AZ54

Wait for the film reviews. His hustle is what really stands out. Dude won’t quit on a play.

Despite all the positive reviews this week it has been Dom Rob getting more first team reps. Robinson responded reportedly with some good play. I’m curious to see how they both look in this next game. If Washington found a way to get more out of Robinson that bodes well for the future of our Dline.

In one practice game Booker has shown more positive traits than Dominique Robinson, who I think gets cut. Booker is still young and needs a couple years to add strength but there's enough on this tape to believe he can contribute as a pass rush specialist. As far as the intent of the inside moves perhaps there is some coaching focus there but my hope is that Dexter provides that, not Booker. He was also getting a bit more attention that I expected on some plays. That is likely just the design of the play rather than them scheming against him but it was good to see how he handled those situations and it gives him tape on what to improve. The one thing I didn't see is him really bending around the edge. He's got to add that to his portfolio and I think he can. It'll be good to watch him across the preseason.

Not much worth talking about from that game. My overall impression is that considering we were mainly watching 3rd string players the coaches had them ready to play. Usually these games are sloppy with lots of obvious blown assignments, false starts, etc. Now that's much easier on the defensive side same scheme and all but the offense held their own with a new system and coaches. Which kinda makes me optimistic for the regular season opener. Players... nobody stood out to me except TE Bates. Of course assignment matteres but in these games of backups vs. backups in wk 1 preseason I'm mostly looking for athletes who stand out. Bates is a big dude who can run fluidly in the open field. TE is the notoriously one of the most difficult positions to learn so it's no surprise to see guys like Carlson ahead of him. Will that last over the next few games? Regardless, I won't expect much from him this year and he'd be TE4 so he can only make the 53 via special teams and maybe at the expense of Blasingame. Dline doesn't have any notable depth. Pickens for his former 5 star recruit talent hype should have stood out IF he's going to make a significant contribution this year. As it is now it appears he's just a guy holding a roster spot. Booker looked ok athletically like he belongs but also showed he has much to learn. I'm not impressed by Collin Johnson. He can't run by anybody and he's very stiff getting off the line. If all he can get is contested catches against 3rd/4th stringers that won't get any better against 1st/2nd string. Rypien showed why he's career backup as he's a line of sight thrower. He can't really layer the ball in over coverage. It's all good to the big WR over the top. Or to wide open crossers with nobody underneath. Didn't see enough from Bagent to compare.

I won't dispute what you saw. The video I saw was Poles and Ian going over it back and forth as picks were being made, plus Poles consulting with some of the scouts who are assigned opposition research for their assessment of who the teams ahead of us would draft. In the end they all celebrated and I saw Warren say "it was just like we told you" or something like that. Regardless of his statement I just can't believe Warren is doing opposition research for the draft.

I think that assessment is correct. Poles wanted to hedge his bet to make sure Williams had good WRs. Justin’s failure was not on him per se but if Williams fails so will he. Allen for a 4th was good value in that context even for a one year rental.

that was Ian Cunningham

Glennon wasn’t the mistake. Trubisky was. Every GM has to field a full team every season and sometimes that forces bad short term decisions. Or perhaps we should say difficult decisions. You can add Lucas Patrick to that list so Poles isn’t immune.

Love the long term prospect of the deal but it's also a huge injury gamble. DJ gets the huge guaranteed money locked in really early and Poles gets a bargain relative the future market. It'd be hard to find a better player to put that bet on.

One truth doesn’t infer the other. My take on it is that fixing the center position with the best option for Caleb is job one. If bates wins it outright it’s his and Shelton backs up. If Shelton wins then we’ve got a proven alternative at RG and we can open up that competition. If it’s a wash between Bates and Shelton then we go into figuring who our top 5 are which again could mean competition at RG. Fans are in a rush for answers but reality is we got an extra week of practice we should use that to our best advantage.

This is where I'm at. Maybe one series just to let him "break the ice".

For sure. The emphasis on drafting players with good character increases the odds they will put the work in to make themselves successful. It won't always work out as with Justin Fields but that gets countered with a starting LT from the 5th Rd. For whatever his faults were Justin Fields didn't fail for lack of effort as we saw with Rex Grossman and Cade McNown.

The other reason was the scheme at Florida asked him to just stand up, read, then react. It wasn't just 2-gap, they didn't want any type of attacking forward until the play was declared. College football defenses are just odd these days, which is my way of saying most of them are boring to watch.

