adam

Another weird note, the Lions top rusher was AP and WR was Amendola.

What an absolutely crazy game. The Lions dominated for 3 quarters, then with a 23-6 lead, they went to a prevent. I believe the Lions were without their top two CBs and Edge Rusher and the Bears could only muster 6 pts in 3 quarters. Swift has the game-winning TD in his hands and he drops it. We won on that play. I don't even know what to think. To me, the plays of the game were Fuller's INT which completely turned the game around and Trubisky's TD pass to Miller. Miller needs to get more targets. The Bears running game averaged over 5 yards a carry but the team was 2 for 10 on 3rd Downs. Brutal. To me, the team won in spite of Trubisky. He had a 28-yard sack, and he seriously made zero plays going beyond his first read. This is not a sustainable offense. I don't like that our defense gave up 23 to the Lions, but the offense didn't help them very much. A win is a win, but Trubisky really needs to figure out some accuracy and timing really quick because of those 16 incompletions, over half were downright terrible throws and a few were easy picks.

So far, Trubisky is 5-13 for 66 yards. That is 38.5% and he is missing badly, should already have 2-3 INTs. He can't hit anyone in stride. He is still limited to first read, and he doesn't look anyone off. Patterson and Cohen look good, ARob doing everything he can do to make plays. The defense looks good so far, but Stafford will figure out zone if they keep using it. I would honestly bring Foles in after half if Trubisky can't produce a TD drive.

Look at the roster difference from the start of 2018 until now, we are essentially the same roster but swapped Howard for Montgomery, Burton and Sims for Graham and Kmet, added Patterson and Ifedi on offense, and then went from Floyd to Quinn, added Skrine and Johnson to replace Prince and Callahan, and Gipson to replace Amos/Haha. So at worst the defense is a push and the offense is upgraded at TE. You could also say Foles is a huge upgrade over Daniel as well. The biggest losses from the 2018 roster are Goldman and Amos.

If you go back and look at the games from last year, all teams had a game plan, and it was to not let Mack ruin the game. They double and triple-teamed him and made sure to get the ball out quick. Floyd was never a threat. They had O-Linemen single-arm blocking him or would send an RB to chip him and he was done. I feel like Floyd was one of the worst players on defense when you consider Mack was on the other end. Floyd should've had twice as many sacks, especially since he was healthy. He had 3. Nick Williams had 6, Kwit also had 3. Lynch who was offsides more than anything else even had 2. If you compare snap counts, Floyd should've had at least 6, if not 7 or 8. Quinn is closer to Mack than he is to Floyd. Don't be surprised if he ends up with the most sacks on the team. I agree with the holding, especially GB. They teach a tactic that the league doesn't call consistently yet. Hopefully they change that this year.

I mean how many games does he have to miss before we say enough is enough. He was hurt with the Raiders and spent an entire year on IR, then was hurt on and off all of last year. Even though he didn't miss a game, he only made one FG longer than 36 yards from Week 5-17, and had 4 weeks where he either didn't attempt or didn't make a FG. After the Parkey thing, you would think Pace would have made this a priority to fix. To me, Pineiro is not the answer.

Football starts tonight, I will be watching to see how the game looks with no fans. I am also curious on how they will do the crowd noise. Without fans, even with noise pumped in (NFL put limits on volume), it might make it easier for Mitch to get audibles out. The first drive is going to be huge. A three and out would be devastating. A TD drive would be huge for confidence. I think we blow them out if we score a TD on first drive. My wild card players are Miller and Quinn. We have never had an Edge2 who would be an Edge1 on half the teams in the league. With Mack's presence and Quinn on the backside, Stafford is not going to have much time.

Patterson is going to be all over and probably in the backfield more than anywhere else. I don't think the position designation means much for hybrid players. Graham is still a Red Zone machine, and that's where we have had problems, scoring TDs. Him, Kmet, ARob, and Wims make some big targets in the RZ. Also, Graham and Kmet can stretch the seam, which is going to force ILBs to play off the line more, which should open up some running lanes for Monty and Co. Last year there were 8-9 in the box constantly, with zero threat of an inside seam passing game. I am worried about RB too, especially if Monty is injured or playing hurt. I guess we will see what Nall can do, and if he can't handle the extra touches, they will have to bring someone in off the street.

