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With the Bears officially eliminated from playoff contention, the shift is fully on for 2022. With current contracts, the starting 22 looks like this: O - Fields, Monty, WR1, Mooney, WR3, Kmet, Jenkins, Whitehair, C, G, Borom Holes at WR1 (ARob), WR3 (Goodwin), C (Mustipher), and G (Daniels). D - Mack, Quinn, Goldman, Smith, Trevathan, Blackson, Johnson, Shelley/Graham, Jackson Holes at S (Gipson), CB2/3, and DL (Hicks/Nichols) I would probably create at least one more hole by cutting Goldman, but that would make the DL only have Blackson and Edwards coming back and that is probably not going to happen. Are Mustipher and Daniels "good enough" to resign? For WR, I would draft one and sign one to start. I hope the Bears bring back Horsted at TE, he fits Fields better than Kmet does. Jakeem Grant is not under contract, it makes sense to bring him back, especially if they don't bring Cohen back.

Nagy called the plays, which is why the offense was so chaotic. For the most part the offense was intact outside of ARob, who was worthless anyway, so no excuse for basically scoring once with so many trips into scoring position. I thought Jenkins played better, the holding and false start were ticky tack calls and are not always called. I liked that he stuck up for Fields. Why has Graham been stuck on the PS all season with Vildor and Burns playing as bad as they have been? That is a mystery. Graham looked really good, tackled and supported the run really well. Fields needs to take better care of the ball and needs to get rid of the ball. Hopefully, that will come with reps, but he took a couple of sacks that were avoidable if he just threw it away. I am done with Kmet, he can't catch the football. Horsted has more TDs this season than Kmet has his entire career. Make Kmet the blocking TE, then don't resign him. The Bears kept Graham over Patterson, think about that for a second. The WRs after Robinson are all smaller guys under 190 lbs. Mooney and Byrd are complementary players. The Bears need some bigger bodies. No one was helping Fields, too many dropped passes, even Herbert did. Monty fumbled too. I won't even get started on the refs, but 10 pts came from bogus calls, several on 3rd Downs to keep the Vikings drives going. They scored a TD on one and a FG on another. The Bears probably kick some FGs if they are not down 2 TDs. Could've been a GW drive at the end. It is amazing how a few bad calls flip the entire game. The defense held Cousins to 87 passing yards, Jefferson to 47 receiving yards, and Cook to 89 yards (3.2 per carry) and still lost. This was the ultimate Nagy game. He should be fired for this alone:

This is what you get when you try to play a physical sport during a pandemic. The only way to prevent spread is by separation/isolation, which is not going to happen. If I was a team, I would seriously consider that for the playoffs, or at least thru the Conference Championship Game. 6 weeks is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I still can't believe we are dealing with this 2 years later and the cases are higher now than they were for most of 2020.

If he wasn't making top 5 Safety money, I wouldn't be so tough on him. It is interesting that the Bears had as many players on the C19 list as WFT, yet the MNF game wasn't moved.

He doesn't answer a single question. At this point, it seems like it's because he doesn't know or have an answer. No offense to him, but he doesn't even sound like an NFL Head Coach. He seems like someone the team threw out there for the press conference.

Bears have a bunch of players injured and on C19 list. Minnesota leads the league in sacks but allows the 4th most yards (only behind NYJ, HOU, and SEA), and is in the bottom 8 in pts against. Bears are at home and Cousins is 3-9 in primetime on the road (last win at Soldier Field lol). The only positive is ARob, EJack, and Goldman are not playing. Those are additions by subtractions. Hopefully, Ifedi or Wilkenson can play at RT. This team is a mess, from the top to bottom. Hard to pick them to win in these conditions. I am just hoping for a solid game from Fields with no turnovers. Vikings 31-17

BTW, outside of punting at 4th and inches down 11 in GB territory, Nagy only gave Monty 1 carry in the 2nd half. Talk about lack of adjustments. He is such a bad coach and you can tell it has rubbed off on some of the players. There is zero accountability. Former professionals like ARob can just take plays off and nothing is done about it. Jackson should've been benched multiple times for his lack of effort, yet he is allowed to roam around the secondary as the 11th player on the field doing absolutely nothing. He had his first pass defended of the season against GB. His first. As much as a "player's coach" is liked, they still have to draw a line and I don't think Nagy did that. Same for Pace, I heard he is one of those guys that avoids confrontation. As the GM, you are going to have to make hard decisions, and at times, there will be confrontations that you will have to address. Avoiding them doesn't make them go away.

I heard Ifedi might be back too, or at least he is practicing. There were high hopes for him in the offseason. With Borom out we need someone better than Simmons on that side.

I know, my luck, several players potentially impacted by C19, don't have bench players on the same team to replace and since they will be the latest games, have to bench better players for ones that are guaranteed to play. Not fun.

If not for Kelce and Hill, I can't imagine what Mahomes would look like. He threw for 410 yds and 3 TDs on 31 completions. 22 went to Kelce/Hill for 339 yds and 3 TDs. So the rest of the offense outside of those two players had 9 receptions for 71 yards. Also, a ton of yards were after the catch and/or on a broken play. KC's receivers actually try to get open after a play breaks down. I just don't know why teams don't bracket Kelce and Hill. Have a guy underneath and over the top on every play. Make Mahomes beat you with Pringle and Hardman (who had 5 receptions for 33 yards).

