adam

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

After Mayfield's solid game, Fields is back in last for DVOA at -26.6. That stat hates him. QBR has him at 16th with a 55.4. His QB Rating is 88.3 on the season. I hope he can have strong performances to close out the year vs DET and MIN.

The Murray contract is killing them. I also don't know how many good years Hopkins has. It feels like he is at the cusp of the drop off.

Great point. Someone is trading up for a QB, it is the new norm. There are too many QB needy teams and everyone has seen what retreads do. Outside of Geno Smith, guys like Ryan, Mariota, Wentz, Wilson, Mayfield, Darnold, Dalton, etc have not worked out and won't help you win a Super Bowl. If you are going to those guys, you are not expecting to win. With only 2-3 QBs with franchise level potential coming out every year, you either go for one of those, or wait for next year. It can be a long wait. The Bears lucked into Fields after the Trubisky failure.

Absolutely, I just hope they don't replace him in the offseason once all the heavy lifting is done in the rebuild.

Their QB is a UFA. Smith is also a Pro Bowler who is going to command a lot on the open market. Derek Carr signed a 3yr/121M contract as a mediocre starter (40M per year). Goff is making $33.5M, Wentz $32.5, Ryan $30M, Tannehill $29.5M. Kyler Murray is making $46M per year. How much do you think Seattle is going to pay Smith? They have about $30M in available cap for 2023. I don't think Smith will be there next year. Also, they traded 2 first round picks for a Safety (Jamal Adams). It seems like swapping 1st rounders and trading 2 (1 not theirs) would not be out of the question if they wanted to get their guy at QB.

With Cole Kmet still only 23 yrs old, I took a look back at how the current top TEs looked before they turned 24 and I was pretty shocked. Right now, Kmet has 33 more receptions than the next best TE before the age of 24 and he needs only 68 more yards to pass Pitts (on IR) for the most yards by an (active) TE before the age of 24. If he gets 2 TDs, he would also tie Njoku for the TD lead with 9. Did you know Kmet was this productive at that young of an age? If he averages the same number of receptions and yardage he had last year (60-612) from 2023 until he was 34 (Kelce is 33), he would be in the top 5 for receptions by a TE (all-time). With that projected yardage, he would also be in the top 10 for yards and would need about 5 TDs a year to crack the top 10 all-time over a career for a TE. Active Tight Ends stats before the age of 24: 1. Kmet - 132-1315-7 (2 games left) 2. Hockenson - 99-1090-8 3. Pitts 96-1382-3 (1 season left) 4. Njoku - 93-1066-9 5. Freiermuth 88-807-8 6. Engram - 64-722-6 7. Ertz 61-827-6 8. Otton 39-369-2 (Rookie) 9. Andrews - 34-552-3 10. Knox - 34-381-2 11. Dulcich - 33-411-2 (Rookie) 12. Goedert - 33-334-4 13. Gesicki 28-253-0 14. Bellinger 27-226-2 15. Okonkwo 26-384-2 (Rookie) 16. Kittle - 17-166-1 17. Schultz - 13-122-0 18. Higbee 11-85-1 19. Waller - 2-18-0 20. Kelce - 1 special teams snap Notable Star and HOF TEs before 24: 1. Gronkowski 187-2663-38 (Gronk was an absolute beast, I don't know if we will ever see such a dominant young TE again, insane numbers) 2. Gonzalez 168-1838-15 (He was the TE gold standard before Gronk) 3. Witten 188-2084-13 (He seems like a TE that Kmet is best compared to) 4. Olsen 93-965-7 (ex-Bear - screw Martz, who had a long and successful career) 5. Gates 24-389-2 6. Sharpe 29-421-2 7. Graham 13-170-1 He already has the team lead in receptions locked up (44 and counting), needing only 6 more to hit 50 on the year. With 34 more yards, he will pass Mooney for the most receiving yards on the team, and his 5 TDs already lead the team. With 40 more yards, he will have his 2nd 500 yard receiving season (Proj: 51-526-6).

Hopkins? He is signed thru 2024 and is a UFA in 2025 when he will be turning 33. Are you talking about someone else? In 2023, the top WRs are JuJu, Meyers, and Chark. In 2024, as of right now it is Evans, Jeudy, Lamb, Jefferson, Aiyuk, Pittman, Davis, Higgins, and Brown. However, most, if not all will probably resign with their current teams. That is also when Mooney and Claypool are FA eligible. Another interesting thing to note about Kmet and Claypool. Claypool is a year younger than Mooney, and Kmet is a year younger than Claypool. All 3 were drafted in 2020, but Kmet is just 23, Claypool 24, and Mooney is 25. Velus Jones is 6 months older than Mooney and Harry.

Which teams on the cusp of missing the playoffs would be the most unexpected to not make it? To me it has to be MIA, TEN, or TB. Just a few weeks ago, I would've thought TEN and MIA were locks. TEN has lost 5 straight and MIA has lost 4. TB has a one game lead but can still lose the division if CAR wins their last two (one against TB). I always thought SEA and NYJ would fade. I also expected NYG to drop but they have hung in there. JAX's rising is just as shocking as MIA's fall.

Tua won't play due another concussion, which makes for a crazy Week 17 game in NE. Titans playing Willis, Jets now going back to White, WAS considering Wentz, and CAR is basically winning without a QB or McCaffrey is pretty impressive.

SEA is currently #3 and #12. If the Bears can get the #1 pick, then have SEA jump HOU to #1 to draft a QB using #12 and a 2024 1st rounder. The Bears could get Anderson or Carter, and basically another top 10 non-QB player plus an extra 2024 1st rounder. That would be epic, all courtesy of Russell Wilson, let's ride! The could also take Carter or Anderson, then trade out of #12 to pick up an early/mid 2nd.

With Kyler Murray out for the year, and now Buddy Baker, ARZ is not winning another game. 1. HOU 2-12-1 JAX @IND (HOU already beat JAX and tied IND) 2. CHI 3-12 @DET MIN (both opponents playing for playoffs) 3. DEN 4-11 @KC LAC (both opponents playing for playoffs) 4. ARZ 4-11 @ATL @SF The odds of HOU winning one more game is about 50% at this time.

Good point on the # of players on the roster, people forget about that. The top 51 are counted against the cap. If you consider teams will just fill the bottom of their rosters with vet minimum guys and rookies, you have to add about $1M for each spot until 51. So KC has $28M in cap space, but needs to fill 18 spots from 33 to 51, giving them around $10-11M of actual cap space for usage before signing any of their rookies, which they normally need about $5M for. So KC has in reality about $5-6M to use for resigning players or free agency. The Bears are the same way, $124M in cap space with 33 signed, minus $18M = $106M - $5M = $101M for actual free agency and resigning their own players. That is still $31M more than the next team's full cap space. That puts 17 teams in the red to start this offseason (great for Bears), and 7 additional teams with under $20M. There are only 7 other teams with $10M - $52M in effective cap. The Bears basically have double the next highest team (ATL with $52M). 1. Bears - $101M with Justin Fields ---------------------------------- 2. Falcons - $52M with no QB 3. Patriots - $43M with Mac Jones - standard for them 4. Giants - $41M with Daniel Jones 5. Bengals - $33M with Joe Burrow - very solid 6. Seahawks - $30M with Geno Smith 7. Ravens - $31M with Lamar Jackson - very solid 8. Texans - $30M with Davis Mills on the flip side, in cap hell: 1. Saints - (-$71M) 2. Bucs - (-$60M) 3. Titans - (-30M)

For the yardage for sure, even though it is down all over this season. There were some bad INTs though.