DABEARSDABOMB

Mooney is the only one I debate on. I like Mooney a lot, but it all depends on what he wants to get paid, because if the Bears have a young QB, I would almost prefer just spending money on another elite wideout (Higgins or whatever) and than having those 2, Scott and draft another guy and than add a TE. You can afford it during that window. I don't love paying Mooney 12M per season given what we have seen (and I'm a HUGE Mooney fan). Johnson - if he shows he can stay healthy - I think he's worth it. And Billings is playing good and shouldn't cost a ton so extending him a couple years makes total sense. Just a solid glue guy.

My son and I will be there. Will be our 2nd game of the season (after no games in a few years). Got to take my kids for a quick last minute trip to Chicago for the Bears vs. Broncos game (was a great experience and I had forgotten just how beautiful the city was). My wife decided that she wanted my kids first football game to be at Soldier Field (to which a few hours later I said - guess what, Southwest has a special and I booked us all a flight :). Hoping at the very least we see some real good offensive play and would be great to see a continued trend of strong and improving defense. In particular - they just seem hungry and fast to the ball, despite lacking talent on the line, in particular the edges. But I have loved the growth since Eberflus has taken over. I go back to - I like Flus a TON as a DC.

Lets not forget Alex Smith was the #1 overall draft pick. The dude was an extremely talented athlete. But all that aside - I would love if it Bagent turned into that. If he did - than on the rookie deal you could really put a lot of talent around him and be really good. I'm on record as stating I want to draft a QB next year (unless one of Bagent / Fields goes off). But I'm also on record as stating I want real competition. I don't want the rookie being handed the job. I want him having to battle and beat out Fields and Bagent. That is going to push him and make him better. Quite frankly I think it will make the entire QB room better and in the long-run my gut is it allows the rookie QB to get pushed and actually get time to develop, it probably also allows one of Fields / Bagent to show value to others and buy us an asset. Likely means Fields is traded, Bagent stays as a very good back-up and the rookie eventually takes the job and you are in a great spot cap wise.

My hope is that Fields maybe benefits from watching Bagent a bit and learns from him. Fields is such a special talent, would be stellar to see him improve in his tempo / quick reads.

That was Pace.

I would hope he missed no more than 4 weeks, ideally 2-3 weeks. That would allow you to ultimately get 13-14 games (*fingers crossed*) and ideally he is healthy in those games. I actually want to see - how does having 2 real good games, than the partial game, followed by 2-3 weeks off to just watch from the sideline, how do you than respond when you come back in and go through the final 7-8 games. Whatever they do - don't rush him back - get it to where you are confident in his ability to go out and showcase himself to the best extent he can. Worse case hopefully November 19th vs. the Lions is when he is back. That would have him missing 4 games - including the Thursday night game against the Panthers. You than have the long week to get back into it against the Lions.

If you go rookie contract - than I think paying Tee Higgins and an Edge (and potentially a Center) would be wise choices. Than you go QB, grab another TE (maybe even a generational type of talent in Brockers), Oline and more edge / safety help.

If we have a top 2 pick - they need to pick a QB (unless one of Bagent/Fields balls out). With that said - I don't want to just ship out our existing QB's. I think competition is good and I also think if they are going to move on from Eberflus, it would be the time to go get a big name coach. Whether Harbaugh or Riley or Day from college or going out and making a push for a very strong offensive mind to partner. I prefer someone with the credibility because I really want to see the Bears for once try to put more pressure and create a real competition for the QB's. I think Fields would benefit from it as would the young QB. And I think they have enough chips to make the rest of the team good. Than see what happens from there. But I really think the competition and all of those things would be very good and I don't mind having the top pick sit a bit and actually have to go out and earn it. Brady has talked a lot about how he didn't know if he would have been the same player had he not had to go earn and win the job.

I don't think you pick up the option. He plays next year without the option and than you either franchise him or extend him. Franchise and trade is the right way vs. locking yourself into the 5th year option out of the gate. Very few scenarios at this point (unfortunately) where I could see the Bears electing that 5th year option (given that you have to do it this off-season and it seems likely he won't have shown enough on tape this year, in particular due to injury for you to make that bet). Reality is Giants made massive mistake NOT electing franchise option with Daniel Jones just so they could get one more year of data before making a big guaranteed money decision.

Some rumblings Fields played his last game as a bear. Hoping this isn’t true cause he showed enough flashes that I wanted to see whether we saw real progress over remainder of season. I still say - if Fields missed year, draft a qb but make that guy win the job from Fields. Don’t just hand it to the new guy - let him sit, learn and compete for the job. See what Fields does and than see if you can turn it into a Brees / Rivers situation.

