adam

Floyd---------Quinn (Mack/Quinn are easily a top-3 Edge Rushing Duo, this is going to make the entire defense, especially the secondary a lot better) Prince -----Johnson (Johnson is a 1st round talent with fresh legs, this is another clear upgrade) HaHa---------- Gipson (If anything, this allows Jackson to play more in centerfield, which is a good thing) Coward----- Ifedi, Bars (Experience-wise, Ifedi brings a lot of starter experience to the line, hard to not see this as an upgrade to Long/Coward. Also, if Leno cuts down on his penalties, the O-Line looks a lot better even before adding Ifedi or Bars) Burton------ Graham- Kmet (Talk about a 180, this group almost becomes a strength of the offense, Graham can still catch and creates a ton of mismatches in the RZ, Kmet is very well rounded and will be like bringing in a young Greg Olsen back. Guys like Harris, Holtz, and Horsted go back to being backups) Kwit--------- Trevathan (to me this was a leadership move first, and technically, for the next year or maybe two, a performance move too. Long term, Kwit was the better option) MT----------- Foles (regardless which QB starts, we know the bar is going to be higher, so we know this position will at least be improved in 2020) Williams ----- Hicks (Williams was pretty good when getting some PT, but Hicks is a fringe All-Pro level player. If he can stay healthy, with the other additions, this defense may be better than 2018.) Gabriel (3rd wr)---------- ? Ridley, Ginn, Wims (Gabriel was already replaced by Miller - who looked really good late in the season, so essentially we need someone to replace Miller's early season output, which was not that much. I think we can find something out of Ridley, Wims, Ginn, or even Mooney.) Lynch (3rd edge) Gipson (Don't sleep on this one, Lynch was a penalty machine, so just adding some young legs who can spell Mack or Quinn with a decent pass rush will be an improvement over Lynch)

Nice find, and I was pretty accurate on my guess lol.

Weird that you can't find his age anywhere. He can't be more than 24 based on his photos.

I agree on the part about more football is always better, and I never liked teams getting a bye anyway. That seemed like a double advantage. They already had home field like Mongo said, and then they get a bye.

Yeah true and the #1 seed would get the #8 seed anyway. So instead of a bye, they get a fringe playoff team. I guess it would lead to some exciting upsets if an 8-seed beat a 1-seed.

It would definitely make it more even, but I guess it would de-incentive winning the conference. Also, a 7-9 team would make the playoffs about 50% of the time. I don't know if the league is ready for losing teams in the playoffs. We have seen a few in some bad divisions, but I don't recall the last time a wild card team made it in with a losing record.

Well, the 17th game won't be added until at least 2021. Yeah, I agree on the preseason, Nagy actually admitting he should've played them in 2019 as well. Hopefully we will see more of it from here on out.

So what do you guys think of the new 7-team NFL playoff format? I have mixed feelings about it. My old school brain says, leave it like it is. My new school brain says, cool, an extra playoff game. Some thoughts: The #1 seed is now the only team with a bye. Teams 2-7 face off in the wild card round with the 3 winners and #1 seed making up the Divisional Round. In a way, it does make more sense. It rewards the conference regular-season champ, whereas before, the 2nd seed was also getting a bye. So now the importance of winning the conference becomes even more important. The last few weeks of the season should be more competitive as more teams will be in the hunt for that last playoff spot. I could see Week 17 getting pretty crazy as it would almost become a play-in game week for those teams fighting for that last spot. The #1 seed is going to have an easier path to the SB now and the #2 seed's path is that much harder. 3-6 are about the same as before. They all face off against the same teams as they would before (3v6, 4v5). The #7 seed is guaranteed to face the #2 and #1 seed in back to back weeks. If they happen to beat the #2 seed on the road, they then travel to the #1 seed (who is coming off a bye). If they somehow win that one, they more than likely would face either the #3 or #4 seed. So theoretically, the #7 seed has to beat the #1, #2, and #3 seeds in their own conference in 3 consecutive weeks, then, more than likely gets the other conference's #1 seed in the Super Bowl. I don't know what the odds on that would be, but even in the regular season, those odds would be extremely low, but to do that in the playoffs, with 3 road games and then a neutral site game seems extremely low. In the end, I think you will see more #1 seeds making it to the SB than before. This is the part I don't like. As much as it makes sense from a regular-season standpoint (best record gets a benefit), it is against everything else in the league's effort to create parity. The reason I don't like it is because some teams have extremely week divisions, like NE did for the past 20 years. They basically started the year 6-0 and only needed to go 7-5 or 6-6 in the other games to win the conference. The likelihood of an NFC North team winning the conference is super low. The last NFC North team to get the #1 seed was GB in 2011 at 15-1. The division only has 1 in the last 12 years. That is the frustrating part for me. The divisions are not equal, so though our chances to make the playoffs are better, our chances of winning the SB are worse. So pick your poison.

