adam

So I was looking into the free-agent QBs going into 2020. There are a lot of options with potential huge differences in salary cap hits. Take a look at the list below sorted by DVOA. The guys with asterisks are free agents and the guys with a carrot are potential cap casualties. To me, there is no point to add a guy who would essentially have the same production as Trubisky. Looking at the guys in his group, those are all the same type of performers, all underwhelming. So I would target no one worse than Keenum out of the available pool of (Keenum, Brissett, Rivers, Bridgewater, Moore, Carr, and Tannehill). If you reduced the candidate pool by age first, that would remove Rivers and Moore, and you would be left with Keenum, Brissett, Bridgewater, Carr, and Tannehill. Carr and Brissett are only available if they are cut. I am assuming Tannehill goes back to TEN, so that leaves only Keenum and Bridgewater. I would actually be ok with either as Keenum always seemed to have the Bears number. Both would be instant upgrades over Trubisky. If we decided the window is closing sooner than later, then maybe we look at someone like Rivers or Moore for a 2-3 year deal and see what happens. DVOA +30% (All-Pro) Schaub, Brees*, Jackson, Mahomes DVOA 20-30% (Pro-Bowl) Stafford, Prescott*, Tannehill* DVOA 10-20% (Franchise QB) Carr^, Moore*, Bridgewater*, Cousins, Rodgers, Lock DVOA 0-10% (Reliable Starter) Watson, Garoppolo, Ryan, Rivers*, Brissett^, Brady*, Goff DVOA -10-0% (Average Starter) Wentz, Keenum*, Fitzpatrick^, Murray, Minshew, Mayfield, Newton^, Winston* DVOA -20-10% (Inconsistent Starter) J. Allen, Dalton^, Trubisky, Hodges, Manning*, Mariota*, Blough, Flacco^, Jones DVOA -30-20% (Backup QB) Darnold, Foles^, Rudolph, Driskell, K. Allen DVOA -40-30% (Practice Squad QB) NONE DVOA -50-40% (QB as a holder) Haskins DVOA -60-50% (Holder on windy kickoffs) NONE DVOA -70-60% (it would be more efficient to only have 10 on offense than to use this player) Rosen I would avoid anyone in Trubisky's group and below, and would be cautious of Newton and Winston as they are not much better than Trubisky but will command a huge salary. Carr would be interesting if the Raiders let him go. It would be nice to get a QB of that caliber. Lastly, Dalton, Manning, Mariota, and Flacco all got benched for their performances and Trubisky gets reamed (rightfully so), but guys like Jones, Darnold, Allen, and Haskins get a free pass? Most of those guys are worse than Trubisky.

It's some ugly tape. If he gets engaged by an Offensive Lineman, the play is basically over for him. He was also getting manhandled by TEs consistently. No excuse, he had every opportunity to dominate across from Mack and couldn't do anything.

Right now we draft #49 and #50 (Oak) due to the tie breaker rotation. Oakland is currently the worst 7-8 team with the weakest SOS, they would draft first in the 1st and drop to the last 7-8 team in the 2nd. We are the best 7-8 team, so we would move up one slot from 50 to 49. Either way, it would be really helpful if both the Bears and Raiders lost, especially the Raiders who could still make the playoffs at 8-8. That would be icing on the cake for the season. The Raiders make the playoffs and give us an even worse draft pick. Just based on how this season turned out, the Mack trade has gotten considerably worse for the Bears.

Bill, absolutely, you will have first dibs if anyone drops out.

Did we ever decide on payouts with the $300 pot? Since old winnings were 150/75/25 = 250, I am assuming the new one is 180/90/30? That's the same ratio, 3rd place gets money back, 2nd place gets 3x, winner gets 6x.

Congrats to Brad on winning his 3rd straight championship and 2nd against me. I had him against the ropes, then Thielen decided to not show up on MNF with 0.2 pts, killing any chance I had at a win. So the draft order is set for next year with Nopper on the clock with the #1 pick. Thanks again to commish and to the rest of the GM's for another great FFB season.

Oh yeah, Patterson doesn't get enough touches to warrant more than he makes now. They probably should use him more, but you are right that he is a luxury at this point. I don't know what to do on the O-Line. The guys we have need to play better, which is a huge understatement. Ultimately besides RG, they will probably go into 2020 with the same line. I have just grown tired of waiting for Floyd to do something. Watch a whole game of his some time. He gets manhandled by TEs, RBs, etc, he is a waste of a roster spot. A league minimum guy can do what he has done for the Bears opposite of Mack. So I would like to see an upgrade there using some of his salary. There are better options out there. It might not be a rookie, but there should be some free agent Edge players available. We don't need another Mack, we just need someone who can be a threat from time to time. Floyd is not that guy.

