adam

I just thought about this, what the hell happened to the "Adjustor"? Remember when Nagy said Burton was the Adjustor and everything keyed off him on the offense? Who is the adjustor in this offense? No one really plays that role which makes the offense feel very clunky. I think when you add Trubisky to a clunky offense, you get exactly what we see every week. So if Nagy comes back, I don't think Trubisky will be back. Cap will play a role in this decision too.

GB played Cover-3 a ton taking away most throws between 10-20 yards by having 3 DBs in that area in addition to the DBs playing man. They forced all throws to go underneath or be contested between 10-20 yards. If you notice that any throws over 10 yards probably had 2 or more DBs in close proximity. The game plan did not take advantage of this defensive scheme. Cover-3 is easy to beat and exploit, yet Nagy/Lazor didn't attack it. They were very passive. The 4th Down rollout was a perfect example where they had only one option. Trubisky's biggest issue is thinking on the fly. He just throws the ball where it is called regardless of the defense. He has to be able to see that the play is not there and move to other reads. He just throws it. That is frustrating, especially when someone like Josh Allen can improve by changing his mechanics in the offseason. Trubisky ended the year with a higher QBR than Roethlisberger, Goff, Burrow, Dalton, Minshew, Tua, Wentz, Lock, Newton, Dalton, and Foles. His last 4 games QBR: 85.9, 81.9, 63.3, and 63.6. That run matches his best stretch of any in his career. He has only had one other 4 game stretch with a QBR of 60 or higher (in 2018 TB, MIA, NE, and NYJ, team went 2-2 in those games). Trubisky also had his highest career QB Rating at 93.5, a 2:1 TD:INT Ratio and his highest completion pct at 67%.

Bears DVOA 12/14 Offense DVOA 13/14 Defense DVOA 7/14 Saints DVOA 1/14 Offense DVOA 7/14 Defense DVOA 2/14 So we are playing a team that is technically better/more efficient than GB, at their home, and they have done this in a season without their starting QB, #1 WR, and #1 RB, and all of them may be playing on Sunday. I wouldn't be surprised if NO is resting their players by halftime for their real playoff matchup the following weekend. Rewatching the GB game makes me sick. On every defensive play, there is something ridiculous going on, especially the pass plays. Defenders would peel off their receiver to stop and guard an empty part of the field while their guy runs wide open. Jackson is covering Adams and starts backpedaling before the snap until there is 15 yards of cushion. He was so far away that Fuller makes the tackle off of his guy. What the hell is this. On a Jones run on the first drive, Trevathan literally doesn't move until Jones is in the hole. It looked like a broken game controller. The entire line passes him by before he reacts and Roquan, who is actually on the other side of him gets to Jones before he does. So bizarre. If Trevathan is in his gap, Jones is stopped near the LOS. On that first drive, Shelley got a DPI on Adams which basically gifted them a TD since it was a 4th Down play. What I don't understand is why they wouldn't put Fuller on Adams (who is standing right next to Shelley) who was guarding Jones?

that post was from 2019?

I felt much better about Pace before this year where guys like Jackson and Cohen were huge contributors. However, Jackson has played no better than a 4th or 5th round safety and Cohen, even before injury have became a sideline gimmick runner. Pace has lost on basically all of his $100 bets, but won a few scratch offs. Every miss in the first or second rounds, he would need several hits in the later rounds to compensate. That has not happened.

Yeah Ryan Walter Pace is an idiot. Philly is a hot mess. How can a franchise go from model franchise with SB win to this clown show? They couldn't even win a division with 7 wins and we got in playing with the #1 seed in our division. Howie Roseman was the Exec of the year in 2017 and look at this team now. That award is hot garbage, the 2016 winner was Reggie McKenzie of the Raiders, Roseman in 2017, and Pace in 2018. None of those franchises are in the top 10 of the league.

Nope Eddie is not under contract, he is a RFA though. However, since he is not under contract, he can't be traded. What sucks is it will cost the Bears a couple of million to keep Santos. He was a top #5 kicker and those guys make $4M+. I am hoping they can sign him to a longer deal with more guaranteed money, but a lower hit in 2021. The only thing that scares me is the only one of the top 5 salary kickers is in the playoffs (Tucker).

Yeah, just think if you are the Bills. You go 13-3 and get the 7th Seed Colts who are not an easy out. The Bears and Redskins are the two easiest teams in the playoffs. The only thing the Bears have going for them is they have nothing to lose. No one expected them to make the playoffs and the Saints are huge favorites. This will also be Trubisky's last game as a Bear, and we can expect some other changes too. This is also some good experience for the young guys. Outside of that, I have zero expectations going into the game.

I really like the new format where each conference gets an extra team. This prevents a team like the Redskins with a losing record from bumping a true playoff team like the Bears out of the dance. I also like that only the Conference regular-season champ gets a bye. That makes more sense as does a guaranteed home game for the division winners. Of the 6 Wild Card matchups, two are divisional games (Rams @ Seahawks and Browns @ Steelers). The Browns will have to beat the Steelers in back to back weeks to advance. All the games seem fairly even but the Bears are the biggest underdogs at -9.5. All the other games are between 3.5-6.5 pts. TEN @ BAL is a rematch (TEN won at home). The Bears have probably the craziest path to the SB. They will have to more than likely beat the Saints, Packers, Seahawks, and Chiefs on the way to this year's Lombardi trophy. Only Indy would have a tougher path (BUF, KC, PIT, GB) if all favorites win. The playoff QBs: Mahomes, Rodgers, Allen, Brees, Wilson, Roethlisberger, Smith, Tannehill, Jackson, Brady, Mayfield, Goff, Rivers, and Trubisky. Goff is the worst QB, followed by Roethlisberger, than Trubisky in QBR. Those 3 and Smith are the 4 that are not listed in the top 10 in QBR. Only one QB finished in the top 10 in QBR and didn't make the playoffs (Fitzpatrick - MIA, who finished at 10-6).

