AZ54

Even without Daniels assuming his starting role yet, this is already a very solid draft class including Tolliver. Tolliver just went up against two of the most dangerous weapons in the NFL in Evans and Jackson and absolutely held his ground. I have to believe those WRs were salivating at the chance to go against a UDFA rookie in week 4 so that performance was really outstanding. He's not getting a lot of recognition because of the focus on our pass rush but there were plenty of plays where Fitzpatrick or Winston had time to throw. I love the splash plays by Nichols but it's how well he's holding up in the running game even when an Olineman gets his hands on him that has me thinking he'll be a starting caliber DT soon. With a healthy defensive front he's already kicked one veteran to the inactive list, and then taken away snaps from Bullard and RRH. That goes beyond getting an opportunity and making the most of it, his play is forcing coaches to play him more. We already know we have legit starters in Smith and Miller. We're not talking starters because the roster depth is so poor the rookies get on the field, these guys are legit NFL starters on any team. Daniels has shown the potential to be starter and played well enough against a good Tampa front for us to be confident that will happen very soon. Nichols and Tolliver already look like they have starting potential down the road. How often does a draft produce 5 players who have played that well by week 4? The question is can this become a great draft class?

I may be the only one who felt Mahomes was exposed against Denver because that was the first game where he was the "player" I saw in college. I realize he's great on the adhoc plays but I also saw a QB who got very uncomfortable in the pocket after 2-3 sec. Denver, surprisingly kept rushing up around the top of the pocket, leaving him easy escape paths. I expected them to realize he wasn't so good correct it in the 2nd half but they never did. That 62% completion rate was, IIRC, at 53% until the 4th quarter. There were a few WTF passes in there too. When I watched the Steelers game it was obvious their defense played very poorly. Now I can say it was similar to the Buccaneers D against us. People don't want to say it but the Steelers pass defense is pretty bad and was in that game with multiple blown coverages. FWIW they are ranked 29th in the league, with TB now at 32nd. Mahomes ate 'em up just like Trubisky did to the Bucs. So the 6 TD games count for both. Mahomes has better talent at his disposal than Trubisky does and, more importantly, an entire offense that is ahead of him in learning it. In KC most of his offensive players are in year 2 or beyond in the scheme. Everyone on the Bears is on game 4. IMO Mahomes is far from the sole reason they have one of the league's best offenses. That's a statement in relevance to how I believe QBs like Brees, Rodgers, and Brady simply make the talent around them better. I think other teams will catch onto what happened in Denver and work to keep Mahomes from extending plays outside the pocket. I may be wrong but I'll wait for the multiple INT games in his future where all that effort trying to save the play just doesn't work out. I saw it many times in college. To be fair, in between those bad moments he'd have the 500yd 4 TD game. For now Trubisky has taken the longer road to building success. There are lessons beyond the playing field that come with that. When it all comes so easy out of the gate I'm not sure Mahomes, who has a propensity for taking risks, has learned those same lessons. If they lose a couple players on offense how will he adjust? Watkins went out of the game against Denver and it was like someone turned off a light switch. Andy Reid is a smart coach and I"m quite sure he knows all this and is prepared for it. None of this means I think I know which of the 2017 top QBs will be the best. I'm not that arrogant and I simply don't know. I'm just saying wait until teams see what he's doing and can start to scheme against it. That part of the season begins now. In the meantime, enjoy the ride. Mahomes can be a lot of fun to watch.

Every time I see him play, and every time I read more about him the more impressed I get. Mack has only been with the Bears a month. That's barely enough time to know most players by their first name. Yet here he is taking the time in practice to give pointers to a young Rashaad Coward on what he needs to do to stop his pass rush. I don't care what Gruden does with our first round picks we won this trade hands down. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/trial-fire-how-khalil-mack-helping-bears-right-tackle-rashaad-coward-learn-new-position “Once you go against guys like that, anybody else is like — I don’t want to say a cakewalk, but they’re not going to come as fast or as strong or as quick,” Coward said. It’s not just that Coward gets to practice against Mack, though. Mack actively will give Coward coaching points, telling him what he did on a certain move and how, next time, the greenhorn offensive lineman could counter it.

Torn pectoral muscle. https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/bears-sam-acho-out-for-season/ Who gets the call? Irving or Fitts? I think it will be Irving. Fitts needs a lot of work on his pass rushing moves.

