adam

Refs miss blatant hold on 4th down pass, then Njoku's heel was on the white on the TD pass. Refs impacting the game again.

Damn Edwards and now Johnson with near pick.

Damn this game is crazy with all the penalties. It feels like the Browns D Line is dominating, but the Bears defense overall looks like the best unit.

What's wild is the Bears can keep on trading back one of their firsts for more firsts. Technically, they could do it indefinitely as long as there is a trading partner.

Huge MIN loss for the Bears playoff chances. Now with a win, the Bears would only be one game back from the 6th seed.

Pocic, Browns Center also out for Sunday. They are down 3 starting OLine.

The Bears have a clear advantage over the Browns over the last month of play. These trends are pretty solid and are good predictors when the tier separation is that big:

Since Week 5, the Bears are clumped together in a group of teams between 5th and 10th. 1. SF 2. DAL 3. BAL 4. MIA 5. CIN 6. MIN 7. BUF 8. CHI 9. KC 10. NO The top 14 are normally playoff teams. That 0-4 start really hurt. The Bears have the worst record of that group.

Since Week 5, the Bears defense is as a Top 2 rushing defense and top 12 passing defense. Collectively, that equates to a top 5 defense.

Since Week 4, Fields is comparable to Prescott, Allen, Hurts, Cousins, Tua, Burrow, and Wilson when it comes to Advanced Stats (EPA/Play and CPOE), which are probably the best QB metrics. Purdy is in a league of his own.

This week has a tone of interesting games that can help/hurt the Bears playoff chances and/or draft position. 7 games have a team that can impact both the draft and playoff chances. MIN @ CIN - A CIN win helps the Bears playoff chances (MIN goes to 8 losses) and draft position (lowers SoS). DEN @ DET - A DEN win helps draft position (lowers SoS) and slightly helps playoff chances (If DET loses out). ATL @ CAR - This one is either or. A CAR win helps playoffs (ATL goes to 8 losses), but hurts draft slightly (1 win closer to NE/ARZ). An ATL win solidifies the #1 pick. TB @ GB - A TB win helps the Bears playoff chances (GB foes to 8 losses) and slightly for draft position (SoS). NYJ @ MIA - A NYJ win would help the Bears pick (NYJ goes to 6 wins). NYG @ NO - A NYG win helps both playoff chances (NYG goes to 6 wins) and the Bears pick. HOU @ TEN - A TEN win helps the Bears pick (TEN goes to 6 wins). KC @ NE - A NE solidifies #1 pick and brings NE one win closer to Bears win total (if Bears lose). SF @ ARZ - An ARZ win helps solidify the #1 pick and brings ARZ one win closer to Bears win total (if Bears lose). WAS @ LAR - A WAS win would help both the draft position and playoff chances (LAR goes to 8 losses). PHI @ SEA - A PHI win helps the Bears playoff chances (SEA goes to 8 losses).

He's not fired yet, but after that embarrassing performance, it is impossible that he survives this season. The best part from last night, they interviewed him coming off the field at halftime:

It actually helps the Bears playoff chances a little bit because it improves the Strength of Victory, which is one of the tie breakers.

Yeah that was debunked as fake by JJ himself on the Score. He is going to get a top 5 CB contract when it occurs. Poles needs to do it sooner than later as his price is going up. He is the #1 rated CB on PFF.

Oh no, his last play was when he got rolled up by Edmunds.

So I am thinking wanting a 4K season is a stretch for Fields with the low volume. So would something in between Jackson and Hurts be a more realistic target? Lamar Jackson's highest passing yardage (Season - 3,127 yds), highest per game average (225.7 y/g). Jalen Hurts' highest passing yardage (Season - 3,701 yds), highest per game average (246.7 y/g). So 3,414 yds for the season is the halfway point between Jackson's best season and Hurts'? To get there, Fields would need to average 201 yds per game, which ironically is the exact number is averaging this season, lol. However, he needs to play 17 to hit that. So more realistically, 228 yds (for 15 games) to hit that. Thoughts?

One huge factor to consider with JF1s numbers that is beyond Fields control (mostly) is in the number of passing attempts he has per game. He averages a solid 7.1 Y/A for this season (last 2) and 7.0 for his career. In order to have a 300 yard passing game with that number, he would need to 43 attempts in a game. There is just one problem. HE HAS NEVER ATTEMPTED 40 PASSES IN A GAME IN HIS CAREER! OK, so maybe 300 yards per game is too much? How about we want him to be the first franchise 4K Passer? If he plays every game, he would need 235 yards per game. Easy right? Well.......... He would need to attempt 34 passes, every game, to surpass 235 a game to get to 4K (if he played in every game too). So how many times has Justin attempted 34 or more passes? 4 times! Once in 2021 and 3 times this season, but that's it, 4 times in his 36 starts. He is averaging 28 attempts per game this season, with 7.1 Y/A = 201 yds per game. So just to get to 235, he needs 6 per attempts per game, to hit 300, he would need 15 more than he has right now. Just based on the number of plays run, it is really hard for him to have a 300 yard game. He would need a super high Y/A or super high comp pct%.

Bears lost Yannick, but Browns have lost Okoronkwo (DE), Delpit (S), D. Jones (RT), Hurst (DT), in addition to already had lost Watson, Chubb, Conklin, Wills, and McLeod. For PFF, Chubb was their #1 offensive player at 81.6, Conklin was 74.5, Watson was 67.3, D. Jones was 64.7, and Wills 54.0. On defense, Hurst was #2 at 81.0, Delpit was 70.0, Okoronkwo 66.1, and McLeod was 54.1. That's basically 7 starters out of 22. The Bears will be playing 1/3 of Browns backups, and with their top 2 OTs only having 372 and 304 snaps on the season with PFF grades of 48.4 and 38.5. In comparison, Wright has 864 snaps and Jones has 461, and even Borom has 408.

Tough loss, but I believe DomRob should be coming back soon. He has yet to play with Sweat. Ngakoue has the 3rd highest # of snaps out of Edge rushers the last 2 weeks, behind Sweat and Walker. PFF hated Ngaokoue, he only had a 39.9 PFF Grade, which is basically tackling dummy level. His tackling was the worst on the team, Rush Def was bottom 2, and even Pass Rush was under average.

One other thing I noticed, Justin doesn't seem to have that 4th gear this year where he runs away from defenders. I wonder if he is just saving energy or if it is something else. He is still as fast as hell, he is just no longer showing up on the fastest ball carrier page on Next Gen Stats. He was all over it last year.

The Bears are not facing Watson, there is now enough tape on Flacco in this offense to start to shut him down, he is old for an NFL QB, and was bad before. With a lot of 2nd stringers on the O-Line, the front-4 should be able to get some pressures. Bears by at least 10. I am thinking our Defense continues its turnover trend and gets 2 more INTs against Flacco. The Bears are now 2nd in INTs (15), only to SF (17), and are no longer last in sacks (thanks CAR).

After seeing Jalen Carter play at an All-Pro level, it is nice to have Wright playing at such a high level AND we have Roschon.

Cleveland just lost their top DT for the season, so who knows how their defense will look like without him. He was the 2nd highest graded defender on PFF.

I thought the same thing. 1 game out of the playoffs and the #5 pick, talk about hedging our bets. The Giants are the next closest at 1 game out and #8.

Love was throwing off his back foot, floating backwards on several clean pockets, almost like he was in practice. Two balls were just lofted up like there were no defenders there. A lot of throws were to wide open receivers or to those that were in place. For most of the game his Y/A was under 5, and if not for some lucky deep balls, he would have one of the lowest Y/A in the league.