AZ54

Regardless of the details it's nice of the Bears organization to do that for you.

Mack was just rounding into shape when got injured. MT looked lost most of the year but in the last few games it seemed to be coming together. Just improving those two issues and the first half of the season figures to be much more fun.

Interesting setup for next year as we need cap space. Skrine's contract says he'll be here in 2020, too much cap hit to let him go. Daniel I don't see us keeping him around at $5mil/yr and at age 33/34 he won't have much value around the league. I could see us doing something in the $2-3mil range or going with someone much cheaper like a draft pick. Larsen is a 1yr rental but he's really a min contract player so someone will fill that spot for a similar hit. McManis figure to be gone and that is quite likely to happen this year. That leaves Kyle Long and his status will be hotly debated at the end of the season, unless he finishes it on IR.

Most of us weekend warriors have had that happen where the day of the injury it doesn't feel like much and the next day the muscle is tightened up and you can barely move. As Bearfan2000 said via Monty Python: "it's just a scratch, I'll be alright."

Yeah, not much more than a dart. But it means the job won't be handed to Coward so he needs to earn it.

Nobody has said anything about better throwing mechanics so we'll see. The excuse of dealing with a new complex offense is gone.

Generally you get all the fluff stuff at this time of year. What matters more to me is what Helfrich and Nagy are saying and how they are saying it. These guys might say positive stuff about the players but usually aren't this effusive with praise. https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2019/5/29/18644961/mitch-trubisky-growing-up-fast-in-nagys-offense “Last year he learned [this offense]. Now he’s trying to master it,” Nagy said Wednesday after the Bears’ fifth offseason practice at Halas Hall. “He’s done a wonderful job at trying to get to some of the adjustments we have within the plays, concepts and schemes. “It is literally night and day, in all the right ways,” Bears offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich said. “Our standard for him is extremely high. But as far as the operation of what he’s supposed to do, what the defense is doing, manipulating protections — just the air about him — it’s way different.”

https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2019/5/31/18647431/bears-t-j-clemmings-sign-vikings-free-agent I liked him years ago in the draft. I think he was a mid-round prospect. Obviously he's never put it all together and I have low expectations for him here but at least we have someone with more experience than Coward on board just in case. Remember Sowell is now a TE.

Angelo was alright. He had a better vision of what a football player was than Smith did. Smith seemed think he could coach up any good athlete to be the player he wanted especially among the DBs.

Fangio: 'What's a suit?"

Not sorry!

This is OTA news and everyone in the NFL is happy (and doing great) at this time of year. So I'm always cautious with what's being said. In fact I put more value in watching the press conferences because you can see how the words are said. Facial expressions, pauses to think about what to say, all make a difference. At least for the moment it does look like Trubisky has taken a step forward with this offense. Will that lead to a more relaxed player who is more focused on his throwing mechanics? https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2019/5/29/18644961/mitch-trubisky-growing-up-fast-in-nagys-offense

When we hired Pagano the rumors were that he would be more aggressive calling defensive plays than Fangio was. At first Pagano insinuated he'd be the one learning the Fangio terminology and by default it sounded as if he wasn't going to change things much. In the OTAs we've already heard Nagy talking about the different coverages they are seeing and players have talked about differences they have to learn, albeit generically so nobody gives away any secrets for week 1. In this video of Trevathan mic'd up around the 1:10 mark you will see Trevathan, Floyd, and Skrine rushing off the left edge at the same time and keeps RRH and Hicks on the other side. I don't recall seeing that kind of blitz from Fangio. He might send the NB or, less often, the ILB. Changes are coming.

It's only a story because a reporter asked Nagy where Burton was during the OTAs. That was clear during Nagy's press conference on Wed so it's not on the Bears for making this a big issue. Reporters are covering it heavily since so many fans (and media) thought Burton was faking his injury, or was too mentally weak to compete while injured.

I'm not ready to say that yet but we are better at RB now than we were last year. We are better at WR because all are in their second season in this offense and we have more depth, AMiller will be playing with two arms instead of one. We are better at Oline simply because Daniels is now in his second season. We are the same at TE, maybe better if you consider Sims being gone and Sowell taking his place as a much better blocker (cheaper too). MT won't be anything less than what he was the last 4 games of the season so we should at least be better at QB than we were the first half of last year. On D we are the same at Dline, same at OLB. At ILB we are better now than last year with Roquan starting his second year in the NFL and having a full offseason. At CB we might be different with Callahan to Skrine but they offer different skills so there is some trade off among the pass defense and some improvement in the run defense. Fuller and Prince remain the same but depth with Tolliver and this rookie out of Kansas Duke Shelley we should be better. Who was our backup NB last year? At Safety we are better with HHCD vs. Amos. Packer fans won't admit it now but if you were to ask them 12mo ago if they wanted to get Amos vs. keeping HHCD they'd have laughed at the thought. Special teams is a wildcard but we won't be worse than last year. You can pretty grab any FA kicker off the street and have them do what Parkey did for us last year. We were also out of the playoffs in the first round. So I have to be realistic we have a ways to go but if numerous players take a routine step up in their production we could see a very good team this year.

