AZ54

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.

Our fellow fans over at WindyCityGridiron found highlights of Matt Fleming. I'd say there is more to him as a WR than just being a good athlete. Fleming can often be seeing making very good adjustments to the ball trajectory. He doesn't appear to be as fast as Franklin but he has enough speed and quickness to compete on an NFL field. He reminds me a bit of Deonte Thompson. On the flip side it appears the Bears are putting Franklin at CB. This OG looks strong, although the level of competition isn't that high, and he has a mean streak but his feet are a bit slow. I'd say all 3 have some chance at making the practice squad but much remains to be seen before we ever get to that debate. https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2018/5/13/17350566/report-chicago-bears-sign-jeremi-hall-matt-fleming-highlight-simeon-benedictine-south-florida-udfa

Yes, Franklin III is fast. After watching his highlights he doesn't appear to be that agile as far as getting in/out of cuts. Of course this my opinion after watching some highlights of Anthony Miller who appears to be cat-quick in/out of his cuts. Franklin is a former QB converting to WR who has a ton of work to do but maybe he shows enough to stick on the practice squad. Fleming is pretty much in the exact same spot, and sounds like the same type of athlete. If I were these guys I'd be following Miller in everything he does.

I think we typically see about 3 players get offers to stick around after rookie camp. From that pool we typically see nobody ever make the 53 unless we have a roster devastated by injury. But it does happen on occasion around the league. 3 years ago I was all about throwing everything at the wall and seeing what would stick, as the Seahawks did early on in their turnaround. Now we have a reasonable core of players at many positions, but not all, from starters even to backups. Now we're talking about filling out the last few spots on the roster (see thread on Nall) whereas in Fox's first season there were probably 10 plus spots with wide open competition. That's just a reflection on how poor the talent was overall especially the depth players. Fangio didn't like anyone on defense in his first season. If I'm not mistaken only Kyle Fuller has survived on defense from that first training camp. On offense we have Long and Leno. The WR discussion has changed dramatically since January. Now the debate is who stays: Bellamy or Fowler, and does it matter which one? Why not just keep Wims around based on his potential? I'd guess the last time we saw Tanner Gentry's name mentioned on this board was probably 2 months ago. Point is we have collectively moved on from the hope that UDFA players like Braverman and Gentry gave us, myself included. That's a good thing.

As a runner Howard is a perfect fit for the zone runs Nagy wants to do. If only Howard was a bit more adept at the receiving side we'd be in business. For now I think we're in a good spot with Howard and hopefully he'll take another step up with his receiving skills this year.

True but we do know that he does not have the same vision for zone blocking runs as Howard. That was obvious last year when too often Cohen turned back and tried to go the other way only to end up taking a loss. Hopefully an offseason to review his film helps.

Cohen is not at all similar to Kareem Hunt, neither in ability or style of play. Hunt is much closer in running style and ability to Howard than Cohen, actually very similar. Receiving is a different story because Hunt can flip his hips and catch at the same time.

I don't even know where that 3-cone time came from. It doesn't appear he ran that drill at the combine since the time is not listed on their site. All I know is a lot of elite athletes on an NFL field have a lot of trouble catching him. That's good enough for me. Cohen will never be a feature back, nor will Kareem Hunt be a feature back. Kareem Hunt may be a starter (for now) but I expect he'll always split his time in the backfield with someone who is faster. Hunt had a lot of big games early on, against some poor defense too, but after defenses adjusted he settled in as a good RB. That's what he'll be in the NFL.

We often under estimate Howard's quickness in part because he's a big man.

I put him as competition for the 53rd player on the roster, Where did you see HoF in that?

I think he provides serious competition for FB Michael Burton and TE Braunecker. He can run some routes and catch which MBurton is not that adept at. How well he can block will be the biggest question but he has the size for it. In any case that blocking role is a bit less of a preference as we move to more of a spread offense. Nall's versatility means he could play in the H-back role which slots him in to backup TE Trey Burton. In fact he was recruited to Oregon St. to play the H-back role but injuries pushed him to fill in at RB. Trey is 6'3" and 235lbs. Nall 6'2" and 232lbs. Burton's draft profile listed him at 224lbs so he's bulked up since entering the NFL. Comparing combine numbers: 40yd: Nall 4.58s TBurton 4.62s Braun 4.73s MBurton 4.74s 3-cone: Nall 6.95s, TBurton 7.14s Braun 6.90s MBurton 7.2s 20yd shuttle: Nall 4.16s, TBurton 4.32s Braun 4.2s MBurton 4.34s Clearly he fits the athletic profile of the role we signed Trey Burton to fill, and probably is a little more agile. We just spent $6mil/yr on Trey Burton and as a UDFA wondering who has a role he fits, that had to get Nall's attention. He is not nearly as quick footed as Howard but if he's the FB/4th RB/H-back backup then you've got some real value at the bottom of the roster. He should be able to handle special teams coverage as well.

There ya' go. Let's put our 20 year old rookie in a spot where he has help to learn the NFL game. We can give him some time, like a full year, to build his strength too before asking him to hold up against NTs like Goldman. We're kidding ourselves if we don't think Goldman or HIcks wouldn't push him straight back into the QB. In the meantime we can take advantage of his athletic ability as a pulling guard and his quickness will matchup well against 3-techs. I can't believe he's just 20 years old. He started at Iowa, an Oline factory, as a true freshman. If he ends up our starting center this year he'll be ok but expect him to get moved around and need some help like Whitehair did his rookie year. The only thing I can find on his knee injury is that he had a torn meniscus which needed surgery. I suspect that was a bad tear that had to be sewn back into place instead of a minor cleanup. Then it seems he had, on the same knee, either another minor meniscus issue or just a mild sprain because he was back playing after a week or two.