adam

Fields signs rookie deal, no offset language, which is nice.

For Long, it is tough to come back when you get out of shape. He hasn't played in a few years and retired with injuries, so he probably won't play very much this year. Monty added 1.5 mph to his top speed, which would shave a few decimals but not 1.5 secs from his 40 time.

A lot of nuggets coming out of the presser today: "The first time Justin Fields threw a deep ball to Darnell Mooney, Mooney says he was smiling midway through his route." "He threw a pass today against the Cover 2...it was beautiful" - Damien Williams on Justin Fields #Bears C Sam Mustipher said he has put on 10 pounds. He has been working out with Olin Kreutz this offseason.

If that is the biggest criticism of Desai, I will take it. I am not worried about that side of the ball. Gain Goldman, lose Fuller, Jackson in more space, no Skrine, defense will be better.

So Brett Favre was drafted by ATL, then traded to GB before his run there, then trade to the Jets. So since he was not drafted by the Packers, I didn't count a player like him. People do not give ATL enough flak for trading Favre. The following year he threw for more yards than Chris Miller and Wade Wilson combined, who were QB1 and QB2 for ATL.

It was almost like someone else was drafting. He hit two huge need areas with trade ups (Fields and Jenkins), then got value and filled other holes the rest of the draft. I would not mind a draft like this every year. Get your guys at the top, then get value the rest of the draft.

It's gonna be a tough game for sure, but it won't be a blowout. I like how we match up against the Rams. We have better RBs, Rams have a slight edge at WR depth and TE is pretty even. QB will come down to whether we start Fields or Dalton. On defense, with Goldman back, the DLine is close to even, we have better Edge with Mack, Rams have better CBs, but the Bears have better ILBs and Safeties. Both of these teams are playoff teams, so this will be a good test to see where each other are at.

Quinn absolutely underperformed and the only reason he got any pressure or even close to the QB because they were running away from Mack. Quinn did worse than Floyd and couldn't get off a block to save his life. He looked old and slow to me.

I would love to sign Moses, he is a top 10 RT and was graded as the 15th best OT in the league last year. This would be a huge get for Pace and would be a huge upgrade at RT. With Jenkins at LT and Daniels, Whitehair, Mustipher up the middle and Ifedi as the Swing Tackle, we would have a very solid line and Borom can continue to develop and won't have to be rushed into action. I hate PFF but:

The Bears are still sort of in a win-now mode (with the aging defense), and in a weird way, I think Fields gives them the best chance to win with his ability to get out of the pocket. Dalton is not very mobile and took 24 sacks and ended up 19th in sacks in only 9 starts with the vaunted Dallas O-Line. Trubisky was sacked 18 times in 9 starts with the Bears O-Line. Fields has much better pocket awareness than Trubisky and way better mobility than Dalton. That makes me believe Fields will be in sooner than later. The latest for me was Week 2 at home against the Bengals, but I have a feeling he will be named the Week 1 starter after the 2nd preseason game.

The Rams have a new QB (Stafford) who will be in an entirely new system for the first time in his career. The Rams also have a new Defensive Coordinator, so it seems like the only place they can go as a defense is down. I expect a close game, and I would not doubt if Fields starts (if he is ready). From all reports, Fields is a quick learner and motivated to be the best. We are not going to be stuck on 102 like Trubisky for 4 years. No one really knows how Stafford will play that early in the season on a new team. Trades like his are super rare, I don't think there has been a QB of his caliber traded this late in his career from his original team since Joe Montana. Here are the 5 most recent QBs I could find that went to a new team after 6+ years with their original team, and how they fared in their first game in the new uniform: Tannehill (6 yrs) - Game 6 - 2019 - @ DEN, 13-16, 144 yds, 0 TD, 1 INT, 78.1 Rating (did not start) Palmer (7 yrs) - Game 7 - 2011 - vs KC, 8-21, 116 yds, 0 TD, 3 INT, 17.3 Rating (did not start) Culpepper (7 yrs) - Game 1 - 2006 @ PIT, 18-37, 262 yds, 0 TD, 2 INT, 49.6 Rating Bledsoe (9 yrs) - Game 1 - 2002 vs Jets, 26-39, 271 yds, 1 TD, 2 INT, 73.8 Rating Moon (10 yrs) - Game 1 - 1994 @GB, 20-37, 166 yds, 0 TD, 3 INT, 32.0 Rating I have no clue if this correlates to anything, but it is pretty notable that they combined for 1 TD and 11 INT in less than 5 full games appearing for the first time with their new teams. Will Stafford be that bad? Probably not, but in September, Week 1, he was outplayed by Trubisky, ended up with 1 TD, 1 INT, and a 77.2 QB Rating with a loss. In his career against the Bears, he was 11-9 with 32 TD and 23 INT and an 86.3 Passer Rating. In 12 seasons, he only faced a Bears team that ended the season with a winning record 3 times and was throwing to Megatron for 7 of those seasons. He is going from Golladay, Jones, Hockenson, Amendola, Swift, and Peterson to Kupp, Woods, Higbee, Jackson, Akers and Henderson. So there is not some massive skill position bump, LAR has a slight edge in WR depth and RB but Hockenson is definitely better than Higbee.

