BearFan PHX

good point re: the extra game

a dominant punter is like a 12th man on defense. he gives us a couple more sets of downs to gamble with, and if you get those gambles right, you put the opposing offense behind the chains and then you can tee off, and get the ball back - with an increased field position of course because your punter out punts their punter. End result - Caleb starts drives on his own 40 more often than his own 5.

yeah we seem to have a few interesting UDFAs - gotta love our scouting department, and I suppose the word is on the street we are a team you want to choose to be on EDIT - I read the article, doesnt hurt that we paid him well either LOL

I just watched the Roku channels NFL Draft show "The Pick is in 2024" - it was a lot of what we already knew, but there were a few facts settled. 1) Poles was going to look to trade down out of pick 9 if Odunze went to Atlanta 2) Poles set his staff into groups to argue for WR, DL or OT with the #9 pick, so we now know he absolutely is interested in replacing Braxton Jones. 3) Williams excitedly says "we got our guy!" when he finds out that the pick is in and going to be Odunze. I love that he was so excited, and that he uses the term "our" just an hour or so after being drafted himself. ANd he seems to have known, or guessed, that the team wanted Odunze. Seems like he felt that was a good possibility all along. 4) Poles checked with Atlanta about a swapping pick 9 and next years 4th for pick 8. I dont know why Atlanta didnt hop all over that knowing we werent going to take Penix of course after taking Williams. i suppose we never formally made the offer, but he did check in earlier and those were the terms. Cool stuff.

great info! I dunno if Caleb will hit the ground running or have some setbacks, which could affect his ranking here, but the fact that it even seems reasonable that he could have a top 5 rookie season ever is a great sign as to how we feel about him, and the roster around him.

and remember no team's roster is ever perfect or complete. Look at the Chiefs awful OL this year for example. What it comes down to is a QB, someone to catch the ball, and a defense to stop the other QB. From that point of view we are in great shape. The QB has amazing potential, but is young. Thats gonna be good to start and get better over time. As for someone to catch the ball we have an embarrassment of riches. And the defense is pretty good, although we really do still need another pass rusher, and for Dexter or someone to collapse the pocket from the middle. Our window is either open, or about to. After all these years, and having to root for players that just werent good enough - thank the football gods. P.S. Obviously every position is important. Football is the ultimate team game. And if you have decent players around, that helps, and awful players can sink you, but most (all?) super bowl winning teams had superstars and also not so great players on their rosters. No roster is ever perfect, and if you have a great QB, someone to catch the ball and a defense, you can build around that.

I think Davis is extremely talented. Im not sure if his heart is in it or not though. Im willing to overlook last year, but Im surprised he hasnt been in training camp much. Then again big guys who are vets often want to skip the summer workouts. Im gonna look at him with an open mind this year because of his potential, but if he isnt all in, or Jenkins gets injured, we will be really glad to have Bates on the team, and Bates may well beat one of them out for a starting spot on merit alone too.

So if PFF is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, does that make them kind of OK? I would argue it makes them unreliable and therefore useless. Imagine a test for cancer that gets it right 70% of the time. 30% of tests either fail to detect cancer, or detects cancer where there is none. Would we say that it's a pretty helpful tool? I would say it isn't helpful at all, because even if your test is one of the 70% of times they got it right, you're still wondering whether you can trust it, so it's pretty much never helpful then. PFF has some weird grading rules too. If an OT completely ignores the DE he is supposed to block, and gives up a sack, and instead incorrectly double teams the DT, PFF calls that a successful block, and does not assign responsibility for the sack to that player. So it may measure how well you block the man you engage with, but it does an extremely poor job of measuring your effectiveness as a player. Dont forget, PFF tried to tell us Leno was one of the best OTs in the league! So is PFF ALWAYS wrong? Nope. They are at best random. Which is worse, because if they are always wrong, you can just invert the findings and have usable data - but randomly wrong is like the cancer test above - totally useless.

totally agree. I think Bates was brought in to play center OR to replace Davis OR Jenkins if they dont show up for whatever reason, laziness, or injury or even if he just beats them out. I do think that PFF grades, especially on lineman, are atrocious and untrustworthy, but I also think your point is correct even without the PFF portion.

I agree with all of this, especially the running backs and Pettis. Well if it doesnt become a major source of scoring or massive field position changes, then it will be fine. If it lessens injuries so much the better.I'd almost just assume have everyone start on their own 20, but kick returns are exciting, and as long as big ones dont become excessively more likely, then it's just swapping one procedure for another and that's cool. And if it does change the game, then I hope we all are against it then? Ha! Well that was a HUGE change. I hope football doesn't change fundamentally as a result of this new thing. I think, like you do, that it probably wont, so cool. No of course. Hester did it because he was an incredible returner. There will always be those rare players who can take over a game from positions you dont expect. Like Troy Palamalu, or Deion Sanders or, like you say Devin Hester. And that's why he's in the Hall Of Fame. Having HOF caliber players succeed within the rules is awesome and part of football. My concern would be if a rule change makes a bunch of average returners get easy touchdowns with some random distribution. Like having each team pick a number between 1 and 30, and if they guess right, they get a free 7 points, Id be against something that worked like that, but never against greatness. But most of all, and Im sure you will agree, I want to see the Bears on the good side of succeeding with these new rules, or any rules whatever they are.

and that doesnt count all the preseason fumbles weve seen from Jones. I also think that Jones makes a lot of dumb mistakes too. But Pixote is right too, that Carter is no world beater. I think they battle it out for WR5 until we can get someone better - maybe next year. But neither one is very good.

