name, and after a while and hundreds of them they build up to become very childish and unpleasant not to mention disrespectful. On pretty much every post I make about Fields, I also say he is one of the best broken play QBs of all time. I routinely say that if he added reading defenses, hed be one of the best QBs in the league. I talk about his athletic skills, and his personality. He's likeable. Ive said all that dozens of times. I've even said you can beat lesser teams with hero ball. I just wish we could keep the debate to the players and such and not to the character of members of the board. Last thing Ill say about this: I ramped up obvious over the top personal attacks against this stuff on purpose so that we would finally be told to all stop. If it seems ironic that im calling for no personal attacks, maybe that helps explain it.

That was the most in rhythm throw from Fields maybe ever. The ball was out FAST. Nice.

he is

fully agree! Im only saying if the new coaches want them. What youre saying here is 100% right.

he's had a couple ofgood passes from the pocket, and a few more he was late on. DJ Moore on the play he was injured on, and a nice timing throw to Kmet on the left sideline (not the long pass) were the two examples I saw. They were both in the first drive scripted pre-digested plays though. I am looking forward to more of them - they are so valuable.

are there many precedents for keeping position coaches thru a staff change? I seem to remember some when Lovie left. Does anyone know if its common at all?

and Fields did a great job of slowing down to set up Kmets block too.

lol - itd be nice to be able to pick and choose coaches, but if you fire Eberflus, I dunno how defensive backs coaches feel? Would we still have them under contract? Thinking out loud here - maybe we do. Usually new coordinators want their guys, but I do think we have some good ones.

our secondary is stocked. the rookies have been playing really well, and last years rookies are leaders. Put in someone for EJax, and you have nowhere to really pick on at all, while Sweat is coming down fast. Nice. I think you have to give credit to the Bears' defensive position coaches.

the light has really come on for Kmet this year.

please stop being fighty, sarcastic and making this about the people on the board.

If you do find stats on that please share them, because i would love to see them - it would answer a lot of questions for me.

all good points. I agree with all of it. I really need to do my offseason film time before I can have a real opinion on these QBs, but right now, I think Williams is overrated. I am especially worried about his being only 6' 1" - but maybe thats because all I have right now are stats, and I havent seen much film, and no all 22 yet. To me, the player to wonder about with the #1 pick is Marvin Harrison Jr. - even if he is the second coming of Randy Moss (not saying he is) I'd still trade him for 3 firsts and a player at a position of need, so maybe it doesnt even matter. If the haul is big enough, you gotta look at it, and that is in line with what a lot of people on this board have done in these simulators. On the other hand, having Randy Moss and DJ Moore is gonna make any rookie QB a lot more comfortable. Brock Purdy looks great, but he also has great receivers getting open too.

I agree with you about style ceilings. I do want to make this distinction though - there is nothing wrong with being a great runner, extending plays etc. All the things Fields does well are incredible positives. Given two QBs of equal pocket ability, one with Justin's extra skills and one without, Ill take the one with all day long. Justin's extra skills are incredible. But a QB also has to be able to make reads in rhythm, otherwise theres no point to even having plays or routes or anything. I havent seen Lamar play much at all, so I dont know if he is better than Fields at reading and throwing in rhythm. Basically, Im not against QBs that are great at hero ball when the play breaks down at ALL. It's an amazing thing to add to your arsenal. But it has to be in addition to the core skills of being a QB, it cannot replace them. If Lamar makes reads and runs, then that's awesome. If he only runs like Justin, then I think your point about testing ceilings is dead on. I'll add this too - simply comparing completion % stats and stuff wont really tell the story on this. If Fields is on the run and makes a completion, it's an incredible positive, but it isnt the same as making reads in rhythm. If Justin could do that too, he would be one of the best QBs in the league and I'd be for signing him to a big long terms deal.

if you can do it regularly against good teams, yes. But my point is that you can beat bad teams with hero ball but will never beat good teams in the playoffs that way. So if Fields manages to have a game or two where he does that, I cant really call that progress. If on the other hand, he throws only 2 TDs, but moves the chains consistently with on time reads and throws, THEN I will definitely call that progress. Thats where the difference between stats and context are for me.