AZ54

Herbert is good but the couple games I watched him he wasn't impressive, not $262million worth. Mahomes makes you grit your teeth until the final whistle blows.

I know this is just guys walking in from the parking lot but Alex Leatherwood looks soft as if he spent the offseason like I did sitting on the sofa. In contrast Borom looks lean this year. https://www.chicagobears.com/photos/players-report-to-training-camp-behind-the-scenes-2023#2aae8a15-4ea7-477c-83d4-1338f953f4b5

Hmm that’s a realistic possibility. I don’t doubt the history of his maturity issues. I am curious to see if Fields and the coaches can bring him along.

I doubt we'll ever know what his injury was but we do know a thing or two about Eberflus. Last year he was very cautious with players returning from injury and required them to pass their full fitness test. We don't know what's included in that but tidbits came out last year as Whitehair returned about him hitting his jump targets and other strength tests. Other "healthy" players seemingly worked out on the sidelines during multiple practices before getting their release to practice. it seems clear with this staff that you can't just pass a medical test to practice (i.e. injury has healed). Claypool was last with the team in Jun when he was injured and I don't recall people complaining about him missing any voluntary workouts. Players leave for a month and I don't think the team can contact them or work with them during that time. I could be wrong especially with injured players. I don't find it surprising that he was started out on the PUP and I was expecting him to be sidelined for a few days while the team evaluated him, ramped up his workouts, and made sure he was ready to practice in full. That opens up a couple possibilities. First, Claypool came in with the rookies early to check in with the trainers and prep for camp. Because he reported early, and had been injured when last with the team, were the Bears required to list him on the PUP even though he was just meeting with the trainers? Usually players get their fitness test the day after reporting to camp. Did Claypool participate with the rookies fitness tests on Sun? Did he do that knowing that if he couldn't pass he could get some additional prep work so he could be ready for the first practice on Thur? Second, whatever he was doing to get back in shape or stay in shape worked. I can't imagine Flus would put him on and then take him off the PUP so quickly if he wasn't ready. That just opened up more questions, but not only that, if Flus himself had all these "reported" questions about Claypool's work ethic wouldn't he lean toward being more cautious and a slower ramp up? Fields is the real prove it target this year not Claypool. To evaluate him we need WRs. No matter what you think of Claypool he is still one of our top 3 WRs because we really have poor depth until proven otherwise. IIRC Flus sidelined one or two players who weren't up to his standards at the start of camp last year, maybe even Teven. I suppose it was remotely possible Chase was included in some trade talks but even then what is the logic for doing the PUP designation so many days before the first practice. The Bears could have kept it all under wraps and just had Claypool do his fitness test with rest of the vets on Wed and then put him on the PUP. If the Bears were just doing some shenanigans with the PUP before the veterans reported to camp wouldn't the league frown upon that? We lost a practice last year because we broke the rules. Would Flus and Poles risk that again? That doesn't seem likely.

That's exactly what we got about Teven Jenkins last year but he seems to have settled in after a year of good coaching. Time will tell but I think he at least deserves some time to prove himself just like we did with Tev last year.

Sure he does. So does Mooney for that matter because he can't keep running the wrong routes like last year. If injury is the metric for Claypool then Mooney is standing right beside him. Claypool. 46 games. 167 rec, 2184yds, 12 TD Mooney. 45 games. 182 rec, 2179yds, 10 TD Yes I know Mooney has a 1000yd season but he did that with 81rec on 140 targets. That's a 57% catch rate and his career catch% is under 61%. Claypool is worse for his career at 57%. He was a miserable at 48% with the Bears last year but was at 64% with the Steelers before the trade. I don't know what an expectation is for a starting WR catch% in the NFL but above 65% is a Who's Who among NFL WRs. I also realize a lot goes into that including Oline protection, QB, etc. FWIW Tonyan was 79% last year, Kmet 72.5% I love Mooney and I like Claypool but when I look at it from the outside both have to prove it this year.

Dude got kicked to the curb by more people before the first practice even started. https://www.chicagobears.com/news/roster-move-chase-claypool-removed-from-pup-list

ALS is brutal. To kill a bit of time lately I’ve watched some of the 85 Bears games. McMichael gave me one of my favorite memories with this 44-0 win over the Cowboys. The state of Iowa is filled with Cowboy fans. Sitting in a packed den in our dorm at Iowa State were 7 Bears fans from Chicago. One by one the Cowboy fans shut up and then eventually left the room and just 7 finished watching the game. McMichael was a beast in that game. That is how I’ll always remember him.

Rookies and QBs are in the house with the rest of the team joining them on Tue. https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2023/07/22/bears-rookies-quarterbacks-report-to-training-camp-2023/

Dave Kaplan popped off yesterday that the Bears are seriously looking at signing another edge rusher. If they are they aren't too serious about it or it would be done. I agree with Kap, at this point we're basically working off the scrap heap of whoever is left. Then he adds that we want to add someone ASAP which is totally contradictory to our actions unless we're still quietly working on a trade.

I've only been able to watch 5min of this but already I think it's so good it deserves it's own thread. This is a drive from a game last year as his prep for doing this each week post-game.

No I haven't it seems his videos don't show up when I search "Chicago Bears", at least on my TV. This is a nice montage of highlights of our new Dline players.

