AZ54

Keep an eye on Isaiah Irving as camp unfolds. He's reportedly in much better shape this year for the OLB role. I'm not saying he'll be a starter level player but he may challenge for reps as the backup. Between Fits and Irving I don't think Lynch is a shoe-in as the starter although he may end up starting and being more of a run down OLB.

If Kevin White can be good enough to split snaps with Gabriel then defenses are in trouble. More importantly is the fact I think we have a HC who knows how to exploit a defense's weakness. With the combination of talent on offense we can go across the spectrum from full spread offense with 4 WRs (Robinson, Gabriel, White, Miller, Cohen) to 3-TE running formations in front of Howard. And our QB can run and throw on the run as well.

With one agency representing 5 of the 7 unsigned top 10 draftees, including Roquan Smith, this situation won't end quickly. https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2018/07/05/offsets-re-emerge-as-a-top-10-contract-issue/ The Bears gave Trubisky everything last year so where will they draw the line this year? "The only other player in the top 10 from 2017 to get anything close to that was Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky, who had the offset language removed from his guaranteed training-camp roster bonuses."

In the draft I preferred Edmunds over Smith but after watching this video on Smith's background I understand better why we went in this direction. If we consider the on-the-field abilities relatively equal, even if Edmunds and Smith are different types of players, then the leadership qualities and work ethic Smith has will put him in position to become the new leader of our defense. https://www.chicagobears.com/video/meet-the-rookies-roquan-smith

Friends and family is one thing but for NFL players, especially high profile ones that stuff can easily become distracting. Both from too much concern about the criticism or the hype.

There is a maturity to this young man I didn't expect to see so early in his career. I like it. Focus on the task at hand. https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2018/06/07/mitchell-trubisky-no-longer-uses-social-media-its-just-a-distraction/

He said he just recently had the sensation of touch in his foot return so the nerves are regenerating, which is great for him long term.

What a great move by the team to make this happen for Zach. One way or another he's going to be around this team for many years to come.

Nothing about he RPO says it has to be the QB running the ball. He simply has to decide if he wants to make it a running play or a passing play. Read-option is where, on a running play, the QB decides if he's handing off or running with the ball himself. In the highlight video where they breakdown the RPOs Nick Foles has exactly zero runs with the football. He either hands off or throws a pass.

An old guy like me will say that it was exactly what you said: Just that here's what RPO's look like as the Eagle's ran them last year. It just helped me to envision how our new WRs would fit into these types of plays and what it really means. Yes, the discussion got side-tracked but that is normal during the offseason but there's little to talk about this time of year. I don't view RPO's as some type of play that's going to make this an excellent offense. In fact I view even less challenging to a defense now that I studied it a bit. Like anything on offense having it in the arsenal means a defense must prepare for it and it has to stay in the back of their mind on each play. For me the real benefit to this is the hesitation in a defenders reaction at the start of a play. After seeing stacked box after stacked box defending Jordan Howard last year this could be a welcome addition to watch. There's a combination of things needed for this to work or the box stays stacked. We need legit deep threat, ideally on both sides of the field, and legit running game. Howard provides one, Gabriel and Cohen another but perhaps Kevin White will see some action on these plays... https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/takeaways-bears-ota-good-things-coming-kevin-white

I'm afraid to have high expectations for anything on this team but I admit the D should be good this season. The fact Fangio went out of his way to single out some young veterans for their improvement makes me feel like we can consistently be good this year. Barring a complete disaster at any one position we should be able to avoid the huge dips in performance like we saw last year when Trevathan was out of the lineup. That Vikings game where Shurmur called screen play after screen play was painful to watch.

According to Fangio there may be some depth on our roster. I've somewhat written off our depth at safety but there is a glimmer of hope there that Bush finally knows where he should be going. RRH has buiked up over 290lbs and it sounds like he's much more comfortable inside. We'll see when the pads come in next month. Between RRH and Bullard I think we'll be ok at DE even if replacing Unrein isn't a high bar. https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/talking-points-five-things-learned-from-bears-defensive-coaches/

There's not a lot of difference to their games. Big body WRs who win with strength and positioning, as well as going vertical (jump balls). Both left their draft teams in part because they didn't like the QB situation. Both were injured in their contract year. Robinson plays quicker IMO than Jeffrey who is bigger and uses that size well to help him. Jeffrey probably has better hands. Neither are the slot WRs in this offense and I'd say both are likely to play the same role as the X.