We really need OAK to lose next week and for us to lose as well. They can still make the playoffs which is pretty crazy. We want the Bears and Raiders to lose next week and for the following teams to win: 7 win teams that would pass us in draft order: TB (plays ATL), DAL (plays WAS), IND (plays JAX) and teams that would tie us in draft order: CLE (plays CIN), DEN (plays OAK), and NYJ (plays BUF). Based on the draft rotation for ties, we would have the worst pick in the 1st round (to OAK) and then the 2nd worst pick in the 2nd as we move up the tie breaker order. Tankathon has us at #18 and OAK at #14, that would give us the 17th and 18th picks in the 2nd round, but that will change based on next week's games. http://www.tankathon.com/nfl

Cutting Trubisky is not an option. He will have a cap hit of $7.9M on the roster or a $17.1M cap hit in dead money if cut. So he will be on the roster or traded. I've crunched these numbers a few times and it will solely depend on if they intend to use their excess from this year, next year. If they do, there will be several one-year deals or front-loaded contracts because they would have to get back to the real cap in 2021. So I don't know how far they will dip into that. Before any cuts, the team starts with $12.46M in cap space for 2020. Based on the sheer size of the salaries, the following guys have to go: 1. Floyd - $13.2M savings, no dead money (I personally don't want him back at any price - we need a real pass threat on the opposite side from Mack) 2. Long - $8.1M savings, $1.5M dead money (I assume he will retire, he is beat up, so this is an easy one) 3. Amukamara - $8M savings, $1M dead money (He has clearly lost a step, and is a huge hole on the defense) 4. Gabriel - $4.5M savings, $2M dead money (Miller, Wims, and Ridley can easily replace his production) 5. Patterson - $5.25M savings, 500k dead money (this would save some money, but Patterson has been one of the bright spots on the team, I would actually considering signing him long term) 6. Shaheen - $1.27M savings, 609k dead money (this guy can't leave the team fast enough, what a freaking bust) 7. Braunecker - $1.5M savings, 150k dead money (I would rather keep Holtz and Horsted than this guy for roughly the same price) 8. O'Donnell - $1.75M savings, 100k dead money (He has been wildly inconsistent with some very untimely bad kicks, he is 23rd in average, which is below league average). This would give us $56M in cap space, needing a starting QB, OLB, ILB, RG, CB, TE, S and P. If we can address 3 in the draft, the rest have to come from Free Agency. That would be 5 free agent signings for starters, and we would still need a bunch of subs. I would love to see a shakeup on the O-Line. It has to be up there in priority. QB, TE, and O-Line, then Edge, CB, and S.

The best team we beat all year (Minnesota), we did it with Chase Daniel at QB, and the offense never looked better. At least Pineiro hit a 46-yarder, so there is a positive. Other than that, the team really needs to cut some fat.

Now for the game, the team is getting embarrassed across the board. Trubisky looks like a high schooler compared to Mahomes. Mahomes makes most of his throws and Trubisky misses his. Trubisky has no touch or feel. It's that easy. 1st and Goal and we get zero points? Seriously. Shutout well into the 3rd quarter. What a way to close out Soldier Field this year, with a shutout loss at home. The talk all week was how the team was motivated to support Mitch and have a good game on offense. Well that went out the window on the first play. This offense is addicted to 3 and outs.

That's pretty funny but I would probably punch him. Don't put another player's name on our jersey.

Mahomes vs Trubisky, Reid vs Nagy, Butker vs Pineiro! A bunch of storylines this week, except the Bears at 7-7 have very little to play for while the Chiefs are essentially only jockeying for the #3 or #4 seed. The #4 seed gets Buffalo and the #3 seed gets Pittsburgh or Tennessee. After that loss, and how it ended on the 2 yard line. I don't know how the Bears get up for this game. I am thinking the secondary gets torched by KC as no one can stay with Hill, Hardiman, or Kelce. Mahomes might be out at halftime with a huge lead. The Bears have too many injuries and nothing to play for. The offense is still a mess, so it could get ugly. I am thinking Chiefs 34-13.

The only thing I can think of is that they like him around the team. If on IR, there are restrictions. I am assuming that's why they did the same thing with Trevathan for so long.

