DABEARSDABOMB

The blocked punt and the 90+ yard drive the Bears allowed, after New England tied it, were just pathetic. The special teams was bad, but the D had a chance to get the ball back (with field position to play) and they gave up another huge play with bad angles / tackling, etc. Plus they showed zero pass rush near the end zone. The fact that this D has rarely made plays to seal games out concerns me.

Trubisky didn't play well and the Bears scored a ton of points. That is progress in and of itself. He still has a few "WTF" decision making points, but he's going through his reads and clearly making plays. This was not as good of a performance as the past two weeks, but still better than first few games Mitch. The accuracy was really bad and points and plays were left off the field. That said, the defense and special teams truly were the "turds" of the day. Defense is what it is at this point and Fangio needs to put some of this on him and get more creative with scheme, etc.

Even though we lost, Trubisky and the offenses performance (minus the turnovers) was such a positive that I leave Sunday's game with a good taste in my mouth. Why, because Mitch's growth as a QB (and positive growth at that) is the key to the LT trajectory of this franchise. This week's performance was another step in the right direction. Was he perfect, absolutely not, but I saw way more good and bad and as a whole, certainly see more and more signs that this guy could be our franchise QB. None of that means he is at that point yet or that he is a slam dunk, but he's certainly making a lot more plays these past few weeks and I agree with the above posts that Nagy's approach to development hopefully fast-tracked some of his development. I hope we keep talking about his positive trajectory all year

The bright side is, I know the defense is better than this and I'm glad if we were going to lose, it was this way vs. losing because of our offense. Nice to see Trubisky have another good game. He made some mistakes and left some plays on the field, but as a whole, putting up as many TD's as he did (and overall yards) over the past two weeks is a really nice sign. He's starting to look a lot more comfortable. Defense was pure trash and got especially tired in the 4th quarter. Fundamentals were poor but you know they are better than that. Offensively, they put up a lot of points despite leaving 2 TD's on the field (the pick after the offensive pass interference and that odd Howard fumble where he was headed into the end zone). On top of that Cohen's fumble when they were driving. And the Phins put up like 280 yards after the catch (crazy). I'm calling a win this weekend against the Pats!

Unless the Bears get absolutely blown away, I'm not trading Howard within the conference. I'm also not ready to write-off Howard. He's shown he's a very good back and he put in the work on the receiving front. I expect we'll see him get his mojo going, starting this week against Miami.

That said, I'm glad we have Mitch and that Pace made the aggressive move he did. We could debate which guy was better, but as a franchise, we needed to be bold and take our guy. I said the same thing this year when the Browns finally went bold and went all in on their QB. They didn't try to get cute and go for the value play, they took the guy they liked the best (and so far they don't look stupid for doing so). I'll also say Trubisky is the most raw out of the bunch..even having more NFL starts, the fact that he is the only one in a brand new system (with largely entirely new weapons) gives him the biggest disadvantage in terms of system consistency, etc. I'm sure we will see some more up and downs from Mitch but hopefully we start seeing more and more of the ups and his down's are manageable and become more and more scarce. Time will tell and by the end of this year we should have a better idea on what Mitch can be from a floor perspective. I think next year will be much more about what sort of ceiling might exist.

Division is up for grabs, but I've seen too many times before where Packers sputter early before taking off. Bears better keep petal to the metal the whole way!!!

Good post...agree with it.

I'll be honest...if you asked me right now, who I'd take between the top 3 QB's on your list (Mahomes / Biscuit / Watson), I would put Mahomes well above Trubisky / Watson. I could debate Trubisky / Watson for a while...I think Watson has a pretty high floor though while Trubisky I just don't know yet. I say that about Watson because while he isn't overly accurate (at times), he seems to do well against pressure, moving his feet, etc. I take Biscuit over Darnold and Allen though and most likely Mayfield. I think last years class is better than this years class with one notable exception...Rosen. I will also say that every QB has a lot of time to still develop and prove that wrong (on the good or bad side).

Great news. Hopefully Hicks learned from it and won't do it again. I also have to imagine other teams took note of this and will try and egg him on as well. He's going to have to keep a level head.

I'm not ready to jump to any conclusions on our overall team yet. The uncertainty around offense and QB is still too large. I can jump to conclusions on our defense, it will be very good, with health really being the major variable on the defensive side of the ball.

Wow. Fun fun fun. Nice for Mitch and the offense to get the monkey off the back. Hopefully this is a sign of the future!!! The crazy thing is they left points on the field still. Loved how we played more up tempo in that first half.

I presume you meant to say we wouldn't have Khalil Mack?

Nagy has said he believes Miller won't need surgery. Separately, Rappaport is reporting that Miller will not play in the Bucs game and is week to week. Probably a good thing to sit Miller, especially given we have a bye-week following. That essentially give Miller 3 weeks of rest (between when he hurt it on Sunday and when we'd play the Dolphins). This WR corps gets a lot worse without Miller out there, imo (depending on how much you buy into Miller's pre-season hype. Separately, Shaheen is supposedly doing well and everything appears to be on track for him to return around week 8 (when he is eligible to be designed for return).

By the way...I call all of the above my hot takes, more so based upon current production vs. anything else. Like I've said many times on this board, I will evaluate the season in quarters and the 1st quarter is the one where I give the offense a lot of leeway given all of the new pieces / system. After that point, I expect to see much better and more consistent progress and hopefully we will. Either way, we will be at worse, 2-2 heading into our bye week and I'll consider that (on a worse case scenario) a very good thing. Hopefully we play great against the Bucs next week and get the win and will be 3-1 heading into our bye week.

