AZ54

Great video highlighting our GMs scouting work and philosophy. It is interesting that we have a GM, assistant GM, and coaches like Getsy who all prefer to be on the sidelines during games. From top to bottom our staff values the relationship aspect of the players and team overall. https://www.chicagobears.com/video/a-weekend-on-the-college-scouting-trail-with-poles-cunningham-1920-football-driv

You always want to pressure Goff because he'll make some toss-up throws off his back foot. We just have to disguise it well.

https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2022/11/9/23445383/2023-nfl-draft-top-15-defensive-tackles-chicago-bears-scouting-reports-jalen-carter-bryan-bresee Aside from the obvious top 2 DTs on the list (Carter, Bresee) I like what I see from Siaki Ika, Myles Murphy. Siaki is just a load to work against and moves well laterally making him very tough to block. Might not be a true 3-tech but having him on the line can only help if he could be in the shape Eberflus demands. That's a big question mark right now. Murphy is a high effort player with good movement skills but has poor stats this season. I only saw his 2021 highlights and don't know how he's being utilized this season. Could be a day 3 addition to replace someone like Blackson. The main takeaway for me is that this Dline draft class doesn't appear to be very deep so FA has to play a bigger role here. The lack of depth could motivate younger DTs to declare early.

That entire Colts situation and how the GM Chris Ballard got put on the sideline by the owner is an interesting story. It was just last year they were a team on the rise with 9 wins and 2nd place in their division. Unfortunately Ballard brought the Chicago QB luck with him (and lost Luck). I don't understand the whole Jeff Saturday situation with him never coaching in the league. Even if he's capable of leading a team, that seems like someone who is way underprepared for that job to just walk in midseason. Compare that to Eberflus who seems to have pre-planned for everything from the details of each practice to exactly what happens during bye weeks.

Reportedly he's already earned that bonus. With the money issue now a sunk cost we'll know for sure who the team thinks is the best fit at RT.

Chiefs have $28mil in cap space with just 33 players under contract. Frank Clark is the obvious cut saving them $20mil. in space but $7mil in dead cap. The only other significant option is Valdes-Scantling which would save $7mil but also $4mil dead cap. They don't have other easy options so this is a team to watch in the offseason. If they want to get rid of Chris Jones I'll take him off their hands but most likely they'll try to extend his deal and push out the cap space hit.

From today's press conference it's clear Eberflus was not happy with the pass coverage last week (nobody was). Some of that is players not executing as per assignments or game plan. Some is the lack of pass rush. He was pretty clear today that we have to do a better job of mixing it up to get pressure. I'm expecting Sanborn and Morrow to play better this week. I just watched the Miami game again focusing on a few plays and during the course of the game you could see the run reads and filling the gaps improve. For his part Sanborn asked Morrow what to do on seemingly every play, which is ok, they are standing next to each other but doesn't bode well for knowing your role. Sanborn was also really late getting into coverage. Hopefully after watching his performance he'll be a step or two closer to where he should be this week. Detroits offense is middle of the road in both passing and rushing. Their pass defense is 25th in total yards given up, run defense 27th. They can't be looking forward to defending Fields diverse skill set. Now with Claypool in his 2nd week of the offense he'll be doing more they haven't seen on film. Detroit contained the Packers running game last week but gave up 291yds passing. On the offensive side it was just 137yds passing and 118yds rushing. The one player that worries me is Aidan Hutchinson because his pass rush strength plays into our weakness blocking. Expect to see help to his side and they might go back to what Dallas and NE did where the backside DE just runs upfield first to cover the rollouts. I'd like to get Borom back on the field as I think he's a better 2nd level run blocker than Reiff. He's just more athletic and can get to better blocking angles. I've seen some say Reiff is better in pass pro but he still gave up some pressures. Pringle is 21d window practicing again this week so it's possible he's active this game (pushing Velus further down the depth chart). Matt Adams also entered the 21d window.

