adam

Another interesting nugget, Jordan Love has been the benefactor of 5 DPI calls for a whopping 163 yards. The next closest QB is Lawrence at 5-112, then Howell for 5-83. In comparison, Fields only has 1-10 yds. Insane how bad the refs are against the Bears. No DPI calls on the other team (Mooney), and a lot missed roughing the passer calls on Fields.

On a side note, Minnesota was something like 11-1 in one score games last year (will have to check that), and this year, all their games have been decided by 8 pts or less, and they are 1-4 with their only win coming against Carolina where they were losing by 6 and got a defensive TD and Jefferson TD to win it. In that win Jefferson had both offensive TDs (2). Jefferson makes up over a 1/3 of their passing yards and a 1/4 of their passing TDs. So that is a huge chunk of the offense from a surefire HoFer (and maybe a top 5 WR of all-time). Addison and Osborn are 3 to 4 tiers lower than him. So the biggest threat is Hockenson. The Bears need to bracket him and force Cousins to go somewhere else. I feel pretty good about this game, and if the Bears can't beat the Vikings without Jefferson, then the last win was more of a fluke than anything. Minnesota is 0-4 when they allow 20 or more pts, and 1-0 when then hold a team to under 20. Their offense has scored at least 17 in every game, but never more than 28. To me, that range should be lowered without Jefferson, to something like 13-24. So 17 feels about right for Minnesota. The Bears should score at least 24 as the offense is humming right now. So 27-17 feels good. Mattison has been ok, if not just meh as an RB. His long is 17 yards, which is the longest rush for the team. The Bears have 3 players with runs of 20+. Weather looks like it is going to be a huge factor. Mid 50s with rain and winds between 15-25 mph. So long FGs will not be possible. Foreman is going to get a lot of touches.

Fields used to have a bunch of these games, now his worst games are not as terrible as they used to be. That tells me his floor is rising, which is promising. Here are the 10 worst QBR games this season, so far. 10 Worst Games (QBR) Mac Jones - 7.0 Jordan Love - 7.8 Aidan O'Connell - 8.3 Daniel Jones - 8.6 Desmond Ridder - 9.2 Joshua Dobbs - 9.4 Russell Wilson - 10.1 Lamar Jackson - 12.3 Jordan Love - 13.0 Ryan Tannehill - 13.3 Fields has 3 games between the 23rd and 32nd worst (ironically, his first 3 games), but no longer any in the bottom 20. Funny to see Jordan Love on their twice, and the difference for him compared to Fields is his last two games have been the terrible ones. Normally it is understandable that an offense or QB struggles in the first few weeks, due to the lack of game reps from the preseason. In Fields' 3 bad games, he had 3 TDs and 4 INTs. In Love's 2 terrible games, he has 1 TD and 5 INT. So you can see the floor difference there too. If you want to talk ceiling, they both have 2 games over 70 QBR, Fields had 8 TD and 1 INT in those 2 games, and Love had 6 TD and 0 INT. So their ceilings are pretty comparable at this time. The Bears seemed to have dodged two bullets, one, by not selecting Mac Jones. The other, not trading for Wussell Rilson, he has been so bad, I purposely spelled his name wrong. If he didn't have garbage time stats, he would have no stats. He had like 39 yards passing until the last drive of the game, and he also got a TD. Before that drive, he had the lowest QBR game in the last few years.

Oh man, I totally forgot about him (I was trying to forget him). I was adding to @BearFan PHX comment about the O-Line improvement that the entire offense is better and it is tangible.

There are 3 independent variables, how Fields performs, how Williams performs, and if the Bears get the #1 pick or not. Now obviously there are additional ones like where their first pick is if not 1st, and where the 2nd first ends up. However, it seems to be 8 basic combinations of outcomes, so I tried to attach my best guess to what the Bears would do with the attached image. Williams is drafted if he is the consensus #1 by a long shot and the Bears have the #1 pick, regardless of what Fields does. I think the Bears would attempt to trade for Williams even if they don't have the #1 if the team with the 1st pick is willing to trade (doubtful). Fields is traded in half the outcomes, in the other half, he is only kept long-term in 2 of them, and in the other 2, the Bears draft another QB high (#1 pick not available), keep Fields for one more year, then more than likely move on. So generically, 50% chance that Fields is traded, 25% chance he is retained long-term, and 25% he is kept only as a bridge QB. The scary ones are if Fields struggles and Williams looks shaky and is not the consensus. Then it becomes a Mahomes/Watson/Trubisky draft all over again.

This team's offense was dead last in every category last year. Considering the only new players are Moore, Wright, and Davis, this jump is pretty impressive thru 5 weeks: Offense Yards - 13th Passing Yds - 16th TD% - 1st Y/C - 4th Sack% - 30th (one thing that will need to improve) Rushing Yds - 8th Rushing Y/A - 4th Also note, Fields had only 99 yards passing against KC. so that kills the averages and overall numbers. If he had a normal game around 210 yards or something like that, the Bears offense would be top 10 in yards, and top 12 in Passing yards. On a per game basis, without the KC game, the Bears passing offense goes from 228 to 261 per game which is good for 9th (ahead of SF, JAX, DET, and PHI).