Well hes surely not competing for WR1, WR2, WR3 or WR4. So youre right hes no pro bowler. But the question is between him and Velus Jones Jr. for WR5. Carter just turned 31, Jones just turned 27 Carter ran a 4.44 40, and Jones ran a 4.31. As a WR, Carter has 108 receptions for 1259 yards and 6 TDs. As a WR, Velus has 11 receptions for 127 yards and 1 TD. Carter's best WR season was 2022 when he had 46 receptions for 538 yards and 3 TD. Jones' best WR season was 2022 also when he had 7 receptions for 107 yards and 1 TD. neither is a WR3 even for sure. As a kick returner: Carter has 118 returns for an average of 22.4 yards and 3 fumbles and 1 TD (2.5% fumble percentage) Jones has 38 returns for an average of 27.4 yards and 0 fumbles and 0 TD (0% fumble percentage) as a punt returner: Carter has 132 returns for an average of 9.8 yards and 11 fumbles and 0 TD (8.3% fumble percentage) Jones has 5 returns for an average of 7 yards and 2 fumbles and 0 TD (40% fumble percentage) And we remember a lot of Velus fumbles in preseason too. Neither one looks that impressive. Carter has the clear edge on punts, and then Velus has a slight statistical edge on kick returns. Maybe they'll put them both back there.

Deandre Carter is also 30 years old. That tells me Poles thinks the window is open now. That tells me he will pick up another DE this year.

its hard to play QBs like they are in the top 3 in the league when they arent. And thats the game. Pretty soon, itll be all rookies, and the very few QBs that really are worth their $ will win all the superbowls. I think we might have one.

He's fast too, so this may be competition for Velus' roster spot.

thanks for the update.

I agree that any more major acquisitions would be in the trenches. We are stocked everywhere else. I think it could come in two ways: 1) an excellent player who fits the long term plan on a 4 year deal 2) an aging vet who can fill in until Booker ascends, and/or we draft another DE - kind of like Keenan Allen for the WRs until Odunze is fully ready. For #1, it would have to be a top notch player. Not sure who would be available to fit that, but Poles has surprised us before. This could happen at the trade deadline, if as you say, we are on our way to the playoffs, having won enough games in September and October. For #2, there are lots of options still around. We could well pick one up cheap before the season starts if Poles thinks they are better than Dom Rob.

I think Poles has shown that hes willing to spend the money for the right players. Is Hendickson the right player? I dunno. But I think Poles knows we need more there, and is still going to make some sort of move. Maybe at the trade deadline if not now.

just like Sweat, there are players who are not currently free agents who might be available in a trade without being openly on some list of available players? For example, the Bengals have a real stud in Trey Hendrickson (17.5 sacks last year) who is disgruntled, wants an extension and has requested a trade. That's one example. And we will be seeing him up close in joint practices soon with the Bengals, and the same for the Bengals seeing Herbert etc. But there may be others that none of us are aware of, just like we all thought it was Chase Young we were looking at, and suddenly it was the DE on the other side that got traded. I am just saying that there is a gaping hole at DE2, and Booker right now may not be enough to fill it?

In time of course the goal is to have a dominant D line - without one it is hard to reliably win superbowls. Im sure no one here disagrees with that. If Booker ascends into a dominant player, and assuming Dexter makes his 2nd year jump, we will have that. But it will probably be a while until Booker is really dominant, and I can see us bringing in someone to be like Keenan Allen to Booker's Odunze - someone to make it happen at a high level until the younger player is ready to challenge, not just as a starter, but as an impact player. I still feel like there is another DE coming. And if we have that AND Booker in the rotation, then we will be a lot closer to that top 5 defense.

Maybe, but we got sweat last year at the trade deadline. Maybe they let Booker have the first half of the season to show what he can do, put in over his head, and then make a move before the trade deadline? Also the DE in Cinci is unhappy, so maybe we are waiting for the price to drop? Or for them to agree that Herbert is a good RB We have 2 x 2nds next year, and we got Sweat for a 2nd, so a trade is out there if the stars align.

he played center in 2022 too

All Im saying is that we dont have anyone special at DE2 (meaning the starting DE opposite Sweat). Maybe Booker will be special, but until he is there is a potential hole there. I would expect someone new to fill it unless they are going to let Booker play into it as a rookie, which they have done with other positions, I agree that a special DE is likely a trade, but there may be a stop gap free agent better than what we have right now in Robinson and Walker.

Ive been thinking about what i just wrote here above ^^. *IF* they think Booker can really be a DE2 by the second half of the season, and given the Bears' past of starting Brisker, Gordon and Stephenson as rookies, is it possible they let Booker be DE2 right away to play into his position? Maybe. I didnt think people did that as easily on the line where experience really matters, but maybe they are gonna throw him into the fire, and then youd be right Stinger.

I think they will definitely keep Booker as a high option. Getting him snaps and helping him be ready to play DE3, and challenge for DE2 eventually. The rest are rotational players, and Martin and Bobinson are battling to be DE2 for now. That screams an opening for another free agent at DE. Whether we get that guy in cuts during camp, or at the trade deadline. Having 2 2025 second rounders makes it even more likely a trade is in the offing. There are also some decent free agents still available too. Older guys, no need to overpay for them now, but one of them may be our DE2 as well if the right long term answer doesnt materialize. One way or another, I think there is going to be another DE on the roster by November 2nd (the day after the trade deadline), if not earlier by opening day.