adam

To me the Indy Offense is underwhelming. They are relying on short quick throws to protect Rivers. That has given Rivers a very high completion percentage, literally 15 pts higher than his career average. So based on the law of averages, that is set to drop and return to the mean. So I expect him to be at 60% for the game. He averages 1 INT per game, so even with the short passing game, he still is turnover prone. He has 35 INTs in his last 35 games. He is very consistent in throwing to the other team. I think we can capitalize on one of his mistakes with someone like Fuller or Johnson jumping a short out and taking it to the house. Rivers 78.3%, 794 yds, 8.6 Y/A, 3 TD, 3 INT, 1 Fumble The running game is weak, their top 2 RBs average less than 4 YPC, and Hines leads the team in receptions. So mirroring Hines is going to be key. He is Rivers' outlet, so Smith is going to have to mask him all game. I would make them beat us without Hines. Montgomery is a better rusher and is on par with Taylor's catching ability. With the loss of Cohen, they have the edge with Hines. Taylor - 3.8 YPC, 9 Receptions Hines - 3.5 YPC, 13 Receptions Their WR's have not done very much, mainly because of the short passing game featuring the RBs and TE. So Hilton is averaging just over 3 catches a game. He is almost a non-factor. I like our chances with Fuller, Johnson, and Skrine against Hilton, Pittman, and Pascal/Campbell. They don't have an ARob. Hilton - 10 Receptions, 13.3 YPC Pittman - 9 Receptions, 8.1 YPC The leader in receiving yards is their backup TE, Alie-Cox. He has a 45-yard catch to his credit and seems to be their best receiver. Graham matches him in receptions and first downs, but Alie-Cox has more yards but Graham has more TDs. He is going to have to be accounted for. This would be a good coming out party for Cole Kmet. Alie-Cox - 10 Receptions, 18.1 YPC For Special Teams, their kicker is about average, he has missed 2 kicks from between 30-49, so he is not automatic and hasn't attempted one beyond 50 yet. Their punter is pretty good, he has 4 punts inside the 10 out of 6 punts. Their longest kickoff return is 41 yards by Dulin and longest punt return is 16 yards by Hines. O'Donnell has only put one punt inside the 10 and Santos has missed both kicks beyond 40, so our kickers suck. CP is returning kickoffs, so we have a huge edge there. It will be interesting to see if Miller continues to return punts or if they try CP or Mooney there. For their entire team, they have 2 players I would want, Quentin Nelson at Guard, Darius Leonard at LB. Everyone else is meh. We have Mack, Hicks, Jackson, Montgomery, and ARob. It feels like we have the personnel edge. So it is going to come down to coaching and execution.

The 2-1 Colts come to Soldier Field as 2 point favorites against the undefeated Chicago Bears. No one picked the Bears to win in Atlanta, and no one is picking the Bears against the Colts. With the QB change (which was the biggest variable for the last 3+ yrs), this should be a good matchup for the Bears. Phillip Rivers comes to town and is a very turnover prone QB. I like our chances against him. In a way, our teams are very similar in composition. Vet QB that is not very mobile, young RB, solid WR's, good Edge Rushers, etc. If you do a player by player breakdown, I like our chances against them. I am going with Bears 27-17 and the Bears go to 4-0 with a decisive win at home.

This is a better position for drafting one than when we drafted Trubisky. By the way, I stand corrected. Nagy stated that the QB switch is permanent and not a week to week thing. So unless Foles gets hurt, I think they are sticking with him for the remainder of the year.

I agree that the defense has underwhelmed under Pagano. There is zero creativity. Regardless of the defensive scheme, Mack and Quinn should be getting sacks. Right now they have a total of 2.5 in 3 games. Hicks has 3.5 to put that into perspective. A huge disappointment for me has been RRH. This dude was set for a decent payday and is playing himself into a league minimum deal. He has 4 total tackles in 3 games, 0 sacks, 0 TFL. He has literally done nothing. Bilal Nichols is not far ahead with 5 tackles, 0 sacks, 1 TFL. I know everything thinks Trevathan is the weak link on the defense, but based on production, right now it seems like the weakness is RRH and Nichols. Lastly, the only reason the offense is leading the opponent in anything is because of the defense. We still have a top 10 defense and a bottom 10 offense.