Well maybe any math in general, at some point it just doesn't make sense and no amount of practice makes you better at it. You still "don't get it" but might be able to get some answers correct.

Yeah, they took the convenient route. Now they can save face and say "we gave Mitch every opportunity to succeed". It allows them to move on easier.

That would be huge, no pun intended. He is a great run stopper and we have enough other pieces to rotate in to keep him fresh. Mack and Snacks!

QBing is like Calculus, either you get it or you don't. If you don't, you can still work thru the problems and sometimes get the right answer, but it is really tough. That to me is Mitch Trubisky. He has all the physical and leadership traits to be a QB, but he just doesn't understand the advanced math. He can get by for a while, but then is eventually exposed. With the schedule, I think he gets two games, DET and NYG. If he can't figure it out against those teams, Foles comes in for the ATL game. They will give him the first game to knock off the rust, but after the second game, there cannot be any more excuses. Last year it was Chase Daniel. This year, it is Nick Foles. I could see giving him every possible chance to grow last year, but not this year. That also gives Foles a couple of additional weeks to work in the offense.

Me too. I like Wims and just think he needs more targets. When he gets the ball, he makes plays. I think Miller is going to have a breakout year with Gabriel gone.

I think Nagy is going to turn into Matt Exotic this year. Especially with Patterson. 12 personnel is going to be a huge strength for us, we can go 2-TE and mix them up with Harris and Holtz. Yeah, Saubert on ST and as primarily a blocking TE.

Skrine and McManis are there to cover down on the outside if needed. ILB is still interesting to me, we lost Kwit and KPL and replaced them with air.

Yeah, Pineiro is too injury prone to be a kicker. Groin injuries for a kicker are terrible and never really go away. I would just dump him and move on.

I would say Bears winning the Division is the toughest one. All the others seem legit. Hopkins 1150, he only had 1165 with Watson, so that seems easily attainable as well.

Interesting to see who they cut for Edwards on the 53-man.

Lions favored at home by a FG. Talk about a great game to bet on. The one team that Trubisky has dominated has been the Lions. I am surprised the Lions are favored by anything, but I suspect this line will crawl closer to even by game time. I say Bears 27-13.

So compared to last year, the offense has an extra TE (from 4 to 5), and an extra OL (from 8 to 9). On defense, there is one less DL and two less ILB, but one more OLB. Mingo can play both inside and outside. The biggest shock is no Toliver. The assumption is the team is planning to bring back Prince and then will send someone like Vildor to the PS (unless they are happy with Vildor as a backup). Either way, McManis can play CB, so you really have 6, with Fuller and Johnson starting, Skrine in the slot, with Shelley and Vildor as backups, and McManis there as needed. RB's are also interesting, Patterson listed there, making Monty and Nall the only true RBs if you don't consider Cohen a true RB. So to me, the RB group is the thinnest, especially if there is a major injury. Unless they are planning to bring someone else in like Devonta Freeman, I am a little worried about this group out of all the position groups. However, I think the roster is pretty solid. If you look at the bottom 5 players, which I say would be Hambright (rookie OL), Josh Woods, Kindle Vildor, James Vaughters, and Ryan Nall are the worst players on the 53-man, that's pretty good. Alex Bars and Jason Spriggs made it. They both have some upside and Spriggs has starting experience in GB. Ifedi in at RG, where he should dominate and have fewer issues with offsides. I don't know about you, but I like our WR Corps. ARob and Wims the big bodies, Miller and Ridley the technicians, and Ginn and Mooney the burners. A good mix, not carbon copies. TE's look to be a huge strength. Graham and Kmet as the starters, with Harris and Saubert in for big packages (twss), and then Holtz as that H-Back type. No Horsted, hopefully he makes the PS. To me, this roster is better than opening day last year. We went from Daniel to Foles (upgrade), Davis to Nall (push), Whyte to Patterson (upgrade), Gabriel to Ginn (push), Patterson to Mooney (upgrade), Burton to Graham (upgrade), Shaheen to Kmet (upgrade), Braunecker to Harris (upgrade), Sowell to Holtz (upgrade). Long to Ifedi (upgrade), Larsen to Spriggs (push), Lucas to Bars (upgrade). The TE group is night and day, wow. On defense, we lose Goldman and Williams (who I really liked), and Anderson for Urban and Jenkins (downgrade x2). The DL probably took the biggest hit this offseason, so Hicks cannot get hurt and RRH and Nichols both need to play at a high level. ILB group lost Kwit and KPL and did not replace them. A very odd move with the roster composition. Again this is a thin group like RB and is one injury away from having issues. So (downgrade x2) Outside of Mack, OLB lost Floyd, Lynch, and Irving for Quinn, Gipson, Vaughters, Mingo, so (upgrade x1, push x2) CB's went from Prince and Toliver to Johnson and Vildor (upgrade and push). Safeties went from HaHa to Gipson (push). So it looks like the offense got significantly better and the defense got worse with the thin DL and loss of depth at ILB.

