AZ54

Let's ask the QBs... I've seen Mack literally take over a game a couple years ago. I think it was a game against Denver and there was probably a backup RT in there but he just ran right through and around that man, over and over. Then he went to the other side of the field and did it against the LT too. Nobody else on that Raiders Dline was getting pressure. Now we are going to stand him up next to Akiem Hicks! Goldman is one slot over. The ILBs , and even the Safeties, will have a big empty space behind those 3 that they won't have to worry about.

So we give up two first and a player. Is there anyone on this board who did not think we were drafting a pass rusher in the first round next year? IMO that 1st round OLB pick was a given but it would come with the usual uncertainties of any draft pick, not to mention the learning curve. So in a way that means the real exchange for Mack is the additional first round pick, the player, plus the cap hit. The money is getting spent either way if you feel you are close to competing in the playoffs. On the flip side this year's offseason acquisitions are looking good from FAs to draft picks, even down to a few UDFAs. Most FAs are on a stable 3 year deal. After a full preseason Pace likely feels confident he has his QB, and enough young talent for the next two years to offset the need for that 2nd first round pick we gave up. Kahlil Mack is a generational talent who can make everyone else on the defense look like a better player.

This Mack is from Buffalo https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kahlil+mack+bio&t=brave&ia=web

I'd wait to see who we trade away before saying that. I wouldn't be surprised if one of our LBs or Amos is part of this deal.

As one of the more vocal supporters of Cam Meredith I feel very confident we're ok without him. I've seen very little of Miller but all signs point to him having a higher ceiling than Cam and the work ethic to get there. I didn't think much of Wims after that draft as he looked a bit slow in his breaks on routes in college but the hands were there. He's shown me I was wrong and he has more quickness and speed than I thought. It will be interesting to watch Wims' career develop compared to the 3 WRs the Packers drafted ahead of him. The backend of our 2018 draft looks pretty good right now. Really the entire draft looks good. Roquan is still a question mark because we've seen nothing from him but despite all the time he missed the coaches seem to be high on his ability to contribute on defense early this season. Roquan had to put in the time off the field to get to that point. Daniels will be a starting OG for us, if not OC next year. There are still question marks about Fitts but for a 6th Rd pick he appears to be capable of contributing on the field although I think his ceiling is higher than just a spot backup player. Toss in moving Coward to RT, UDFA CBs Joseph and Tollliver, and RB Nall (who could make the 53) and it was pretty good offseason for adding young talent.

Special teams and injuries make it hard to predict TE vs. OLB. I could see the 5 TEs as you propose but I can just as easily see someone like Braunecker or Brown getting traded for a late round pick and then we keep Edebali. These two positions have somewhat similar athletes so the special teams comes down to who is putting in the work.

Last week I was leaning toward Burton but after listening to Nagy talk about the RB depth in camp, and then mention Cohen as an afterthought I changed my mind. With Nagy it seems he feels Cohen is more of a "slash" player RB/slot WR. Cohen will get some carries out of the backfield but I didn't get the sense that Nagy views him as the primary backup RB to Howard. In other words Howard's backup is really Cunningham and with that he'd split similar reps with Cohen in the same way as Howard did. With that I now think it makes more sense that we keep Nall over Burton. Nall is more versatile and if he can provide enough as a FB to keep us gaining yards in tough short yardage situations then it's a win win IMO. Nall has proven he has enough speed to get deep. He looks slow but that's in part because of his size. He's not elite fast, but look at the smaller players working hard trying to catch him, and those who can't. Where FB Burton will more or less tip off the direction of the play, a guy like Nall who can run routes well and catch could be a decoy to get the LB to come up hard at the LOS and then he runs right past them wide open for a big gain.

It seems clear to me that Daniels will be our starter at LG but I don't know if that happens on the road in week 1. Kush hasn't played well and I'd rather just go with the upside Daniels has.

With Watford already cut the final pieces of the Oline are starting to take shape. I'll be surprised but happy if we can get anything at all for Grasu. https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/08/27/philadelphia-eagles-doug-pederson-super-bowl-lii-defense-hangover-carson-wentz-injury-week-1 "Who could be moved? Colts OT Austin Howard, Raiders OT Jylan Ware, Eagles OG Chance Warmack and Bears C Hroniss Grasu were among the names I’ve heard as available, with Howard and Warmack carrying extensive starting experience."

Keep in mind that everyone as learning a new offense. Practices were rough for most of training camp and only in the last couple weeks did we start to hear that things were coming together. That affected Daniels as well because nobody was thinking Daniels was a stud in his first two preseason games.