This whole thing has been mismanaged from the beginning, not only in the NFL but everywhere.

I don't know if anyone watched TNF, but the Chargers went for it on 4th Down inside the 5 twice and another time within FG range and didn't convert any. The first one happened on the first drive of the game after a long kickoff return. Then they did it again to end the half knowing that KC was getting the ball in the 2nd half. This time from the 1. Then after KC opens the half with a FG, LAC does it again. Goes for it on 4th and 2 from the 28 and they don't get it. If they kicked one of those FGs, they win the game. I understand being aggressive, but at some point it has to be balanced with some sanity. Staley has been praised for his coaching, which is awesome and refreshing, but this decision-making reminded me of Nagy, except Nagy would've punted from the 28.

For Kingsbury, it helps when you have a top 5 defense, a WR Corps of Hopkins, Kirk, Green and Moore, Murray at QB and Ertz at TE. Having coached Murray is obviously a huge bonus. You can implement things that are 2nd nature to him which very few HCs get to do. There seems to be 3 options, a HC who brings in an OC and DC and they run their own schemes, a HC who is offensive-minded with his own offensive scheme, or a HC who is defensive-minded with his own defensive scheme. The trend seems to be going towards the offensive-minded HC with his own scheme.

but I thought the vaccine prevents COVID? *kidding*

So apparently Lazor, Desai, and Tabor have all been placed in the C19 protocol. You almost can't make this up: I am not saying these are inaccurate, but for how bad Robinson, Jackson, and Goldman have played, they will barely be missed. However, this looks pretty ugly. So Fields gets Jenkins and Simmons as his bookend tackles against MIN who leads the league in sacks. Lovely.

The Buffalo Offensive Line will look like All Pros compared to what Trubisky had. He is also throwing to Diggs, Sanders, Beasley, Knox, and Davis. His RBs can all catch the ball out of the backfield, so he has a check with Singletary, Moss, and Breida. I am sure he will look very solid.

At this point, they need to find the best combination. Jenkins better dominate on the right side, otherwise that draft pick seems a little high for a RT.

It would offset and they would rekick. However, Nagy could go for it at that point, which was the right thing to do in the first place.

The TalkBears FFB Playoffs are set: 1 - Savage - BYE 4 The Mad Lith vs 5 Fields of Dreams 2 - MotM - BYE 3 The Bunny vs 6 Nips&Tips Good luck everyone. I had a 1.7 pt loss this season which cost me a first-round bye and the #1 seed. That is why every week and every point matters.

There is contact, it doesn't say how much. Also, #24 held (bear hugged) Vildor right after coming back in, but that wasn't called. How does the official see Vildor take 4 steps 1 foot out of bounds, but miss that?

Screw ARob, Fields literally pointed at him, and he just walks off the field and his guy forces Fields out. Who knows, a partial block and Fields could've picked up some additional yards. ARob didn't even attempt to catch a pass thrown to him in the End Zone and didn't come back to the ball on another pass. I would sit him the rest of the year. Let him try to get a decent offer with this game as his last game before free agency. This is also why I wanted Furrey, the WR Coach fired months ago. Between Wims and Miller, there were always discipline issues, then this year, the entire WR room was underperforming terribly. If Mooney didn't have 2 big games against DET, he would be right there with the others. ARob, Mooney, Goodwin, Byrd was supposed to be a very solid room and they ended up being arguably the worst group in the NFL and that says a lot.

If he had no practice and didn't study the opponent, then he was basically going in blind. I don't hold judgment on him for the penalties, and at least he didn't completely whiff on a guy or get bulled over. As long as he can get some game reps and end the season healthy, that will be huge for his development.

There definitely was a difference, same rule, different penalty. Also, Vildor had to run out voluntarily, which by the rulebook states "without being contacted by a receiving team player". I thought the guy had an arm on Vildor as he was going out of bounds. If not, then it's on Vildor, but if there was contact, then Vildor can go out and back in. For the Packers player, even if forced out, he has to attempt to return inbounds in a reasonable amount of time, otherwise, it is an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. He ran 25 yards, 5 yards deep out of bounds, that seems excessive. It was more clear of a penalty than Vildor's. When the All-22 is up, I will take a look, but if Vildor is in contact with a defender in any way, it's not an instant penalty. If he runs out to avoid contact it is. Here is the rule:

I am just saying I am not as optimistic about him as I was coming into this season. As long as we can get a true WR1 and a true Slot WR, he is fine to be on the opposite side outside.

That's it. It doesn't excuse Nagy or anything else, but when officiating is like this, it is impossible to win. The GB player is not getting pushed out any more than Vildor was. They were both trying to get outside leverage and the other player was pushing them outside. After Vildor is out, he immediately gets back into the field of play. What sucks is neither of these guys impact the play. Why even throw the flag? The Bears got the flag thrown on them because GB muffed the punt. That literally flipped the field and the game by 14 pts. It should've been no worse than 38-36 (if Bears attempted and missed a 2pt conversion) when the Bears got the onside kick and had the ball at the GB 27. It should've been a 44 yard GW FG for Santos. Instead it looks like a blowout. If you didn't watch the game, it looks worse. All you will hear about is the 2nd half collapse. Once Roquan went out, the floodgates opened. Not much they could do with 6 2nd stringers in. It sucks that they lost, but worse when the officials are involved. Feels very similar to the Steelers game.