I think Riley is headed to nfl after this year. Harbaugh too. I think this is the year both of them make the jump.

I am hoping this is him missing 2-3 weeks at max and he can come back pretty healthy from there on out. Finish strong and make the Bears decision more interesting / give Poles more options.

I will state again - I know there was no Justin Jefferson, but the defense played well yesterday. The DB's were swarming, the tackling was clean. Pass rush was still meh, but that is a talent issue. Overall though that is 2 straight games where the defense has looked very different (to the good). Offensively - it was just too conservative of a game plan with Fields in there. Saw a lot more of what we saw first few weeks, a lot of kind of quick plays or intended quick plays, not a lot down the field, despite the fact that they are bringing heat. That said - against a team as aggressive of Flores, you got to beat them on the hot reads etc. Justin hasn't shown that he can do that enough. With that said - 2 out of 3 really good weeks is still momentum. I would NOT rush him back, let him miss 1-2 weeks, continue to work on film study, etc, and get him back closer to 100% for the final half of the season. Lets see what it looks like from there. I would rather that than we rush him back, he plays hurt, is less effective.

Stellar game.

Getsy play calling left a lot to be desired today.

I am hoping we put up another 30+. Could care less what the defense does and whether we win or lose - want to see the offense keep rolling and young players get better and guys stay healthy. If we win - great, if we lose - than that could be a huge loss relative to the draft position battle (since Vikings are clearly headed into tank mode so getting them a 2nd win could be huge as Vikings, Panthers, and Patriots look like the 3 worst teams in the league.

Young is small but if he stays healthy he is going to be quite good. Very good intangibles etc.

One thing is - Fields had such bad talent at wideout / skill positions for 2 years, did it really take him time to actually realize - now that I have weapons, I can actually throw them open, but he was so ingrained in his mind not to do it, because for 2 years it didn't really work, because his guys couldn't get open (I mean the wideout corps were horrific last year and the year before).

I won’t be surprised to see Claypool do wellin Miami and he probably can thank Bears for sending this message. If it doesn’t work than he is toast. Unfortunate cause this was a big miss, but I have zero issue dumping him.

Yep - big miss.

There is no way he stepped out. Why was there no replay shown by Amazon. But that was fun. Still not a complete game and I want to see more wideouts involved but Fields looks like he has so much more confidence and tempo. And he has Moore who can get open and Fields still missed on a few open throws - a couple to Darnell and one td to Moore. Crazy fun. They should be healthier coming out of bye week - with Eddie Jackson and Gordon set to come back and Jenkins should be healthier. I think Jaylon Johnson is back too and hopefully Roschon and Herbert are ok and ready to go next week.

I thought he looked great yesterday and there were a few throws that fields just missed an open Mooney and Mooney had a td ball he probably wishes he had back.

Peter King speculated mentioned he wouldn’t be shocked if Bears moved on from Flus if they lose this one. While I don’t believe it - King doesn’t just say stuff. I don’t know what they do in that scenario - but - if Flus has lost the lockeroom (and I don’t yet get that vibe but maybe he has), I still don’t know who and what you can do. If you lose Flus - you now have no DC and no HC - so you are going to be super short……… Unless McCaskey calls in a favor and hires Lovie Smith who brings his old friend Marinelli in. Getsy and everyone else stays in their roles - but lovie brings clout and respect to the situation and Marinelli can call the D. More than anything you get two highly respected leaders of men - not saying they are long term fits - but to be honest - we have had worse coaches than Lovie. But they both know this defense so from an adjustment perspective it might just work. I also can’t ever remember a team firing a coach and hiring an interim coach from outside so this would clearly be unprecedented.

I feel like zone has consistently killed recent Bears QB's. Trubisky always struggled with zone - Fields is the same. Cutler was never great against it either. Inverse was Trubisky was usually pretty solid when teams played more man defense. Made it easier for him to see and throw people open. The inverse is - I feel like Bears defense is awful when we play zone and good QB's torch us - because they know the soft spots in the zone and just torch you for it. But a lot of nuances in disguising it, etc. But Rodgers would just torch us in zone.

The Bears are not going to shut down Jones with half the season left. They need to see whether he is a transcending player or if he's just a meh LT. The only way he's shut down is if his injury is really serious. I thought the reports were it was more of a stinger type of injury, but was multiple weeks - but I thought expectation was he'd be back close to the 4 week IR window.