I completely missed that James Daniels was on the field for about half the offensive snaps. Brad Biggs has a nice summary of it. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/ct-spt-bears-10-thoughts-brad-biggs-buccaneers-20181001-story.html That might be the first time I've ever seen an Oline rotate guards throughout a game. It will be interesting to see where we go from here after the bye week. This draft class looks better each week: Roquan starter, Daniels (soon to be starter?), Miller (starter), Iggy (backup/special teams), Nichols (already in Dline rotation), Fitts (inactive), Wims (will he take Kevin White's snaps soon?)

Wims better learn to always run his routes at full speed. That first one against Tampa he looked a bit lazy and shocked the ball came his way.

I read this article and then looked at some stats to see where we fall. It's the end of the first quarter of the season so at this point things are leveling off and we can draw some conclusions from the numbers. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/bears-prove-they-have-nfls-best-defense-win-over-tampa-bay Bears defensive rankings (others are from highest to lowest i.e. #1, #2): yards/gm 4th behind Jax, Baltimore, Washington pts/gm 4th behind Jax, Washington, Baltimore INTs 2nd with 8 behind Miami with 9. Jax has 1, Bal 4, Wash 3 FF 1st with 8. Jax has 2, Wash 1, Bal 2 Sacks 1st with 18 Jax and Bal are tied 12th with 10, Wash is 27th with 7 I think there's a good argument to make that we have the best D in the league right now. We've done that with Floyd playing with a cast, Hicks ejected, Amukamara injured, and Roquan not really playing in week one.

Glad you mentioned him. I intended to included him on the list of good additions but forgot about him. Parkey was looking a little shaky during the preseason but has been steady in the regular season. Each week it seems the snapper/holder/kicker group improves their timing on kicks and he's scored on 90% of them.

Wow. Let's start at the top with Trubisky. He had time to throw and took full advantage of it dropping passes into the right location play after play. Numbers aside, he's still got room to grow but the most important aspect for me was seeing him confident in the pocket with his reads. Regardless of pass rush or not he looked like he knew where he should go with the ball on each play. With that confidence he finally showed he can "throw guys open" like on that beautiful tear-drop pass to Robinson in the endzone. Oline: They did a great job in pass protection today. Run blocking wasn't so good but it was good enough to keep the threat of runs realistic. WRs: Nobody missed Anthony Miller. Can't remember the last time we lost a starter for a game and it wasn't noticeable, especially at WR. RBs: Howard was himself today but Nagy schemed this game for Cohen and it worked to perfection. Defense was outstanding again. CBs: Game ball goes to the rookie Tolliver. I know he gave up a couple passes here and there but overall he looked like a future starter at CB. For a UDFA out there this early in the season he's progressing quickly. On the play where Winston scrambled around for 6-8 sec, Tolliver was right with his man all over the field, literally sideline to sideline and back again. Overall the coverage plan against one of the leagues best passing teams was excellent. If we can keep Callahan around for 3 years we're in a good spot with our DBs. The decision could be deciding between keeping Callahan or Amos. If so, I'll take the slot CB. LBs: I thought Trevathan and Smith played well. I was hoping to see more from Floyd but he did make a few very good plays. He'll have a game soon where he'll show up in a big way on the stat sheet. Nothing needs to be said about the league MVP. Dline: Akiem Hicks lost his mind that's not good and he had to leave the field. Bilal Nichols picked up the torch and again played well. RRH and Bullard stepped too with big plays in Hicks absence. If Pace can keep RRH around for 2-3 years after this season we're in very good shape on the Dline for a long time. Coaching: Nagy owned the Buccaneers. He had the perfect game plan on offense and called the right plays again and again. Fangio had the D ready to go. Together they made one of the darlings of the early NFL season look like a dumpster fire. Both teams are going into the bye week but the arrows are pointed in opposite directions. Ryan Pace: The depth on this roster really stood out today at CB and Dline. Big FA acquisitions Robinson, Gabriel, and Burton showed why they were brought here. The courage to bring Khalil Mack here and give him that contract...that looks like a bargain right now.

I think this is the most likely scenario.

My key player of the game is Kush. He needs to keep inside pressure out of Trubisky's face. I think the D will do it's part.

