AZ54

Watson makes me nervous. He's the ultimate tease with great throws and then a WTF moment. We have one of those QBs already. Can Watson improve? Surely, but there is the added complexity and speed of the NFL. That along with his smaller frame and propensity to run won't help him. I like Trubisky as the first QB off the board because I think he can bring what Carr has done in Oakland. Next is Kizer who clearly needs more time to develop so he won't be a starter in year 1. If Kizer has the right mentality and work ethic for the NFL job I really like his long term potential. He'll need a team (and fans) willing to give him some time. Third on my list is Kayaa. Behind those guys I'd just stay with the 3 we already have (Shaw, Hoyer, and bad-boy Cutler). Chip Kelly isn't having much success and with his NFL career likely one season from being finished I always consider that desperate men do desperate acts. I see him taking Watson with his first pick in part because he's a good fit for what he wants to do on offense, and in part because he's a winner. http://draftwire.usatoday.com/2016/11/12/t...ll-in-one-game/

I've read this is a bad draft for OTs. I'm not sure about interior spots but for me that's not much of a concern. I'm ok with Sitton, Whitehair, Long with Grasu, and then either Kush or, if he develops as I hope, Edison as the backup. I don't want Larsen back next year and they can bring in some late Rd value pick if they want for competition. Even though JPP owned him in the 2nd half I'd bring Adams back just to see if he can improve his skills and strength in our offseason program. He's not going to command much salary and likely next to nothing in bonus. Finding more serious OT competition is the problem.

Agreement here as well. I like Carey, even called for the Bears to draft him but he is limited in what he can do. More problematic for me is that I don't think he's ever been available for more than 4 straight games. For a guy who's mostly done special teams, or ride the bench, that isn't good. At the end of the day it will be the desire to have someone who can fill that spot on special teams better, and perhaps develop into a better RB (any player is a question mark on day 3) that drives the late Rd RB pick. No guarantees but there will be competition IMO.

This will do...

Just got home from work, hope everyone had a great day with the family and some great food.

Wow, giving up a top 5 pick means walking away from: Garrett, Allen, or Fournette. Yeah, that's just 3 of 5 but IMO those 3 are perennial Pro Bowl players. I'm confident there will be at least one QB taken top 5 (maybe by the Bears) plus there will be some rising star among the players who leave early. I'm just fine with Howard and see no reason to consider Fournette but this is about value and Fournette would be a terror in New England. Forget about the Patriots because there will likely be another team offering more than a backup QB with 2 1/2 games of tape to evaluate. We might easily drop back a few picks and stay top 10 and add a 2nd or 3rd Rd pick. More importantly for me: Put either Garrett or Allen on our defensive front and I think we're headed toward being a top 5 D. That's not something I want to walk away from too early, or pay too much for. FWIW I still like Trubisky.

I prefer Fox stays in part because I really like Fangio and what he's doing on defense. It's a bit hard to see with all the injuries but there are several young players developing and I'd like to keep building on this. The offense is a bit harder to see but I'm not as down on Loggains as everyone else for the simple reason that with Hoyer out there we were moving the ball well. We just couldn't score but I think that's as much a limitation on Hoyer than the system. Cutler is just the complete opposite of Hoyer and you'll get points and big plays, but not the steady moving of the chains. That comes with the occasional game where he looks completely lost. I don't think a rookie QB solves all this but I do think that Jordan Howard shows the way forward. When we can run the football the offense looks good. When your QB situation is a question mark the best thing to do is to focus on improving the run game. Unless Langford steps up in a big way these last few games I'm not opposed to drafting another RB or bringing in a FA. That doesn't mean I want to get rid of Langford but between him and Carey there's room for competition to win a job. Given that we'll have nobody at QB and several backups on the Oline, establishing a running game won't be easy.

