AZ54

I'll take Flus and the hits principle for the win.

At TE I like Bates more so than Sweeney. Sweeney has more experience which has to help him. Bates ran a 4.6 forty vs 4.8 for Sweeney and that shows on the field along with his 10’2” broad jump explosiveness. The coaches see them everyday they will make the right choice. Carlson is in the mix too but he just looks meh when he’s on the field.

As we guess at the 53 keep mind Poles’ comment from the other day. The new kickoff rules may require different players in coverage or blocking skills. He said they might need to keep less big guys and have more smaller faster players. That leans towards 4 DT and 5 DE. Same might go for TEs - keep 4 instead of 3. If it’s a question of last TE vs FB then who is the better fit? There is no baseline in the league so it’ll be interesting.

I wasn’t terribly impressed by Bagent last year. One good preseason game paired with one bad game hasn’t really changed my mind. I think he's a viable QB2 in the league and that’s about it.

They were 3 painful drops.

Gardner Minshew has turned that style into a decent career as a bridge QB/backup.

After listening to hiIs post-game press conference I'd say he agrees there is much to work on. I've watched a couple film sessions on him (Chase Daniels, and part-way through JT's) and so far it feels more like Caleb was trying to force the ball to a few players. Maybe he was guilty of trying to get everyone involved because there were just a few big throws the previous game? He's got three weeks to settle in. Hopefully the offensive starters get one series in the next preseason game. I think he needs that to calm down.

...and yet I remember Pettis dropping some potential game winning passes in recent years. None of that means I choose Velus over Pettis either. I just don't see a difference on drops. Pettis is better at catching punts.

I don't know if it's the lack of game planning or just preseason vanilla play calling but this new offense so far is traditional Bears stuff. We have far too much talent for it to look that bad. I don't know if that's Williams holding onto the ball too long, which seems most likely, or nobody getting open. Williams talent on broken plays is good but he's supposed to be the one who can play on time. Let's hope as the coaches pull back on the playbook for the start of the season and he gains more reps that starts to show up.

Not a lot of discussion here but quietly Caleb Williams outplayed Joe Burrow in practice yesterday. It’s practice so whatever but there has never been a time where Bears fans said after 3 weeks of practice our rookie QB would be able to look better than a top 5 QB. Even Bengals media were impressed.

Scott Pioli was apparently in the room as the trade discussions were underway and that the Bears backed out due to contract demands. In the end we might have i offered more in the trade who knows. I don’t even remember where I read that so I can’t provide a link.

Ditto on Judon. I don’t want the team tied into a big contract on an old player.

https://www.matchquarters.com/p/matchquarters-db-101-technique-analysis

I haven’t seen enough of Wheeler to decide he’s better. He looked good against 3rd and 4th string. I have seen enough to say this should be a competition among the two. There are two more weeks for coaches to let it play out.

I didn’t mention it earlier but I really appreciate all you do to keep this site up and running.

1 to 2 days off lost posts refers to most recent activity? If there is a choice I’d prefer before the game. Else the day after the game. This game largely defines the 53 man roster so there will lots of chatter afterward.

Even our discussions are largely centered on depth. No questions at starters for CB or LB. RB, WR and TE are settled until you get to 3rd or 4th on the depth chart. QB is settled. It is coming down to the trenches and really Dline is set for starters at this point. Booker looks like a solid 3rd DE which was at the top of the wishlist.

I watched a bit of other games and saw a lot of players trip on the turf. It wasn't just limited to Jones and Swift and it's kinda normal in the middle of camp. Legs are tired. The muffed KO is a bigger concern but the coaches were in the stadium and saw the kick. If the wind was swirling as talked about on TV they know if that ball was moving around, much like it did on Tory Taylors crappy punt. They can make the right assessment there. Other than that, with 1 week of practice at a new position everyone is skipping the fact Jones had 6 carries for 34 yards, and 1 TD, including his tripped run. It's hard to say what is going on with the RB competition. We can go in a lot of different directions but cutting Travis Homer saves $1.9mil and he hasn't offered much as a RB. Roschon is bigger and stronger but I'm also not impressed with his lack of quickness and burst. I was hoping he'd improved that over the offseason. The big question is who can pass protect if we're going to go that route, or with Caleb's quick mind and release do we always leak out the RB? If Roschon can improve at pass pro that might be his way onto the roster. I tend to prefer keeping Herbert because there is a consistency to the running game with him as RB2. Caleb needs that help in a rookie season, not a 4th Rd pick next year. I prefer the options be explored around RB3/4.

Lots of film reviews are in so there are plenty of options. I'll post this one since we have a good baseline on Jenkins' work. One thing that surprised me about Williams at his post game press conference was that he was stating the names of the Bills defensive players and what they were doing on plays. This is just preseason and his first game action but it seems like he sees the field differently from all the other rookie QBs we've had before.

My standouts from this game are Austin Booker and Brendan Bates. Bates had some very good blocks and again showed up well in the passing game. Add in his special teams tackle on a kickoff. Carlson is still ahead of him but he’s not nearly as fluid as a receiver. At this point I prefer to keep Bates as a 4th TE and cut Blasingame.

I feel Caleb and the offense struggled to stay on time. Caleb’s natural talent won the day which is a good thing to have when needed. None of that is surprising for a rookie in his first game action. Overall he looks like belongs on the field.

Wait for the film reviews. His hustle is what really stands out. Dude won’t quit on a play.