adam

the grades were ridiculous, 8 teams had C+ or lower, with a bunch of F's. It made no sense.

The offense will be better this year, I am assuming at least 3+ pts per game more, if not higher. At worst, I see the defense being about the same as last year, less takeaways, but fewer yards allowed, which will equate to similar pts allowed results. There seems to be a theme that the defense got considerably worse, and that is just not true. Brisker was serviceable, no different than Woods. Thieneman doesn't have the vet savvy as Byard but he will close the gaps a lot faster cutting down on those little extra yards that add up. Bush is a massive upgrade over Edmunds who never lived up to his physical stature. van den Berg is more disruptive than Dexter and will also help cut down on those hidden yards. Gordon barely played last year and when he did, he was solid but not great. McCloud played more and was terrible. Lewis may not be Gordon, but he is better than McCloud. Jarrett played hurt all year long, he is healthy and will be better. Sweat and Edwards are always solid, Jackson has played great, so the only real question mark is DE2 with Booker/Odeyingbo. If either are just league average, the defense will be fine imo. PFF Grades from last year: Byard 74.2 > Thieneman 65.5 (slight downgrade) Edmunds 66.5 > Bush 87.6 (huge upgrade) Wright 65.1 > Johnson 76.2 (upgrade) Brisker 60.5 > Woods 65.5 (wash) Dexter 57.6 > van den Berg 74.9 (Preseason) Gordon 59.2 > Lewis 57.4 (wash from Gordon last year). McCloud had a 49.9 grade. (upgrade from McCloud) Jarrett hurt > Jarrett healthy (slight upgrade)

btw, Bears -2.5 is a great bet.

Damn, your team did pretty good, Bijan, London, WIlson, Bowers, Tet, and Loveland is going to win you a lot of games.

Very true, with Raymond, Thomas, and Walker plus Loveland, Kmet, and Roush, there are a lot of mouths to feed. Raymond was buried on the depth chart, but when given the chance, he answered the bell. 80% Catch Rate and +0.54 EPA/Target last year would've been the best on the Bears, right ahead of Burden 78.3% and +0.46 EPA/T. Loveland at 70.7% and +0.55 EPA/T. Compare that to Odunze at 48.9% and +0.15 EPA/T. Moore had a slightly better Catch Rate than Odunze, but the lowest EPA/T out of the starting group 58.8% and +0.10. OZ was 60% and a terrible -0.12 EPA/T. So if Moore's and OZ's targets go to Burden, Loveland, and Raymond, the efficiency of the offense is going to go thru the roof. Not including Thomas or Roush.

Now the question is Odunze.

The regular season is upon us with games starting on Wednesday. So we get a few games before the Bears play. Hoping for good news later in the week on the injury front. The Bears need to handle business this weekend. CAR has no business being in this game. Last year they failed to score 20 pts in 10 out of 17 games. 6 out of 8 wins were by 3 pts, and 6 of 9 losses were by 10 or more. They were either getting beat bad or barely winning. That is a recipe for disaster. If the Division wasn't so bad, they would've been a 5-6 win team. Even with injuries, I think the Bears win handily 27-16.

My assumption is Gordon wants to feel 100% before returning and probably stops the minute he feels something. Until he gets over that mental hurdle, he is going to be stuck in this loop. At this point, I don't even consider him part of the team anymore. If he comes back and contributes, cool, but I am not betting on it. Trapilo had a traumatic injury and recovery and is out there months ahead of schedule, and Gordon can suit up because of soft tissue without a surgery to recover from?

I never understood how on one side of the coin, they say it takes time to get to know a system and your teammates (seems totally logical), but then they can trade for a player at the deadline who immediately contributes. What that tells me is individual skills still rule them all. If a guy is struggling because "he is still learning the system" then he probably is not very good to begin with.

No problemo!

If the Bears were to work out a trade, they would almost certainly need to include a player and the new player would have to get immediately restructured. To me, I think there is less of a chance something is done before the season. If anything happens, I think it would be at the trade deadline where the cap hit this year can be absorbed.

No, they were technically "over the cap". These moves get them under by about $5M which is typically the operating window for the year.

Once a player gets designated with that designation, and Yahoo catches up (sometimes a day or two later), you will have an option to select IR as one of you roster spots, freeing up a spot for another player. Once the player comes off designation, you won't be able to make any other transactions (free agent or waiver wire) until that players is moved back to one of the active spots and your roster is not over the player limit. Injuries have impacted the league so much over the years that we now have 3x IR slots, so you don't have to worry about losing a player to injury, dropping them, then losing them because of injury. The crazy part is we have had GMs lose 5-6 players and they still had to either carry them on their bench or drop them. So 3 was the sweep spot. The IR slot only works if the player carries that designation in the system.

Yeah, I forgot players from external teams can't be announced until today. So they will be on there, plus a few more.

Looks like with Christian Jones and Zavier Scott signing from external teams, there is at least one odd man out on the original 11-resignings. Could also be someone else going on IR and opening up a roster spot.

PS signings (looks like 13 names, but only 12 slots, someone is not making it or changed their minds): OL Caden Barnett OL Kyle Hergel WR Kaden Davis WR Scotty Miller WR J.P Richardson TE Stephen Carlson RB Salvon Ahmed RB Zavier Scott (from MIN) DE Marcus Davenport LB Wayne Matthews DB Deantre Prince DB Marlen Sewell OT Christian Jones (from ARZ) Lynch and Sanborn also resigned and should go back on the 53-man roster.

The Bears are one of a few teams that have hit on the waiver wire. Last year it was D'Marco Jackson. It's one thing to hit on a UDFA, but a waiver wire one is rarer. Now if Poles could just draft better and stop trying to be the smartest guy in the room. The draft day video of Poles smoking and joking about how the broadcast doesn't have video on Hyppolite is damning. He really thought he was outsmarting the league and now he looks like the idiot. It is one thing to take a guy later than his projected ADP, that shows value, and in some cases patience. Reaching for guys has rarely, if ever, worked out. Burden was drafted later, looks like that will work out. Same for Monangai, same for van den Berg. Those are value picks with the traits you like. Reaching for those guys rarely works. Velus Jones, Amegadjie, Hyppolite, Taylor, just to name a few. Pickens felt like a reach too, but maybe not as much. I really hope he changes his draft approach with Ben Johnson now influencing those picks.

Is there any cap savings? Phillips carries a $3.8M cap hit for this season, Dexter was $2.1M. Since ATL is only on the hook for this year's bonus, it looks like the Bears would take on the other $3.6M. Dexter actually has a bigger bonus ($472K), so it looks like the Bears will need $2M in cap space with this move.

Since the Bears traded a 5th for Bradbury, this trade basically becomes Bradbury + Phillips for Dexter.

They must really feel comfortable with van den Berg. Also, they are still waiting for Dexter to move after the snap.

I am surprised the Bears only got a 5th for him. Feels like Poles got fleeced by his understudy. Dexter was a former 2nd round pick, and was only 24 years old. The Falcons added a player they were going to cut anyway.

They can go from one play with a 4-WR set with that speed, then come back to 13-personnel with Loveland, Kmet, and Roush.

Yeah, any injury to Caleb would basically derail the season. Bagent provides the best insurance policy on the market.

https://www.leaguesafe.com/league/4449746 Should be a [Pay In] button, click that At the bottom, there is an option that says "+Pay for another owner", select that, then select Mike's name from the drop down Put the amount in the field, then continue to secure payment

I slide the draft to Monday night, the 7th at 7pm Central. For Keepers, any Keepers for Chad or "My Team Sucks"?