adam

Interesting that Flus is the 3rd best bet to win COTY:

If Watson doesn't play and the Bears don't win, it is going to be a long season.

Lamar Jackson averages 174 yds per game for his career. The last two seasons, he had 16 TDs and 17 TDs. Last season Hurts threw 16 TDs. Allen threw 20 in his 2nd season. Fields threw 17 last season. He is right there with all these other mobile QBs.

That would be awesome.

Interestingly enough, Fields was 4th from last for "Time to Throw" in the NFL last year, exactly the same as Lamar was in 2019, 4th from last for TT. In 2018, the last 4 QBs were Josh Allen, Jackson, Wilson, and Watson. In 2020, Jalen Hurts was last, Allen 3rd from last, Jackson 4th, and Wilson 5th In 2021, Hurts was last again, Fields 7th, Jackson 5th, Allen 8th. Last year Watson was last, Fields was 4th, Jackson 5th, and Wilson 7th. So mobile QBs in general will hold the ball longer. I totally agree on taking sacks, throwing the ball away behind the LOS, and reducing fumbles and turnovers in general.

So when you look at Fields career stats, they look terrible, historically bad from a passing perspective for a QB that has played in as many games as he has in his first two years. However, he had a 10-game stretch last season (decent sample size) which I think is his floor going into this year. That stretch was Week 4 to Week 14 last year, 10 games in a row that he played in. He only had one game below 50 yards rushing (47) and one game below 150 yards passing (123). Here are his totals: 147-229, 1751 yds, 64.2%, 13 TD, 6 INT, 116-905, 7 TD If you take those numbers, compute the per game average, then apply it to a full 17-game season, he would end up with: Passing: 250-389, 64.2%, 2977 yds, 22 TD, 10 INT, Rushing: 197-1540 yds, 12 TD His passing yards would jump 700, his Comp% up 4%, TDs would be up 5, INTs would be down 1, and his rushing numbers would be redonkulous! 1540 rushing yards (400 more than he had), and 4 more rushing TDs. So in total, 9 more TDs! This is with the skeleton crew they were rolling out with him every week against good defenses. Here is the gauntlet he went thru: NYG 9-7-1, MIN 13-4, WAS 8-8-1, NE 8-9, DAL 12-5, MIA 9-8, DET 9-8, ATL 7-10, GB 8-9, PHI 14-3 The worst team were the Falcons at 7-10, every other team had 8 or wins. There were 12 teams other than the Bears to win 7 or fewer games last year. Fields only played 1 of them in this stretch. That is pretty remarkable. I really think people are underestimating Fields and the bar for passing is too low. I am thinking he will be in the 200s for passing yards every game, and probably over 50 yards rushing. That would put him over 3300 passing yards and 950 rushing depending on if he plays 16 or 17 games. There has only been one player in NFL history to hit 3K/1K, that was Lamar in his MVP season. The next closest were (over 3K/800): 2. Cunningham - 1990 - 3466 passing, 30 TD, 942 rushing, 5 TD (MVP-2, OPOY-2, PB) 3. Wilson - 2014 - 3475 passing, 20 TD, 849 rushing, 5 TD (PB) 4. Murray - 2020 - 3971 passing, 26 TD, 819 rushing, 11 TD (PB) 5. Griffin III - 2012 - 3200 passing, 815 rushing (his rookie year, OROY, PB) What I find interesting is that Kyler Murray had 37 TDs that in 2020 and didn't sniff an MVP vote with almost 4800 combined passing and rushing yards. That was a really impressive season. There have only been 33 times where a QB threw for more than 4800 yards, so Kyler's season is a top 50 of all time. In Lamar's MVP season, he had a combined 4333 yards and 43 total TDs. So Murray had almost 500 more yards and 6 fewer TDs. With an improved offense and defense, I really feel like Fields is set for an amazing season, and will probably be the first 3200/1000 player in NFL history.

1st TD, who you got? I feel like the highest probability is one of the RBs (Herbert or Foreman), or Fields. However, Kmet, Claypool, and Moore are also up there. The good thing is, the Bears have red zone options 3-4 more than they had last year, so the offense should be improved.

The worst outcome is 6-7 wins where Fields is OK. Then what? The team improved by 3-4 games, Fields was slightly better average 175 passing yards a game. Would that be enough? I think Fields needs to definitively show that he is the guy, and it starts on Sunday. Beat the Packers handily, show the world you are light years ahead of Jordan Love.

Gary is also coming back from injury, so who knows how many snaps he will get or how explosive he will be. Watson has some big play potential, but I never saw him as a WR1. Doubs is good, but probably a WR3. I don't know how much drop off there is from those two to other guys at this point. It is going to come down to stopping Aaron Jones and his stupid screens and wheel routes. I can see Love using him a ton. Gotta stop the run and gotta stop the screen game.

