AZ54

http://bearswire.usatoday.com/2017/10/19/b...football-focus/ Our defense has been under the radar this season, overshadowed by the horrendous play of Glennon and the slow start with Trubisky. I'm not sure if I'd put us in the top 5 league-wide yet but the performance against Baltimore was impressive.

Alex Smith got hit late. If a player has to take two steps and then get down low in order to dive into the QB's knees, all after the ball is thrown, it's late. Rodgers was a smidgen late but again for a QB who is known for his escapability defenders have to stay in the play.

I think Pace was 100% correct to skip the 5th year option on Fuller. There is nothing wrong with earning your keep and his play didn't merit a 5th year at that price. If he earns it consistently this year I have zero issues paying him the going rate for a CB. He's not elite CB material because at best he'll have 1 good year in 4 but he could earn a very good much contract better than his original 5th year would have paid him. For that he'll have to thank Pace. Amukamara might be in the same spot. Pay both if it's earned and draft a young player to build some depth. Cooper is not a bad option as the 3rd CB IMO but I'd like someone with more talent in the pipeline.

Start with the fact we won on the road in Baltimore with a rookie QB which has never happened under Harbaugh. I scanned a few of the Ravens boards and it reads just like ours. Fire the HC, crappy WRs, cut Flacco, horrible play calling, defense got run over and couldn't cover anyone, etc. http://forum.russellstreetreport.com/showt...-0TD-2INT/page2 Anyway, I thought our defense played great. Gave up 9pts total including the short fields given up from a couple fumbles. Two INTs, one a pick 6, and our own forced fumble and recovery. I felt (hoped) Amos would fit in better at SS with someone like Jackson behind him and it appears that may be the case. Either that or getting benched woke him up. Kyle Fuller has come from out of nowhere to be the player I thought he would be 4 years ago. I don't see Cooper getting his starting job back. Oline struggled on pass protection and Dion Sims was worthless as a blocker. Despite the heavy run first game plan and all the stacked boxes they faced the run game was very effective. We have to get our passing game, including the pass protection, to be more consistent. I think this will come in time as Trubisky and these WRs get more comfortable with the plays and reading the defenses. I have no clue why Whitehair keeps making bad snaps but credit Trubisky for his composure recovering from those situations. After the game Trubisky said he had largely run/run options at the LOS and so he did check out of some running plays into others depending on what he saw before the snap. He indicated that last week he had more run/pass options. It's hard to know why we set that up but on the road with rookie QB and two new WRs on the outside some of it is understandable. Run the wrong route/throw and you have an INT going the other way. I hope things change soon as these WRs and Tru get more comfortable working together. Trubisky overall played within the game plan and he didn't throw an INT. There were several times he just threw it away instead of forcing it which is good to see from a rookie. I think he looked more comfortable in the pocket reading the field than his first game but he's still several games away understanding all the defensive coverages and blitzes he's seeing. The plus side is that against Minn, Baltimore, and now Carolina he's getting a crash course on it. We'll see how those lessons show up in the 2nd half of the season. I didn't watch closely enough to know how well they did in run blocking but about having McBride and Gentry on the outside (vs. Wheaton/Thompson) should be helping on those outside zone runs. Tarik Cohen listened to his coaches and is starting to stay with the flow of the play better and stay behind his blockers. After some early season big plays he was bailing out too soon and defenses were waiting for him. As he learns from Jordan Howard how to get some patience behind the blockers he'll be more effective. Bad fumble but I wonder if it was a bad exchange from Trubisky because the two players were pretty far apart at the handoff. Overall this was a great win for a rebuilding team. At some point in the rebuilding process young players have to learn how to overcome mistakes on the road and win. We did that. I always believed that learning how to win is a real thing in sports. There are so many execution details to clean up but these players now know they are capable of matching up and winning even when it's not perfect. http://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/mit...can-improve-win “Every win is a good win,” Cohen said. “We might’ve got it ugly, but it’s a good win. So you gotta take that and run with it and try to run with it and string games together. And it’s really encouraging because we know that we made our mistakes so if we correct those, we know what kind of game it’s going to be.”

I feel....nothing. I don't think that tackle of a QB known for his excellent scrambling was anything out of the ordinary. He held up that great Packer tradition of whining at everyone as he left the field.

Are you confident the WR will be on the same page?

I'm curious why you left off McPhee from the list? Part time players like him can't command $8mil. Oddly I'd be ok keeping Mark Sanchez around in 2018 for another $2mil. He's on a 1yr deal now. With Glennon gone keeping Sanchez in the QB room with Trubisky for another year might not be a bad idea.

I'm curious why you left off McPhee from the list? Part time players like him can't command $8mil. Oddly I'd be ok keeping Mark Sanchez around in 2018 for another $2mil. He's on a 1yr deal now. With Glennon gone keeping Sanchez in the QB room with Trubisky for another year might not be a bad idea.