That settles one question: Earl Watford just got released. https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2018/8/26/17784438/chicago-bears-release-offensive-lineman-earl-watford-2018-nfl-preseason

I agree we'll keep 6 WRs with Wims doing enough to force the decision to keep him around. At Oline I think we keep 9 so we can protect Coward. With Cowards inexperience, and inability to switch to LT, I think we'll end up keeping Sowell to backup LT. The flier here would be cutting Massie to go with Coward as a starter but I don't see that happening. This team has gone too a lot of effort to boost the offense this offseason and we should keep the depth needed to ensure we can rely on it all year long.

He is very good adjusting to the ball once it's in the air.

Daniels underthrew the ball to Kevin White by 10 yards. That was not the only pass that lacked velocity. On the flipside, go back to the Denver game and see the pass Trubisky made to Miller who was double covered. He put that ball in a 2ft window while on the run to his left, which is very difficult to do. Miller made a great catch too. Also against Denver Trubisky was reading the blitzes without issue, and they brought a ton of pressure from all angles while mixing up who was dropping into coverage. Trubisky consistently made the right reads into the coverage gap. Is Trubisky perfect? No, but I'll stick with the upside of the youngster versus the 10 year veteran who is already playing at his limit. We could argue about who is playing better in this offense but for me its already Trusbisky. Even if they were equal or nearly equal don't you think Trubisky deserves to be on the field given that Daniels has been in this offense for 5 years and Trubisky for 5 months?

Personally I"m disappointed I didn't get to see our first team offense play today but I'm glad the Packers didn't get to see them either. I see zero QB controversy here. Trubisky can throw the ball better than Daniels, he also makes more difficult throws while on the run. Having Daniels as our backup QB looks pretty good right now. The biggest difference from last year is that our scheme seems to give the QB options no matter who was on the field. Wims showed good speed and quickness today, more than I thought he had. We all knew he had the hands but he was reported to be struggling to learn the offense. If you didn't see someone say it outright, it was obvious in the last few weeks because Marlon Brown has been ahead of him until now. When we start putting down the last few roster spots we haven't really had difficult decisions for a long time. I think we have to find a way to keep both Coward and Wims around. Against KCs 1st string defense Coward was mostly invisible, in a positive way, until he gave up that sack to Kpassa. Considering his limited experience at OT his future looks bright. I can't see any way some other team wouldn't take him off waivers or our practice squad if he made it that far.

There are enough rumors out there that this possibility is not completely dead. I'm not saying it's likely, but for some reason it does appear the Raiders aren't as enamored with Mack as most people think they should be. Gruden won his Superbowl with a dominant interior DT leading the pass rush but, on the flip side, his new DC says that Mack is a cornerstone type player you want to build around. I still think this is all negotiating smoke on the part of the Raiders but it's clear Gruden wants "his players" on the roster and perhaps something about Mack or his contract demands has rubbed him the wrong way. When looking at the numbers Oakland has just $5mil in cap space right now but that includes Macks 2018 salary of $13.6 mil. Next year they have $47mil in cap space so it's hard to see why they can't, or wouldn't want to fit in Mack's new contract.

...and Trestman would have given him a month off. Nagy finds a middle ground and says he's "hour to hour".

Nothing unusual here. Extended contract holdout and soft tissue injury. It's not serious but it seriously complicates his chances of being a starter in week 1 and I doubt he'll play this weekend. I think we'll see Kwiatkoski as the starter against GB, perhaps with Roquan subbed in for 3rd and long situations. https://www.chicagobears.com/news/smith-exits-practice-for-precautionary-reasons

I'm with you here, go for a comp pick.