If Cutler is gone and after last week's debacle that seems like the only option, then I prefer to just go with Hoyer as the transition guy. Hoyer sucks but he'll keep the chains moving. I think our defense is getting close. I've seen one mock that had us taking John Allen DT with the 4th pick overall. I haven't watched him play much but that would give us one outstanding Dline, with depth in Bullard improving. The CB talent isn't top 5, nor is the QB talent. Take best available early and then trade up mid-late 1st for our QB. http://draftbreakdown.com/joe-marinos-mid-...nfl-mock-draft/ On the flip side you take Cutler's money and throw it wherever you see fit in FA. Hoyer will cost us a little more than the $2mil we paid last year but we should still see at least $10mil freed up. That could put someone like Eric Berry on the roster at a position we really need help at. Then you work what's left in the draft at CB (again), OT and if Jeffrey is gone maybe WR. With Cutler we have $48mil in cap space for 2017. Jeffrey could take a big chunk of that. We are going to find some more good players to fill out this roster. You might see Lamar Houston gone as well if RRH is ready to go.

Me too, or put Edison out there.

I like this but doubt we'll go with 3 DBs in the middle there, but the 2 CBs....yes. They'll want to give Bush a chance somewhere before the end of the season and after those CBs I think the OT or TE need is taken care of.

Where do we rank: http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?sea...qualified=false Offense: pts/game = 31st yds/game = 15th ( surprisingly ahead of Packers, Vikings, and Lions) Defense: pts/game = 15th yds/game = 12th

I finally completed a review of the win over the Vikings with main focus on the line play, both sides. DLine: Solid play inside in this game mainly from Hicks. Either the coaches or McPhee are getting to him (likely both) because he's starting to play more violently. On his sack near the goal line he just clubbed the lineman with his right arm knocking him off balance and then just ran right past him. After some solid but unspectacular first few games his arrow is now pointing up. Unrein is still unable to get any movement in the pass rush. He's still a solid depth-type player but he's not what we need as a starter. OTOH Bullard is making progress in his pass rush. He's not a powerful player but I can see him moving his feet better to get angles on blockers and then use his quickness to slip past them. At the same Bullard is finding ways to get off blocks and be more effective in the run game. What I don't see is his quickness at the snap as we did in the preseason. Perhaps that will show up as he gains more experience. Washington is right there behind Bullard but I'd say he's still adjusting to the inside game. Still, I like the improvement so far but more remains to be done in the 2nd half. When we get Goldman back into the rotation it will spell Hicks some and might move Unrein back on the depth chart as they keep the quicker Bullard on the field in a 3-man front. OLB: Early in the season when Floyd rushed the passer it appeared he was looking for a perfect path to the QB. Meaning he'd make a move and if it was stopped he was stopped. In the last few games it seems he's learning he doesn't have to win cleanly. He's using his length the work the edges of the blocker and is coming to realize that if he gets that he can force his way past and then he's just so long in reach he just closes on the QB quickly. If he continues to build on that part of his game the speed will win more often. In short, Floyd has been far better in the power game than I expected. McPhee is just a stud football player and having him back is making the rest of the Dline better. With less snaps Young had more burst as we were hoping. He'll play better as McPhee expands his role. Acho continues to impress me, not because he's playing great but he's been good for us especially with some of the high snap counts he's had. In other words nobody is talking about C. Jones. Right now this group is looking good. ILB: Trev and Free have been exactly as advertised. Let Kwiatkoski learn from them for a couple seasons. CBs: Still a lot of musical chairs back there but they did well enough not to lose the game for us. Word is LeBlanc is tearing it up in practice. I haven't seen that on game day but he does improve each week. Bausby was just ok, he mostly seemed to just play it safe in coverage but did offer some good plays in run support. If you look towards next season it feels like we'll have some good depth with these guys (LeBlanc, Glenn, Bausby, and Hall). Hopefully we'll see Hall back on the field soon as he too was showing some promise. Do we keep Fuller at CB or move him to FS? S: I still like Amos and I think he'll continue to improve. HJQ seems more and more like a backup and someone we need to find a replacement for. Obviously the coaches are rotating Prosinski in so they see this too. Can Bush fill this role? Houston-Carson? I'm not sure I see that. Oline: Kush and Larsen played well enough. I actually like what I see in Kush and he may well develop into a good backup for us. Larsen still gets pushed around too much for my liking. I'd rather see Edison out there, he's more stout and a better athlete. Whitehair is good and you have to commend him and Cutler for coordinating the blocking assignments so well against the Vikings. Looking to next year we should have 3 players competing for the backup OG/OC roles in Kush, Grasu, and Edison. Leno played well against Griffen for most of the game. On the sack he gave up he reached for the block instead of waiting for Griffen to get to him. Massie has improved quite a bit since the first two games and is now playing as I hoped he would. He's not great but you can win with him at RT when he plays like this. Nobody was blocking L. Joseph one-on-one. He's a stud but fortunately he's not fast. TE: I have to say Paulsen is now blocking well. Miller is definitely blocking better than he did last year and he's very effective as a receiver. I don't miss Marty B. WR: Jeffrey had a poor game and just wasn't in sync in the first half. He recovered and played well in the 2nd half. Meredith was good when he was targeted it's just obvious Cutler isn't comfortable with him yet but I think that will develop. RB: Blocking wasn't great on a lot of plays (see the comment on Joseph earlier) but Howard showed good vision and decisiveness and often got around defenders in the backfield and got to the open hole. Still I saw a couple plays where he could have had big gains if he'd made a different cut. IMO that just means he's only going to get better as he gains experience. How many fans realize Howard had the fastest on-field speed of any player in the NFL last week? That means he hit a higher top speed than Ezekiel Elliot. He might not be able to sustain that for 50 yards but he does have some serious burst in his step. QB: Cutler played well. He had a couple miscues but far more often he saved the play with his pocket awareness and mobility. Overall he just stayed within the game plan and what was working. Loggains: Prior to the Vikings game people continued to say he'll get fired after this season. Ain't happening. He just built an excellent game plan and called the best game of the season against the best D in the NFL. There will still be things to learn but he's proved that he belongs in this job.