Alright, finally we can start moving out of the speculation phase of the football season and into reality with some film breakdown of our first day in pads. These are horrible angles for watching film but with the slowdown and replays you can glean a few things. First and foremost is that Dexter is first off the ball on many plays and trying to run a slide protection on him is not going to be easy this year as Darnell Wright found out. Williams quick release and ability to throw from odd arm angles is evident as he invites a DE into his grill and then after the DE commits he calmly throws right around him for a screen to Swift. I'd prefer he stop patting the ball before his one throw over the middle but regardless once he commits to the throw the ball is gone. Amazing throw on the rollout to hit Scott for the TD in the corner 30yd downfield. Speaking of that it seems that was by designed that way with the blocking scheme. There were also plays where it didn't look smooth or bad throws so there is work to be done. Billings looks to in good shape again pushing the pocket... he's not a pass rusher, just doing what he does to compress the pocket helps the others. I didn't see much off the edge players but these are just a few plays.

I think Scott is always going to be what he is right now, a #4 WR. I won't mind if he proves me wrong.

I've been watching the press conferences the last few days. It is still early but so far this offense with Caleb is definitely not the usual rookie QB show. There is so much more offense to install and timing to get down but as near as I can tell from reporters on the scene he is not overwhelmed by any of this. His professional approach appears to be winning over the locker room on both side of the ball. Dexter just flat looks like a different man and is very mature in his approach to getting better. Above all though was his confidence in himself as he spoke at the podium. Dline depth will remain a concern until proven otherwise. So far I like this new DC Eric Washington. Simple straight talking man but I get the sense if he tells you someone or something is good he means it. Otherwise he's going to talk about what needs to be worked on. Seems like the kind of leader players respect as a man and not just as the coach. Time will tell if he can get results.

For sure, but you are also looking for positive signs within the culture that things are moving forward.

I don't really see a logical thread for tracking Williams progress. I'm was actually shocked as I read this. They certainly don't appear to be holding anything back with Williams. He's going to experience it all and that means they think he can handle it and they want him ready for anything in game 1. I figured first day in practice it's going to be kid gloves type of stuff like we've always seen before. There are more tidbits in the article that further highlight improvement with Williams since the OTAs. https://www.chicagobears.com/news/bears-training-camp-report-saturday-july-20-caleb-williams-offense-play-of-the-day-injury-health-update Rookie quarterback Caleb Williams and the No. 1 offense looked sharp. "Really the whole day, I thought that was a great start for us," said receiver Keenan Allen. "We looked real solid; no repeats and everybody was on the same page. "[Williams] called the plays way better than he was at OTAs. He felt confident in the plays and knowing what he was doing. There was no timidness from him today." ..... "We gave him a lot during the spring and in the summer: formation, motion, understanding a concept, run kills, killer to run, killer to pass, alerts," said coach Matt Eberflus. "All those things were a couple levels up, and you could see it. How do you see it? You see it in the execution. They're in and out of the huddle. I think we only had one today where they weren't, and it was much better." .... "You'll see different rush groups in there because four equals one when you're rushing the quarterback," Eberflus said. "So we'll do a lot of that during this process. "What that does is it gets experience and exposure for all of these guys, especially the quarterback. We're going to give him variations of all coverage, all blitz, everything he sees, fronts, everything he's going to see during the course of the year. And that's by design so he gets that exposure and experience to that."

If this were true why do so many coaches get fired? Why do teams pay more for a guy like Mike Shanahan, Andy Reid (who once got fired too), Sean McVay, Belichik? By the way Andy Reid was the coach who couldn't win the big game for a very, very long time and for years was the coach who wouldn't run the ball. There is clearly something there but like everything else there is a distribution to the really good coaches at the top, the middle ground, and then those who just shouldn't be in that role (i.e. Matt Nagy).