I'm in agreement on Jaylen. I'm expecting we'll have a top 15 pick maybe as high as 10. Players I like there are DT Bresee, DE Foskey, OTs Broderick Jones, Jaelyn Duncan, and possibly Skoronski (he looks slow to me). Preference is for one of the defensive players but Fields is the future and that starts now. I believe Braxton Jones can fix his issues with bull rushes with an offseason to focus on his technique. At RT I don't think Borom is the answer. He's either our swing OT or needs to move inside. Leatherwood is still a question mark at OT and if not there, is he an OG? Ideally we find a way to get these guys (Leatherwood, Carter, Eiselen) some reps by the end of the season so we can have some idea what we have on the Oline. While I see options inside we have nothing at RT beyond hoping it's Leatherwood. RT could be something we address in FA if a good option is there. Whitehair might be the veteran leader today but it's entirely possible we move on from him in favor of the younger OGs. In that case adding a vet presence to the line would be helpful IMO. If Elgton Jenkins hits the market that would appear to be the best solution. Market value is forecasted to be $14mil/yr, we could get back $10mil of that cap hit by making Whitehair a post Jun 1st cut.

Here's the J.T. O'Sullivan review. Justin has improved quite a bit on many plays but there is still room to improve. He's 9 games into this new offense and now working with what might be the 5th combination of WRs on the field. I'd heard that N'Keal Harry said he ran one route incorrectly. The arrow is pointing up overall for the offense. Watching these play breakdowns and it's easy to see how our WRs struggle against man coverage. When Trent Dilfer reviewed this Miami game he brought up the point that now with several games of film on Fields running he expects to see defenses revert to more zone coverage. That allows the entire defense to keep their eyes on the QB. Miami used a spy defender on some plays but it didn't work. Coverages are always mixed throughout a game but more zone will make it easier for the WRs to get open. It also puts the burden back on Fields to read it quickly and take the simple play which he wasn't doing well earlier in the season.

I have no issues whatsoever with the accountability being shown toward the WRs. ISM was cut. I think Pettis at one point was close to losing his job but at that time he had less competition and when players started returning to good health he had corrected or improved enough. Velus as a healthy scratch needed or at least deserved that message. If Velus earns his reps back in practice then (hopefully) we'll see him again if not we'll see him next year. I don't think his role was ever going to be that of a top 3 WR for us. He'll be used in the occasional jet sweep plays, screens, and some crossing routes and they'll toss in an occasional deep ball. However, with Claypool on board there is almost no need for Velus to run deep routes. Mooney and Claypool can work those just fine and mix in something here and there for Harry or Pringle. We should just let Velus use his YAC ability on the short to intermediate routes. The catches aren't as difficult for a player with less than ideal hands and we've already seen how his speed and strength challenges defenders. In a 1on1 open field situation I like the odds with Velus to make that guy miss. We've already seen him gain 10yds on plays where it looked like we should get 5. As teams adjust to Claypool's deep threat the underneath stuff will open up even more. Add in that Fields can just as easily roll out to the weakside and defenders have a lot to watch for. I think he could do that role for us well enough to take Pettis off the field now except for the return issues.

Those people would be wise to follow golf and bypass all team sports much less trying to sort out who are good players among the 53 on an NFL roster.

First one was ~33yds. Second one was 38yds so 71yds combined. Claypool shows 13yds on stat line so he should have accounted for 84yds of "progress" for the offense. Swift has the first one here at the 5min mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9J-dJYbwgc

For the reasons mentioned above I lean toward the local Chicago media after our games. I find it's a more detailed analysis of our players and coaches versus national media. After yesterdays' game in every video I watched the Bears fans/media/ex players all said "we got our guy".

I watched NFL Network Game Day Final or whatever they call it last night and his record day barely got a mention. Most of the highlights and discussion was focused on Miami. I didn't watch ESPN. I said... "Media folks haven’t had time to digest what is happening with Fields but watch the tune change during the course of the week." I'm not surprised people are talking about it more today. They've had time to look over things. Big media shows are largely pre-canned. They have to be because so much work goes into them to match up highlights with discussion topics. They also focus on 2 things: Star players and winning teams. Justin hasn't played like a star to date and we aren't a winning team. Even if you are a star player on a losing team well then you won't get much coverage either. Sunday nights and Monday morning people scan this Fantasy Football Leaders for Wk 9 and suddenly they see Fields ranked 2nd. Then it's wait a minute, what really happened in that game against Miami? So they dig a bit deeper and it's not just the running but those passes and play fakes were really good plays. https://fantasy.espn.com/football/leaders What's good for us is that now Fields is becoming a star in the league and that always carries over to calls on the field.