Bowman was being replaced as the starter by a younger player. Here in Chicago we know he won't beat out Trevathan. The question is where does he fit in with Kwit. Bears seem to feel Kwit can match Freeman's level of play or be close to it. It also appears that Kwit is getting close to returning in a couple more weeks seeing that he started practicing on a limited basis this week. If Kwit was on IR this is a no-brainer. I'm just not sure Bowman wants to be a backup on a rebuilding team like the Bears. He's also not going to play special teams. I don't think this is going to be the right fit for the player or the team.

Sims already has a replacement on the roster. Wheaton already has a replacement on the roster. (has to be someone else with 1 reception) Glennon already has a replacement on the roster. Massie does not have a replacement on the roster. I don't mind if we upgrade one bit but I see no reason to cut him for just $5.6mil until we have that player on signed.

Why was he released?

I'm not worried about his 1 year try-it-before-you buy it FA plans. Contracts like that cost more in the short term but it's worth it in terms of flexibility down the road. We again have $40mil in space next year and can easily get to $50mil by cutting players like McPhee and Wheaton. I think McPhee will restructure his contract and stay with the team another year. Moving on from Mike Glennon frees up another $11mil. We have lots of flexibility for FA but expect at least $15mil of that to go to signing CBs. At WR I preferred Robert Woods but he signed for a lot more than Wheaton did. I'm ok that Pace was looking more toward slotting that money to Cam Meredith. Unfortunately for him, Cam is a restricted FA in 2018 and his deal will not be as big as he was hoping for.

If his health allows him to return then I think he'll be back on the field. Pace will want to know if he can count on White for anything at all heading into next year. We all know he won't consider him as a starter but is he at least part of the depth chart? Markus Wheaton suffers from the same brittle player disease so I'll predict he ends up on IR with White taking his place later this season.

Watson isn't becoming more effective on longer passes. He's still inaccurate but sometimes his receivers are making the plays. Sometimes. His completion % on passes over 20 yards is little over 25%. Prescott in comparison is well over 50%. These are small sample sizes here so stay tuned. http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/splits/_/id.../deshaun-watson Jay Cutler can tell you that throwing up a jump ball isn't exactly precision passing but if it's Alshon Jeffrey downfield or Brandon Marshall then in some games it works. Other games it doesn't. Watson has work to do in order to be consistently accurate on his medium to deep routes. His work ethic and intelligence may get him there years down the road. I feel the same about Dak Prescott although he seems to struggle more in tight traffic throws (see redzone). Last year everyone put Prescott in the Hall of Fame. This year Texans fans are already putting Watson there (I've read some of their message boards). Patience is required. When you routinely see Prescott complete passes to players standing still with no defender around them (as it was often last year) you should question things a bit. This year so far Prescott is just an average QB and he already has as many INTs as he did all of last year. He still has a great Oline, great RB, one of the league's best #1 WRs, and a HoF TE to throw to. I don't see a Tom Brady here who is making others great. I see a QB you can win with. That's not all bad and IMO Watson fits in this category as well, but we knew that before the draft. I still think Trubisky has a higher ceiling despite his (or the Bears') slower start. He has some innate qualities that few possess. I look forward to seeing how this plays out with the rookie QBs if for no other reason to see if I'm right or wrong, and I like the debates. I've been wrong plenty of times about players we drafted over the years but since I started studying the draft a few year ago I've tried to learn more each year about what details to look for in the various positions.

I like this. We can't win early on plays with all the small WRs we had running around out there. The 8-in-the-box theme will continue until we beat it downfield and Gentry has the talent to do that.

I'm in a different place here. I thought our defense looked very good especially given the 4th and 5th string ILBs we had in the game. Losing Timu hurt, a lot, and afterward the Vikings went into almost nothing but screen passes which the ILBs couldn't read or stop. I suppose you can blame coaches for not preparing the 6th String ILB to play but I prefer they prepare the starter, Timu, and he looked prepared. Does anyone even know our defense is 6th overall in the league for yards/game? That's been done with quite a few moving pieces at ILB, CB, and OLB. So far we've done this against offenses from Atlanta, Green Bay, Pitt, and Tampa. Minn was the worst offense we've played. Get Kwit and Trev back inside and I'm looking forward to seeing this defense mature this season. The offense looked physically over-matched throughout at WR. Nobody is shocked at this. This is the best defense we'll see this season with the Panthers being a close second. I'm not worried about the conservative game plan with a rookie QB in his first game against this defense. For all the complaining about how bad our Oline is they gave up just a single sack. Yes it was a strip sack but going into this game I'd have bet most pundits here would expect the Oline to give up far more pressure and sacks. Nor do I care about Trubisky breaking out of the pocket under pressure a few times because that's what other QBs do to us. Other than that strip sack, things were handled well enough for Trubisky to make some reads downfield and then find an outlet to extend the play. The Vikings showed numerous blitzes overloading both sides of the line and for the most part they were handled well. Yes we kept in TEs to help often but I'm not going to fault Loggains for doing that with a rookie QB in his first start. Maybe others are expecting Trubisky and the WRs, TEs, RBs to all be on the same page for hot reads but I think that stuff will take some time. The scramble plays will get better as receivers get on the same page as Trubisky. He won't always have to use hand signals to tell players where to run. Defenders were reading those too. Now with game 1 of the Trubisky era out of the way it's time to start sending these TEs, Shaheen/Miller, on some play-action seam routes to start busting up these 8 in the box defenses.

