adam

Alaska, Absolutely on the jacket, and yes, it's a really cool program. I need to find out what he uses. I think Carr is the best option, but I don't know if he really is available. Going off what we know now, Dalton and Keenum seem like the most realistic options.

A pretty decent breakdown for QB options. I don't think Carr is #1. Dalton and Keenum make sense. If you are going to go with Rosen, then you might as well consider Driskel or McCarron. If you are going to go with a vet option like Rivers, then why not someone like Matt Moore on the cheap? He played well in KC filling in for Mahomes. Knows the system. Brady is silly, and Alex Smith will never play football again.

If anything, Gruden working a trade to get his 2nd rounder back. If that's all it takes to get Carr, you do it in a heartbeat. Carr would be worth more than any 2nd rounder. Now the trick will be the salary. LVR would have to retain some salary for it to work.

It could be nothing, but I would still expect to draft a TE.

I think if Bush could've been a starter, he would've already made that step up. So I still think we need to bring someone in to play SS. I can't see the team committing that much money to Floyd for that output. If he is too expensive, then they address that position in the draft. I would like to see RRH and Williams brought back for sure. We didn't get to see much of Williams with Hicks, that may be a dominant duo.

Could this be another Pace smoke screen? Sign a TE to then sign another like Hooper, Henry, or Ebron? He did it with Glennon and Trubisky.

Huge signing (according to Pace), this obviously addresses the need at TE. I don't expect another TE to be signed.

One year, $7M, $5.5M guaranteed. Too rich for us.

Bars is the wild card. If they believe in him and we don't need to bring in a starter at RG, that would be huge.

ILB will definitely be interesting. I will have to check, but I didn't see Trevathan listed as a top FA, so there is a chance to bring him in on the cheap if he is willing. I assume Kwit will command the most money.

My problem with Floyd is, even when healthy, he did not produce across from Mack. He was probably in the best position in the league outside of lining up across from Watt or Miller. So do we keep the status quo or try something else? If we are going to pay north of $10M, we need some production from that position.

Lol me. Burrow wasn't even highly ranked earlier in the year. What a season. He went from a mid round pick to the consensus #1 pick.

The more I look at these mock drafts, I definitely want Pace to trade down (if he can) for both picks in the 2nd unless someone falls to him. Otherwise, get as much as you can in draft capital and get a later 2nd with an extra pick in the 3rd. The challenge will be finding trade partners where the compensation works. For the #43, the only teams with a 2nd and a 3rd that would work would be SEA, BAL, and TEN. SEA - #59 (2nd), #100 (3rd Comp), #130 (4th), and a future 5th BAL - #60 (2nd), #92 (3rd), #136 (4th Comp) TEN - #61 (2nd), #128 (3rd), #174 (5th), and a future 5th For 2nd and 4th's for our #43, DEN, ATL, NYJ, and PIT would be in play. So it seems like 7 options. At #50, the trade options would be SEA, BAL, TEN, and KC, as well as BUF (for a 2nd and 4th) and HOU (2nd and 3rd Comp). So it looks like 6 options there. I would prefer getting a 2nd and 3rd for a 2nd, (which would allow Pace to trade down in the 3rd and get a 4th), but if he could trade down #43 for a 2nd and a 3rd (say with BAL): #43 for #60, #92, #136 and then trade #50 for #58 and #101 (w/HOU). That would give us: 2nd - #58 (from HOU), #60 (from BAL) 3rd - #92 (from BAL), #101 (from HOU) 4th - #136 (from BAL), #144 (Comp) 5th - #163 6th - #196 7th - #233 Those two trades would give the team 4 picks in the top 101 and 6 in the top 144. Not bad considering they would only have 3 going into the draft. There is a ton of value between the 3rd and 5th rounds this year.

Floyd - I doubt his agent lets him take less money. If the Bears don't keep him on for $13M, he will get it somewhere else. There might be some trade interest, and if you are the Bears, you take the trade now versus playing roulette with the comp picks. So keep for $13M (ugh), trade for 5th or 6th this year, cut and hope for comp pick next year. I would save the $13M. Amukamara - Gone, there is no way we can afford that with his production and a year older. Save $9M. Gabriel - We have a logjam at WR already with Wims and Ridley waiting in the wings. Miller played great once Gabriel went out. Easy cut. Save the $4.5M. Leno - If you make him a June 1 cut, you can spread the dead cap out over this and next year's cap, thus making him a cap savings of $6.7M. I would take the $6.7M and the gain by subtraction. I would add Shaheen and Braunecker to the list, that makes $34.8M in new cap space. You could easily add 4 immediate starters with that money (Fuller-CB, Bell-S, Vaitai-OT, Glasgow-OG). I replace Prince with Kendall Fuller, HHCD with Vonn Bell, Leno with Vaitai, and Glasgow at OG. Then I draft a TE and Edge early to fill those holes. The rest is used to address backup QB and depth. There are also a few players that can restructure to save additional space. So to me, cap space is not an issue as long as the Bears do something with Floyd, Prince, Leno, and Gabriel. Who are your favorite $10 Mil dollar free agents at LOT, OLB, CB and TE? I am thinking Vaitai at OT and Kendall Fuller at CB to fill those two starting positions. Then address Edge and TE in the draft. Who is your favorite mid 1st to mid 2nd round QB in the draft? I think we go with a QB later and bring in a vet like Keenum. Someone like Montez or Anthony Gordon in the 5th or 6th. I am intrigued more by Gordon.