I look at it this way. Nagy said he wanted to personally help White succeed. Then we held a minicamp and right after that we traded up into the 2nd Rd to draft Anthony Miller. We all knew they weren't going to rely on him but IMO that couldn't have made it any clearer how far he has to go. Although it was light on elite talent this was still a deep draft for WRs. We could have made a similar but much cheaper move in Rd 3 or 4 to draft a WR. That didn't happen and they clearly wanted a WR with excellent route running skills so it was trade up for Calvin RIdley (as we tried to do), or go hard after Miller when he fell a bit.

He can't just stay healthy, Kevin White needs to learn how to run routes.

I'm curious to see how he plays this season after the change in workout strategy. As I've said before this is his first offseason in an NFL training program and it should help him quite a bit. He moved fairly well for a big guy last year but a bit more quickness in his cuts would certainly be beneficial. https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/what-does-bears-coach-matt-nagy-have-in-store-for-te-adam-shaheen/ When the Bears designed their offseason training plan for Shaheen, their goal wasn’t to increase his power or strength — ‘‘I was pretty damn physical last year,’’ he said — but to make him more fluid, mobile and flexible. Part of the Bears’ focus was to eliminate what Shaheen described as ‘‘nagging injuries that I had over the season’’ by improving his core strength. But the Bears also wanted him to improve as a route-runner. ‘‘[It’s] just to be able to move and run better than I did last year,’’ Shaheen said. ‘‘Just to be able to run, cut, get lower, everything in blocking, better leverage. Just core stability is huge. I think it’s helped a lot.’’

View this from the perspective of our personnel. Robinson is easily the equal of Jeffrey, except he's better. Shaheen matches their TE at least in terms of athletic ability, and of course we have Burton. Defense's have to respect Howard on the run option at the snap. Then see the play design with quick hitting routes and imagine Anthony Miller with his quickness making those inside or outside breaks. Topping it off is Trubisky's quick and accurate release. We've seen how well Foles can execute this. If he makes the right reads these plays will be hard to defend. The video includes film of the Vikings defense trying to figure out what the Eagles were doing. It's not the end all because I can easily see how a well executed zone defense can blow up these plays, especially with smart players. Plus they now have more film on it to prepare. Mixing it in from time to time especially when you know where the defense's weak point is should pay off. Once teams adjust to the short stuff and start undercutting routes it is easy to fake that quick pass, but then have Trubisky drop back a few more steps and go after a deep or intermediate route. That's where Gabriel comes into play, or Cohen, or even Shaheen. With Shaheen, if a defender is right up on him he'll have to decide if he's going to prepare for a block or step back into coverage, and if they are off the ball then we might own the early advantage on the play. Guess wrong and Shaheen is gone, or Jordan Howard is gone.

I wouldn't expect less from Howard in terms of work ethic. A player in such a physically demanding position as starting RB doesn't stay on the field like Howard has in 2 years without the training effort behind the scenes. Last year he worked on improving his receiving ability and this year he's even more focused on it. He doesn't need to be elite as a receiver, just effective enough that he drags coverage with him early on the route. With that he'll have a big impact on the offense's ability to disguise plays and get some chunk plays, including those where Howard catches the ball and makes the first defender miss. What I especially like is the RB coach taking him all the way back to the fundamentals of where to place your hands to receive the ball from different angles. That takes a ton of patience from the coach, and then perseverance from Howard to break old habits and learn new ones. As someone who thought we might move on from Howard via draft day trade, I'd love to see him improve enough as a WR to earn that second contract with the Bears. https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/talking-points-five-things-learned-from-five-bears-offensive-assistant-coaches/

