adam

The only issue with going into the draft with the mentality of only drafting from one or two positions at any pick is you really run the risk of overdrafting a player that is nowhere near the pick value than the other positions. Unless it is QB, you have to go in with 4-5 positions of need for every pick, then select the best overall player from that pool. If not, you end up with a ton of Adam Shaheens.

After 12/2: WC2 SF 6-5 SEA-W, CIN-L, ATL-W, TEN-L, HOU-W, LAR-L 9-8 WC3 WAS 5-6 LV-L, DAL-L, PHI-L, DAL-L, PHI-W, NYG-W 7-10 (7-5) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 MIN 5-6 DET-W, PIT-W, CHI-L, LAR-L, GB-L, CHI-L 7-10 (5-7) 2 ATL 5-6 TB-L, CAR-W, SF-L, DET-W, BUF-L, NO-W 8-9 (5-7) 3 PHI 5-7 NYJ-W, WAS-W, NYG-W, WAS-L, DAL-L 8-9 (6-6) 4 CAR 5-7 ATL-L, BUF-L, TB-L, NO-L, TB-L 5-12 (3-9) 5 NO 5-7 NYJ-W, TB-L, MIA-L, CAR-W, ATL-L 7-10 (5-7) 6 NYG 4-7 MIA-L, LAC-L, DAL-L, PHI-L, CHI-L, WAS-L 4-13 7 CHI 4-7 ARZ-L, GB-L, MIN-W, SEA-W, NYG-W, MIN-W 8-9 (6-6) NO lost to DAL, as expected, dropped down to 5th "in the hunt". CAR on bye this week. Need WAS, ATL, and NYG to lose this week to stay on course. Would be great if SEA figured something out and snuck a win in against SF but I doubt it.

Right now CB2 is the biggest hole on the team, however, like you said, the team can't go into next year with Mooney and a ton of vets on 1 yr deals in the WR room. So CB/WR are my first two picks. There are some options at Center, you can draft one, or slide Whitehair or Daniels (after extension) back to Center and draft another Guard. However, is Center a bigger hole than Safety right now? Listening to Olin Kreutz, he doesn't think Mustipher is playing that bad. So I would almost put Safety or ILB ahead of Center. Those are definitely the top 5 needs and should be addressed with a high draft pick or a quality FA signing.

Impressive. I hope he keeps it up.

This will probably be an ugly loss for the Bears. Hicks, Edwards, Goodwin, Kmet, Robinson, and Smith all DNP on Wednesday. That is in addition to Fields battling the cracked ribs and Mack lost for the season. Murray and Hopkins were limited, but McCoy has filled in nicely for the Cards. They may be without Justin Pugh on the OL, but outside of that, they are pretty intact. I would expect the Bears to try to run the ball a lot, control the clock and keep the Cards off the field. I don't see any way the Bears can win this based on how they looked recently. Cardinals 31-17

I don't think it was an absolute statement. I bet it was, "IF" the Bears lose to the Lions, Nagy would be fired on Friday. That would've been 6 in a row, to a winless team, on national TV. That would've done it. Nagy needs to go, but in his defense, very few teams are going to play well with so many injuries. The Bears played without their top defensive player (Mack), another top 4 defensive player out (Hicks), the 2nd best defender leaves the game (Smith), a gaping hole at CB2, the worst Safety group in the NFL which is just on the defense. It is a miracle that they only allowed 14 pts. On offense, you didn't have the rising star QB, the WR1, even if he is having a down year, and you still don't have your gadget back (Cohen) and your top drafted OT. Those are all significant pieces to the team, either out, or in Jackson and ARob's case, severely underperforming. How would the Packers do without Rodgers, Adams on offense, then 3 of their top 4 defenders out? Very few teams are going to play well.

Can you imagine the Bears missing out on the playoffs by tie breaker or one game (when you have the tie breaker) knowing they got robbed by the officials in the Steelers game? That would be tough to swallow. That is very much in play if they finish 8-9.

There are so many more, and they are funny. Surtain is a great player, but Denver doesn't have a QB. Without it they will continue to be a .500 team. They are 6-5 and have a harder path to the playoffs than the Bears do at 4-7. They play KC twice, CIN, LV, LAC and DET. The only gimme is DET. They will have to win at least 2 against KC, KC, LV, CIN, LAC to have a chance at the playoffs.