Any type of containment strategy starts with the ability to detect the presence of whatever you are trying to contain. Since so many people are asymptomatic, it makes containment nearly impossible. The problem was, as a society, we really got complacent against these types of threats. We should be practicing social distancing when practical anyway and establishments should have stricter cleanliness guidelines, especially with common surfaces and air circulation. Shopping cart washes, automatic doors, and the daily cleansing of mass transit should be mandatory (where feasible). For a lot of those places, besides the standard cleaning, all they have to do is install UVC lights and have them on when there are no people inside. Kill everything, including some bugs. Stores could install them, and when the last person locks up, boom, the UV lights come on. Also, masks should be worn during flu seasons or when there is any risk of a viral spread. The government should give out reusable masks to those that can't or don't want to buy their own. That way it doesn't stress the supply chain of medical masks when they are needed for medical professionals. We also need to bring back all medication manufacturing to the US. The fact that we rely on so many foreign countries for that is crazy. /End Rant

I am not worried about the guy being a Saint, but he seems to get very distracted with outside things. Women can be very distracting. He doesn't seem like a guy that can handle that type of drama. I would rather have the dude doing everything in his power on his own time to make himself better. Eating, sleeping, studying, working out, etc. Clearly Smith is not one of those guys. It takes dedication to be great, and you can't always get by on God-given strength and speed.

One thing about testing is that you can test negative one day, then get exposed the next day, and unless you test again, you may not even show symptoms, and if you don't follow the social distancing guidelines, you can expose a lot of people. So unless you test everyone everyday, unless they tested positive for antibodies, so at this point there is not much we can do except protect those at risk (elderly, immuno-compromised), and provide them with protection and support, while letting everyone else go back to the new norm.

Retired on active duty maybe lol. Nope, officially done, 27 years and 6 months. Thanks and thanks for your service as well! There were a lot of unknowns with everything. You can only prepare so much for every possible disaster. I know everyone sees the budget and thinks these things are prepared annually, which they are, but they are planning for things 3-5 years out. So if there is a problem this year, it's likely that funding was changed 3-5 years ago. What I find fascinating is that everyone is quick to place blame. Is it really the President's or Governor's fault if you contracted the coronavirus? Especially weeks after the quarantine. If you are getting infected, obviously you are not following the guidelines. I hate to see all these deaths, where many could've been prevented, but like you said AZ, the blame needs to be shared across the board if you have to assign blame.

I want Mitch to succeed only because it gives the team a longer lifespan with that position locked down. Foles is only a patch for a few years, but we will still need a young QB to groom at some point. My problem with Mitch is equivalent to someone that stutters when they talk but can sing like a beast. I have a friend like that, it's a left-brain, right-brain thing. I think QB's are the same way. In practice, slower speeds, less stress, things are easy to execute. Then in-game time, when you have to make a high stress split-second decision, it's a different part of your brain. I just don't think Mitch has that in him. Outside 3-4 games, he has literally been terrible. When he succeeds, they are single read plays to the first read. He will throw it there regardless of the defense. Foles, even though he hasn't worked out in some places, I believe it was more tied to what they were trying to have him do. In Jacksonville, it's a different offense and a bad team. It's hard to overcome things outside of your control. In LA, the same thing, look at the team at the time. Outside of Gurley, the top WRs were Kenny Britt and Tavon Austin. The crazy part was he was really good in Philly and excelled in the postseason. He can do things that Mitch can't but Mitch is much more mobile and can extend plays with his legs. It will come to which player will make the other players around him better. I think Foles has the edge in that department. If he is a more accurate passer, can dissect the defense at the LOS and change protection calls, audibles, etc, better than Mitch, then there is your winner. Mitch really has to prove he can read defenses without the coach telling him what to do at the LOS. Watch some games from 2019. For a good part of the season, Mitch would walk to the line, then back out and get a new call in from the sidelines. A QB needs to be able to do that on their own. That's the bottom line.