LMAO you are correct. The link I used directed me to the 2022 stats (huge difference). They blitz the most, 56.5% of the time, but they are 21st in pressure% at 21.4%. So that is not a very efficient. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2023/opp.htm

My belief is if the Bears have the 1st overall pick, the only way they don't select Williams is if Fields literally keeps these last two games going as his norm and not an anomaly. Essentially, he would have to finish the year with 4K yards, 35+ TDs, less than 15 INTs with a few rushing TDs, a QB Rating over 100 and a QBR over 65. That is where you get into top 5 QB range and are willing to pay him that amount in a year. He showed he can do it consistently. Otherwise, he is just an overpaid project QB that still needs to improve going into his 4th year. So at that point you might as well draft Williams and have the same project with 3 additional years on the rookie deal. Also, Poles didn't draft Fields, so unless he truly balls out and gets close to Lamar, Allen, Hurts level, they will draft Williams if they have the 1st pick. If they don't and Williams goes elsewhere, I think they stick with Fields as long as he has more good games than bad.

The Vikings actually don't blitz (18.8% - 24th) or get much pressure (19.5% - 23rd). Washington blitzes more and gets more pressure than Minnesota.

Jordan Love is terrible. Gotta love to see it. 5 INTs in last two games, including a game ender. Fields better in every conceivable way.

This game is going to come down to injuries. There is a chance that Jefferson doesn't play. If that is the case, the Bears will only have to worry about Hockenson and Addison. Jefferson is such a huge percentage of their offense that it will be hard to imagine what they look like without him. Vikings come off a deflating loss to KC where they probably should've won. Bears are coming in brimming with confidence. Bears are home dogs, that should be enough motivation to win. If Jefferson plays, the Vikings will probably win, probably something like 27-24. If he doesn't play, I think it will flip and go 27-17 Bears.

I agree that he has to show this for the rest of the season, and not have this just be bad defenses being bad. It will hard for the Bears not to draft a QB, especially if they are in the top 3. If they have #1, I don't think anything less than him playing at an MVP level will stop them from drafting a QB.

He just has to work on his pad level and get off. Once those improve, he is going to be a beast.

Herbert out for a few weeks. Bears sign Evans from Miami's PS. Hopefully Roschon won't miss time with concussion, but he may miss at least the next one. So Foreman is going to show his value now.

You may be mixing up games, he had 16 in a row against Denver. He only had 15 completions against Washington. He still has some work to do, but several of his incompletions were throw aways, something I know I have been asking him to do instead of taking a sack. So I am not too worried about completion % because that is significantly impacted by the difficulty of the target. Mac Jones had a great comp% but most throws were under 5 yards. Overall I think he has taken the Year 3 step like the Allen and Hurts did, Fields just took a few extra games. Now the trick is to have this be a sustained step. He won't throw 4 TDs every game, but 2 per game should be his new norm.

The official who threw the flag was even blocked by a defender, there was no way he could know if he stepped out or not. That was super fishy. Also, that defender actually ran out of bounds and back in on his own (which I thought was a penalty). They also didn't even spot the ball right. They put it on the 31 but Moore didn't step on the 31. The foot in question was just past the 29 (inside the 30), so they were literally at least a yard off if that is where they called him out. I still don't understand the call.

Being small is going to cause him to not be healthy. He can't even do QB sneaks because he is too small. I've never heard or seen that before. He is a high IQ player, but I don't know if that is enough in the NFL to survive when you're that small. Maybe he becomes the next Brees, but odds are against him.

Jenkins played awesome. Davis now with a few games under his belt, he has been really solid. Wright is getting better every game. So the only weakness is LT and Borom, so that is the only side Fields needs to be concerned about.

Yeah, I would not have traded up for Young. He might now how to read defenses, but he is just too small for today's monsters. and to think they gave the Bears Moore and a 1st and a 2nd. Right now Moore is playing better than any 1st round WR would be. I can't even imagine what the team would look like without Moore.

Fields QBR up to 44.9, now 26th. A couple of more games like the last two and he will leap into the top 15. He now has a 95.4 QB Rating (14th). PFF Grade: 74.4 which is between Herbert and Cousins which is 12th in qualified starters DVOA hasn't updated yet, but he should get a huge bump there too. Right now Fields has a higher passer rating 95.4 to 92.4, PFF Grade 74.4 to 72.9 over Jalen Hurts. Fields has 11 passing TDs to Hurts 5 (thru 4 games).

I doubt that is real. If Williams has a chance to go #1 and goes back to school for NIL, he risks injury before cashing in on a lot more guaranteed money. He is going #1 to whoever has that pick. KC, BUF, MIA, and PHI are probably the only teams that wouldn't pick him if they had the #1 pick. Every other team would and should.

I am glad this is over, what a mess.

The wild thing is the QBs he has played for. Most of the other elite WRs have a had good to great QBs throwing them the ball. Jefferson is great, but how much worse would he have been on Carolina with 10 different QBs. The Bears are actually lucky that Moore's stats were suppressed in Carolina, because WR1s are hard to find. If the Bears played like they did last night in their previous games, they are probably 4-1 and would've given KC a run for their money. Now they need to take the next step and make halftime adjustments. I want Fields to close out a few more games and have some successful 2 minute drills.

Bears still have the 1st 2 picks, now the Carolina pick is #1, Bears pick is #2.

The Bears played a quarter without any RBs. That's wild.