Unlike years past this year there is so much continuity among our starters. I think there's potential among many on the roster but I'm not sure we'll see it because they can't get snaps. I include Tolliver and Wims among those. I'm going to go with Leonard Floyd. He has a new position coach who thinks differently about how to get him to best use his talent. https://sportsmockery.com/2019/05/new-bears-olbs-coach-says-leonard-floyd-can-surpass-khalil-mack/

That's a good analogy. Been there done that. Last year Mitch was still learning the language of the plays plus what that meant for who had to line up where, motions, who ran which route, blocking schemes, RPOs, read options, and then he had to read the defense after the snap when it all changed.

At the moment it doesn't hurt to have Mizzell on the roster as he knows the offense. With 90 players practicing it doesn't hurt having a little experience on the field as it helps to evaluate other players (i.e. defense) who may actually be worthy of a roster spot or practice squad spot.

I thought Jason would be all over this. I think it was always inevitable. Now after a season to adjust to the NFL and learn our playbook it's time for Daniels to take over leading the Oline. I don't know much about blocking schemes but Daniels has better mobility and will either handle reach blocks better than Whitehair or will be better when pulling into space. Whitehair likely is moving back to his more natural position too. Will we get better snaps to Trubisky in the shotgun instead of those floating snaps that sometimes took forever to arrive? https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2019/5/22/18636528/bears-james-daniels-center-cody-whitehair-guard-switch

Coward looking good at OT was my first thought as well. It's not like we have a lot of other options. If you get in a bind you could still slot Sowell into the spot for half a game. It also keeps Nagy's play calling options a bit more secretive as Sowell no longer has to report as eligible. The flip side here is what this means for Shaheen because I don't think it's good. We have to see how everyone performs in the preseason but with Dax Raymond there will be competition. Raymond will be a better blocker in the open field than Shaheen, less good as inline blocker. If Raymond's getting the playbook down I could see us keeping Sowell, Burton, Raymond, Braunecker (special teams). Shaheen could be cut or traded for a day 3 pick. I think that's a long shot for Raymond as he's more likely to end up on the practice squad but if Shaheen struggles at all or is injured again, I could see them going with the new guy. Mizzell I think is being groomed as a practice squad WR who might get called upon as a slot WR in an emergency. He still doesn't have the athleticism needed to succeed at this position either. I'd much rather see a practice squad spot go to someone else with more potential.

I was surprised to see Montgomery listed among the top 5 on this list. I think he's a good fit for what we need and his ability to make the first unblocked defender miss will add significantly to our offense even if he doesn't have breakaway speed. Regardless I'm not sure I see him as a top 5 RoY candidate. If he's in the discussion late in the season it means our offense is kicking some butt. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001030975/article/top-25-nfl-rookies-in-best-position-for-year-1-success 5) David Montgomery, RB, Chicago Bears: We're riding the Montgomery hype train with colleague/conductor Adam Rank. This former Cyclone breaks tackles with the best of 'em and has one of the league's better offensive lines in front of him. As long as Matt Nagy is willing to lean on him, he's going to do work.

Kwit is one of a few players I could see us trading late in the preseason. Last year Iggy held the last backup/special teams role. If Iggy is really standing out at ILB then he would move ahead of Kwit on the depth chart. At that point Pace is looking at who is the 4th ILB and how much can he contribute on special teams. I'm just not sure we get to that point this season plus Kwit still has value between the numbers. He'd likely only have trade value to teams using a 4-3 scheme, or to teams that are desperate, so that limits trade opportunities. I don't think this guy was signed for much more than training camp body. His best year so far was 2017 in KC with 35 tackles. If he couldn't make a good enough impression on that lousy defense to stick around with them for 2018 (FA to Jets) then we should not be hopeful it all comes together for him this year.

Part 2 of the article I linked to yesterday https://www.chicagoaudible.com/david-montgomery-productive-kareem-hunt-rookie/

Interesting article. I've been thinking about the Raiders and Josh Jacobs who was taken with our pick. I think there is little difference between Jacob's and Montgomery's skill sets and so IMO in terms of draft value I think we are the clear winners. When you look at this article and how they present the stats Montgomery becomes a very intriguing option. It will be interesting to see how their careers play out. I believe both will be successful but how much more productive does Jacobs have to be to justify that high pick? https://www.chicagoaudible.com/david-montgomery-collegiate-numbers/