If you like Oline play check out this screenshot of a Jordan Howard run late in the 4th quarter that helped win the game over the Vikings. This is inside 4min, Vikings know we're going to run and the box is stacked with 8 defenders and everyone else keyed into what Howard does at the snap. Our Oline blocks it well, Howard reads it well, and we gain 11yds for a 1st down. We have to start giving more credit to our TEs as well because both Paulsen and Miller are doing a good job blocking. The rest of the PFW analysis is excellent as well. http://www.profootballweekly.com/lists/201...e6c1ee/?page=14

It's the sweet feet he has in traffic that really makes him good.

That they did.

For a team that was supposed to be the best in the NFC this is a dramatic shift.

Congrats! http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...1102-story.html

Kelly is the idiot who after a game came out and said this is not a coaching problem. Then the next day he fired a coach. After that fiasco Kelly should have been terminated.

Congratulations!

FIRE THE CONSULTANT!

But Cutler didn't throw for 300yds? I have much more to say but I'll reserve some thoughts until I watch a replay. This was an ass kicking delivered to the best defense in the NFL. It would have been even better if Howard knew the audible near the goal line and ran left. Our coaching staff just took a bunch of backup DBs, and a rather significant amount of rookies up front (Washington 1st yr at new position, Bullard, Floyd) following the lead of their veterans and stuck it to the Vikings.

Well said and I couldn't agree more. 18 months into a total rebuild, that they (correctly) started, and yet they hit the panic button.

IMO he targeted the correct choices among the top QBs in each of the last two drafts. That at least bodes well for any future QB pick he makes but he has to know now that he'll need to be far more aggressive to trade up and get his guy. Now I don't blame him for not giving up a ton of draft picks. We're overhauling almost the entire roster, I'm ok with getting the bulk of the players early in this process.

Things will continue to change but Trubisky has moved into the top ranked QB spot in this years draft on CBS. http://draftbreakdown.com/video/mitch-trub...ittsburgh-2016/ There is a lot to like about his game and there are some question marks. It's already clear there will be question marks about each of the top QB in this years draft. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/prospec...&school=All

With the emergence of Meredith I'd make that trade but this will be a late first round pick. Jeffrey is hands down the better target for 50/50 balls but Meredith's route running makes him better at getting separation. Then there is Jeffrey's health where he's once again been struggling with hamstring issues. There's no reason to think that will get better as he gets older, or paid more money.