Holy cow, I come in for home-field advantage and see that this thread has taken a huge turn. So for the topic, we have a very favorable schedule in terms of travel distance and when we have long and short weeks. We don't play on Thanksgiving or 3 games in 11 days this year. Our TNF game is at home, which is huge. The no fans thing will be interesting. Part of the league's revenue come from ticket sales, so I can see several courses of action play out. First no fans, second, some type of capacity restriction, like 50% with spaced seating and every other row. I doubt we get to a full capacity until there is a vaccine. Now to the other topics, this whole COVID situation has been absolutely crazy. I just retired from the Army on May 1st but was still in for the ramp-up in March and April. I can tell you that the government acted on the information that had at the time. The models were terrible, but that's what they were going off. Also, the states did not need to wait for the entire country to act. NY could've closed down way earlier when they started to spike. California and Washington did a great job with containment. At the end of the day, if we would've had a stricter policy earlier, things would've been much different, but even with restrictions in place, people still did what the hell they wanted. I now live in Alabama, the day they changed the stay at home order, it was like a jailbreak. Everyone out and about with no masks and then a few days later, our numbers in a few areas blow up. People in general just need to be more considerate of others, it is not hard, we don't need the government to tell us to be polite to each other, clean up after yourselves, and if you are sick, stay at home.

I am going to double down on Cohen as most disappointing. I think they will use Patterson more, thus reducing the need for Cohen. I don't think they really want to give him carries over Monty. Now that we have at least two legit pass-catching TEs, that should take away targets from Cohen too. Lastly, he doesn't seem too concerned about taking care of himself or getting better in the offseason. If anyone follows him on social media, they can probably attest to that as well.

Oh, they will. There is no way they go into the season with this group. I would love Devonta Freeman but I could see Spencer Ware due to his familiarity with the offense (works for both the player and the team). Some other names, Isaiah Crowell, Theo Riddick, Javorius Allen, or even Carlos Hyde or Bilal Powell. I would be ok with any of those names. Hyde is the only one that would command any significant cap dollars. All the others would be around $1M or vet minimums, so we have options.

Yeah, I just didn't see the play as an outright indictment on Miller's play. Could he have ran the wrong route? Sure. Could it be a bad play call or bad audible? Sure. I just thought it was funny for the guy on Twitter to go to all that trouble to prove something that you can't prove without inside information because if he knows what the audible calls are, then you would think the defenders did too.

How do we know the play or the audible routes? If Miller does the out route, the DB closes directly at him. Miller's DB is 9 yards off the ball too. To me it looks like a rub route and ARob didn't continue his path to the outside. If he does, the defenders would get tangled up. I watched this 20 times, Trubisky is not looking for an out. He is clearly looking right where the two WRs are at. This was a pick/rub play on the inside and it seems they both gave up on their routes. Someone definitely messed up, but it's no guarantee it was Miller.

Man the MT thing would be depressing. We traded up one pick and used the #2 pick on a Taysom Hill-like player. If he doesn't win the job, I think they try to offload him before the trading deadline or even before the season starts. I don't think Nagy or the other players want to answer questions about Trubisky for another year.

32 yards a game for 16 games is 512 yards, so 3-33 per game seems reasonable.

ouch

He is going to get a lot of interest. If it's a bidding war, I can't see us winning.

Most overrated: Fuller Most underrated: Montgomery 2nd Best player:(Mack would be everyone's answer.) ARob Best new addition(draft): Johnson Best new addition(FA): Quinn Could surprise: Mooney Takes a leap: Miller Prove it year: Trubisky Most disappointing: Cohen All pros: Mack-Smith-EJack Kmet stats: 44-510-3 TDS First game for fans: Week 1

That and they drafted Ruiz in the first round.

Warford would be a huge upgrade and would make the interior line a strength.