BearFan PHX

Thank you! I was wondering about that. I figured Peterman was going to the practice squad so i was super confused. THis makes sense. Now find one that explains Williams LOL

exactly. a-freakin-men. If youre concentrating on making the reads int he order youre supposed to, and playing robotically, then you gotta start looking for other open receivers. The answer isnt to devolve back into a running back.

we can always count on you for the awesome stats adam, thanks once again. And damn that is brutal.

I dont know how much the Chiefs will win by, but I do know that if they needed to beat us by 24 points to win, they would.

If you notice, everyone now, including Poles in his press conference today, say that Halas Hall was not raided, and say nothing about Williams' home. That's not an accident. Something is up.

So I just read Ian Rappaport's twitter thread on this, and he says that the FBI did not raid Halas Hall, and Peanut Tillman was not part of this etc - excpet he said nothing about whether Williams' house was raided. So far the only person refuting that that I know of is Williams' lawyer. If this was a pure health thing, then why didnt the Bears already know about it? And why the resignation? I really think there is more to this story.

yeah all the (relatively) benign explanations dont really fit. something is up, and I can make guesses, but like Stinger rightly says, I dont actually know crap. But something bad is going on here, more than just a health scare I think. But again, I admit Im guessing.

I agree with this. Leave Wright where he is, developing him is most important.

nope - I have the same (lack of) information that you have. I thought the denial of Halas Hall being raided did not include a denial of his home being raided so I was going with that, but now that has been refuted too, so I have nothing. I hope he's OK. I still "feel" like there's more to this story, but I freely admit I have zero actual information.

It is good that Azumah said it wasnt true. Youre right about players having representatives. But it seems like if it's a health issue, that would have been announced earlier. I fully admit i dont know anything more than anyone else here does - but it sure does smell fishy.

I think the raid tweet on Halas Hall was fake, but it may be that it wasnt a raid, just the FBI took his computer with the Bears agreeing. So not a raid per se? We heard that Tillman broke the news to the Bears brass, so that sounds legal. Then I read here that Williams' lawyer was on the score denying that its legal, but if its not something legal, why is his lawyer involved? Also has anyone refuted that Williams' house was raided? All we know is that this is crazy.

yeah, I guess Bagent will be #2 unless we are in the midst of some crazy secret QB trade?

Alan William' house was raided by authorities after the first game.

They dont raid your house for cancer. This is going to be something else. And it wasnt that Flus hugged him and cried - it was when he was told (along with Warren), by Peanut Tillman, who has connections to the FBI, that he cried. Williams wasnt there, and he wasnt the one that told Flus or Warren - if it was cancer or even drugs, hed have told them himself after the raid, after he was out for personal time. But they didnt know then. So its something else.

So lemme get this straight. The entire left side of the OL is missing its starters. The secondary is missing 40% of its starters. Our Defensive Coordinator is missing and being raided by the FBI as well as our team headquarters. Our QB is gonna start to freelance more. We've got the Chiefs this week. What could go wrong?

I'm hearing that Williams' house was raided after the week 1 game, and that today authorities raided Halas Hall as well in connection to Williams. I'm also hearing that Eberflus cried when he heard what the charges were. Only a few things fit. All are ugly. This isn't good at all. In a football sense it probably won't hurt us much. But it's gonna be a big scandal it seems.

Oh no. Apparently Braxton Jones is going to IR. This is a huge blow to an already decimated offensive line. This really screws us. https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2023/9/20/23882436/bears-braxton-jones-injured-reserve-put-neck-injury-buccaneers-chiefs-left-tackle-matt-eberflus-nfl

Yup, and it's all he has left anyway. I'm glad he sees it and is willing to act on it. That's leadership. Theres a great story about a Lawrence Taylor and a play in which he was supposed to drop into coverage like a zone blitz. Parcells called the play, and LT ignored his responsibility, and rushed in to sack the QB. On the sidelines, Parcells chewed him out. Told him that he needs to follow his assignments on plays. Later in the game Parcells calls is again, and again LT rushes the QB and gets a sack. On the sidelines Parcells is going crazy. He says "what the hell are you doing out there?! We dont even have that play in the playbook!!" and LT says "well we got two sacks, maybe we should add it in" No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. All the presnap reads and progressions in the world can fail once the defense starts to move. You have to be able to improvise and find open receivers, even if they arent next in the progressions, even if they werent eligible receivers on the play. Glad to see Justin will finally get back to playing football. It's his only chance now anyway.