We have so many options it's hard to calculate who gets what and we don't yet know who Trubisky will be comfortable with early in the season. In the first few games it'll probably be Burton just because of his familiarity with the offense. Others like Shaheen will take more time to acclimate to a dramatically different scheme. That alone will play a huge factor in the totals at the end of the season. The relatively balanced distribution you propose is likely what we'll see play out throughout the second half of the season. If you are saying Shaheen only has 3 TDs this year I'll definitely take the over on that one. With his huge frame and ability to box out defenders, catch fades, or even back shoulder throws combined with Trubisky's quick release and accuracy I see 5-7 TDs. Some of that comes at the expense of Burton where the tight coverage lanes negate some of his speed advantage, plus LBs will find it to their advantage to push him off his route early and disrupt the timing of the play.

Yes, that would have been ok by me.

I'm old school and I love the special teams aspect of football. It provides some of the most exciting plays each year whether it is kickoff and punt returns, to even FG at the closing seconds of the game. Fans are fixated on these moments. Even a missed extra point these days, since they moved it back to the 15yd line, can change the emotions of the game. How many here remember the FG block in the Bears - Packers game after Walter Payton passed away? If you are not familiar with him, Rick Gosselin does some outstanding analysis and reporting on the game. Summary of Bears players on the list: http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1/Sayers-Hester-among-all-time-special-teamers/9a3e412b-26f9-4e67-8061-30ab6fb508ac Rick Gosselin's full story which I haven't yet had time to read and enjoy...but I will. http://www.talkoffamenetwork.com/rick-gosselins-time-nfl-special-teams-unit/ I'll finish with my favorite special teams moment: Hester's punt return against the Arizona Cardinals to win the game. This gave me one of the best weeks I ever had at work here in the desert. and the Bears fan's perspective...

When the Cardinals brought in Denny Green I told someone that he was the right man for the job but his replacement would be the one to take the team to the next level. Green had an eye for talent and could build a roster but he didn't put that talent all together on the field. Let him build your roster then find your playoff coach, and Green's roster went to the Superbowl. I felt the same way about Fox when he was hired. Not that he has the same eye for talent among players but he has the eye for talent among coaches and he will build a solid locker room. He can build the foundation for you but he won't be your playoff HC. Here we are. It's early but when I see Nagy talk about players I get the sense he understands how to evaluate talent, and, equally important, how to use it to his advantage. Can he keep the discipline needed to achieve long term success? We're in the honeymoon period now but we'll get some sense of that when things don't go well.

While our offense is in it's infancy learning an entirely new playbook, along with numerous new players getting to know each other, the D looks to take another step forward. There aren't many things ever worth noting at this point in the offseason except that this offense is ...different. Consistency on offense will take quite a bit of time but the big play potential already has our defense taking notice. https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/why-bears-d-is-rallying-around-qb-mitch-trubisky-i-want-to-win-a-championship/ Amukamara... “They’re throwing a lot of different looks at us, and that’s just Nagy’s offense,” he said. “If I was a receiver I would love to play in this offense, just because you get to do so many different things, and you get so many different plays. It just looks fun over there.” Trevathan... “It’s going to be tough, but those guys, they got the right pieces,” he said. “I like what I see out there. When somebody makes a play, they’re gone. Everybody can run over there. “It’s the right fit for Mitch, it’s the right fit for the receivers, the running backs.”

NFC North Defensive rankings 2015/2016/2017: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2015/opp.htm Green Bay: 12th, 21st, 23rd Detroit: 23rd, 13th, 21st Vikings: 5th, 6th, 1st Chicago: 20th, 24th, 9th

Interesting note about our opponents defenses. The Packers have pass rush issues and did nothing to address it, instead loading up on CBs early and WRs late. They have Wilkerson inside which could help depending on which Wilkerson shows up. But the edge of the defense remains a problem. They can say the same about us but at least we put one late round pick on a solid prospect in Fitts. Josh Jackson is a good zone CB, I'm not sure why they drafted him leaving Isaiah Oliver and Carlton Davis on the board, and Lorenzo Carter.