AZ54

....and he'd be using Horsted instead of Graham in the red zone because all he does is catch TDs. Graham just can't move well and he's easy to cover these days. Horsted has enough agility to challenge a DB. It seems Nagy thinks that using Graham, who might be a better blocker than Hosted (I say that with great caution), can fool a defense enough to think it's 50/50 run or pass. For me, if you have a receiving weapon they will struggle to cover just put them out there and forget about trying to fool somebody. You can still surprise them by running (let's call it 70/30 run to pass) when Horsted is on the field. I really am surprised that the HC who loved Trey Burton, and who was touted as the key to opening up the offense, won't put Horsted on the field. Simply put: Nagy has changed since his first year and I don't think it's becaue of Justin Fields.

Even if he's available for 6 games a year?

We need a Mike Brown type at Safety to bring some leadership, energy, and accountability to the secondary. That's difficult for us fans to discern in the scouting process.

Or not spend as much money in FA at CB. OTOH Overthecap.com has him valued at $2.1mil which we can easily do. What happens will depend on how he finishes the season. If he can't play much he'll definitely be in the 3rd tier of FA with the lowball bottom-of-the-roster contracts. If he stands out with big plays as he did against Minn then he'll end up in the 2nd tier with some teams expressing varying levels of interest depending on his contract demands. I expect Bears to make a low offer and then let him shop around. If they want to match it they will. Hicks has already said he'd like to finish his career in Chicago so I believe he'd give them a chance to match.

Just taking a quick run through in a draft sim (thedraftnetwork) and I run into this scenario at 37. Safety is a need and Battle at this spot is a consideration but I'm not crazy about that option because I think there will be good safeties available later in the draft. Emerson I like as a CB but if Graham plays well then this need drops a bit and then we're looking more for an inside NB talent versus someone who can play outside. You can find that type of CB later in the draft. I don't like Bell and think he'll drop after the combine because everyone catches him in all of his highlights. He's quick and shifty and I think he'll be a productive slot WR but ideally we need someone on the outside.. That leaves me with Metchie. He's also a slot WR but he can line up outside. He's got the knee injury so we'd be drafting him knowing he won't play until mid-year (this is assuming his medicals check out). He's a 1st Rd talent IMO and he can work the entire field. Even if he's gets in mid-season I think his route running skills will have him ahead of other prospects. Ideally we could trade back a bit but there isn't anyone other than Metchie I'd want. Unless we trade back much deeper into the 2nd Rd. In this scenario I'd take that trade late into the 2nd because it should net us a 3rd Rd pick. I haven't done much scouting on all these players, mostly WR and CB so far. Wondering if anyone else has strong thoughts on taking one of these players at 37? https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/thomas-graham-stats-chicago-bears-vs-vikings-mnf 37.Trent McDuffie CB Washington 38. Malik Willis QB. Liberty 40. Jordan Battle. S Alabama 41. Martin Emerson CB. Mississippi State 42. David Bell WR. Purdue 43. Kenneth Walker III. RB. Michigan State 44. John Metchie III. WR. Alabama 45. Jermaine Johnson EDGE. Florida State 46. Zion Johnson. IOL. Boston College 47. Christian Harris. LB. Alabama 48. Isaiah Spiller. RB. Texas A&M 49. Logan Hall EDGE

Come off the practice squad and play well in your first NFL game under the bright spotlights of MNF alongside a makeshift secondary that has never played together and you're going to get some attention. It's too early to say he's our starter opposite Johnson next year but he might earn it in the last few games. What will be most interesting is that he'll get to see the Vikings twice which is really lucky for him. For people like me who were wondering why we didn't see him sooner, he explains that himself: He wasn't playing well enough consistently. To his credit and the Bears he stuck around and worked on his craft. I look forward to watching him the next few games. https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/thomas-graham-stats-chicago-bears-vs-vikings-mnf If he looks like a legit starter opposite Johnson then it greatly helps our offseason. Still need to bring in competition at CB but might not be as big a spend in FA or draft stock.

The criticism of Olsen was that he couldn't block and thus would never develop into a full-time TE. Pass catching was never an issue. I'd rather not talk about Mike Martz.

That is a true statement about Hampton and the comparison to Hicks is accurate. I'd like to bring him back too but it has to be at backup money because his body can't hold up to starter snaps anymore. A DT like that who can give you 20 snaps a game with 3 big negative plays, those are plays that can end drives.

Imagine if Nagy could get out of the offense, with 80% of the starting roster on the field, what Desai got out of the defense with ~35% of his starters. If you start getting into the depth rotations those numbers get even worse for Desai.

I'm old enough to remember similar conversations about a guy named Greg Olsen. I can even remember when fans weren't too happy with Charles Tillman in his early years. We have to give players time to grow and improve when the arrow is pointing up. Remember too that Kmet has had just one training camp. I agree with Michael Irvin... jugs machine doesn't help when it comes to catching while running. I hope he joins the Mooney/Fields workouts this offseason.

