AZ54

Did you ever think John Fox's 17pts per game would look so good?

In week 1 I saw this. Perhaps everyone runs out of a Bear hug by Aaron Donald? So yes, I respect a man who runs hard every play, breaks tackles, and gains yards when his Oline gives him nothing. And he doesn't quit until the final whistle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEKrVoxLcrI

Sorry but I have a lot of respect for David Montgomery and how he's running the ball this year.

I actually think it's defenses he doesn't understand. IMO play calling is about knowing your team's weaknesses and utilizing your team's strengths while staying away from the other team's strength and exploiting their weaknesses. I get adding in the occasional element of surprise, not being one dimensional and so forth but there should be some signs you are seeing that make you think it will work before you handoff to Patterson on 4th and short while Montgomery is sitting on the bench. 3-step drops and quick reads, or quick reads out of the shotgun are not Field's strength right now. OTOH pass rushing a fixed target is Cleveland's strength. Forget even the read-option I'd have been happy with some actual delayed running plays with Fields. Just snap it to him and let the pass rushers into designed lanes and open a hole for him to run. Just doing that a couple times will make them hesitate a bit as they take their first step. I've seen that done a bunch of times with Lamar Jackson and it seems to me that would have been super easy to do as hard as they were coming off the edge.

Among the owners I think that's George these days. At least he puts forth effort to stay in tune with the fans and I think he sits in on the end of year reviews of Pace.

LMAO.

What exactly is the cap the crisis next year? Admittedly I'm just now looking into it at Overthecap.com but it appears we have $45mil in cap space, and cutting Foles and Cohen frees up an additional $5.2mil. We already have Cohen's replacement on the roster (pick any from among the RB / WR depth - finding someone good at running out of bounds isn't hard to do). I see one player we should re-sign in Roquan and that's big money. Other than that I'd like ARob back but not at $20mil/yr. I'd like Akiem Hicks back too but not at $10mil/yr. He's aging but I think in a rotational role he can still contribute meaningful snaps. Neither of Hicks or ARob are must haves but there is a bigger need at WR. If Tonga improves and Goldman returns to form I can see them letting Hicks go unless he's willing to do a team friendly deal. We can slide Goldman out to DE and keep Tonga at NT next year on run downs. Below them we have Pat O'Donnell, Nichols, James Daniels, and Ifedi. Depending on what they see out of Borom and Jenkins it's likely they may only choose to sign one of the oline. Nichols is a good player but his injury history hurts his market value, we'll close a deal with him. Going forward we'll be sitting without a heavy QB contract in 2022/23/24 which should give room to fix other positions. https://overthecap.com/free-agency/chicago-bears/ Are there players on the roster paid too much like Eddie Jackson? At the time of his deal he earned it IMO but this year not in the least. Quinn based on last year's performance? This year it's early but he's earning it. Around the league every roster has a few of these contracts to live with but I don't see it impacting 2022. There are 18 teams with less cap space than we have in 2022 including every team in the NFC North. Packers and Vikings are among the league worst and are negative.

I don't think Ted runs the team operations. He is more focused on the business side of things these days and I don't think he's that bad in that role. After getting agreement on the new property in Arlington there's no way he's going anywhere. He got this far in that deal and this is absolutely critical the future of the team. They will let him close the business deal and begin working with architects on designing the new complex. Plus he's been dealing with Chicago politicians for a long time too and he's likely in the best space to get out of the existing Soldier Field deal better than bringing in some outsider.

Awesome news. New stadium, better venue (I love the history of Soldier Field), better turf and footing for players, and more revenue to help the team compete. I hope they find a way to keep the ties to the past alive in the new stadium. This will bring a Superbowl to Chicago.

I still like Pace and I freely acknowledge his mistakes. I don't even mind the trade up for Trubisky because if he's your guy you go get him. I'd rather have that in a GM than the Angelo way when we were afraid to trade up a couple spots to ensure we got Aaron Donald. I think we did something similar a year prior to where we saw someone trade up ahead of us and draft our primary target. I can live with results of someone who at least believes in his scouting enough to go get them. That's the same approach that led to Fields. I believe Fields is the right choice. The more I've researched into the draft the more I've learned why Bill Belichick just wants to collect as many picks as possible. There are many ways to build a team including not using your first round picks as the Rams have done. I don't want to go into a back and forth on all his draft picks we all know the failures. I simply think Pace has learned and improved over the years. He seemed to be more about the athlete early on and now is better evalauting the football player. I think his first HC choice showed that same tendency to go to the shiny new object. I don't think his 2nd choice will follow that same path. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/why-the-rams-have-traded-away-so-many-first-round-picks-an-inside-look-at-los-angeles-unique-draft-strategy/ Nagy on the other hand. The Santa's Sleigh play was the pinnacle of his career. It doesn't matter if it's the inability to call running plays when he freely admits his QB is struggling, to calling a goal line dive play with Cordarrelle Patterson, he can't get out of his own way. More importantly I don't think he's learning, nobody does and he's making John Fox look like an offensive genius. I still think he has the traits to be a good HC if he just focused on that, but he's just not a good OC. If he can't see that and won't make that change then it's just further proof he's not acting as a head coach. In that case, we must make the decision for him and if it comes down to that he'll be on his couch watching games like the rest of us. Someone once asked Jerry Jones if he was the GM would Jerry (the owner) fire himself? Jones was at least honest enough to admit he would have.