Now I have a bit more time to type. Last year we couldn't really do this due to our RTs limitations but this year if we can run our plays in a balanced fashion, meaning we can run same plays to the left or right, then defenders will have difficulty figuring out what to key on. They can see an OG or OT pulling but as you saw in the Braxton video sometimes he pulls and hits an inside lane, other times it's outside. Plus with Fields in the backfield a defender can't hedge their bet that the play is going to the strong side of the play action. Take a step in the wrong direction and you'll likely never get back to where you need to be to stop Fields running the other way. Morgan also talked about the difficulty for a defender reading the play when we have 2 TEs on the field. LBs also have to consider if either TE is run blocking or faking it before running a route. On plays with 3 WRs the DBs have to contend with Moore, Mooney, and Claypool in addition to the possible run support. Last year nobody worried about our passing game. I expect the running game will be effective but if our pass protection is improved to just average we'll be good. I think we'll see more broken plays by a defense where a defender gets caught out of position. I want to see a good passing offense but we're already built to run so let's do it. If we run as well as last year we'll be forcing DBs to make tackles early. Then take our deep shots off the play action fakes.

Here's a couple videos with some good thoughts about our running game with Braxton Jones and Darnell Wright. Glynn Morgan explains how pulling either OT could make it really hard to stop our run game. If he's right in Week 1 GB could be in for a surprise. I like Schmitz's analysis on Braxton Jones and since he covers his run blocking you can see how he was utilized last year. The assumption is we'll now be doing the same type of plays from left or right.

I think he turned down Arizona although that was never really made public. Nor should it have been, for both sides. However, I do think he was serious in his job search but just didn't find the right match. If all he wanted was to stay here another year he, and his career, would have been far better off not to waste the time of the owners interviewing him. I don't like my time being wasted like that and I can't imagine an NFL owner would either. Tarnish your reputation like that and it'll take years to recover and get back on teams' short list. I still suspect Cunningham's disagreement with the Bidwill's in AZ was that he didn't want to be forced to commit to Kyler Murray. I correct I wouldn't blame him one bit. What was the first thing the new GM said in his press conference? “We want to see him out on the field,” Ossenfort said. “Again, I’ll go back to that game two years ago at Nissan [Stadium, against the Titans]; I’ve seen what a healthy Kyler can do. I did a lot of work on Kyler coming out of Oklahoma. I know that he is extremely talented with both his legs and his arm and yeah that does represent a challenge for us. https://www.si.com/nfl/cardinals/analysis/report-ian-cunningham-turned-down-offer-become-arizona-cardinals-gm

Just curious, does anyone know what % of NFL games are decided by 3pts or less?

Wow, I don't play video games but those graphics remind of the video games from the early 2000s.

Years ago in 2001 when we had two behemoths (Keith Traylor and Ted Washington). Those DTs were bookended by big DEs (Philip Daniels and Alex Brown) who were not great pass rushers. Alex Brown's best season was 7 sacks, Daniels had 2 seasons with 9 sacks. They were backed up a good LB group anchored by Brian Urlacher, and DBs anchored by Mike Brown. Nobody could run on us and when it was time for 3rd and long we had the coverage. We won a lot of games that way and that was the leagues best scoring defense that year. We were average in yards given up per game. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/chi/2001.htm I'm not putting this year's D at that level but in terms of roster makeup there are a lot of similarities. We have Billings inside and another young beast of a run defender in Dexter. Walker at DE you could say is similar to Daniels. On the other side Gipson or Green are similar to Brown but not as quick on first step. Behind them LB: Urlacher, Holdman, Colvin (Edmunds/Edwards/Sanborn), S: Brown/Parrish (BoJack, Brisker), CB: Walt Harris, Azumah, RW McQuarters (Jaylon Johnson, Gordon, Stevens?) The biggest challenge in this comparison is that the scheme is different. That was the Jauron era and 2-gapping D. We run a 1-gap and, if you recall when Lovie took over in 2003, remaking the Dline was at the top of the list. To be fair, at that point Traylor and Washington were done in their careers. OTOH Lovie was a stalwart cover-2 bend-but-don't-break guy and Eberflus varies from that a little more often. Then we also have the fact we're relying on a couple young DTs to make it all work. I think Dexter and Billings can get the interior run D anchored. We must have more pressure up the middle from Justin Jones, Pickens, and Dexter. Flush the QB to the outside where the DEs can catch them. Find the interior pressure and I think the D can be good this year. Forgot to include this:

I don't follow betting odds but I'd say the teams are even except our revised roster hasn't yet proven they know how to win. Packers have their share of roster issues too but they have more players with playoff experience.

Reps are on the menu...and it seems every WR on the roster is down there, along with the backup QBs, except Velus isn't listed. https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2023/07/14/bears-justin-fields-holds-offseason-workout-florida-darnell-mooney/

Love what Poles is doing. Warren already managed to put the new stadium deal in limbo so we'll see what he's capable of.

I know. I feel good about this roster but it's just so young. I've said it before but one year ago before training camp I never expected us to have a roster this talented. That's not implying it's a Superbowl caliber talent just much better than I expected heading in our 2nd training camp.

I’ve been left at the altar so many times it’s hard to believe this time will be different.

I think the two scenarios are different. Last year at Oline we had serious concerns. After minicamp they knew how bad the gaps were plus the big questions around Teven Jenkins. At DE we have decent to good serviceable options. We need to add a high level player to the mix not another JAG. I certainly wouldn’t trade a pick for a backup talent.