Absolutely agree.

We have a lot of high character players on this team to pull off that effort tonight. We need to fix some spots but this is not a complete overhaul. Loved the way Roquan was hitting Cook all night. Wanna play MLB/ILB for the Bears? That's what it should look like. We need to re-sign Ogletree. He is not necessarily what you want as a starter but I sure don't mind him coming off the bench when needed. Love his enthusiasm for the game. I'm giving all the DBs credit, even Bush, they played outstanding given the circumstances and their talent level. Early on the announcers were showering praise all over their WRs and QB. That didn't end well. I'd like a second helping of Tevin Jenkins too. I'll forgive him for defending his QB and then hitting back after a Viking player clearly reached out and hit him first. I know his night wasn't perfect but on just 1 week of mostly walk-through practices that was one heck of an improvement. Someone is going to be putting together a highlight reel of some of his blocks tonight, at least I hope they do because there are some blocks that will be fun to watch. There was one inside running play where Montgomery had nowhere to go so he ran off the RG into traffic. Jenkin's man tried to scrape down the line to make the tackle and Jenkins just rode him about 7 yards downfield. They took some others with them too and with the push from the other Oline Montgomery ended up with a 5 or 6yd gain. When he got it right and got his hands on someone that was it. Justin Fields was disappointing most of the night. I'll give him a bit of a pass since he had some WRs he hasn't worked with much (Newsome). Once we lost Grant it seemed the juice went out of the offense. Grant is another player we need next year. Horsted caught a TD. He made a good special teams tackle too on punt coverage. Why isn't he on the field more? Did y'all catch Louis Riddick making a pitch for the Bears GM job? No way to know if Pace is staying yet but I could live with some combination of him and Riddick running things. Give Riddick Football Operations, keep Pace in the GM/Player personnel scouting department where he does his best work. Let Riddick manage Pace and the new HC. If Pace goes I'd still be ok with Riddick. I think he has a good eye for both talent and performance/effort on the field as well as the play calling/strategy aspects of the game. I don't think he's afraid to say what he's thinking even if it hurts someone's feelings. We need that in the organization. If he came on board I'd be willing to be he'd want a say in the coaching staff (not just head coach). On that front, I think he'd even interview Desai after what he saw tonight. Riddick already has front office experience and I think he'd covet the Bears job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riddick "In December 2020, various sources reported Riddick was being interviewed for the GM vacancies for both the Houston Texans and Detroit Lions.[5]

Should have said Goldman. Sorry I've written off Jackson so he often drops out of sight out of mind like his coverage skills.

I'll give him credit for fielding a team tonight that had a lot of fight in it. Just getting a roster together well enough that guys knew basic plays wasn't easy. It will help him at the next bus stop but he still has to get on the bus.

Eddie is back. I'm not as down on him as you are but agree he hasn't been as dominate as he used to be. Still he's made some good plays here and there in the last few games. I still hope we might get one or two more back before the game.

Policy already changed but only for vaccinated even though it's so obvious they are the ones getting sick and spreading it. At the risk of getting banished into the ether I'm going to call out the elephant that is standing in the middle of the locker room: If the league is 94.3% vaccinated and staff nearly 100% https://www.nfl.com/playerhealthandsafety/resources/press-releases/nfl-covid-19-testing-results-and-vaccination-rates-oct-31-nov-13-2021 then we're talking about ~2 players on a team that are not vaccinated. Odds are one of the two players has already had COVID which means they have much better immunity than vaccinated people. The NFL continues to single out the unvaxxed players for this issue as seen in the rules disparity. If that unvaxxed player isn't sick or testing positive how is it his fault others got sick? Even if he did infect others how is it his fault their choice to get vaccinated didn't protect them? The player didn't produce, market, nor mandate ineffective vaccines. Booster shots don't help either against Omicron yet the NFL seemingly doesn't know that. Worse they don't know why that is despite mandating a very specifically targeted vaccine that was never designed to provide full immunity against all future variants. Nor do they know why some vaccinated people can carry a higher viral load even when asymptomatic (not sick but making it easier for them to spread the disease) vs. unvaccinated who are asymptomatic (including those who never had COVID). If they did, they wouldn't be allowing vaccinated players who test positive just once to come to work until such time as they get a second positive test. Everyone knows there is no way they allowed obviously sick people to be in meeting rooms or workout with others. Where is the investigation into how this was being spread? Are they blaming Cole Beasley and Aaron Rodgers who both played today? Simply put the data is out there and the NFL needs to do a better job taking care of the players and staff personnel. The union should be fighting for the players rights as other unions like the UAW have successfully done.

I stopped after a reporter mentioned Goldman is coming back from the COVID list and asked him are there any others expected back. Nagy replied with "what player would that be?" Being on the short leash right before the holidays (he's got family too) and then having all this COVID stuff take away the people he needs to help him win. I think he's done too. Omicron isn't going away next week, does he want to deal with this again? Nobody wants to be fired publicly as these coaches have to go through. At some point the classy move is to allow him his dignity and self-respect and make the move everyone knows is coming.