A very interesting press conference from Fields today, with a lot of points. In a nutshell, Fields said that he's being coached too much, and needs to play from his instincts more. At first this sounded like making excuses, or throwing the coaches under the bus. Don't be surprised if that's the narrative that sports writers take from this press conference, and it blows up into a media thing. But if you listen closely, especially as he clarifies what he means, he's saying that he himself is thinking too much and trying too hard to do everything the way the coaches want him to. And it's not so much that they're wrong, as that when the reality of the play happens, sometimes you cant execute perfectly the way they taught you. And I think this is a very important point. One example would be the play we all saw where Roschon was wide open, and so were other players and Fields pump fakes, but doesn't throw the ball. JT OSullivan's QB school struggles to understand it, and eventually he guesses that maybe Fields is reading Kmet on the wheel and then the outlet receiver, and neither is open. But the RB and WR Scott are wide open for big gains, DJ Moore is open on the backside too. But Kmet is covered. Scott fails to clear out the space for Kmet underneath, but in doing so, Scott found himself wide open. And Roschon is tragically an obvious touchdown, both ignored. Now, in the real world, I don't care what the read is. If you see a wide open player for a TD, you pull the trigger. Period. But what if you're being told that you're a too much of a freelancing athlete that needs to learn to play disciplined pocket QB instead. And you think about this and work on it all off season. What if you trust your coaches and try to do everything they way they tell you - robotically. Because you trust them, and you are willing to do whatever they tell you to succeed. Even if it feels constraining. I think this is what he was trying to say. That he's been trying SO hard to run the plays exactly the way he's told, that he's stifled his creativity and closed off possibilities. And that all adds up to the slower tempo of his drops, the hesitancy to throw the ball - everything. I was done with Fields. 100%. I was talking to my Dad about it, and we were saying that he just looks like hes unsure and thinking too much. JT OSullivan says the same based on the slow speed of his drops. You can see him locked into receivers - probably correctly in order - but he's not reading the routes simultaneously. It's like the difference between tossing one ball in your hand and juggling. If you're juggling, you cant really think about or lock into any one of the balls or you'll drop the others. It's more like the combination of balls in the air becomes one thing - one gesture. In the same way, routes are happening at the same time and affect each other. If you lock into each receiver in order of your read, individually, without feeling the rest, and the way they all affect each other, you're going to look slow, unsure and robotic. I think that's what's been wrong with Fields. I think we all know Fields is on his last legs in Chicago, I think now is the time to stop trying to take all the coaching points and just go play the game to win. If a WR is open, throw him the ball, whether you were supposed to be reading that guy or not. This is good news. This (to me) is the only path left that could bear fruit for Fields. So ignore the coming media misinterpretations that Fields isn't taking responsibility and throwing the coaches under the bus. He didn't actually do that. He said he himself is thinking too much and trying to be perfectly coached, and it's not working. This is excellent news. And it is Fields' last chance really to save himself and the season. I'm not saying it's going to work, but I am saying that this is the only move he has left to take that next step. And I'm glad to see him see it, and hopefully attempt it.

Amen. PFF is a joke. I an sure they are well meaning, but something about their analysis protocol or the algorithms they use to correlate the data is deeply broken. The output is basically random. I dont hate them, I just think they are silly.

I agree with this. Keeping Fields this year to see what he is was the right thing to do especially with the options at QB in the 23 draft. The 24 draft looks much better, and we will be bringing a QB into a team that already has some structure around him to help him.

I dunno, I think of famous press conferecnes of high motivational coaches and they are angry after a loss like that - especially in week one. Your point about not airing dirty laundry is a fair one, but i sure hope he is angry with them in the locker room. Cuz this effort is not "HITS"

that stat is shocking. both because he has a legitimate shot at something accomplished like that, and because it takes so little to get there. our franchise has been snake bit for a long time at QB.

But what if we win 6 games, and use Carolina's #1 overall? And then get a pass rusher with our #7 pick? I really dont think Eberflus is a positive difference maker. he might be "fine" or "professional" but like I said, there are probably thousands of coaches like that at all different levels. We need to find winners, difference makers, people who add to our winningness. I dont think Eberflus is that guy. If we tank, youre probably right, but i dont want him hanging around after 6 or 7 wins.

The problem with Eberflus, is he preaches HITS, but then in the press conferences, he's not angry. Hes conciliatory. He looks for the positive things. That's great in a grade school art teacher. But it is absolutely 100% in opposition to HITS. Imagine what Deion Sanders, Jim Harbaugh, Bill Belichick, Mike Ditka or any number of famous coaches from disciplined teams would say. And I still think Eberflus unmasked himself with that 4th and 1 call last week. That was fire-able in and of itself. Its OK to lose. Its not great to suck, but OK. You can fail and learn. But when you make basic errors that any high school coach would know not to to make - that says something. There must be thousands of competent coaches, but only a handful can give you an edge. Eberflu may be competent in general, but he will never give us an edge. We can possibly win with him, but we will not win because of him. I say Poles should clean house. But in reality, they probably wont fire a HC after 2 years. So we draft a Caleb Williams. You want this guy developing him? Can we get out of this Groundhogs day repeating loop, and bring in the right guy for the new QB?