adam

Officials gift the Lions a TD on a 4th Down DPI call in the end zone.

Fields now with 1055 yards on the season, passes Vick for #2 all-time. Lamar is the only one left, 151 to go. Great pass to Kmet for a TD, Bears lead 7-0. A lead in another game.

This opening drive feels like a grind. Mustipher -2 on 2 plays, Reiff -1. Penalty on defense extends drive. RPO, Fields keeps the ball even though the Edge doesn't bite. Kmet takes the snap, tosses to Fields for 31, lol.

Not bad for inactives.

Marvin Harrison Jr has to be the pick next year if he is there when the Bears pick.

Bears by 20:

Ouch, sucks for Lance. He had a 2nd surgery to remove hardware put in for the first surgery. Never a good sign. Pick was a reach before but worse now. He has 102 passing attempts over the last 3 years.

I really hope the Bears can get him somehow. I would even trade up if I had to. He is a WR1.

and more TDs than: Herbert Jackson Brady Prescott Watching Prescott on TNF, I think Fields is better than him now. If Fields had that O-Line with Elliott/Pollard, Lamb, Brown, Schultz, Gallup, and now TY Hilton he would be close to unstoppable. Same with Herbert, I am not impressed. He is throwing to Allen, Williams, Palmer, Everett, and Ekeler.

Carr will be an easy trade. Adams will be much more complicated due to his contract. He has these things in his contact that would come due in March: 42.92M fully guarantees in March 2023 (2023 salary, 2023 Roster Bonus, 2024 salary) 2023 Roster Bonus: $20M (fully guaranteed, treated as signing bonus)

I just understand how Mustipher is that big but so weak. He gets man-handled by pretty much any size DT, and it seems like the entire line forgot how to play stunts.

I just don't want him ending up like St. Brown who takes 10 yards to make a cut.

Yeah the zoom stuff is silly. If they want to do that, make it picture in picture or something.

Man, you nailed everything. So they did change them for the playoffs to make sure both teams possess the ball. They need to change regular season to that as well. The game should not be decided by a coin flip. I always thought the ball should go to the team that got the opening kickoff, because the other team got the 2nd half kickoff, so it should just go back to the 1st team. That way if you win the coin toss you have to decide between (2nd half receive or 1st half and OT receive). They really need to make the rules the same. Not only for the players, but for the officials. That way the NFL would also have a pipeline for new refs from the college ranks. OMG yes, besides for some nice eye candy, no one wants to hear from the head coach DURING the game about some random question. Vrabel was so irritated and just gave canned answers. Waste of time. Show some advanced stats or something.

Whitehair and Jones upgraded to full, Claypool and St. Brown upgraded to Limited. Getting a little healthier.

In other news, the Bears dodged another bullet with the Derek Carr situation. If they were going after Wilson before, I could see them going after Carr if this situation was just a year or so ago with Pace and Nagy. Pace trades the house for Carr and he continues his streak as one of the losingist QBs of all time. All the guy does is lose. He seems like a super nice guy, but is basically a poor man's Matthew Stafford. Most stats compiled in garbage time, flashes some plays here and there, but loses more games for you than he wins for you. On the flip side, this opens up Davante Adams for a potential trade. If Carr is gone and Adams is not going back to GB, there are only a handful of teams he could go to, the Bears with Fields, Falcons with Ridder, Giants with Jones, Patriots with Jones, or Seahawks with Smith. It would seem like the Bears would be the best spot for him. Would you be open to trading the #2 pick for someone like Adams and the Raiders 1st Rounder? Bears #2 for Adams, Raiders #9 and Raiders #40? That would be like valuing Adams as the #20 pick in the draft. If they traded Claypool for #32, 12 picks earlier seems reasonable for Adams. That would give the Bears Adams and 4 picks in the top 65. They would miss out on Carter or Anderson, but with so many holes to fill, would either one of those guys make an impact on this year's defense so much to change the outcome of any games? Maybe, but a WR Corps of Adams, Claypool, Mooney all of a sudden becomes top 10 over night. I would at least consider it.

