adam

So the Bears had 3 huge trades this year, Mack, Quinn, then Smith. Besides creating a ton of cap space (which is hard to quantify), here is how the other teams are doing so far compared to what the Bears got/have: LAC - Mack, Wild Card loss, $27.5M AAV for 2 more years. BAL - Smith, Wild Card loss, $20M AAV for 5 more years. PHI - Quinn - 9 tackles, 1 sack, 1 game played since November 1st, 2023 UFA for Brisker, 2023 - 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th Due to comp picks, the Bears would not have gotten anything if they just let Quinn walk this offseason as they are projected to sign too many to get a comp pick, so getting anything for him was a great deal for the Bears. Since joining the Eagles, Quinn has been a non-factor (it's an even year). Mack was very productive for LAC this year, but it really didn't make much of a difference overall. The team won one more game and lost in the WC round of the playoffs. Mack has two more years left with $27.5M AAV. Smith was also very productive, but the Ravens also lost in the first round of the playoffs. Smith signed a 5yr deal worth $20M a year and the Ravens still have not re-signed Lamar Jackson. The Ravens have $28M in cap space without a starting QB. 9 QBs make over $40M AAV, and another 5 make over $29.5M. That is 14 QBs over $29.5M. Jackson is going to get at least $40M, which means $60M+ of their cap will be caught up between Lamar and Roquan, and the other 49 will need to fit in under the other $165M.

Yeah, I love teams that get a ton of praise by the media but if you really look at them under the hood, it is all a facade. Indy is a great example, Chris Ballard was getting slurped on for drafting Quentin Nelson and had one good draft. The Colts have basically done nothing under his tenure as GM and are in one of the weakest divisions in football. This is the 8th year since they last won the division. So if they go two more (likely with JAX and TEN now), that will be a decade since their last division title when there are only 3 other teams in the division. Minnesota is another one. No one talks about their great 2022 Draft, the first of new GM Kwesi. I think Poles would be fired already if he had a draft like this (with a 1st and 2x 2nd round picks). Have you heard of any of these guys do anything this year? Probably not, because they didn't: 1 Lewis Cine 32 DB (probably a career ending injury on punt return coverage) 2 Andrew Booth 42 CB (12 total tackles) 2 Ed Ingram 59 G (57.1 PFF, 11 sacks allowed, 17 games) 3 Brian Asamoah 66 LB (17 total tackles, 1 FF) 4 Akayleb Evans 118 DB (23 total tackles, 1 FF, 3 TFL, 1 PD) 5 Esezi Otomewo 165 DT (5 total tackles, 1 TFL) 5 Ty Chandler 169 RB (6 rushes for 20 yards) 6 Vederian Lowe 184 OL (33 offensive snaps) 6 Jalen Nailor 191 WR (9-179, 1 TD) 7 Nick Muse 227 TE (no offensive stats) So out of 10 draft picks and 4 in the top 66, they had one starter (Ingram), who was slightly under average at best. Brisker alone was better than all these guys combined. We don't even need to mention Braxton Jones or Gordon. Velus would probably be the Vikings 2nd best draft pick behind Ingram.

they gave up a 2nd AND a 3rd for Hockenson. They did get a 4th back, but still, a 2nd and a 3rd for a TE when you already have a high volume passing game with Jefferson, Thielen, and Osborn. He has a 9.3M cap hit in 2023 and is then a FA in 2024. So this was either a 1.5 year rental or a deal where they are going to have to commit $10M+ to the TE position when they are about to have to pay Jefferson the most money for a WR in NFL history.

Chase Brown keeps coming up in my PFF Mock draft simulations.

DAL vs TB should be a good one tonight. It will come down to which Dak shows up. If good Dak shows up, the Boys win, if bad Dak shows up the Bucs win.

The Vikings losing was awesome. They were something like 11-0 in one score games this year and lost by 1 score lol. Cousins throws short of the sticks on a 4th down to end the game is priceless. I can't imagine what that guy would look like without a stacked receiving corps.

I am good on Pittman, but I figure there will be a defensive player thrown in there for Flus/Williams.

Yep, 20M, he still hasn't even sniffed one of Leonard's great years. Outside of tackles, there is not much else there.