Now their are Broncos fans believing that Patrick Surtain (CB) was still a better pick than Justin Fields, these are pure comedy:

McCaffrey on IR and out for the season again. That is why you don't pay RBs. The Packers hilariously paid Aaron Jones (6th highest) who will make $9M in 2022 and potentially $19M in 2023, when they still have AJ Dillon on his rookie deal, and Dillon is better. McCaffrey has the 3rd biggest contract for an RB and has only played in 10 games in the last two seasons. He signed his new deal in April 2020 and in September 2022, he will have played in 10 of 33 games for the 3rd highest RB salary in the league. This knocks CAR out of any playoff contention.

Yeah, Miller went from a 4-4 team to a 7-1 team, his old team is now 6-5 (2-1 w/o him) and his new team is 7-4 (0-3 w/ him). So Miller is technically 4-7 lol. Even CLE got a win w/o OBJ, so they are 1-2 w/o him and LAR is 0-3 w/ him too. So OBJ is 5-7. Those are supposedly 2x impactful players and they have done nothing to improve that roster.

Oh no, that is not optimism, they have to split those and win out to make the playoffs. I am not saying they will do that, but that is what they need to do to get in. I figure theu will win 2-3 more games and finish no better than 7-10. However, there is a path and it is not that crazy, especially if they can steal a win from ARZ or GB. If they don't they can still make the playoffs, but the margins are super slim with tie breakers. The Vikings loss actually made it easier for the Bears to get into the playoffs, but it is still an extremely long shot. The Bears can now go 4-2 and still somehow back in. If all the other games played out as below, the Bears would tie PHI and ATL, and would get in with a better Conference record than ATL and a better record against common opponents with PHI. So the Bears can technically lose to ARZ and GB, which is expected, but then win out against the lesser teams to finish 8-9. Obviously, teams like ATL or PHI wouldn't be able to win another game than I have projected here. NO could win one more as long as it wasn't against TB. So the biggest threat to this outside of MIN, ATL, and PHI is WAS. They have a great conference record and a somewhat light schedule down the road. If they win 8, they will get in with the best conference record over every team but PHI. After 11/28 WC2 SF 6-5 SEA-W, CIN-L, ATL-W, TEN-L, HOU-W, LAR-L 9-8 WC3 MIN 5-6 DET-W, PIT-W, CHI-L, LAR-L, GB-L, CHI-L 7-10 (5-7) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 ATL 5-6 TB-L, CAR-W, SF-L, DET-W, BUF-L, NO-W 8-9 (5-7) 2 NO 5-6 DAL-L, NYJ-W, TB-L, MIA-L, CAR-W, ATL-L 7-10 (5-7) 3 PHI 5-7 NYJ-W, WAS-W, NYG-W, WAS-L, DAL-L 8-9 (6-6) 4 CAR 5-7 ATL-L, BUF-L, TB-L, NO-L, TB-L 5-12 5 WAS 4-6 SEA-W, LV-L, DAL-L, PHI-L, DAL-L, PHI-W, NYG-W 7-10 (7-5) 6 NYG 4-7 MIA-L, LAC-L, DAL-L, PHI-L, CHI-L, WAS-L 4-13 7 CHI 4-7 ARZ-L, GB-L, MIN-W, SEA-W, NYG-W, MIN-W 8-9 (6-6)

Oh I agree, and Fields has a better arm and is more mobile. Fields upside is up there with a top 5 QB, but due to some fixable issues, he can easily be a bottom 5 QB any week. As long as he continues to improve, he has the capacity to get there. If there is a perfect example of a system helping a rookie, look no further then NE and Jones compared to Fields, Wilson, Lawrence, and Mills. Lance has not played enough to get an assessment there.