I am still not completely sold on Fields, but I am way more sold on him than I was at the start of the year. It is really hard to evaluate him objectively with that OLine and WR corps, it just is. If you watch any videos from the QB School and JT O'Sullivan, Fields is getting to his 3rd read and/or outlet really fast now. He also is making every effort to keep his eyes down the field and only run as a last resort. I still don't like that he is getting balls batted down and hitting the backs of helmets. He is too tall for that to happen so much. Then on his dump offs, he needs to put them in a place where the receivers can catch and turn immediately. Then in general, he needs to put some touch or additional air under some of his passes. The pass to Velus was perfect, earlier in the season he would've lasered it in there at a much lower trajectory, making it easier to knock down and harder for Velus to catch it. He needs more drop it in a bucket type of passes, especially to the outside. I am not too worried about the hits as he seems to understand when he needs to slide and when he is running out of bounds, not to try and squeeze 2 more yards out while taking a hit. He is even tossing the ball out of bounds now instead of taking a sack by running out of bounds. All progress.

I don't know if I want to commit any additional resources to TE. Right now the low volume in the passing attack is hurting all the players, including Kmet. If Fields was averaging 225 yds passing a game (which is still low by today's standards), Kmet would have numbers like this: 58-600-7 with 2 games left. He would be on pace for 65+ receptions, 700+ yds, and 8 TDs which would be TE9 for receptions and yards and TE5 for TDs for last year. So a top 10 TE who is a great blocker seems like a solid starter. For a backup TE, I would not commit anything earlier than a 5th rounder. With so many other holes to fill, TE seems like a luxury pick. Now on the flip side, if you are picking a TE early, then it should replace your WR selection.

Him and Fields were always 1A and 1B, basically interchangeable since HS. Lawrence has a much better supporting cast (and better weather). However, once the playing field is evened out a little bit, I would not be surprised if they are statistically similar for their careers with Lawrence having better passing stats and Fields having better rushing stats.

I get the market and at the time the Bears were winning some games and if Poles doesn't pull the trigger then, Claypool is on GB, and there is one less WR available. However, the Claypool stuff reminds me of the Diggs vs Jefferson situation. Buffalo traded a 1st for Diggs, who has been elite, but Minnesota drafted Jefferson with that pick. In the last 3 years: Diggs - 331-4085-28 - $24M APY, 29 yrs old Jefferson - 319-4772-25 on rookie deal, 23 yrs old So Buffalo could've just kept the pick, drafted Jefferson, and had $24M in cap space for other needs the last 3 years. They would've probably won the SB last year and would be undefeated this year. Obviously the draft is a crapshoot and Jefferson could've easily been Reagor. The good thing for the Bears is Claypool is still young and hopefully more time in the offense and with Fields will help him evolve.

LET'S RIDE! Can you imagine this same team with $50M less cap space and without Justin Fields AND no 1st rounders for a few more years. That is basically Denver, except they have $100M in cap space, no Justin Fields, and no first rounders.

If Bears get #1 pick, the Steelers get #32 from the Bears for Claypool. That still is a terrible trade.

BTW, Zach Wilson has the worst ELO rating thru 22 starts EVER, and basically is a Ryan Leaf clone at this point in his career. Notice Fields on there, but he already has a positive rating after his first 22. His rookie year with Nagy did him no favors as ELO carries over from year to year. Here is a cool site with ELO ratings, Fields is currently 15th, which is very similar to his QBR. https://www.nfeloapp.com/qb-rankings/

The Bears lost 31-30 the last time they played. Fields had over 300 yards of total offense and 4 TDs. Fields should pass Michael Vick's single season rushing total in this game (28 yards), but needs a big game to have a chance to pass Lamar's record in Week 18. Still funny to see him 7th in the NFL in rushing considering he missed a game. With Herbert now in his 2nd week back, he should look better, but it will be interesting to see if Claypool plays. The Bears defense will have their hands full, Detroit is good rushing and passing. I feel like this will be another high scoring affair, but the Bears will not have enough to hang with Detroit (sounds crazy to read that). Lions 34-27 Fields with 3 TDs, over 250 yards passing and 50 yards rushing. 1. Jackson 1206 (195 yds away) 2. Vick 1039 (28 yds away) 3. Fields 1011 Other notable milestones in reach: 1. Montgomery - 800 rushing yards - needs 44 2. Herbert - 700 rushing yards - needs 50 3. Fields - 2500 passing yards - needs 333 4. Fields - 20 passing TDs - needs 4 5. Fields - 30 total TDs - needs 6 6. Velus Jones - 100 career receiving yards - needs 21 7. Ebner - 100 career rushing yards - needs 46 8. Santos - 100 points - needs 15