Roquan had a great first quarter, then disappeared, got juked by Burrow for an easy sack and got blocked off the field on another play. For 20M a year, I would have expected more impact plays. Vikings frauds again, Jefferson a ghost the last 3 weeks.

Feel like MIN, BUF, CIN, and DAL for the next 4 games. Even though DAL has played bad of late, they have had a tougher road to the playoffs than TB. CIN and BUF are sure bets. MIN feels like the stronger team at home, but will Cousins choke in prime time?

In terms of roster building, the Bears are definitely at least a year behind JAX. I could see them making similar moves this offseason. The difference will be Fields will be in the 2nd year of the same offense where TLaw was in his first. So technically, the Bears should look better than the Jags did this year. Not necessarily in terms of record, but in terms of performance and output.

You just can't use PFF on its own. It is better to use them to dispute something else or reinforce it. So if PFF, DVOA, and a traditional stat all say a guy is good, he is good. If those are mixed it is subjective, and if they are all bad, the player is usually bad. The AFC South is terrible, their entire division won 23 games, so JAX is going to have an easier path to the playoffs for quite some time. In comparison, the Bears now need to compete with MIN, DET, and a fading GB. Even if GB got easier, DET at least, got tougher.

That would be great, but I don't think they would move on from younger, cheaper players. HOU would probably offer up someone like Tunsil or Cooks (both with huge cap hits) and IND would be Buckner or Leonard. Pittman seems feasible since he is on the last year of his deal anyway.

Staley has been a terrible Head Coach. The media loves him for his thought provoking press conferences, use of analytics, etc. Supposedly the players "loved" him, now past tense, but week in and week out he would make bone headed decisions. Mike Williams gets hurt in a meaningless Week 18 game, then in this game, he punts from the Jacksonville 38 after 3 straight incompletions. He not only stopped the clock for JAX 3 times, but then gave them the ball back. After taking a 27-0, they went Punt, End of half, Punt, FG, FG Miss, Punt Earlier in the year, he called a timeout that cost his team at least a tie, and has a long list of coaching blunders going back to last year. I just can't believe a team with Herbert, Ekeler, Allen, Williams, Everett, and Palmer on offense and a stacked defense with Mack, Bosa, James, and Samuel Jr could be this bad. Staley gives me a lot of Trestman vibes. BTW, the Chargers were 0-5 against playoff teams this season and 10-2 against non-playoff teams. So it really feels like the playoff teams come down to SoS more than actual team strength. Seattle was the same way. Seattle was 2-4 against playoff teams and the 2 wins, against LAC and NYG (2-5), the other playoff frauds. If the rest of the week holds serve, CIN, BUF, MIN, and DAL will win. Those teams all played better than their opponent's against playoff teams. It feels like WC weekend just weeds out the team's that played weaker schedules.

Going back to Fields WRs, it just shows how good he can be when he actually has good players to throw to. If you stuck Stroud or any other QB from the last few years into this situation, I don't know how much better they would have done. Burrows and Mahomes. Just think if Allen got Nagy his rookie year, then was throwing to Pettis and ESB behind the Bears O-Line in his second year. Would he take a massive leap?

One thing to note about Fields college career. He has 2 of the top 13 QBR seasons of all-time. Others within the top 13 are Mac Jones, Kyler Murray, Burrow, Tua x2, Russell Wilson, Luck, Mayfield x2, Bradford and Khalil Tate. 9 of 10 players made it to the NFL, several were Pro Bowl and All-Pro. Fields is in that group.

Stroud looks a lot like Fields did at Ohio State. In some ways it looks like Fields regressed since then. The one alarming fact for me is what Fields college WRs did this year in the NFL with crap QB play: Olave 72-1042, 4 TD (15 games) Wilson 83-1103, 4 YD If those WRs did that as rookies with terrible QB play, it would seem like they were making Fields look better than Fields was making them look. That is somewhat concerning for me when you are projecting players (who helped who). If you use QBR and EPA, Stoud and Young are almost identical. Then it comes down to the pieces around them and the opponents. Stroud almost beat UGA and AL conveniently didn't play them. However, Stroud played a much easier schedule overall. Stroud 87.7 QBR, 66.1 EPA Young 83.7 QBR, 65.8 EPA Fields 91.7 QBR, 52.8 EPA Lawrence 84.0 QBR, 55.8 EPA Will Levis scares me, QBR of 60.4 and EPA of 30.2. However, just looking at QB stats, how the hell did Josh Allen get drafted 7th overall after playing for Wyoming, having only 1x 300 yard game (against Gardner-Webb) and threw a total of 16 TDs to 6 INTs with 1812 yards his Junior year. 56.3% comp. What did he do to get on people's radars? Senior Bowl? Combine?