Chris Simms liked Mond more than Lance and Fields coming out, but this is absurd. Here is his bottom 5 of his top 40: 36. Marcus Mariota, Las Vegas 37. Kellen Mond, Minnesota 38. Trey Lance, San Francisco 39. Justin Fields, Chicago 40. Case Keenum, Cleveland He said, "It’s about what you can do for me this year." So tell me how Mond, who is behind Cousins is going to be anywhere near as valuable to the Vikings this year as Fields is for the Bears? I know he is just sticking to his original rankings, but man, he is going down with the ship here. Fields, at worst is a top 25 QB this year. There are some bad starting QBs out there, and there is no way Fields can come out and be worse than every starter and 6 backups. https://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/2021/05/24/rookies-justin-fields-trey-lance-kellen-mond-lead-off-chris-simms-top-40-nfl-quarterback-rankings-now-on-chris-simms-unbuttoned-and-pro-football-talk-live/

If I had to lump games into wins, 50/50, and losses today: Wins: 7 - 2 - CIN, 4 - DET, 5 - at LVR, 8 - SF, 13 - ARZ, 15 - MIN (MNF), 17 - NYG 50/50: 6 - 3 - at CLE, 6 - GB, 12 - at DET (THU - Thanksgiving), 11 - BAL, 16 - at SEA, 18 - at MIN Losses: 4 - 1 - at LAR (SNF), 7 - at TB, 9 - at PIT (MNF), 14 - at GB (SNF) To me, the win range is 7-13, so 10 seems about right with the team splitting the 50/50 games. The only reason I have the Thanksgiving game as a 50/50 is it's on a short week after a game against Baltimore. BAL is a 50/50 because the Bears will be coming off a bye. So those can swing both ways pretty easily. LAR is hard on the road, week one. TB, PIT, and GB on the road will be tough. Seattle and Cleveland are beatable teams, but a little harder on the road. I have at MIN in Week 18 as 50/50 because it will depend on playoff status at that point. My prediction 10-7, last wild card team (Seed #7).

The consensus is that Fields looked good, pretty much high marks on everything observable. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/bears-rookie-minicamp-justin-fields-passes-test-first-practice Trubisky also saw praise after his rookie minicamp, but very few reporters identified what those things were. They just said he looked the part. However, he was fumbling snaps, throwing interceptions, etc in that camp. Fields completed every pass but one which was a drop. Mitch was still trying to go from 101 to 102 after several years in the league. Fields may do it this offseason.

Mitch's look was confusion.

I think Fields has the lowest bust chance of any QB in Bears history after Sid Luckman. For every other QB, there was a higher risk of them not living up to potential. It seems like, at worst, Fields will be a dependable long-term starter, and at best, a perennial All-Pro QB. For Bears fans, that just does not compute.

That is insane.

5 Prime Time games, 4 away. Bye Week 10 (after a MNF, which is nice) Alternating away/home, no two weeks in a row at home or on the road

1 - at LAR (SNF) 2 - CIN 3 - at CLE 4 - DET 5 - at LVR 6 - GB 7 - at TB 8 - SF 9 - at PIT (MNF) 10 - BYE 11 - BAL 12 - at DET (THU - Thanksgiving) 13 - ARZ 14 - at GB (SNF) 15 - MIN (MNF) 16 - at SEA 17 - NYG 18 - at MIN

In comparison, Massie signed for $4M.

Leno signs a one year $5M deal with WFT.

I remember the Trubisky draft, everyone was excited/perplexed by the trade up from #3 to #2, assuming the Bears were drafting Watson, only to hear Trubisky's name called. There was a collective groan throughout Bears Fandom. He got booed at the Bulls game and had a deer in the headlights look all the time. Good kid, but not a starting NFL QB. Fields is literally the polar opposite. With all the crazy stuff going on with Watson, maybe this worked out about as good as it could have as the team was never taking Mahomes.

From 2011-2020, there are only 2 NFL teams that are in the top 5 in the league in the following schedule categories: 1. Games with less rest than opponents (NYG - 2nd (39), CHI - 5th (31)) 2. # of short week road games (NYG - T/1st (16), CHI - T/4th (14)) 3. # of games off road SNF or MNF (NYG - 2nd (20), CHI - T/4th (17)) Overall with all the other factors, the Bears had the 27th worst scheduling variables over the past decade and one of the biggest disparities between division opponents (27th > GB 13th, Vikings 12th, Lions 4th). Seattle (30th) to LAR (14th) was the biggest. https://www.nbcsports.com/edge/article/offseason-research/teams-most-impacted-scheduling-inequalities I always had a feeling the Bears had it bad, but this really depicts it pretty well. For how bad the team was for a good portion of the decade, you would think some of these numbers wouldn't be so high. I remember the 3 games in 11 days thing a few years ago, and I believe this analysis doesn't take into account return from international travel (which a team loses a day on two on). Thoughts?

Tragic news. Why would anyone climb over a fence at a substation, then onto transformers? You can hear the electricity in the air around those.

He has that mentality towards everything he does, he is not just a gym rat.