AZ54

I just watched the video of both the Maye sack, which was an illegal hip drop tackle from behind (no flag), and then the Hutchinson celebration. I assume Maye had his ankle rolled up on. With Hutchinson you can see his right knee buckle laterally as he lands after the jump. To my uneducated medical opinion that lateral movement of the knee looks like a classic torn ACL.

First off there's a $10B price tag in a state that is bankrupt and can't afford the more economical options that I think are in the $4-5B range. The state of IL has said repeatedly they have no money to help finance anything. That's fair, they don't so where is all the money for this massive project coming from? Where are the Bears going to come up with all the additional money? These developers threw out a bunch of wishlist money/investors but there's literally nothing behind it. Then there is the timeline at this new location. They first have to build all the new housing, only then can they tear down existing site and begin the stadium construction process. Lawmakers have already said there is no way they'd approve anything until all the families have moved into the new housing locations. After 4 years of bad faith negotiations why would the Bears want to go even deeper into that morass? At this point the team should just take the only viable option to remain in the area and move to the IN site.

I feel like winning the division comes down to getting our running game going. Minnesota will likely play us the same way they did the first game maybe with some tweaks. To beat them we must be able to run the ball or all that LOS stuff plays into their hands. To win the LOS I think we need to see Logan Jones on the field since he's stronger, quicker, and faster. Bradbury is getting beat too often and inside pressure is not good for either running game nor passing. I've seen some videos of pundits saying we should stick with the veteran because he makes the right calls. Jones is 25 and was coached well at Iowa and now has half a season to learn. In his limited snaps he played well enough to see the future and I think his skillset fits better with the blocking schemes we were doing last year with Dalman that gave us more creativity in the running game. While I understand not wanting to throw him out there against the top defenses in the NFL, especially Seattle on the road, things are different going forward. I don't look at it like what is the best option on the next game or two rather what gives us the best chance to win games in the playoffs. That answer IMO is Jones if we can get him some good game experience before the playoffs. RIght now is the perfect start going against NO and if we don't do it now then it's not likely we will anytime afterward. I also don't think the sky will fall down if we reverted back to Bradbury if Jones struggles.

The analytics I've heard so far backup the trade value. I don't have the details so allow me to paraphrase (and don't quote me). Clay Harbor has been on the air saying that our blitz rate dropped from over 40% to 22%. Meanwhile our pressure rate remained the same at 38%. Jaylon Johnson had a QBR against of 120 or 130...as Clay put it, he gave every QB we faced their best game. In the last two games he's down to ~40-50. Yards per pass was ~13 now down to about 4. That's not just pressure on the QBs it's also giving Jaylon help with more bodies in coverage. It just goes on and on... Booker and Sweat have about the same amount of pressures/sacks each in the last two games as they had in the first 7 games.

Simmons mic'd up... double teamed, and once was triple teamed yet still making plays. He picks up details like Akeem Hicks used to do when he calls out the OG who is going to pull.

Yep, thought the same tjhing when I saw it. It's rare man who can do that stuff to a 300lb Olinemen.

Extended thoughts on the lack of another trade. As stated by many here.... Simmons changes the calculus. It's already more evident in the significant drop in blitzes we've seen in the last two games. That allows more coverage and as we did against Seattle and JSN we can bracket a WR if we want to and keep him in check. We can do that against two WRs if we want. When we get Bryant back the ability to rotate and mix coverages over the top goes way up. I think that's definitely part of the thinking. We have a LB in Bush who can cover RBs or TEs. TJ Edwards is good in coverage for a short area but that's enough with consistent early pressure. Our NB in Gordon is pretty good as well. Essentially this means if/when we want to do more bracket coverage on a WR (or two) we have the ability to go single man on man against the other offensive threats. There were no good CBs available. Even if there were, did we have the cap space for them, or were we giving up a valuable day 2 pick? I don't think we should give up a 2nd or 3rd Rd pick after we lost our next two 1st Rd picks (not complaining). Those pieces are needed for restocking but also cap control. If Overthecap is correct we have just $2mil in cap space right now. I know we could do some magic and make room if needed. Why do that for someone like Woolen who is just not better than our current CBs so he'd be a depth piece. I never understood the chatter about Nashon Wright...we've seen all his poor coverage skills and don't need more of that. I can't say he's any better than the DBs on our practice squad but I can say that the coaches know. Do we need a DE? Booker and Sweat have looked much better with Simmons. Dayo is going to return and was productive before his injury and that should only go up with Simmons around him. Turner is still learning how to play DE, and we're getting good pass rush production out of Hardy too. Again I didn't see any game changers out there other than Mack and it seems he wasn't available. DT depth is more of a concern for me. Where I see production coming out of DEs 3, 4, and 5 on the depth chart, I don't see that at DT. Van den Berg has not been very productive with almost no flashes. Nor has Gallimore. With the loss of Street we could use a good depth piece in this rotation. It might be that the Bears are strongly considering the ex-Titan Jordan Elliot and they wanted to save the cap space for him. Handle run downs better get more 3rd and long situations. That gets you a piece who can give Jarrett and Simmons some more snaps off the field. When Simmons was off the field against Seattle they averaged something like 13yd/play. When he was on the field it a little over 3yds/play. I haven't seen the stats from the Tampa game but it felt similar on the few plays Simmons took off.

After watching these clips I feel like Simmons counts as 2 blue chips.

Me too

The curse of expectations. Last year I was happy when we won the close games like that. We were winning anyway we could win. This year...that game sucked. Yet we have a defense that actually played very well, maybe better than the Bucs defense. How many years has it been since our defense (and offense) were good enough to overcome a 5 turnover game? How many teams in the NFL can do that?

Considering there are no other stars sitting on the bench.

Nashon Wright is star?

I don't know if it's so much calling the plays as it is getting his players to execute the plays properly. 4min mark...

That much talent and hype all through high school and into college. Then all that money at such a young age in college. It's an explosive combination and you don't know if it will be controlled or not. His parents get a lot of credit for guiding him through that time. Then enter Ben Johnson and for the first time I think he ran into a football mind who really knew more about the game than he did. Say what you want about good college coaches but that game is not nearly as hard as the NFL. Caleb surprised me and accepted the challenge. I really like what I see now on the field and I still don't think he's at his peak. There are throws he makes like the simple WR screen to Raymond for the 40yd gain against Seattle that good athletes like Trubisky and Fields could never make. Especially Fields with his slow release. Then what he's doing at the intermediate level of the field is just tearing apart defenses. There will be a 50pt game in the near future.