AZ54

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.

There were a lot of errant throws in Miller's direction early in the season. At some point Trubisky quit looking towards him, and without Gabriel and practice squad TEs not knowing where to go, he just went right at ARob time after time. Can't say I blame him either except the thing about sports is that, like a point guard you have to keep coming back to guys. You have to keep them engaged and keep working together to get that long term improvement. By the way Wims was on the outside and he didn't know what the check was either because you see him come over to Miller and ask about it. Wims is a good guy but his NFL career is following along the path his collegiate career did. There is talent there but something is missing...either study habits, work ethic, whatever you want to call it, or he'd have shown more last year. I don't have confidence in Miller to grow up and suddenly focus on knowing his job but maybe it will happen: https://sports.yahoo.com/heres-bears-wr-anthony-miller-160320019.html

I remember listening to her. Looking back I realize now how she opened the door for many women to follow in her footsteps.

Sad news and has to be a tough day for Virginia.

If you watch the break ARob gets on his DB he's got really good separation there and that's exactly where Trubisky was going with the ball. Could have been a nice gain right there.

It doesn't matter if it's Trubisky or Foles at QB, these type of mistakes by the WRs have to be eliminated. https://twitter.com/BearWeatherFans/status/1261422572094119936

As someone said Mitch is built to run a different offense.

i understand and agree this is likely his last shot at being a starter. I just think he is what he is at this point which is backup/bridge QB.

We sit just under $10mil in cap space right now. I think Pace wants to wait on the Robinson deal in order to have an idea how he wants to fit in any of these late contracts. If something works we can structure Robinson's deal to reduce cap hit. OTOH if we don't sign anyone else we could pull in as much of the hit this year to make future years better. This may have been his M.O. all along and why we see the new contracts just before the season starts.

As prices come down other factors weigh more heavily into the equation. Things such as organization, locker room (do you want to be around guys like Fournette who pout on the bench or with the team that dances after a victory?), location (family reasons or entertainment), chance to win a ring, etc. Many of those things are in our favor so it's possible the flame reignites.

I read this yesterday and I'm still trying to figure out who is overrating Leno. Or is it as simple as saying he'll make the 53 is overrating him?