The comparison article is mostly about stats and not really about individual talents. IMO Ridley is the lighter quicker WR who will be a very good compliment to a #1 WR. I think he landed in a perfect spot in Atlanta. His route running ability is very good but he lacks the strength to win early against physical CBs. Wims I think is the opposite as he doesn't have as much quickness in/out of his cuts and is just a physical receiver fighting off/over/through defender to win the ball. Some of what I saw in the preseason makes me think he's quicker in his cuts than I first though. When it comes to contested catches among these two I'd take Wims all day any day over Ridley.

I'm curious what similarities you see between Ridley and Wims? Surely the ability to high-point the football over the top of a defender isn't one of them.

Bruised ego? https://www.buccaneers.com/news/buccaneers-place-s-chris-conte-on-injured-reserve-x3252

We just lost one WR possibly for the year. I know they say Miller is day to day but it's hard to believe he'll make it through the season like that. I think we keep White and then let him go in FA and depending on how FA goes we might get back a draft pick that way. I don't think we'll get much more than that late Rd pick in a trade mid-season. The only difference would be if we were intent on cutting him mid-season, in which case we get nothing in exchange. That's the decision the Browns had with Gordon.

There was someone here who posted he was the worst QB in the league. Plus I scan some other boards but don't post there because there are far too many idiots. There are some very strong sentiments among some Bears fans that Chase Daniels is better than Trubisky. Anyway, I prefer the discussions we tend to have here. There are a lot of people who have never had to learn a new offense with new WRs who seem to know everything about becoming a good NFL QB. NFL Game Pass has increased the amount of Monday Morning QBs in the world. For sure we're coming out of the first quarter of the season at least 2-2. If I'm Nagy, for the bye week I'm telling Mitch to take a short vacation and get completely away from football for a few days. This kind of paralysis by analysis is bad for an athlete and one way to get it out of your system is to just completely walk away for a bit and then come back to it.

Having been at the game I went back and watched the television broadcast I recorded. After the game most of what I read was how awful Trubisky was. After watching Ben Roethlisberger and Ryan Fitzpatrick for a few hours I spent some time comparing Trubisky to them. Everyone is going to get their knickers in a twist over this but Trubisky didn't play that poorly. There were about 5 plays I'd like to see him either make a better pass or read on. The sack/fumble? Two hands on the ball and Kyle Long blows it big time on his block and then, with Trubisky moving outside the pocket to the left, Long can't even push the DT behind the play. It wasn't too long ago when that kind of blocking merited its own thread after the game. The one play he absolutely blew the read on was the double blitz off the edge in the red zone. He should have hit Cohen on that one. Yet later in the game with a similar edge blitz he makes the right read and goes to the hot route but the ball gets tipped and is intercepted on a diving play. The first deep pass to Gabriel should have never been thrown IMO. He was clearly double covered and not open. I still feel like Nagy is pushing for the big plays. I'm not saying that's the wrong idea either because A) you have to let the DBs know you can and will go there and B ) Trubisky and the WRs have to get the timing down in games. That play to Gabriel had zero chance of being complete IMO and he threw it over the top of everyone where it wasn't likely intercepted. The second deep throw to Gabriel he should have led Gabriel to the left side of the endzone and could have had a TD. Sometimes as a QB you lead the WR to the open area instead of just leading the ball on the route as it's being run. He's got to learn that. Late in the game it was obvious to me real time that Gabriel eased up on the route when he got hit hard. I see so many criticize Tru for that and wondered that maybe the replays didn't show that but it was there on both replays. The deep throw to Robinson right in front of me! Definitely left that ball short. This week Robinson comes back into the picture and prevents the INT. Actually if the DB doesn't keep his left arm down that's a big catch. There were a couple of other throws late in the game I didn't like and again, it seemed Trubisky was trying to find the big plays instead of taking what the defense gave him. The thing is I find these same type of plays each week from almost every QB. Yet we have fans calling Trubisky the worst starting QB in the NFL even preferring QBs like Cousins and Keenum. That's completely ignoring the many good plays he made in the Arizona game. More hypocritically they ignore the bad throws the other QBs make. This hysteria is becoming it's own feeding frenzy. Yet people conveniently move the goal post. First it was why can't he be like Dak? Then Dak's not playing good but man why can't he be like Watson? Now Watson is 0-3 this year and has had some struggles so we're onto Mahomes and oh, look at Darnold. Wait, by week 3 we need to drop Darnold but let's add Mayfield. Can we toss in Josh Allen too because he only needed 15 pass completions and 196 yrds to beat the Vikings? There were many perfect throws against AZ hitting receivers perfectly in stride starting with the first completion to Miller where he was able to add on about 7 YAC. I'm not saying he's a finished product yet, there are plenty of things to work on and we need more downfield completions. The whole premise that all offensive struggles are Trubisky's fault, and especially that he's the worst QB in the NFL, is simply ignoring much that has gone right. It's not his fault Cohen keeps mis-reading blocks and cutting the wrong way. It's not his fault Kush, Long, or Massie miss blocks. There are issues among the entire offense to work out especially the Oline blocking in the run game. He needs to speed things up in his mind. If he can get to the point where the ball is coming out about a half second quicker I think we'll be in a good spot. I think that will improve the downfield accuracy too because he'll be throwing it on time. Hopefully this will come with more reps but IMO it's just way too early in this offense to give up on him. If we're in the same spot in Week 17 then the conversation will be different. The Tampa game will be interesting because their D will play similarly to what Arizona did. They have Gerald McCoy instead of Chandler Jones and they we're showing heavy fronts and blitzes throughout the Pittsburgh game. I want to see how Nagy and Trubisky handle things this time around.

