AZ54

The most underrated off-season addition may well be the kicking coach. Robbie Gould came out of the same UDFA camp kickers Perhaps we are starting to see the results of his work with these two young kickers.

Wims apparently was playing very well today. He's making the most of Ridley's absence. It's early but I've heard a few positive things about Kyle Long looking like the old Kyle Long. That includes Tom Thayer who is around Halas Hall all offseason and sees how the guys are working out. I look forward to seeing how well he's moving in the preseason games. Ryan Nall is also standing out, looking more nimble this year. The battle for the last roster spots will be very interesting. Looks like Ives will be this years training camp fan favorite at WR.

I've been reading updates and haven't heard a single mention of Trevathan. What I have heard is they were mixing in Iggy and Kevin Pierre-Louis or Josh Woods with the 2nd team. There may be some competition for Kwiatkoski, not that he looked bad. Mack is just running free on all sorts of plays. Either really bad for our OTs or he's even lighter on his feet this year. There were lots of slot CB blitzes shown as expected, even with Hicks dropping into some type of coverage (turnstyle best describes it) on one play. Pagano is definitely going to mix things up and offense's won't have the comfort of the predictable nature of Fangio's play calls. Duke Shelley continues to standout according to many sources but tackling was his biggest weakness in college and we've yet to put on the pads. Trubisky, based on short videos on Twitter and from multiple sources, looks much more comfortable in the pocket. Even with Mack and others coming free often he's making quick reads, stepping up in the pocket, and throwing accurately. It seems like the good news out of the OTAs has continued for him. I was surprised to hear Ian Bunting was getting time with the 2nd team ahead of Dax Raymond. In terms of his quickness multiple people said Montgomery clearly stands out. Let's see what tomorrow brings when the pads come on.

It could be a problem going forward but to be honest it doesn't sound too serious, at least when I watched Pace and Nagy discuss it. Eric Berry....oft injured and doesn't fit the roster IMO unless he came here on a really low dollar contract. I just don't see that happening with a player who isn't too far removed from being the highest paid safety in the NFL or he'd already be signed somewhere. Moving McManis to Safety IMO has more to do with him slowing down while our CB depth is building up, than it does with HHCD injury/need. It was obvious when McManis filled in at NB that he just doesn't have the quickness to keep up with WRs. He was still able to make some plays but if he didn't have elite pass rush helping him out he'd have been exposed more often. He could survive better on the outside but Tolliver was a clear choice ahead of McManis there and that won't change this year. Now we have Duke and Buster on board at NB so safety is his best shot at making the team. At worst if he makes the team as the special teams ace he has learned the safety role and still knows CB so he'd be good depth at the bottom of the roster. I still view Denmark as a real threat to McManis' job. He won't be ready to play at any DB position this year but special teams is where he can clearly earn a spot on the 53. One of those few battles to keep an eye on in the 2nd half of preseason games.

Excellent work here by Robert Schmitz. Nichols surprised me. He quickly became what I thought Bullard would be for our Dline. If he improved his strength he'll be fun to watch this year. https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2019/7/19/20700833/chicago-bears-video-breaking-down-rookie-bilal-nichols-2018-season-akiem-hicks-eddie-goldman

Statistically better but not nearly as fun to watch, nor were they as feared to play against.

I think Mitch had quite a bit to do with that top 11 ranking.

It's not so obvious to me that Mitch is going to play that much better. Logic says he'll improve, and I'm confident he will, but how much is hard to say. Plus how much can we trust in OTA results? Riddick's comments seem to come from someone on the coaching staff or within the organization who was very pleased with Mitch's progress this offseason. I certainly hope he's right. If he has all the incidental stuff down (play calls, formation, blocking, etc.) then he can get the LOS much more comfortable knowing how the play call is set to attack the defense in front of him.