I just sent you the invite, so you can take control, change the name, make roster adjustments. If he wants to take back over later (since he will be laid up for a bit), I can always transfer back to him.

Very true. I just wonder if Poles will keep Flus or Getsy if they Bears go 5-12 and Fields does not improve? Poles has an easier answer for Fields, play good, we draft more around you, play bad or don't improve, draft a QB and try to trade you to a team that thinks they can fix you.

We just need one more GM payment and we are at 100% for the year. Thanks again for participating in one of the longest running fantasy football leagues around.

Oh damn, is he ok? I just had two friends get in some bad bike accidents lately. Too many idiot drivers on the roads. Not safe anymore. You can play both teams, no issues. Trades are fine as they are voted on. If it is a legit trade, I have no issues with it. That is not fair to limit things just because of the situation. Just play the players you would play for both teams, make the waiver wire pickups as needed, etc.

Lewis had guys like Ed Reed, other HoFers on the defense with him. Urlacher had Briggs and Tillman, that's it. Outside of the volume of tackles, what did Lewis do? He was a violent tackler, talked a lot of smack, murdered a few people and got away with it, but that's it. It's funny how he is known for his sack dance, yet Urlacher had more in his first 10 years. Lewis just played more years to accumulate the stats. If Urlacher played 4 more years, his stats would've been better than Lewis'.

I am just saying, I think that Flus, Getsy, and Williams with Fields, Claypool, Mooney, and Johnson, all seem like players and coaches that will be the most impacted by this year's outcome. A really bad season, and I think most of them are gone. A really good season, and you may see Getsy leave or a HC position, but the team will extend most of the players.

For those wondering about Jordan Love. There have been 242 QBs since 1980 to have 85 or fewer passing attempts in their first 3 seasons. Only Aaron Rodgers (0.4%) has surpassed 30K passing yards in his career. Three QBs (1.2%) have passed for more than 10K yards in their career (Rodgers, Gannon, and Bono), and only Rodgers did it with his original team. So the odds of hitting on Rodgers and Love becoming another Rodgers is like being struck by lightning twice in a lifetime. If I screen for less than 180 passing attempts in their first 3 seasons, the number jumps to 322 QBs, and that would add 6 QBs to the 10K list: Ryan Fitzpatrick (34K), Cassel (17K), Garrard (16K), Jimmy G (14K), Fiedler (11K), and Hoyer (10K). Interestingly, 3 QBs that backed up Brady made the list. So 2/322 (Rodgers/Fitzpatrick) hit 30K passing yards (0.6%), and 9/322 hit 10K passing yards (2.8%) in their careers. Again, only Rodgers becoming a franchise QB with his original team (unless you consider Garrard as a franchise QB). Literally the only precedence for Love becoming a franchise QB is Rodgers. Also, the Packers elected to extend Love for his 5th year, instead of taking the 5th year option. So if they had faith in him, why would they not extend him for more than a year? Now they have to give him a new contract, and if he does become good, they are going to need to find 40M-50M really quick. The Giants had more faith in Daniel Jones than GB has in Love. I think that is very telling. My assumption is Love will be an average NFL starter, think Mac Jones. He won't be good enough to win them games by himself, but he will do just enough to make them look competitive. That is the NFLs 7-9 win purgatory. I really hope that happens. I don't want them flaming out this year because of how good the 2024 QB class is already looking.

With Alexander more than likely lined up against Moore, either Claypool or Mooney will have their CB3 covering them. I think Tonyan is going to have a big game, he is either going to get a LB, S, or CB4 on him, seems like a mismatch.

So this is Year 2 for them. They seemed to get a pass for last year, but the record is the record, and Flus is the losing coach in franchise history right now (3-14). Assuming the Bears don't go 14-3, he is going to need a few winning seasons just to get to .500 as a coach. So if the Bears have another losing season, say 7-10, and he goes to 10-24 in his career, does he get a Year 3? For Getsy, the offense has not looked good, they brought in more of his guys (now have Patrick, ESB, Tonyan, and Lewis), added a first round tackle, a true WR1, and made the midseason trade for Claypool (WR2/3). They also cast off Mustipher. So if the offense struggles again, is it Fields or is it Getsy? Watching the QB School videos, there have been some questions about the play design and play calls. So we will see. Hopefully it doesn't come to this, but last year Getsy was a potential HC candidate in the waiting, but I haven't heard much about that this offseason. So for both of them, and probably Alan Williams too (32nd ranked defense), what do the Bears need to do for them to keep their jobs, and what is a fireable offense after this season? For me, Flus is safe at 8 wins (5 win improvement is a lot), but he is on the hot seat with 6-7, and fired by Week 17 with 5 or less wins. Getsy needs to get this offense going, scoring more than 20 pts a game, and becoming a top 20 unit. Anything less and he should be sent packing (get it Williams with Flus have combined to create the worst defense in franchise history, as defensive coaches, that is bad. They need to get this unit out of the cellar and make it no worse than 25th or Williams should be jettisoned to the moon.