He's making a name for himself.

I'm not an NFL QB but if Taylor Gabriel is not wide open and I were throwing to him he's so small the only chance you have with him on a deep pass is to drop the ball in over the top of defenders. I understand now when the media talk about him as being listed a generous 5'8". I didn't watch what White did at all. I saw him enter the game several times but just as often saw Bellamy. I was hoping we'd see some production from him, if only a few catches, here and there but this just doesn't bode well for him. I expect Bellamy to get the bigger role with Miller's injury. One more note: Floyd played without the big cast on his hand. Very early in the game he did something to injure that hand and I was concerned. He stayed in the game but seemed to play a more limited role. I don't think he re-injured it but it might be a case where he just stretched out the tendons a bit since it's been so long not using his hand. He generally looked more effective what little I saw of him.

Matt Nagy... "I want to start off by thanking the Bears fans for being there. Wow. That was unbelievable. From the start when we ran out onto the field to that final play there was a 12th man here on the field on the road and not every team has that. We have that and we're so thankful for that. It was an unbelievable job and trust me, our players and our coaches appreciate that." Your welcome. https://www.chicagobears.com/video/nagy-on-victory-over-the-arizona-cardinals

You want the same Kirk Cousins who put up 6pts today and is guaranteed $84mil? Or Case Keenum who already has 5 INTs on the season?