With 3 days remaining until the rookies report here's who I'm focused on this year in camp/preseason. It's a rare year with little battles to look forward to for starting jobs. So it's about the depth and future of the roster for me. I want to see Tolliver really ascend and demonstrate confidence to take over one of the outside CB slots next year. Likely cut Prince saves $8mil in cap space in 2020. Stephen Denmark...is he the real deal or just a paper tiger? Can he replace McManis as our special teams ace this year? Not sure that will happen but if he can become an NFL player next year should be likely. The fact McManis is switching to safety indicates his time here is coming to a close. WR battles for #4/5/ and do we keep 6. Who ya got? We know Patterson is guaranteed a spot and Ridley is virtually guaranteed a slot on the 53. For the last spot (or two) is it Wims, EHall, or MHall? IMO this has big implications for what happens next year with potential cuts, or contract restructuring, to save cap space. If Wims stands out could he replace ARobinson in 2020? Or EHall could he replace Gabriel in 2020? OG depth battle. Kyle Long will be here for sure this year. Next year is a bit of question mark. How good is Alex Bars? Rashaad Coward at OT? Interesting training camp battle: Can Bradley Sowell beat out Shaheen for the starting TE role? This doesn't seem likely but Shaheen hasn't impressed so far in his career even when healthy. Sowell has little track record as a TE but he basically lined up there all last year when he was over 300lbs. --------------------- One other thought: I don't think we'll see much of our pass catching RBs in the preseason. Running yes but there's no need to open your presents early when we play the Packers in week 1.

I don't know who his source is but last year he was spot on with the Bears. In general I've always liked his analysis of players and teams. I"m having a tough time getting Twitter links to work correctly If the bottom one doesn't work scroll through this until you see Riddick. https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bears?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Right now Watson is injury prone and he has a tendency to hold onto the ball too long. As pointed out in the video Trubisky also holds onto the ball too long at times. My concern with Watson was some of his deep passes in college we just complete ducks, even when he wasn't under pressure. I loved his leadership and thought he'd be a great QB in the right system that took advantage of his very good short-to-intermediate passing game. He's been better at the deep ball so far than I expected. There's no denying having one of the top 3 WRs in the NFL helped him compared to what Trubisky had in year one. If that 2017 draft were done over all 3 QBs would be taken top 10 with Mahomes going #1 overall to Cleveland. I'd presume SF then takes DE Garrett and we'd take Trubisky #3.

Players win games in different ways. If we play Cam Newton you can bet I'm concerned about his ability to run and make big plays that way, even if I'm not too concerned about his passing. If we play against Tom Brady it's the complete opposite. Even at other positions it's the same. Look at Tarik Cohen. He's not a very good RB but he is capable of making very big plays and can do so in a variety of ways. For those reasons I think analysts should evaluate everything a player brings to the table to help win games. If you add in the ability to scramble and extend or create plays on his own then a QB who cannot do so very well has to be more effective throwing to get the same results. How else can you explain Cam Newton winning league MVP with less than a 60% completion rate? People are critical of Trubisky at 66%. A good coach knows those strengths and utilizes them to the offense's advantage while minimizing what a QB doesn't do well.

I think the analysis is spot on. The only real problem I have with Kollman is that he feels a QB is already displaying what they will become in year two. I disagree with that just based on how other HoF QBs have fared early in their careers. He freely admits he has no idea which way Trubisky will trend next season (of course) but still alleges that he should have been better in his second season. (Note: He could have been better is different from he should have been better.) He also largely ignored his running game and ability to extend plays. Would he do the same when evaluating Cam Newton? I doubt it because that's a big part of what makes Cam so dangerous despite his subpar passing stats. I also would have preferred seeing him compare him across the season as I think there was improvement albeit some ups and some downs throughout the year. Trubisky was clearly lost in the first few games of the season. History, and I've shown plenty of data to back this up, says we won't know what he is until after year 3 or 4. For now I enjoyed his progress last year over his rookie year when snaps under center were a "problem". I still remain optimistic that he'll improve again this year. Whatever he becomes I think he has the right HC to bring the best out of him.

It's been a challenging offseason for Tarik and, not surprisingly, he's still coming to grips with this tragedy. https://www.greensboro.com/sports/ed-hardin-tarik-cohen-returns-to-a-t-finds-inspiration/article_5ab30b6c-a5ad-11e9-b131-a3407fbdb947.html#1

When I looked at the one play where Kollman said Trubisky made the right read early in the season, then later in the season held onto the ball and missed the read... IMO on both plays Trubisky was holding the ball too long. I don't see much difference other than the fact on the first one Burton comes open so much that throwing late was ok. On the second play against the Patriots Trubisky hesitates a bit then holds onto the ball knowing he missed the read. While this is not ideal it's also what I prefer the young QB does, hold onto the ball and don't force a bad play because you were a second late on the read. If he's learning those plays should eventually be read more quickly and it's very subtle on which DB, or DBs he has to look at. Nobody is better than NE at disguising coverages while also having their team coached up on how to defend the usual plays. That's what we see where the Patriots DB starts to fall for the deep routes then remembers he has to drop off to cover the underneath route. Belichick has been coaching against Andy Reid's plays for how many decades?