Another option would be to try KPL on the Edge and put this Braun kid in the middle with Smith. With so many sub packages nowadays, the LB's really have to be versatile, so Braun would fit that mold.

Yeah, I never thought about it, Cohen might have been the first read and Trubisky was baiting the defense into thinking he was going to one of the WR's. One odd part about it is none of the defenders are within 15 yards of Cohen. Even with him behind the LOS, if Trubisky did have another split second and Cohen gets out a little further, that is easily a 8-10 yard gain.

To be fair, that was the first game of the season. He seemed to improve as the season wore on. He also looked really good in the Senior Bowl against a lot of good players. Here is the thing, Floyd had 4.5 sacks in his last year of college (Junior), and had a total of 10.5 in his last two seasons. In comparison, Anae had 13.5 his last year, and 20.5 in his last two. If you look at TFL, Floyd had 8.5 in both of his last two seasons (total of 17), and Anae had 14 and 14 for 28. So the production is there. I have no idea why Floyd was a top 10 pick with those numbers. At least Anae has the production. Also we are looking for someone opposite of Mack in as early as the 2nd round. He was just one of the guys that should be there.

I never expect him to publicly state anything about the organization as it might tip his hand. I was thinking along the lines of the guys he let go. If he brings them back, it sort of shows that he shouldn't have gotten rid of them in the first place, thus a mistake on his part. Glennon was a huge mistake to begin with. He signed a one-year deal. If Pace cut him before the end of the season, he admits the mistake, if he stays on the roster all year, he doesn't. Same for Parkey. He was missing kicks in October, did we cut him and sign someone else during the season? Nope, no mistake admitted. We kept him until he broke the franchise and only after his media appearance did the team cut him. Not for his play, for those actions. Again, not admitting it was the wrong move. So his actions have been very consistent. He is going to ride guys out and won't bring others back that he probably should've never let go.

Ok, so Game 2, in Denver, here is a great play that seems like a microcosm of the season. The play ends up as an incompletion to Cohen. Denver only rushes 3, yet we have 6 in protection with Cohen chipping the end. To me the problem with the entire play is the play call and something I noticed all season. Nagy's plays are literally stupid. No one is schemed open, you can't have all the WR's run the same depth of route. This happened a ton during the season. No crossing pattern, nothing. You can't beat 8 guys in coverage (looks like Cover 3) if you literally run into the defensive coverage. That is exactly what all 4 WRs did. You beat the Cover-3 with short to intermediate out routes or crossing routes. The protection is pretty good, but Cohen actually chipped too hard and knocked the DE away from Leno, which gave him a clear path to the QB. Massie and Long do pretty good on the other side and Daniels and Whitehair do good up the middle. You really can't blame Leno here because the chip is what caused the problem. I also think that prevented Cohen from getting to his spot on time, thus the incompletion. What I hate about this play besides the play call itself, is Trubisky. He has tunnel vision on ARob until the last second. The WR at the bottom has the best chance as the defenders on his side both have their hips turned inside following the QB. If Mitch was actually surveying the field, he might've had a shot at a pass there between the numbers and sideline. However, he never looks that way. It would've been a tough throw, but that was the only possible one I could see against that defense with those routes. Again, what the hell Nagy? When I add some bubbles, you can see there is a window to throw the ball to the bottom and if Mitch could anticipate a little bit, he could've had a chance to drop it in between the 50 and 45 while throwing it when the WR was even with the defender. That's it though. No other place for the ball. The defense took away everything from 10-20 yds (see Cover 3). So where are the underneath routes that the longer routes cleared out? Why is Mitch completely locked in on his first read? So I blame Nagy on this one, then Mitch, then Cohen. Maybe an audible at the line or something. Outside of Nagy's trick plays that only work half the time, has he really been that good of a play caller? I don't think he gets enough of the blame. Even if Mitch surveyed the field, his best play may have been to tuck it and run to the right once the RDE got wide and deep. He would've picked up 5-7 yards easily before having to slide. Leno doesn't look that bad, but when he does it's a complete wet fart bad. That's his problem. It's average play followed by a penalty or complete whiff on a defender.

Yeah no worries, the defense felt a little light once I posted it but didn't even notice it lol.

Pace seems like a guy that won't admit mistakes. It's never his fault. So I doubt he brings anyone back.

It was a cut and paste error on the Excel Operator, it's fixed.

Yeah, the old cut and paste error. He was in my spreadsheet, but didn't make the cut

I would say a season for 2 QBs in the same system with relatively the same supporting cast is a pretty good comparison. I actually thought both QBs in the SB played average at best. Mahomes had two huge throws to wide open receivers that accounted for most of his yards. Outside of those two plays, he really didn't do too much. I just thought the stats were too similar to pass up the comparison. This is truly the year where we find out about Trubisky. There are literally no more excuses. If you count college and pro seasons, he will be in his 5th, in the system, his 3rd. We will know by the 3rd game if he is the problem.

I like Rivers, but he can't run the RPO, which Nagy refuses to abandon.