Hicks is also getting some double team action. What they started to do is run at Quinn's side who was taking some wide angles to the QB. They need to do some stunts and run blitzes off tackle there. That seems to be the gap they have the most success in. Also, safeties too deep for me on this play. That is Skrine in the picture who is in coverage. He shouldn't have to make that play. Both Smith and Trevathan were at the LOS on this play. That left a huge hole in the middle if it didn't work (or if they were held).

Mongo, if you watch the replay, Trevathan is actually coming over from the left side of this picture. There was no way for him to get to that spot without the blocker in his route. The problem occurred when Hill is a step or two before this, the guy is holding him. The minute Hill passes him, it's a hold. The other guy is Urban, an is held the entire time from getting to that gap. Its almost impossible to beat a hold, ask Mack.

What is crazy about this throw is if Miller misses it, it would've literally hit the bottom of the L. See the screenshot below where Miller caught it. Foles adds an entire new element to the offense that Trubisky cannot do, change the call and even improvise the routes in the huddle and at the LOS. Listen to Jimmy Graham talk about it after the game. He sounded like a little school boy, he was so excited about Foles taking over. I know Trubisky has a lot better mobility, but teams didn't even honor that anymore. So I don't know if that is a truly a positive. Trubisky can only run what is called. Even if the defense is set to blow the play up, he still calls the play and throws to the first read, regardless if that guy is wide open or triple teamed. The only thing I saw him do is call a different protection to bring a player in to block. If you listen to his post game Zoom call, Trubisky said he didn't see the defender in front of Graham who intercepted the ball. That is because the defender was behind Graham and jumped the route because Trubisky was telegraphing the throw. That to me was telling. He thought the guy who intercepted the ball was in front of Graham when he really was behind him. That is how confused he was on that play.

Mongo, one is a new GM and one is an old-timer. They have not responded to email alerts sent in Leaguesafe or to messages in the league message board. So to ensure things are not getting caught in the spam filter, I sent out direct emails to both of them. Btw, you are crushing it this year. Take it easy, these guys have families and I play you next week.

Blocker has to disengage, he can't prevent Trevathan from turning towards runner, he is holding his arms. Also, look at other side of the hole, O-Lineman has arm around shoulder and hand on back. That is a clear hole. Check out the pic below, to me one of those are a clear hold and created the huge hole.

https://www.nfl.com/news/bears-hc-matt-nagy-announces-nick-foles-replaces-mitchell-trubisky-as-starting-q

There are plays both ways that can change the game, so I don't like to go back revisit those, because if other plays are made earlier, every game is a blowout, even in Atlanta. Now the real issue is the officiating because that is something out of the team's control. If you look at the Hicks roughing the passer play vs the Foles TD pass to Miller and tell me what the defenders did differently. Both defenders landed on the QB, and to be honest the one on Foles was closer to a penalty than the Hicks play. Hicks fell on Ryan, Foles got driven into the ground with full body weight. Hicks called, play against Foles was not. How about the Edwards play? Same thing, that negated a sack too. Edwards is already diving at Ryan's waist level but then Ryan gets smashed from the other side and falls down to the level of Edwards and they collide, Edwards gets a penalty. Yet on a fair catch, a defender barreling down on Cohen gets touched and decides to roll into Cohen at full speed. Rewatching that pisses me off because he didn't need to roll and made no effort to get out of the way. Edwards penalized, that idiot was not, and Cohen is now out for the year because of the reckless play. Mack is held on every play and it is getting beyond ridiculous. The league is clearly de-emphasizing something about holds that teams are taking advantage of. Whatever it is, our O-Line needs to start doing the same thing. I will find the play this week, but there is a play where Mack is being held by two different players right in plain sight and nothing is called. If I am him, I would be pissed. The team needs to send something to the league about it because it is not happening to other players like it is to Mack. Check the Falcons TD run where Hill is seemingly running through a massive hole. There are two blatant holds, one on a DLineman and one on Trevathan that creates the hole. To me, those are easy calls that affect the outcome of the play. These are not backside ones that have no bearing on the play. However, earlier in the game Leno is called for a hold where the defender gets caught running the wrong way around Leno. The play is already past Leno when the hold would've occurred, so it was a pointless call.