Three weeks into the season...are people really that impressed with all of our new receivers. I know everyone just assumed we had all these great weapons in Burton, Miller, Robinson, and Gabriel, but do people really think we have special weapons? I think Gabriel is probably a guy we overpaid for, but Bears were desperate for more weapons...Burton seems legit...albeit haven't seen enough to make him great....and Robinson looks good and with more consistency between him and Mitch, looks like they could be better (need to see Mitch throw him some deep balls in a place where Robinson can make a play). Miller is the guy I probably most buy into as he has flashed some really nice moves from time to time. Same with Robinson. Just pointing out that it will be interesting to see how good our wideouts actually are over time. We also need Mitch to start throwing a more accurate ball as he left some on the field the last two weeks (with Robinson and Gabriel at least). I do wonder if Gabriel is one of those guys that is easy to "miss" though given his short stature.

Any news on the severity of Miller's shoulder injury? I'm a little worried since he missed his 2014 college season due to a similar injury. Very curious why he was back on the field if he actually had separated it. That play where he re-injured it looked very innocent. I hope the Bears and Miller didn't take a 1-2 week injury and make it a season ending injury. If they did, we better hope that Wims / White have some game in them because I haven't seen a ton of out this receiving corps yet.

Probably the worse part about the Mack trade being a "year too early" as I described it, was the fact that it put a lot more pressure on Mitch. Expectations were raised and with that, people are less willing to sit back and let a QB develop. Hopefully the Bears front office and coaching staff aren't that way and focus on Mitch's development. It is the most important part of the franchise....mission critical to do everything they can to get the best out of him. Hate that we have to deal with everyone's hot take after practically every bad throw to break down what Mitch could have done better vs. just sitting back and relaxing over an extended period of time and seeing if over a longer window he proves himself and makes progress. The bright side is, if he can take steps forward, this team could be special in a year. I also am curious how "good" our weapons are. Need to see more out of Robinson (he's been solid...but not great yet...hopefully he's getting more and more confident in his leg) and need to see a lot more out of Burton, etc. Gabriel is an okay player...but nothing special (we overpaid for him as a response to how bad last years wideouts were). Hopefully Miller is okay and can make strides cause I still don't see our playmakers as having made things easier on Mitch. I really hope Shaheen ends up being able to stay on the field and actually be good. Would have been nice to have him around, especially when we are in the red zone.

Technically, with 4 people so bunched up, you can sometimes guard 2 guys with 1 player. I really didn't like that play at all. That said, its a long season and I buy this team and offense getting better.

If you've watched...only Mahomes has really lit it up. We'll see what Mayfield does in his next game. Watson continues to be bleh (another mediocre game today) and DArnold has looked absolutely awful. By the way, I'm not making judgements on any of those guys...just stating what has happened. Not a shock that young QB's can get frazzled, make more bad decisions, be slower at reading defenses at times, and less consistent (since they aren't in rhythms, etc). I'll look at the 1st 4 games for the Bears and than compare the Bears next 4 games, offensively and evaluate the progress via 4 game windows. By the half way point, we should start to see more consistency or so I'd hope. Hopefully it comes sooner and more consistent earlier...but this is still by and large a rookie year for Mitch. I'm giving him this year and next year pretty much regardless. Hopefully it doesn't come to that though and by the end of the year everyone is excited about Mitch! This is a long process and if there is one thing that gives me faith it is the fact that I think Nagy gets it and knows how to develop a QB. Fact Mahomes is lighting it up also helps me feel better (since Nagy was his primary developer).

This was a prophet post...you just didn't do the math....16 > 14...heheh.

I'm not surprised...this is a young QB in a brand new offense, that is supposedly very complex. Things take time. We still won the TOP battle again this week. While the offense hasn't produced the points or consistency it needed to...its done a good job from the TOP point.

I'll stat evaluating the offense once we hit the midway point. Right now, I'm going to let them keep working and learning. Week by week. Thankfully D stepped it up and helped them get the win. Offense has to convert more TD's in that game....if they did, we'd all be saying something different. Mitch has to become more accurate and a better decision maker.

I agree with you. Great post.

So I agree with you on the bold. To be honest what bugged me the most about Mitch was that awful throw he made near the end of the 1st half (where he threw to 2 Seattle defenders at the end zone) which should have been pick. I have zero idea what he read or saw and can't figure out what happened there. Horrendous decision. The other throw I didn't like was the one I bolded above, which was on our first drive of the game and extremely close to being a pick 6. Just struck me as way too dangerous of a throw. Outside of those two throws, I didn't have an issue with any other reads he made. His pick to Robinson was the right read just a bad throw and I think that with time, he will be fine. He's not adjusted to this offense and with that, his mechanics are out of synch a bit when he's in the pocket and that led to him throwing a bad ball there. Similarly, he made a bad throw to Gabriel...again mechanics plus a linemen impacted him...but the read was crisp and throw was the right one...just not accurate. When you see him just "play", i.e., when he gets out on the roll, etc, his footwork gets back to normal (since he isn't over-thinking...like most young QB's do) and his accuracy sharpens up. I'll believe what everyone says about his accuracy (that is it a huge asset) and thus presume that with time and him gelling in the offense and building comfort, he'll fall back to those natural good accurate tendencies. I will also say, it isn't often that Mitch makes throws like that one he made at the end of the 1st half, but if starts doing that regularly, than yes, we can start about having a Jay Cutler on our hands. I also think some of this is Nagy wants Mitch to take calculated risks and it is taking Mitch a while to get that into his head because Fox was so hard on him about not making mistakes / turnovers.