First and foremost I saw something I hadn't seen all last year and that was an NFL offense in a Bears uniform. Everyone seems to be focused on the mistakes, and there were too many, but still against the Broncos defense our offense belonged on the field. I especially liked how much pressure the Broncos brought on many plays. They mixed up all sorts of pressure packages and coverages and this was excellent for our offense to learn against. For the majority of the plays Trubisky looked like he was in command of things and comfortable in where he should go with the ball. Nothing showed that more than the play where they blitzed heavy off the right side and the Oline picked it up and Trubisky calmly and quickly hit Burton on an in cut 15 yards down field. There was an easy underneath option for Trubisky, maybe it was Cohen, but he knew he had something better if he just waited another second. I didn't expect we'd see that maturity in a new offense with so many new players in just the 3rd preseason game. Much work remains to be done but IMO this was a big step forward for the unit as a whole and gives them some solid ground to build off of. See the first play in these highlights: https://www.chicagobears.com/video/highlights-bears-vs-broncos Oline. Kyle Long and Whitehair still have to get blocking assignments down. Long does not look like the player he was two years ago but he's progressing. Again, the looks Denver provided on blitzes will help them when they review the film. Daniels looked ok this game. I tried to focus on him and Coward in the 2nd half. I don't see much negative in Daniel's play and maybe some things he can improve upon. Likewise with Coward who held up well against the backups and can mirror pass rushers far better than Massie. I'm not sure how well he can anchor against starting level players but his arrow is still pointing upward and he plays with a bit of a bad attitude which I like. His potential might put him on the 53, but his inexperience might keep him off it. WRs: Miller is the real deal. Nobody is really talking about Kevin White but for the first time this year I saw him return as a football player. He was aggressive coming back for the deep pass that led to a PI call. You don't go up for the ball like that if you are worried about getting hurt. On several short routes he ran with confidence into traffic. RBs: Tarik Cohen is a bit lost in this offense still. They've put a lot on his plate and he still has a lot to learn. DTs: Between RRH, Bullard, and Nichols I see three backup players. Each had their moments of good and moments of bad so expect a rotation of players here until someone settles into a starting role. Goldman was moving well with his lighter frame and was disruptive up the middle on several plays. We need to sign him long term. OLBs: I think Acho is much better than people give him credit for. He's not a star, so don't get your knickers in a twist, but he's become a good OLB for us. I think I saw the play where Floyd was injured. It didn't look like much but you never know. Between Kylie Fitts, Irving, and now Edebali there's not much to write about. Edebali's sack was when he got to the edge quickly but beyond that there isn't much to his game and he doesn't have much length to hold off blockers. Irving too looks like a 1-trick pony needing to win with speed or nada, but I see more versatility in his game than Edebali's. Fitt's did hold up well on several run plays but his pass rush was not very creative, just straight into the OT and were easily handled. Fitts is the most fluid of the 3 when dropping into coverage. If I'm choosing two of the three it remains Irving and Fitts. DBs: Didn't miss Cooper at all, and that's not to say Doran Grant looked good. Grant played so conservative giving up lots of ground but at least his fundamentals on tackling were more sound than Cooper. In the 2nd half It was easy to see the potential of Joseph and Tolliver. Joseph lacks deep speed but was more physical than I expected him to be, and showed some good quickness when driving on out cuts. Tolliver looks like he has starter potential but was giving up too many plays. Tolliver had one outstanding tackle in run defense stopping the RB cold and putting him on the ground. I'm done with Crevon LeBlanc. Stupid plays like catching a punt at the 5yd line and athletically he just doesn't match up well as a DB. If we're keeping 5 CBs Amukamara, Fuller, Callahan, and ?, ?. Watch who plays in the 2nd half next week, and who doesn't. LBs: I know Roquan is penciled in by many to be our starter but Kwiatkoski is playing well and is much better in coverage than last year. Iggy moves well too in coverage. Trevathan hinted that 3 ILBs could see the field in some packages and I can see that. I saw one defensive play where we had just two down linemen so I'd say we'll see all 3 at times.

We'll know a lot more tonight. At this point we're almost a month into the camp/preseason so I hope a lot of the basics are getting habitual for Coward. More importantly he's had two games' experience and film study to learn from and now two days of practice against some good Dline players in Denver. He should be much more confident in his ability which will slow things down on the field.

I finally got to watch the game, at least the first half and focused on Coward. He definitely moves much better than Massie and his power was evident on more than one run block. He still looks tentative in his kick step and maybe his hand use so he's clearly thinking his way through things. With experience that should smooth out but for now he's just a better athlete than Massie so he can recover quicker from mis-steps.

I haven't yet seen the Bengals game but Rashad Coward is getting a lot of positive reviews for his play at RT. Many are saying he's doing well enough, given his very limited experience, that he could be the replacement for Massie at RT next year. I haven't seen the Bengals game yet although there is a replay at 7am. Anyone here take notice of Coward and how he played this past weekend? It sounds as if he had a ton of snaps. If true it would appear the coaches are definitely giving him a chance to learn the position and perhaps stick on the final roster. He's someone to keep an eye on as we get reports back from practices in Denver and then the game.

No, and that's why Pace agreed to that stuff early on in the process.