Once they started run blitzing and changing up coverages, Mitch had that deer in the headlights look. Foles is not perfect, but he is way better than Trubisky in pretty much every category other than mobility. It's funny because Foles gets some criticism for his play in LA and JAX, but no one talks about the teams he was on, his leading WR in LA was Tavon freaking Austin, and in JAX, he got hurt in Game 1, then came back with his defense allowing 33, 42, and 28 pts. In his 4 starts for JAX, the defense allowed a total of 143 pts. At the end of the day, the HC and QB relationship is the most important in sports. They have to be on the same sheet of music and trust each other. Nagy is a former QB and you can tell by his comments that Foles is in sync with him. Trubisky reminds me of a better Tim Tebow. Tebow is the better overall athlete, and Mitch is probably a better overall QB. However, neither could read defenses or make split second decisions. They survived as long as they did on their athleticism and sheer determination.

When I was looking at the cap for next year, it seemed that the choice was going to come down to Trubisky vs ARob. If Trubisky was going to command 20M, that would basically prevent the team from extending ARob, but now with that likely not happening, that frees up enough to extend Arob.

We have now passed the 2nd deadline for league dues and still have 2 GM's that have not made payment yet. How should we proceed? Any suggestions?

If Julio is in, that does change a lot, but who knows. Maybe Ryan targets Julio and doesn't take that deep shot to Ridley.

Snacks and Whyte are almost no brainers, I hope they can get them both signed. Hopefully ARob's extension can be done now with some clarity at QB. Foles contract for next season is a known and if Trubisky is gone, that frees up money for ARob.

Nall is in, but for change of pace type player, we will need to bring someone else in. ARob needs to get his extension done now.

Yes and yes. I think with the whole QB competition in the shortened offseason, Trubisky was going to get to start regardless of how that turned out. So he "wins" the QB competition and it gives Foles more time to get comfortable within the offense. So in the first two weeks, Trubisky plays good football for 2 quarters out of 8. Then starts this game off with 2 bad quarters. So we are now at 2 good and 10 bad quarters of play. So once we got into the 3rd and he threw that pick, it was time to make the move. Here is the deal, he is a good kid, can be serviceable in the right offense, but is nothing more than a one read or half the field type QB. The minute the defense changes from zone to man or vice versa, he panics. He doesn't know what to do pre and post snap. He also has pretty bad long ball accuracy. So those are both terrible traits to have as a QB. He not only misreads plays, he makes inaccurate throws at the same time. That is exactly what happened on the INT. He throws it to the wrong player, normally into double or triple coverage. Also, think about when plays break down or the defense has it covered. Foles purposely throws the ball away, Trubisky still throws it and it normally gets the receiver killed or it's an interception. The only trait that Trubisky has over Foles is his running ability, but that can't be your #1 trait as a QB and that is all Trubisky has left. I would only use him in a Taysom Hill role when you want a gadget play. I also think Nagy has been secretly craving this move for a long time.

Foles will get a week of practice before playing the Colts at home. I feel much more confident with him behind center and you can tell the receivers are excited based on the post game comments. The defense is still missing Goldman, they really could use another big body clogging up the running lanes. However, they held Ryan to 238 yards passing, which is very promising. Also, that includes 63 yards on one play. Outside of that one bomb, they held him to under 50% completion percentage and 175 yards.

"Big D&%# Nick" comes up big. 2.5 quarters with Trubisky generated 10 points against a terrible Falcons defense. He also gave them great field position on his interception. 1.5 quarters with Foles generated 20 points. He also had a TD taken away when Dennard took the ball away from ARob in the end zone. So it could have been 27. Night and day difference running the offense.

Sucks to see an injury on a fair catch. Thankfully he got a new contract before the injury. Hopefully he recovers quickly and is ready for next season. Now we need another RB for sure.

It has to be Foles. You can see his decision making and he is decisive with his throws. Trubisky can't make some of those throws because he can't process everything fast enough. The receivers are going to love Foles because he throws a more catchable ball than Trubisky.

What a crazy turn of events. Trubisky throws the INT that looks to seal the game. They put Foles in with what looks like will be garbage time down 26-10 with 6 mins left and he brings them back so fast that they have to get a first down on offense to take 3 kneels to seal the win. Wow!

Can't beat the officials, I don't know what the team is expected to do with every call going against you. ARob had possession and the play was over. How can the defender get the chance to rip it out after the play should be dead?

Foles time.