Usually every year in FA you can add depth at WR, CB, S, and ILB. OT is more challenging to fix via FA and so is OLB if you want starter quality. If Eddie Jackson develops as we hope at FS then we are trying to find someone to play SS which is much easier to fill. ILB will still be deep next year with Freeman, Kwit, and Trev. With those three out this week it looks bad. Our CBs have played well. Not great. If we bring Prince and Fuller back and add a good young talent we should be ok here next year. All the good CB talent that was drafted this year could mean quite a few good vets are released for salary cap reasons.

Torn tricep. I still think OLB will be highest draft need next year. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...1007-story.html

By definition all potential is uncertain. Signing any player to a contract who has never played in the NFL is purely speculation about their potential, and nothing more. That speculation may be based on facts, but in some cases it may be based on hope (see Phil Emery drafts of players who were injured most of their college career). There is zero evidence Pace had (or now has) that much doubt about Trubisky. His trade up for the player was not done because he had strong doubts about his future. I think the media and their reaction to our draft day trade demonstrated a tremendous amount of doubt. That doubt among the media in itself has nothing to do with Pace. I think the deal for Glennon was all about protecting his young player early in his career so that he could reach his full potential later. You have to protect a tree when it's a sapling. It is obvious Pace never thought Glennon had that much potential to be an NFL starter or he'd have never made the trade for Trubisky. You have a strong draft philosophy regarding year 1 starting caliber players in the first round, especially in the top 10. You disagree with Pace's confidence in the value of the trade up for Trubisky and prefer to minimize your risk early in the draft by taking the higher certainty player. In later rounds you would draft players with more risk/potential. In most positions I agree, that makes sense. IMO there are a few positions on a roster where it takes more time to develop skills needed to perform well at the NFL level and at the top of that list is QB. How much time depends to a great extent on what they were asked to do in college. Part of the problem with proving this theory (play well early)is that teams drafting any player in the top 10 are usually bereft of talent at that position. That makes it easier for them to be a "starter" in week 1. That doesn't mean they are playing at a starter's level of play. Would you have drafted Urlacher with the 9th pick overall? My guess is no because that was a pure potential pick. I wasn't following the draft that closely back then but I'm doubtful I'd have supported that decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Urlacher#NFL_Draft "Urlacher struggled to perform consistently in his first professional game, and lost his starting position to Rosevelt Colvin.[20] Jauron left Urlacher on the sidelines during the following week, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers shut out the Bears, 41–0."

Trubisky showed class as well. I don't want to take away from Glennon's mature approach to his demotion because he deserves credit for handling this well. Read all the articles that are showing up with quotes from Bears' players. You can't help but feel that there's a new leader taking over this team, not just a new starting QB. In the end Glennon's role will have been to help Mitch learn how to be that leader even in tough times. I don't think he was brought here to be more than that. Well that and maybe be a ruse on what position we were drafting in Rd 1. Pace couldn't have pulled off the ruse with Cutler, Hoyer, or even Josh McCown.

I think it will take him at least another year to get to the weight and strength he needs to excel in pass rush. He will get sacks for us this year, at least as many as he had last year. We've played the Falcons, Bucs, and Steelers. In two of those games he was largely used in coverage. That won't be the case against the teams we'll see later in the season. One thing he must do is get off the snap quicker. Too often he's the last man moving forward.

Today's game plan made it more clear than ever that Trubisky time is headed our way. They now know Glennon's limitations (severe limitations) and are flat out just staying away from exposing them as much as possible. When they do make a change it will be a surprise because you much prefer the opponent game plans for 8 in the box to stop the run all day. Since winning the division is what matters most for making the playoffs this will likely happen against either the Packers or Vikings. I'm not sure they'll rock the boat after a big win this week but if the Packers game isn't going well for Glennon I have to think Trubisky plays in the 2nd half. We can't lose that game big without pulling out all stops.

Two weeks in a row Glennon throws an INT on a short route to a TE. In each case the TE, last week Sims this week Miller, cuts out to the right and the ball is thrown behind him to the defender.

If we can get our passing game going beyond 10 yards from the LOS then we will like Cohen in the slot a great deal. I don't see this happening until Trubisky takes over. Even if Wheaton can get open deep Glennon is too inaccurate to make consistent plays. Defenses will risk giving up one big play in a game to smother our running game and short passing game.

When questioned directly Loggains this week refused to say if Trubisky was running the scout team or was throwing to the 1st team. "Glennon is our starter." For now...