Here it is: Quarterbacks (2): Nick Foles, Mitchell Trubisky. Running backs (4): Tarik Cohen, David Montgomery, Ryan Nall, Cordarrelle Patterson. Receivers (6): Ted Ginn Jr., Anthony Miller, Darnell Mooney, Riley Ridley, Allen Robinson II, Javon Wims. Tight ends (5): Jimmy Graham, Demetrius Harris, J.P. Holtz, Cole Kmet, Eric Saubert. Offensive linemen (9): Alex Bars, Rashaad Coward, James Daniels, Arlington Hambright, Germain Ifedi, Charles Leno Jr., Bobby Massie, Jason Spriggs, Cody Whitehair. Defensive linemen (5): Roy Robertson-Harris, Akiem Hicks, John Jenkins, Bilal Nichols, Brent Urban. Inside linebackers (4): Joel Iyiegbuniwe, Roquan Smith, Danny Trevathan, Josh Woods. Outside linebackers (5): Trevis Gipson, Khalil Mack, Barkevious Mingo, Robert Quinn, James Vaughters. Cornerbacks (5): Kyle Fuller, Jaylon Johnson, Duke Shelley, Buster Skrine, Kindle Vildor. Safeties (5): Deon Bush, DeAndre Houston-Carson, Tashaun Gipson, Eddie Jackson, Sherrick McManis. Specialists (3): Pat O'Donnell, Eddy Piñeiro, Patrick Scales.

Looks like Trubisky is the starter per multiple reports.

This was one of Nagy's quotes. The first two are Trubisky's worst two traits. You literally could not come up with two worse traits for him. He is terrible at making a decision (or at least the correct one), and his accuracy, especially deep ball accuracy is terrible. Then the last one, situational football. Trubisky had to get the new call after going to the line from Nagy on every play. His brain locks up the minute something changes.

So after all of this talk in the offseason, we leave training camp without an answer. If you have two QB's, you have none. My gut tells me it will be Foles based on Nagy's comments. He keeps saying it will be a tough decision, but wouldn't naming Trubisky the starter in Year 4 be easy? So if it is a difficult decision, then it has to be Foles right? That seems logical to me because if they were that close throughout training camp, the no-brainer is to go with Trubisky. So I am saying it's Foles for Week 1. How about you?

Sully, the league renewed on July 29th and an automated message was sent out that day. Brad posted in here and on Yahoo on August 14th. We did a roll call and you were the only one that didn't respond. I just took over as co-commish at the last second, so I didn't have access to your email address. So I made a post on here on the 23rd and we had to make a decision in order to get the league locked in with the draft scheduled for today. So we found two replacement GMs to fill the vacancies. So I apologize for not getting in contact with you but I had 3 days to find two new GMs, get the leaguesafe stuff done, lock in keepers and set the draft order.