This has been all over the Bears fans message boards and such the last week. Comments on some threads have been highly emotional (no shock). I don't really see any surprises in this analysis. I still see a young QB in a new offense with an entirely new WR group and Burton still learning the NFL. Trubisky improved quite a bit over the course of the season and he definitely still has room for improvement. I'm not sure why this is "news" to any NFL fan who has watched many young QBs struggle early in their careers. Nobody knows what trajectory his career will take from here but we do know that he is putting in the work to get better. At this point it seems his floor will likely be that of a good NFL QB (an Alex Smith type), one you can win with. That's not what we want from the #2 overall pick but there are also plenty of flashes of elite play enticing enough to make us wonder what if he puts it all together?

I liked the hiring of Fox at the time and I still have no regrets. I look at him the way I felt about Denny Green when he was hired in AZ (there's your way back machine in the offseason). He's a guy that will help bring in the right talent but ultimately he won't be able to get the most out of it. For a young GM who was still finding his way early on Fox was not a bad person to have around Halas Hall and he did bring in some very good coaches. I think all of that helped steady Pace early on. His first draft didn't reflect it but then everyone was new at Halas Hall and he was working with the old scouting department. A year later you started to see the vision of who he (we) wanted on the roster. We used Fox for a few years to help build the foundation then we went out to get our guy to get us into the Superbowl. Think Doug Collins....Phil Jackson.

He only made himself look like more of an idiot.

Like the kids on a road trip: "Are we there yet?"

Getting there is half the battle, we have to see how well he can tackle. It's not easy for a bigger player to break down at the end of a long sprint and then tackle a guy like Cohen. There's a reason players like McManis can get paid $1.5mil/yr to do this. All eyes will be on the WRs on offense but there is going to be one heck of a special teams battle going on this year. Good luck figuring out the bottom end of our roster this year. On the outside gunner spots we will have battles between WRs Wims, EHall, and possibly even Ridley; then among the DBs we have Tolliver, McManis (he won't go quietly), Denmark (he's already proven he can tackle in space), Franklin III, DHC, and Joseph. Interior kick coverage units will have battles too: Braunecker, Dax Raymond, Ryan Nall, Matt Betts, Fitts, and Irving, KR/PR: Patterson and Cohen (both roster locks), MHall, Kerrith Whyte It's always a big deal for players to earn a roster spot, but this year it's a chance to earn a roster spot on a team that has Superbowl potential.

Let's not trade away starting WRs. All we know for now is that we have young WRs with potential. Gabriel is a proven player with chemistry with Mitch and we need all the wins we can get.

I agree with the last half of that sentence but this year for Wims to breakout he has to take away snaps from Robinson, Gabriel, Miller, Cohen (who often lines up at WR), and now Patterson. While he may see the field it's hard to see a path where he gets a ton of snaps. Even when he is on the field I don't see that many passes coming his way. We have to keep in mind that we have two new RBs who can run routes and catch (in addition to Cohen). IMO for Wims to really standout his shot will have to come from someone getting injured. Long term I hope he can develop into the role Robinson plays for us and since his second contract isn't likely to be that big maybe he'll help save some cap space as well. If Hall can also develop I can certainly see our top 4 WRs in a couple years being Miller, Ridley, Wims, Hall.

There will be moves to make that might not have the fans support (i.e. Jordan Howard) but we have an entire draft class to help ease the pain and that's with two 2nd Rd picks. Those two picks also lower the rookie pool cap hit.

What's crazy is how few so-called analysts even look at this data. This is the toughest position to play in sports from a mental standpoint and yet nobody is willing to give players time to learn it. Further so few analysts know the history of how long it took many great QBs to become great. How many analysts know that once Hunt was cut by the Chiefs Mahomes' comp% dropped to 62.5% in the regular season and just 58.7% in the playoffs? That's 61.5% combined over 7 games whereas with Hunt he was at 67.8%, in case you are wondering what having a good pass catching RB meant to him.