I know, that's the crazy thing. Just say he misses one game, he would need 200 passing yards and 62.5 rushing yards a game in 16 games. If he plays in all 17, he would only need 188 passing yards and 59 rushing yards per game to hit those marks. At least on the passing side, the bar is set too low in my opinion. If he can't throw for 3500 yards, in Year 3, with a true WR1, then he never will.

The stats don't back it up though. Lewis was a tackling machine but outside of just tackles, Lewis didn't really do anything out of the ordinary. Take TFLs, in 14 seasons Lewis had 99 TFLs, in 13 seasons Urlacher had 138! Lewis had 2 seasons where he had 4 or more sacks, Urlacher had 7. Lewis played 4 more seasons than Urlacher, so his career totals were going to be obviously higher for an entire career for most categories You can't count AP teams or Pro Bowls, because they are popularity contests. Urlacher made the PB and AP1 in 2005 and 2006, then in 2007 he made neither, yet put up better numbers than the previous two years. Lewis made a 95 tackles, 3 sacks, 0 INT - PB and AP1 (2009) Urlacher made 93 tackles, 5 sacks, 5 INTs - no PB or AP (2007) Lewis and Urlacher have the same amount of playoff sacks and INTs (2 each), yet Lewis played in 21 playoff games, Urlacher played in 7. Also, Lewis was on some stacked defenses, Urlacher had to carry the Bears for several years on his own. It is much easier to get tackles when the DL were hogging up the OL for Lewis. That is why his impact stats (INT, Sacks, TFLs) are so low because those take more than just filling a hole. So depending on how you look at it, you could say Lewis was the better Mike, but Urlacher was the better defender.

I think we lost a few guys to free agency after the Super Bowls, a few of the starters looking to cash in on the team's success. Like in 2007, we moved on from Thomas Jones (for Benson), Alex Brown was replaced by Mark Anderson. Nathan Vasher replaced by Trumaine McBride, and Chris Harris replaced by Adam Archuleta. All of those were arguably downgrades. So not many, but a few. To replace Mustipher with a tackling dummy gains one win, to actually replace him with a league average player is like 2 wins. The LB Corps is the best in the league, and if Stevenson plays league average, the secondary is at least top 10. So if the Edge players produce (Ngaokue), there is no way the team cannot improve.

I honestly think they were just protecting Bagent from getting scooped up by another team. With all the other moves, it sure seemed like it. Now once Jenkins comes back, I wonder what they will do? Cut Peterman? Technically you have Kramer coming back too. So he may be the odd man out and go right to the PS after IR.

Ngaokoue, Walker, Billings, Dexter, Pickens, and Green with Edmunds, Edwards, Stevenson with some improvement from Brisker and Gordon to go with Johnson and Jackson. That is not the 32nd best defense. The "worst" starting player is either Billings or Jones, but both have started for other teams. The defense put the offense in some terrible situations last year. Almost always trailing, bad LoS. On offense, Fields is 800 passing yards from being a top 5 QB and perennial MVP candidate. There are 3 QBs in NFL history to pass for over 2K and run for over 1K. Vick, Jackson, and Fields. Only Jackson has a 3K/1K season, and that is not out of the question for Fields with the addition of Moore, a full offseason with Claypool and a better TE2 in Tonyan. To get those 800 additional yards, Fields would need about 50 more passing yards per game. I think that is attainable. If you go to 3K / 800, Kyler Murray, Wilson, Cunningham, and RG3 join the list where Fields and Vick drop off. Most of these seasons were Pro Bowl appearances, some with MVP votes, and RG3 winning OROY. I am surprised Wilson and Murray didn't get more hype in those years. No QB has ever thrown for over 3200 with 1K rushing yards.

This is a curious situation. Philly is like Georgia Bulldog North. I wonder if some of those coaches with ties to Philly purposely did that so Philly could take him. Seattle took a CB, LVR took and Edge before Carter was picked. Hell ATL took a RB in the top 10 before Carter. So it wasn't just the Bears. However, who else was gonna trade up ahead of PHI? If a team was there, why didn't the Bears take their offer instead? The one move up was weird if they knew the Bears weren't gonna take him.