I would add Kaleb McGary to that as well to anchor the RT spot. Then maybe Pocic at C? Something like Brown, Whitehair, Pocic, Jenkins, McGary with Jones, Borom the swing tackles?

Yeah, the options are through the roof. My guess is this: Poles trades down once and if HIS guy is still on the board, he drafts him there. If not, I can see him moving down like your scenario and just stocking up on picks.

yep, pretty much every tie breaker had the Bears picking after the Texans, H2H, SoS, etc. I still find it fascinating that the Colts performance against the Texans in 2 games ultimately decided the fate of the Bears draft position, and now the Bears can negotiate with the Colts for the same draft capital.

The whole point of roster building is to win a championship. I don't know how this contract makes the Ravens do that. That is not what they needed, and definitely not for $20M a year. So what are they going to do with Queen? Are they going to pay two of their LBs a total of at least $35M per year? This move only makes sense if they are going to let Queen walk and put vet min's or UDFAs next to Roquan. Funny that they show some major defensive improvements since Roquan joined the team, masking the fact that the offenses they played went from top half of the league before Roquan to bottom half the league with Roquan. So the defensive improvements were normal and would've occurred without Roquan. Also, since Roquan, the Ravens were 5-4, without him 5-3. Obviously other players contribute to those records, but a ton of media posts have made it seem like Roquan was carrying them, yet he had more sacks 2.5 vs 2 and more INTs 2 vs 1 with the Bears than the Ravens (impact plays). Finally, he still has zero forced fumbles, which has always been a flaw in his game. To me, off ball LBs have become like RBs on offense. A lot of wear and tear, don't put a lot of money in them, fairly interchangeable, and very few are worth the money in big contracts. Draft late or find UDFAs.

The more I research, the more I think the Bears will trade the #1 pick to a team to get a top WR. There is just no other path to get one. Here are the teams with top 20 receivers and top 20 picks in the first round: Pittman - IND (#4) - (#4+Pittman+2024 1st or multiple 2nds/3rds) Metcalf - SEA (#5 + #20) - (#5+#20+Metcalf+4th/5th in 2023 or 2024) Adams - LVR (#7) - (#7 + Adams + 2024 1st + 3rd) Moore - CAR (#9) - (#9 + Moore + 2024 1st + 2nd) McLaurin - WAS (#16) - (#16 + McLaurin + 2024 1st + 2nd + 2024 2nd + 3rd) Evans/Godwin - TB (#19) - (#19 + Evans or Godwin + 2024 1st + 2nd + 2024 2nd + 3rd + 2024 3rd) If Pittman was seen as a mid-first rounder (#20) in value, the Bears would still be owed at least another 1st rounder, or multiple 2nd's or 3rd's, depending on how they valued Pittman. The Seattle one is a pipe dream, but to get #5, #20 in this year's draft plus Metcalf and one later pick would be sweet. WR1 + Anderson/Carter/Skoronski/Bresee + Johnson/Addison/Smith-Njigba/Jones would be incredible.

Very true on Pierce. I still wouldn't mind Pittman as it gives Poles some flexibility.

Pretty cool WR ranking system by 538: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nfl-receiver-rankings/ You can do single year or multi year. All positions btw.

They just drafted Pierce (and probably was someone Poles could've drafted instead of Gordon), so I doubt they would move on from him so soon. However, Pittman (25) seems like a perfect candidate. He is on the last year of his rookie deal and average 95 receptions and 1000 yds per season over the last 2 years. That has been with some of the crappiest QB play as well. I would feel pretty good with Pittman, Claypool, Mooney, Rookie, Jones, and ESB.