Just for fun, this is what would need to happen for the Bears to make the playoffs. Two of the current WC teams face off this afternoon (MIN vs SF). WC2 MIN 5-5 SF-W, DET-W, PIT-W, CHI-L, LAR-L, GB-L, CHI-L 8-9 WC3 SF 5-5 MIN-L, SEA-W, CIN-L, ATL-W, TEN-L, HOU-W, LAR-L 8-9 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 ATL 5-6 TB-L, CAR-W, SF-L, DET-W, BUF-L, NO-W 8-9 2 NO 5-6 DAL-L, NYJ-W, TB-L, MIA-L, CAR-W, ATL-L 7-10 3 PHI 5-7 NYJ-W, WAS-W, NYG-W, WAS-L, DAL-L 8-9 4 CAR 5-7 ATL-L, BUF-L, TB-L, NO-L, TB-L 5-12 5 WAS 4-6 SEA-W, LV-L, DAL-L, PHI-L, DAL-L, PHI-W, NYG-W 7-10 6 NYG 4-7 MIA-L, LAC-L, DAL-L, PHI-L, CHI-L, WAS-L 4-13 7 CHI 4-7 ARZ-W, GB-L, MIN-W, SEA-W, NYG-W, MIN-W 9-8 The Bears need to finish the season 5-1 while other the other outcomes listed. Between MIN, SF, ATL and PHI, only one of those teams can win 1 extra game. If two do, depending on the team, the Bears would lose the tie breaker to SF and win the tie breaker against MIN (assuming they beat them twice). I don't see the Giants winning another game. They have a chance against MIA, PHI, and CHI. Same for Carolina. They have the toughest schedule, the only chance is their next game against ATL. We would rather see CAR win against ATL to knock them out. Philly has an easy schedule, but I have no clue which team is going to show up. That ultimately leaves MIN, SF, and ATL as the only real playoff threats. The Bears have to win one of their next two, which is extremely doubtful, but possible if Fields plays. Thoughts?

That is what is so weird. Fields is the model player, upstanding kid, works hard, respectful, great teammate, has all the intangibles but then on the field the stats look way to close to Haskins who could care less about studying defenses, etc. Also, it was not like Haskins had some dominant players or anything. The same season he was 2-5 as a starter, Keenum was 1-7. His RB was 48 yr old Adrian Peterson and after Terry McLaurin, the next WR was Steven Sims. Their best TE, Jeremy Sprinkle. So you could say Fields is in a better place, yet the stats don't bear that out. Either we are really overrating Fields or Nagy is so bad that he can make a great QB look mediocre.

He has really grown on me. He has also been dominant against the run with several stuffs and TFLs. He now has 11 sacks and 11 TFLs in 10 games.

I agree 100%. I was just shocked that Fields' stats were nearly identical to Dwayne Haskins, who looked absolutely terrible as a rookie.

It is amazing how the eye test can be so much different than the actual stats. Here is a comparison between Dwayne Haskins rookie year with WAS and Fields this year to this point: Haskins 2-5-0, 119-203, 58.6%, 1365 yds, 7 TD, 76.1 QB Rating, 7 INT, 29 Sacks, 6.7 Y/A Fields 2-6-0, 115-198, 58.1%, 1361 yds, 4 INT, 69.0 Rating, 8 INT, 31 Sacks, 6.9 Y/A Now that is astonishing, with 4 completions, 5 attempts, 0.5% comp %, 4 yds, 1 INT, 2 sacks, and 0.2 Y/A Haskins actually has more passing TDs (by 3), so outside of the rushing (Fields 311 yds and 2 TDs to 101 yds and 0 TDs), how can the stats be so off? What am I missing?