His leadership is being underrated as well. He's been through some very difficult times this season and even has had to deal wiht numerous bad drops and mistakes by WRs and yet he keeps staying positive with his teammates. Compare that to Rodgers meltdowns on the field yesterday, for his own errors. Claypool has to be thinking he got lucky he's not playing with that @$$ up north. This will only help recruting FA next year. Who was the Rams Olineman who turned us down to stay in LA for same or less money? How's that working for ya?

If this was Lamar Jackson it would be headlines and highlights everywhere in NFL news. Media folks haven’t had time to digest what is happening with Fields but watch the tune change during the course of the week. Fantasy football types will lead the way because they always find TDs.

FWIW this week Getsy said he's called 7-9 QB runs every game since the beginning of the season. It's just that Justin was either changing the play based on what he saw or handing the ball off. With that we were only seeing a few "planned" QB runs. With that, I think what has changed is Justin is reading defenses better pre-snap. Seeing his comfort now on play fakes, good fakes hiding the ball and pausing as if he handed it off even when he knows a DE is unblocked is remarkable. He's just baiting them to come a little closer so it's harded to chase him down once he takes off. He's still learning but in a lot of ways the game has slowed down for him.

That's a very low bar but I have to agree. Aside from the PI miscues there were a few obvious holding calls against our pass rush that weren't flagged. I'm just going to look at the silver lining here and take that as the NFL helping us with a better draft pick. Going in I was hoping for another 30pt game from the offense and would be ok with the L. So I'm stuck owning the L. We can point to a lot of plays as always but giving up 7 on a routine blocked punt is completely unacceptable. Herbert can't completely miss on a simple block like that. Oline was just ok today for most part but run blocking wasn't the best we've seen. Braxton Jones gave up some pressures late as usual being bull rushed but it's hard to say they got their $110mil worth from Chubb when a 5th Rd rookie LT contained him for most of the game. Claypool will improve this offense quite a bit. Hopefully Pringle gets back soon because he's a more dynamic route runner than either ESB or Pettis. There is no chance I'd take Tua and all those underthrown passes over Fields in any draft. In fact the few times we did get pressure on Tua he melted down. I was impressed by their WRs but not the QB. Time will tell but they've gone all-in on Tua for the near future. Now it's time for me to get back to scouting Dline for the draft. Get an interior pass rusher or two and this game would have been a win.

Me too but his name didn't come up at all when the coaches were talking about the options. It appears he'll first have to pay his dues by earning time on special teams.

With all the trade talk taking over the week we are at Fri with no game thread for this Sun against Miami as of yet. Health-wise we are getting better. Whitehair is not only returning to the 53 but is on track to start. Jenkins struggled with some back issues earlier in the week but has had 2 full practices and is off the injury report. Borom is off concussion protocol but might not start. My guess is Reiff played well enough to keep Borom as backup since he's had just one practice. https://www.si.com/nfl/bears/news/bears-cody-whitehair-larry-borom-good-to-go Stopping the Fins WRs is going to be a problem and with us relying more on backups at LB and DE. Their running game has not been good so that at least plays into our strength in pass coverage somewhat if we can generate a pass rush. Their run defense has been good but they are bottom 5 giving up a lot of yards in pass defense.

I listened to Williams and I they were stretching his words a bit. He did confirm Sanborn will get increased reps on defense but which position isn't known. Others are getting a look there including Morrow who played that role in Oakland, and Joe Thomas. One thing that is interesting was Wiliams saying he expects we'll be playing a lot of base D (i.e. 3 LBs) in this game because Miami stays in their base offense a lot. If that holds regardless of position we'll see a lot of Sanborn who is now listed as a starter on our depth chart. Williams also said that stopping the run is job 1 for the D. Does that also mean less Vildor and more Gordon on the outside?

Smart guy, he's taking what he's got in terms of talent and running with it, literally.

I think one of the reasons our running game works so well is that our Oline are mobile blockers and we work in a fair amount of misdirection, including Fields' rollouts, jet sweeps to the backside, etc. Now they've added in Fields' runs to the strong side or the direction of the play. All that makes it harder to key off the OG initial movements as was traditionally true. I'm 100% on board with building a great running game and working the passing game off that. I just don't think what we're seeing is the traditional mauler type of run game.

I hadn't picked up on this but Eberflus intentionally called a timeout late in the Cowboys game to get Eiselen on the field.