Pressure does funny things to people. It is especially hard to take over an organization and turn it around. It's even more awkward when you have to deal with people who you know are not up to the task. Sure Flus hired Getsy and Williams but we'll never know how far down the list they were amng the coaches he wanted. We do know it took quite a bit of time to assemble that staff. He's been around the league a long time too so he knows a lot of coaches. Of course he fired both so he saw it, knew it. I'm pretty sure he knew it with Getsy in year 1 when he forced him to revise the offense and they came out against NE and won the game with Fields running. It was easier to fire Williams and Flus to take over that role but there were no good options for that on offense. All that responsibility still lands on his shoulders and Flus knew Poles could have easily justified firing him. Under that pressure is where you see people sometimes start doing things they otherwise wouldn't do to try and get a spark and win a game. Remember Matt Nagy and his "cute" plays that got out of hand. In the end I think it was the defensive turnaround that saved Flus. To be fair, the offense did improve as well in the 2nd half once Flus had better command of the D. You get a huge boost in confidence when your boss tells you I understand it wasn't you and you are building this thing in the right direction. We'll see how it plays out but roster talent and coaching talent are no longer issues he has to work around. That frees up his mind to focus more on the head coaching job. He still has a young QB and after the Fields/Getsy experience I expect he'll make sure to be around Caleb/Waldron early on to make sure things are going in the right direction. On the defensive side he kept Jon Hoke to help as defensive passing game coordinator and Washington seems better able to handle the Dline and run defense setup. He kept Hightower for continuity on special teams.

There are tipping points in sports where the individual stats don't matter as much as the collection of talent, and then teams start to dominate. The EPA metric might be very good at capturing that but it's still a historical trend. Each team each season is different. I think what happened in Detroit last year captures that. Nobody was talking about them until after the first quarter of the season, or more. In 2022 they were in bottom right quadrant and last year they moved up (just barely) into the top right where it seems the good teams exist. That also kinda backs up my point that Detroit isn't all that elite. What is noteworthy is the massive jump up the Bears made last year from way down in the bottom left quadrant (low D, low O) to center of the chart. If Caleb can avoid the deer-in-the-headlights crap we saw on offense in the first 6 games last year, and our D can avoid the cluster of injuries we had to the DBs early on there is no reason not to expect us to move up on D and O this year. Plus we have better depth on both sides of the ball this year.

I think there are too many mouths to feed and an OC who knows how to spread the ball around. Even if Williams were to throw for 4000 yds. Give 800 each to DJ, Keenan, and Odunze. That’s 2400. Give 500 to Kmet and 400 to Everett. Now at 3300. Here again the OC likes to use TEs and with DBs focused on the WRs these guys figure to be the easy mismatch for Caleb to take advantage of. Give 300 to Swift. Now at 3600. There will easily be a cluster of others like Scott or Jones or Roschon who collectively get 400. To see Odunze get 1000 I think we need an injury to Moore or Allen for a few games so he gets more reps. We’d also need Caleb to throw for something crazy like 4500 yards.

The Bears did right by waiting on Conner Williams. He's had another month to not just heal the knee but gain strength. Now they have the full training staff in place and it's easy to bring him in for a thorough eval. There is no DE available who will dramatically change the roster, they'll just be expensive depth pieces on a 1yr rental. I'm not happy with Nate Davis so far this offseason. Williams, if healthy, presents a chance to give Caleb an elite Center for the next 4 seasons. We have the money now if we choose and can sort out the oline future next season but unless there is a dramatic turnaround Davis isn't likely in the picture for 2025. Even if Davis did play well, assuming Jenkins does the same and is healthy I think the team would rather build around Jenkins who definitely is putting in the offseason work to get better. IMO Bates is a better Guard than Center and sitting between Williams and Wright he'd be fine. Translation for me: I'm holding onto my options with Williams as long as possible to validate his health. Then I decide.

As expected the contract chatter before camp was much ado about nothing. Yes, Phx you are correct all that contract 'ownership" stuff looks to have been nothing but noise and distraction. We'll see how the career and contracts go in the future but I'll forever wonder what Tom Brady told Caleb when they were talking over the summer. Many players make their money off playing (i.e. the contract). Brady was never focused on being the highest paid, he was focused on making his money off winning, and still is earning big money off that. You need to believe in yourself to make that happen... https://sports.yahoo.com/tom-brady-retires-record-475-180432340.html Brady repeatedly signed below-market deals with New England to help its roster-building under the cap, but he still retires with a record $293 million in playing salary and bonuses. Sportico estimates Brady earned $180 million off the field over the past 22 years from endorsements, licensing, appearances and memorabilia. Taken all together, his career earnings are estimated at $475 million, which would rank No. 22 among athletes all-time, not adjusted for inflation, and is a record haul for an NFL player while active.

Odunze is signed.