You are spot on. It is crazy how a QB can throw for over 300 yards and yet look so bad. There were at least 3 dropped interceptions. If the Lions even get one more of those, the Bears lose. The Lions had 8 passes defended and an INT. In comparison, the vaunted Bears defense had 1 pass defended. This game actually showed Nagy is hopeless. This should've been a 20+ blowout win. Not a GW FG with no time left. The only reason the Bears won is because the Lions have an even worse set of coaches. On the last drive for the Bears, the Lions called consecutive timeouts (which is a penalty), then 2 plays later tried to call another one because they had 13 players on the field, but for some unknown reason, Nagy called a timeout. An unbelievable sequence. On the next play, Dalton takes a knee anyway. Then instead of preserving a timeout and a down in case there is a penalty or some other problem on the FG, Nagy uses all his timeouts and goes to 4th Down with 1 second. If the Bears committed a penalty, it would've been game over because of the 10 second run off. The Lions had two drives that were a microcosm of their franchise. In the 2nd quarter, they went 17 yards on 10 plays, chewing up almost 8 minutes. After getting to the Bears 32, they had 3 straight OLine penalties (False Start, Holding, False Start) which pushed them back to 1st and 30, then had a -6 yard pass play and punted from the 50. Then in the 4th quarter, on their last drive, with a 14-13 lead and a 1st Down from their own 44, they end up with 3 straight OLine penalties again (False Start, Holding, Holding) to put them at 2nd and 32! That ended up costing them the game. Here is my review of the game. The good: Mooney had 5-124 with a nice 52-yard reception. He is still dropping a few passes, but it is hard to argue with back-to-back 100-yard games (he now has 3 of those this season). He is on pace for over 1K yards and 70 receptions. Not bad for a WR2. Kmet led the team with 11 targets (career-high) and had a career-high 8 receptions for 65 yards. He is on pace for 55+ receptions and 550 yards. Quinn had another sack and is now 3rd in the NFL in sacks with 11 but leads the league for all players that have not played the Bears. Garrett leads the NFL with 13, but had 3.5 against the Bears. Watt has 12.5 and had 3 against the Bears. Quinn is on pace for 17 sacks. The Defense overall was without Hicks, Mack, Trevathan, and lost Smith and still held the Lions to 239 total yards and 163 passing yards. The Lions helped with penalties, but outside of 2-3 plays (bad plays by Burns and Bush), the defense held its own. The 2020 draft, the Bears drafted Kmet, Johnson in the 2nd, and Gipson and Mooney in the 5th. That's 4 players with major contributions in this game. That may end up as Pace's best draft class, but he followed that up with Fields, Jenkins, Borom, Herbert, and Tonga. I know the cap is a mess but Nagy is more of a problem than Pace is. Pace's worst mistake this offseason was not addressing CB2. The bad: Eddie Jackson. He returned from injury and didn't miss a beat being a complete waste of a roster spot. It is hard to imagine a safety being less impactful than he is in a game. Remember how his drop in production was Pagano. Now, what is the excuse? The running game. What the hell happened to that? Montgomery had 46 yards on 17 carries (2.7 ypc) and Herbert was 4-9 yds. The Lions were terrible against the run and the Bears couldn't do anything on the ground. Grant taking kickoffs out of the end zone and not even making it to the 20. I get that they want to be aggressive, but at some point you have to figure out that the 25 is much better than the 18. I am going to go thru all his returns. I think downing the ball wherever it ends up would provide better field position than what Grant has done on kickoffs. When a win still feels like a loss. Like AZ said, Dalton didn't do himself any favors. He should've had 3 INTs at least. Nagy just showed how inept he is and nothing has changed. Every week we expect something different, and the team is unorganized, still taking penalties, players not on the same sheet of music, etc, etc. There is no game plan. It feels like a pick up game. Just go out there and call random plays and see what happens. After 4 years with Nagy this team has zero identity.

This was the 3rd straight game the patchwork defense has allowed less than 300 total yards and 180 yards passing. They lost 2 of those games.

By the way, Jackson played but was a ghost again. I didn't hear his name called once. 2 tackles and another game without a pass defended or INT. Pitiful. Vildor was benched then Artie Burns got burnt on both TD drives.

Somehow Dalton threw for over 300 yards, which seems impossible if you watched the game. The offense only scored one TD against the Lions defense, but the Bears defense allowed two. Santos missed another FG and the Bears somehow won. In reality, the Lions lost. They called back-to-back timeouts on defense, then two plays later were trying to call a 3rd as they had 13 players on the field, but to not be outdone for bad coaching, Nagy actually called a timeout. Then on the next play, Dalton kneels anyway. Bears survive 16-14 and are now 1-5 in their last 6 games. Nagy's job is saved.

Just when you thought a team could be more pathetic than the Bears, the Lions say hold my beer. They just had a 1st and 30 after penalties and luckily could convert. Grant had a nice punt return, then Dalton with a deep shot to Mooney and then TD to Graham. Bears 10-7.

Bears offense gets one first down, punts. Lions score a TD without any resistance from the defense. Artie Burns getting torched by Josh Reynolds and Jared Goff. What an embarrassment.

Happy Thanksgiving gents! Have a great day/weekend!