Saw that game. Announcers kept saying how Mahones won the game. I kept thinking how Brandon Stanley stole defeat from the jaws of victory. He had 9pts on easy FG. If you want to give them 2 out of 3 then he has +6 pots but still never goes into overtime. FWIW Mahones looked bad. He’s not thinking straight. Missing easy throws. Bypassing easy passes and holding the ball too long. Maybe he’s more focused on his next commercial because something has changed from how he’s played in the past.

1 UP: Wilkinson returns from COVID. this helps a depleted OT situation but isn't really enough. 2 down: Dalton and Shelley out. neither were expected to play FWIW

After seeing some here talk him up I decided to watch some of the Cowboys game a week ago. McCarthy was out. Dallas was up by one score and had the ball with 4 min left. Moore called 3 passes in row, one to the sideline out of bounds, 2 incomplete and they punted giving the ball back to the other team with all their timeouts and over 3min on the clock. I thought about all the Bears fans complaining about Nagy's game management. In those 3 plays and 20s he was off my list.

There's a lot of immunology science behind why the COVID stuff is happening in this manner but that's boring stuff. The positive here, if it's the Omicron variant, is that it's usually a mild 2 day course of sickness with an extremely low risk of serious issues. The negative is it spreads far easier and the team likely isn't done with it. While sickness might be mild for a couple days I don't know how long the viral load will remain in the sinus and can be detected via PCR tests. For those who got it early in the week some could be back before the game on Mon. That's a bit tight since I think the NFL requires they test negative twice within 48hrs. If that means Sun/Mon tests are negative then we might see a few people back in action but of course we could also lose others. This is going to be a brutally ugly game but, as long as we can field a team, I'll be watching because it's what I do. It'll also give me an excuse to drink some Scotch Whiskey with my son. Bear down!

Maybe this has some details from another board I check on sometimes (Bearsfansonline) but discourse is much better here. Without posting the text of the full Trib article, here's what it summarized: One Halas Hall source indicates that from the outside it's a nightmare, but inside, they are almost oblivious to how bad it is. Multiple sources indicate that Phillips will distance himself from football ops Another source indicated the Bears need to clean house from a systemic standpoint, well beyond just GM and coach Gary Fencik and Pat Mannelly both are frustrated the team doesn't reach out to former Bears greats to build the franchise culture and get their insight Fencik: "They don't even know how to go about being a good organization." Pace is considered an all-star when it comes to pro personnel and college scouting, but avoids conflict and "rocking the boat" at all costs ----- the second part of that statement, if true, is a big problem for a GM but I'm always very cautious during times like these because it's easy for anyone and everyone to jump on the bandwagon so they look good jumping off a sinking ship. If it's a Halas Hall source is that someone who is also part of the problem? I also think some people just like seeing their quotes in the news. I'll add that IMO if a manager is doing their job right nobody else knows others are in trouble. I've had people spread rumors about me thinking I wasn't holding their poorly performing coworkers accountable when in fact they were already on a final warning. Then one day I'm letting them know their coworker is gone. McCaskey is loathe to get rid of Pace due to his personal fondness for him. Pace may be the right guy to keep around if he's grown from his experience. He was very young when he started as GM. John Fox was forced upon him and so Nagy is really his only HC hiring experience. Raise your hand if you made a mistake the first time you did something. ============================================ There is some speculation that the Bears might be trying to figure out how to reduce Pace's role somewhat so he's still on talent scouting but bringing in a Head of Football Operations person (Trace Armstrong rumor) who would have control over coaching hires. Based on the rumors swirling I suspect that is what the Bears are trying to do. In that case Pace would quietly accept a reduced role but they'd likely let him keep the GM title and he'd still be the guy doing the press conferences while Ops mgr stays in the background. New Ops Mgr would have decision making over things like draft trades, FA strategies, cap management, etc. Or maybe it goes the other way around and Pace gets the new title with reduce football role but stays involved in player acquisition/talent scouting and someone else gets hired as GM. Semantics.

It's behind a paywall I can't access. Is it this article? https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bears/ct-chicago-bears-fire-matt-nagy-ryan-pace-20211215-guyhqzffxzbi5juq5cgkfftv7m-story.html It's a weird URL name because the headline for the article is totally different and just lists a quote stating: What to do? "Clean house". There isn't much in this article (I can read it behind the popup) other than opinion and nothing that really much different from what's said here. Maybe it was another article?

I read somewhere he had to play without taking any practice snaps. If that's true who does that to a backup fresh off a long injury recovery, and when Jason Peters has nearly 2 decades of experience. Who does that is a coach who has one foot out the door and was desperate to get a win in GB. One for the road.

You can find what Vildor did in every NFL game every week and it's not flagged.