adam

It's undefeated. Either injury or terrible season after cover.

Looks like week to week. About as good of news as you can get.

MIght as well start this one up early. Don't want to be all doom and gloom, but Bagent against PHI and NYJ defenses the next two weeks are pretty much losses. Then at 1-3 in the easiest part of the schedule projects to a 7-8 win season.

Hopefully this is an early season wake up call. Defense can still improve but looked better. I have no idea what happened to the offense, and I don't understand where all the easy quick passes were to beat the blitz. Those are typically to the TEs. Very frustrating so far, especially considering how good they looked against CAR. CAR held ATL to 3 pts this week. CLE beat TB and NO beat BAL, so anything can happen in the first month of the season.

Hamstring injury for Williams, thank god.

Loveland has 1 reception for 3 yards on the season. He had more targets and receptions last year as a rookie coming off injury and not knowing the offense. He was supposed to be the next Bowers/McBride. His lack of involvement in the passing game has been a disappointment. A week after Swift has an amazing game he fumbles on the 1-yard line. That was the difference in the game. The Bears win 10-9 with that TD. Such a terrible loss in so many ways, Williams hurt, Swift fumble, Santos blocked FG, ass play calling. At least the defense stepped up, but how can the Bears never play a complete game?

Bagent is a solid backup but with limited arm strength. Teams will stack the box and do exactly what Flores did today. Without Williams they will be lucky to win 5 games.

Season over, fu%k. Non-contact injury, probably an Achilles, can we not have nice things?

Terrible playing calling, no one making plays. Swift fumbles at goalline, refs only calling penalties on the Bears. Wild how much they have to overcome and they are only down by 3.

Windy and rainy. Looks like a bad weather game. It may not make a difference but that should favor the home team and the better rushing team, both in the Bears' favor.

I sent Mike a link using the email address you sent me to transfer the team to him. Once he accepts, he will have full control and can change the team name, etc.

The MIN defense only allowed more than 30 pts once last season. For how bad the Bears defense looked against CAR, the Bears will need to score 30 to win. Somehow MIN also scored 39 last week, so this game features the top 2 scoring teams in the NFL thru Week 1. The Bears have a clean injury report while the Vikings will be without Mason at RB, obviously Murray at QB, O'Neill, OT is questionable, and Jennings, WR is out. Ironically enough, Wentz, who will get the start, is 4-0 against the Bears in his career, 5 TD, 0 INT, but only averaged 188 yards per game. Some funny numbers for him. His last game against CHI was when he was in WAS beating the Bears in 2022 12-7 in CHI against Fields. Wentz only had 99 yards passing while Fields had 190. This is crazy, these were the QBs that Wentz faced and their Passing Yds, TD, INTs, and Sacks: Fields 190 yds, 1 TD, 1 INT, 5 Sacks Trubisky 125 yds, 0 TD, 0 INT, 3 Sacks Trubisky 147 yds, 0 TD, 2 INT, 2 Sacks Cutler 157 yds, 0 TD, 1 INT, 3 Sacks (injured) MIN only allowed 3 passers to throw for more than 250 yards against them last year. Hurts was the only one to hit 300. They did allow 200 yards rushing twice, and they were 0-4 when they allowed over 140 yards rushing. So that seems to be the key against them. Hit the right hole against the blitz and there will be no one until the 3rd level. One other note, CHI was tied with the most penalties with 12, and MIN was 31st with only 3. That is a massive disparity, and even if that corrects slightly to the mean, that should project to be about 9 for CHI and 5 for MIN. I am hoping that is closer to even. With all of that said, I am trusting the most elite unit out of the Bears and Vikings Offense and Defense. The Vikings' defense allowed 22, which pales in comparison to an offense scoring 59. So I am taking the Bears at home 27-23 in one of those close ones that will come down to the wire. I feel like Loveland will have his breakout game with the MIN blitz.

59 pts and Loveland without a catch was not on my bingo card.

Crazy game. 8 TDs, 2 per quarter. Caleb with a career high 94.9 QBR, 72.4% Comp (5th best}. Another game with 2x 100 Yard Rushers. Carolina was a top 15 defense last year and added some more players like Lloyd who was everywhere. 59 pts was the most pts allowed in Panthers history. The defense made adjustments and only allowed 7 pts from 2:45 left in the 2nd quarter to 2:15 in the 4th, basically a half of play. 12 penalties was crazy. Way too many questionable calls, but still too many overall. If they scored 59 with 12 penalties on the road against a top 15 defense, they are going to be a scary team.

I am wondering if this also has to do with Caleb's statement about taking less money? Could he have already tipped off Poles ahead of time?

https://x.com/AdamSchefter/status/2098495288893648933

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.