Pace knows he has to do something ... now. The D is good. There is enough talent on offense to at least be productive and that includes the Oline. Even special teams is doing alright. All that is left is offensive scheme. In reality the things Nagy touches the least succeed.

We do way too much of this. I used to think it was because Mitch had no clue but nah it's just Nagy.

I agree on this which is why I never advocated for Fields to sit the bench the entire year. He still has to know enough to be out there. I don't think he's far off and he'll be helped quite a bit being at home next week.

Nagy needs to fire himself as OC. He's in over his head, he hasn't changed, and it's clear he will never learn. Hand the keys of the offense over to Lazor and sit back and be a head coach, or do us all a favor and just leave town. That said I like what Desai has been doing the last couple games. Despite the Oline struggles today I still like Juan Castillo. It was obvious Fields isn't ready and if there was ever a game where you needed a good 3 step drop passing game and play action this was it. Having a rookie QB sitting back in the shotgun having to keep his eyes off the rush while he catches the ball is not smart. To top it off Fields was then dropping back further which played perfectly into the pass rush. Get some more help to the Oline, do something wildly creative like a screen play behind Garrett's pass rush, perhaps sooner than the 4th quarter.

Why stunt the growth of the rest of the offensive players, many who are also new to the team, waiting on a rookie QB to learn it when you have a veteran who has quickly mastered it, can help everyone else get lined up, and call protections, etc.? Then we had the Oline disaster throughout training camp so it was a mystery how that would look in game 1. I'm good with them getting the rest of the offense ready as fast as possible. Get the car tuned up, cleaned up, and fueled up, and when the rookie is ready to drive hand him the keys. The last thing I wanted to see was Fields behind a confused Oline especially when Fields doesn't know enough to help set protections. They didn't totally abandon Fields, he was getting snaps in game 1 and then more snaps in game 2 before Dalton got injured. It was clear the path forward was to get Fields game experience with the 1's and ramp him up as quickly as possible. I'm sure that plan included more first team practice snaps as he earned it. He was shaky last week and mostly issues reading the defense (see the endzone passes/INT). His passing accuracy was good for the most part so I don't think that timing was much of an issue. By the way didn't running that scout D mean he was getting snaps against the first string defense? I see the case where they wanted to use that platform to help him learn how to read defenses. What takes longer to learn: Reading NFL defenses or getting in sync with ARob, Mooney, and the Oline? I don't know how NFL practices are run but if the 1st team D is doing their thing against the scout team at the same time the 1st team offense is doing their thing on another field he can't be in both places at once. Isn't this why traditionally the 3rd string QB runs the scout team offense so the starting QB and backup (10% snaps) are working on the game plan plays? I think his timing with the offense will come together quickly since he played with elite athletes at OSU he just needs to know where to go with the ball a little quicker.

JT Sullivan is correct on the details but this analysis gives more reason for hope as it focuses more on the play recognition and less on the fundamentals of the position. There were quite a few positives to his performance. I say the combination of these two analyses is a fair breakdown for where Fields is at as a QB right now. As he gains experience and the game slows down for him the fundamentals and pocket presence he displayed before should naturally return. Or you could just sum it up simply as he's thinking too much right now.

Lots of learning remains. While it's easy to see his talent is above that of any QB we've ever seen in a Bears uniform but I"m not sure what people were seeing in the preseason that would make them feel he was comfortable with the playbook. I always hoped he'd be ready somewhere around Week 4 or 5. I think he'll be quite a bit better tomorrow than he was last week because while he did struggle in the preseason you could see him learning what defenses were doing and improving over the course of a game.

