AZ54

The LT/RT is the situation is much more fluid these days with teams moving pass rushers to either side, or even keeping their best pass rusher on the left side to attack the (usually less agile) RT. Both of our young OTs have already shown starter traits so that's great, just need consistency which should come with experience. I agree, coaches should put them in whatever slot gets us the best output on the field.

I don't agree. Winning matters. I want to know for which players it matters too and these are the times where players true character shows. That's why I loved the inspired effort by the defense in the Vikings game. If the team or coaches started tanking for draft slot then what kind of effort would we see from Thomas Graham? I wasn't able to watch yesterday's game but give me Darnell Mooney fighting for 10 extra yards instead of just getting the first down and then protecting himself in the middle of the field. Give me Byrd elevating in traffic for a 2pt conversion at the end of the game. Give me Quinn on a record setting sack pace despite having a depleted Dline for the second half of the season. Give me Roquan Smith all over the field making tackles, even as he battles a nagging injury. We can argue about talent for next year (Byrd and others) but part of the calculus in any player evaluation is if winning matters to them. In these meaningless games we get to discern that. That's why there is nobody here (that I know of) asking for ARob to come back. He's made it clear he is not for winning, just focused on a new contract. It's not that I don't understand the benefits of draft position but IMO there is a greater benefit to having the right players in the locker room with a winning mindset and work ethic both on and off the field. There will always be the obvious athletic traits needed to play in the NFL but you do well when you can find this winning trait in draftees. That's how players like Hunter Renfrow and Darnell Mooney become legit NFL WRs above their draft status.

On Montgomery's TD highlight Borom is playing LT so there isn't much reason to watch this game.

Is Jenkins playing? I don't have the game broadcast and nfl.com isn't working either. Took me 20min to figure out why Fields isn't playing.

I agree and I think that's the difference between what we see in Baltimore with Lamar Jackson. When it's a QB run, it's a clear QB run. All that cuteness makes it more difficult for Fields to digest what's going on and forces him to think too much. That pitch option is probably why he wasn't carrying the ball as tightly as he should have been. I'm not excusing the fumble because he saw the contact coming at him and there's no excuse for not putting his left hand over the ball.

I think that's fair. When i watched them live in a game in AZ Eddie Jackson't athleticsim stands out among all players on the field. He just has to decide if he's going to use that to his advantage or not. So far it appears not.

....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