I'm really glad I was able to go to this game. Beforehand we stopped at a restaurant near the stadium (there is a mall in the complex) and from our table I could see about 4 Cards fans and the rest where Bears fans. That carried into the game and almost the entire visitors side of the field where Bears fans, and I was down low at the 50yd line, row 24. Looking across the field it was clear there were quite a few Bears jerseys on the Cards side too. I don't know what was shown on TV but often the Bears players were looking right at us asking for more noise, especially late in the game. And we were LOUD. It's impossible to know but I'm confident as the 12th man on the field the Bears fans made a difference in this game. With a comeback win like this the place went nuts. Cards fans largely walked out at 2min mark even though they had 3 timeouts remaining and would likely get the ball back. No Bears fans left early. When the clock hit 0:00 it was mayhem with high 5's everywhere. That energy, non-stop high 5's, non-stop chants of "Da Bears" carried all the way out to the mezzanine as we were leaving the stadium and it lasted even outside the stadium. We stole their stadium for a day and let 'em know it. No Bears fan's left that game bitching about Trubisky, or the blown coverages, nor anything else. We were celebrating the win. On to the game. If Taylor Gabriel is fast it doesn't really show up on the field. At least I didn't see it. I'm not saying he's slow but he's not Tyreek Hill. Trubisky's overthrows of him can be just bad throws but they also make me wonder if Gabriel is dealing with some nagging injury that's slowing him down just a bit. Or he's just not going to be the WR we thought we had. I was upset when Gabriel quit on the route in the 4th quarter with the game on the line. IMO Trubisky's pass was on target if Gabriel continues through without the hesitation. Gabriel took the big hit anyway which got us 15 yards. We've seen Robinson hesitate or give up on a route late in a game too so I wonder how much of this Trubisky is dealing with among the WRs corps early this season. Cards D did just as I expected and stacked the front all game long with a multitude of blitzes and coverages. They have a good defense just not as good as ours. Patrick Peterson looked like he was coasting covering our WRs and they moved him all over in coverage to disguise where he was. He even covered Burton on at least one play. Nagy stuck with the run game putting up a total of 114 yards between Howard and Cohen on the Cards D. We might be wanting more but Cards fans were complaining about their run D especially the few big gains we had. (It's always interesting to hear the other side) I'm likely stating the obvious but Trubisky is still not comfortable with this offense. His reads are slow to develop. Whether that's a result of deciphering the defense or just getting the timing down on the plays/WRs it's hard to say. Likely a combination of both. The illegal shifts on plays also tell us other players on offense don't quite have it all down either. This is why we struggle in the redzone in particular. Throwing windows are tight and short lived. It will take time but there's a lot to be said for Trubisky's composure in the last two games after early mistakes. Chase Daniels was often on the field in timeouts and the last man talking with Trubisky. Khalil Mack and the defense struggled a bit early but afterward locked it down. They were feeding off the fans energy too. Losing Prince was a big loss and they clearly went right at Tolliver, who was giving up a big cushion, immediately afterward. Rosen/ford (not sure who was in when) looked his way immediately and got some easy receptions. Somebody got in Tolliver's ear and reminded him he has a very good pass rush protecting him and his coverage tightened up late in the game. Roquan took a bad angle on a play in the 4th quarter and gave up 12 yards. He was often taken out and we went with just Trevathan as the sole LB on the field quite often. I'm confident Smith will learn but it shows he's still adjusting to the NFL. In the game thread someone said Trubisky is the worst player on the offense. I wonder if they saw Kush play? Kush doesn't have anywhere close to the same responsibility as Trubisky. Nagy wants to be aggressive and it's showing not just on deep passing plays but his timeouts and desire to go for it on 4th downs. His players aren't ready for all this yet. I was glad when he backed off and settled for a couple FGs. That's always easy to say when you win but on the flip side I really wish we had those two timeouts late in the game. Watching them on the field during timeouts it seems obvious the coaches work together well in these moments and there's a lot of discussion. I don't get a sense of arrogance or desperation in these calls, just guys working together to sort out some of the special plays we have with personnel and against the defensive look they hope to get. I expect more of these plays will be successful later in the season as the various pieces come together. It's the 3rd week of the NFL season and winless teams are desperate. Roster talent levels are always closer than fans think and so this was a big upset weekend. Fortunately two of those upsets were the Packers and Vikings. It's important to learn how to win on the road in the NFL and despite early mistakes the Bears did just that. It wasn't pretty but I think to come from behind like this was a big deal for the players confidence going forward. Look at the progression: Against GB we blow a big lead on the road. Against Seattle we protect a lead at home. Against Arizona we come from being down 14pts to win late on the road. We're still working on integrating Mack (hits easy button) and Smith into the D along with the new offensive scheme and new WRs. Absolutely NOBODY predicted we'd be in 1st place in the NFC North going into week 4. Enjoy it.

Watching it live I can tell you two things about the big hit on Gabriel: First Gabriel quit on the route right after his break, and the ball was IMO perfectly thrown if he doesn't hesitate so much. I believe Gabriel saw the DB sitting on the route and didn't want to go in there and Trubisky saw the play as it should have been. Second, before that big hit the ball was well gone past Gabriel and the defender closed from what looked to be about 5-7 yards away. Even on the Cardinals radio post game show they were saying how the DB had to see the ball that went in from of him and should know he has to ease up. Had Gabriel not wimped out on the route then oddly enough that hit might have caused him to drop the ball which could have changed the game. I don't know which roughing penalty you referring to but in the second half there was one where the defender took 3 steps before he hit Trubisky. Watching it real time at the game you see Trubisky with plenty of time and no defenders near him when he releases the ball and then we were surprised there could have even been a hit on the QB.

I was at the game right across from that spot and it was a gift. Many second half spots for Cards seemed to be a little beyond where the ball was.

According to Jay Glazer, the Cardinals have already said if Bradford struggles they'll put in Rosen.