That's not political it would be just facts and medical science. Epidemics in the last 20 years: H1N1, Ebola, SARS, MERS, Swine Flu. Some were really bad in some regions of the world and nobody knows why they died out (see Ebola). Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. History says there will be another pandemic within ~5 years too. We now know a lot about the latest pandemic, far more than what we knew in Feb. Children are protected from Corona virus becoming life threatening in part due to their naturally high levels of melatonin. Other natural things like vitamin D levels greatly affect disease outcomes significantly. That's not because vitamin D helps cure you it's because of how it affects your immune system. High risk people are very susceptible to the virus turning into COVID 19 and that will never change. This will be with us forever and will be genetically different every year. Like the flu, a vaccine will prevent people from previous known versions. It's not going away. We now know how to treat the disease (COVID 19 is different from getting this particular Corona virus itself) with a very high success rate above 90% and generally as high as 99% although the highest risk patients still struggle to recover. That will only improve over the summer as data from thousands of treatments becomes available in the next few weeks. Regarding football and the discussion at hand: It is a fact different leaders react differently to the risks regardless of political affiliation. That will affect states as well as countries around the world (see London games already canceled). It appears these differences will cascade into the NFL season with varying levels of social activity being allowed. Some teams will have an opportunity to have their home field advantage with fans unless the league steps in and says no fans anywhere. Will that happen? Are they going to refund all that season ticket money? Do you refund people who paid for seat licenses? If you can have fans at games in some locations would you move games to those locations? We don't need to get into a discussion on why leaders react differently. Political affiliation has not driven decisions you can look around the country and see it's individuals. If you think I don't care about people understand I have 3 very high risk people in my close family on chemotherapy, and heart disease with diabetes. That might be why I spend so much time reading medical articles and journals on this. It's also why I'll gladly attend a game but I will not be taking my parents to one.

This season could be very interesting as different governors react differently to this year's pandemic. I say this year's pandemic because we have one every few years and most are worse than the current one. Anyway as I look at our schedule I see an away game in Week 1 at Detroit. That being one state where the governor refuses to let people sit alone in a boat. I'd say there's a good chance we don't have fans at that game and that's a big help for us. Later we have Week 7 in LA where we have another governor who is now worried about a 3rd wave of Coronavirus. That should be another great opportunity to see a level playing field on the road. OTOH I don't live in Illinois but I see headlines where the governor wants to put people in jail for trying to earn a living. Unfortunately at this point it appears quite likely the Bears will be giving up home field advantage too. The question is what will the NFL do when some states allow people to enjoy their life again while others persist in lockdowns? Any team having full stadiums will have a significant advantage at home that others won't have. Wouldn't you love to play at Seattle without fans? Would it make sense to move games to a neutral field where fans could enjoy the game? Or do you just ban fans at all games waiting on the last governor to give in? I've seen one post where a European soccer fan said watching a match without fans was brutally bad. I'll be watching games either way but I expect it will be much the same for the NFL.

You can't come at your job as a leader with the intent to have people like you. It's nice when or if they do but respect is much more important. You'll naturally see the respect earned if you help others become successful. You only need to look back at the history of NFL head coaches to see how that has played out. Lombardi, Noll, and I'd even bet Bill Belichick would get similar treatment once he retires. I agree with this 100%: Its being consistent with holding people accountable. Of course there is the Jimmy Johnson way too where he had curfew issues before a Superbowl. He cut one of the bottom of the roster players to send a message to the team. As he said years later, there was no way he would have cut Michael Irvin.

Players coach vs. winning coach.

A young team enjoying lots of success and believing it's easy to repeat that without realizing talent only gets you on the field. Reading the quote doesn't give me a lot of confidence that Nagy really understands the change that has to be made in himself. It's one thing to say we've lost our focus on the details and we need to get it back but it's another holding people accountable for it. I certainly hope he makes that change because players like Tarik Cohen, who believes his 4.0ypc was enough last year when he could have easily had more if he made less "business decisions", need this discipline. This focus on details is not just about execution either. More important is developing the players' desire to work to be as good as they can possibly be on every down. Get that and they'll worry about the details for you. We have a good start with players like Trevathan, BoJack, and Mack on D, and ARob and Montgomery on offense. I'll be looking for signs of the new accountability when we get to training camp. Somebody always tests the new rules.

There is one assumption here and that is that ARob knows what he should be doing. He doesn't run a rub route for sure because he cuts inside and sits down beyond the 1st down marker. It's possible ARob is wrong. If Lucas doesn't completely miss his block and fall on his face in the process then when Trubisky gets out of the pocket he's got ARob open for a nice gain too.

It would be nice and it's not out of the question before training camp begins.

When you see how much the 49ers cater their game plans to Garropolo's strengths it really shows what a smart coach Shanahan is. Of course it helps tremendously to have talent around him to make that happen. Between the Oline and solid running game, and then what Kittle can do in the open field JimmyG is in a good spot. Even then they mostly just have him throw between the numbers because that's what he does well.