I don't know about you, but I didn't expect this kind of season from our kicker. Santos broke all kinds of franchise records and ended the season making 27 straight kicks. His only misses were from 46 and 52, with one blocked XP. I really hope we can lock him up for a few years and not have to worry about kicking. Then our favorite ex-kicker Parkey is prepping to let down another entire fanbase in Cleveland in the playoffs.

Thanks, it has been a comedy of errors this year which I tried to convey in the game threads. This game deserves to be on Nickelodeon for how comical the Bears are playing. Comedy Central would've been perfect, but getting slimed on Nickelodeon is a close second.

The tag still counts against the cap, so they would have to get really creative with a deal for him and restructure a ton of other deals.

Assuming Washington loses, the Bears are locked into the 20th pick. If Washington somehow wins, the Bears could slide to #19.

I wanted Claypool instead. To me, he would've been a much better weapon in this offense than Kmet has been.

We went to OT against New Orleans where Foles actually played pretty good. Trubisky did not make a single throw beyond what a High School QB couldn't make. He has zero value added at this point. Trubisky's play is totally correlated to the defense he plays against. That is not a good QB, the last few weeks showed that again.

Yeah, if you could plug in any GM, HC, DC, and QB and have similar, if not better results, what's the point? This franchise has severely underachieved with the opportunities it had. It starts with the front office and ends with scheme and play calling on the field. How many times to do we have to watch a square peg try to get pushed into a round hole?

I don't think I have ever been this unexcited about Bears playoff football. This is a 5-win team that fell out of a dumpster fire to make the playoffs. I would be shocked if the Bears look any different than they did against the Packers. Saints 31-13

I do not want Fields, he feels like he will be a bust after seeing the team take the ball out of his hands to win the game. All the recent great young QB's were selected by a team that traded up (KC, HOU, BUF). So if the Bears are picking in the late teens to mid 20s, and want a QB like Jones or Trask, I assume they will have to give up their 2021 and 2022 firsts to move up 10+ slots to have a shot at one of them. If the trade is this and next year's ones, Im ok with it.

Weather looks to be nice, low 30s, partly cloudy and only a light wind.

This game is the most important regular season game for this team in years. It will ultimately come down to what defense shows up. If it is the one from the last few weeks, we have no chance. I believe the offense will score 20+ but can the defense stop Rodgers and Adams? The game was shifted to the afternoon slot parallel to the Rams-Cards game. A win and the Bears can actually knock GB out of the #1 seed and possibly all the way to the #3 seed. There is also a chance that there is a rematch in GB the following week if the Bears win. The Bears also can jump to the #6 seed with a win and Cards win. People forget there was a 14 pt swing in the last game, the Bears gifted them 7 pts on the Trubisky fumble and lost 7 more on the end zone INT. If Trubisky can hold onto the ball, that's a completely different game. Monty had success and Nagy abandoned the run. Just pound the rock, make them commit to the run and then hit them with PA and boots. Easy reads for Trubisky and put the ball in playmakers hands in space.

If Nagy is back, does Mitch want to play for the HC that "blindsided" him? Also, if he plays well in the next two games, there may be more suitors with bigger caps than just the Bears.

It looks like Wims is supposed to sit down in the soft spot in the zone but doesn't get a clean release. Based on Mitch's foot placement, on the snap he tries to hold the Safety to the left, but Smith immediately turns his hips and starts dropping in coverage, so Trubisky goes to the next read (Wims). If Wims makes a clean move back outside, that ball hits him in the hands, or there is at least a 34% chance that it does.

Yeah, look at Wentz. What the hell happened there? He was an MVP candidate within the last few years and lost his job to a rookie. Goff has been nothing but a system QB, but he can throw the deep ball. I looked at Goff's stats, this guy has had 4x games with a QBR under 40 (3 under 20 which is almost impossible) and 4 over 80. Talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you have no clue which QB you are going to get. One of his worst games this year was against the Jets. Now all of a sudden Mayfield is a top 10 QB. I find it funny that Mayfield gets all this credit for being a great QB when he is about to have 2x 1000 yard rushers, and for at least half the season had 3x All-Star pass catchers (Beckham, Landry, and Hooper) behind one of the best lines in football. So we will see how Trubisky measures up to Mayfield who had 19-29, 65.5%, 258 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT against JAX a few weeks ago.

I know there has been a lot of buzz during this last few game stretch where Trubisky has looked better. So I tried to see if anything stood out in this most recent 3-game stretch that was something we have not seen, at least from a numbers perspective, in his entire career. I did find one set of numbers that stood out. In 44 games where Trubisky had 20 or more passing attempts, he has only had a completion percentage over 70% in 14 games. 3 of those have occurred in the last 3 weeks. That really stood out to me. Obviously, the coaches have made some changes to make things easier on him, which has had led to some promising results. I however do not know if it will be enough to keep him around or if that type of play is sustainable because he is still one of, if not the worst deep ball QB in the game, and at some point that has to be fixed or teams will stack the box for both the run and short passes. This is still a concern for me:

Leno has been visibly better over the last few weeks. This style of running game suits him much better than the other crap they were doing earlier in the year. It also helps to have Whitehair next to him to help him on inside moves. Totally off topic, but I completely forgot that Wims and Miller are both 26 and only a year younger than ARob.