Yeah, it never made sense to bring him back after the loss after seeing him in so much pain during the GB game. Shut him down and let him get healed up for 2020.

With us locked into the 3rd place slot in the division, the only undecided opponent is the NFC East 3rd place finisher. Right now that is the Giants, but could be the Redskins. Either way, they are fairly the same opponent. The NFC North draws the AFC South and the NFC South in 2020. So if the season ended today, we would only have 2 games against playoff-bound teams (Saints and Texans) outside of our division. Our problem is we will more than likely have 2 teams in our division (and 4 games) against more playoff teams. However, 6 games against playoff teams is not too bad. Here is what it will look like: HOME: NFC North Saints 11-3* Buccaneers 7-7 Texans 9-5* Colts 6-8 Giants 3-11 AWAY: NFC North Panthers 5-9 Falcons 5-9 Rams 8-6 Titans 8-6 Jaguars 5-9 I really like our home games as we get the tougher opponents at home. The two tough road games will be going back out to LA and potentially playing an early-season game in Jacksonville. Outside of that, as long as we get a later bye, this looks like a fair schedule across the board. No excuses.

On Leno, it's easy to see what happened. First, he got overpaid. He was never great to begin with, so I don't know why you give him that big of a pay raise. Second, he got married, which doesn't help since now his time is split with family. Lastly, he has a baby on the way. Also, I just think he got lazy. In this league you have to continually improve and get better. If you just come in and do what you did last year and think you will have the same results, you will be emBearassed.

With another exciting week of fantasy football complete, we are now down to one more week of Fantasy Football in 2019. In the first game, SuperBearsSuperBowl! (5) defeated Run dem pockets (1) 161.28 to 158.44 to send SBSB to their 3rd straight championship game and into a rematch of the 2018 championship game. In the other game, Domination Inc (2) beat PapaBear (6) 199.70 to 171.10, to advance to the championship game and earn a rematch against SuperBearsSuperBowl!. Interestingly enough, the Domination Inc vs. PapaBear semifinal game was also a rematch from last year. CHAMPIONSHIP GAME 2 - Domination Inc 10-3 --------------- | |-------------- 1st Place | 5 - SuperBearsSuperBowl! 7-6 ----- 3RD PLACE GAME 1 - Run dem pockets 10-3 ------- | |------- 3rd Place (last money spot) | 6 - PapaBear 6-7 ----------------------

The free agent money is not as big as you think with huge pay jumps numerous players. We literally have to release several guys to get under the cap. We might be able to bring in one or two mid-tier free agents, but I don't see any top dollar guys coming to the Bears unless it is QB (Tannehill or Bridgewater).

As I look up stats, I can't help but notice the similarities between Trubisky and Josh Allen. In their first two seasons they have relatively the same numbers, with Trubisky having the edge in most. Even the teams finished similarly. In the rookie years the Bills won 6 and Bears won 5, in their 2nd years the Bears won 12 and the Bills have 10 with 2 to play. So it will be interesting to see how Allen looks next year compared to Trubisky this year. It almost feels like Trubisky had a sophomore slump in his 3rd year (2nd year in offense). The one major difference is the Offensive Lines, the Bills have a far superior line but the Bears have much better WRs. The last piece is the divisions, the Bears get the Lions twice but Buffalo get Miami and the Jets for 4 games. That's the difference between 9 wins and 11 wins.

My updated priority list is OL, TE, CB. With how bad Prince and Skrine have played, we really have to look at addressing CB. It is not #1, but should be right behind the O-Line and TE.

With the losses, both of our picks moved from 49 and 50 to 46 and 48 (gained 3 and 2 slots respectively). We are now giving up #18 for #46 (that's the equivalent of pick #44 in trade value). The slight improvement in draft slots is equivalent to a late 4th rounder. So I am in the camp of playing some of the bottom roster guys to see what we have, putting injured guys on IR now and calling up some PS guys. If you win with them, great, if not, every loss helps.

After his first 300-yard game of the season, Trubisky now only needs 450 yards to get to a career-high in passing yards with 2 games to play (225 yard average). He is also 8 completions from a career-high but will need 8 TDs if he wants to break his career-high of 24. I doubt he gets the TDs, but the other should be fairly easy to reach. At this point, there not much to play for other than pride (or draft position), KC has clinched a playoff spot and is only playing for seeding. As the #3, they would need some help to get a bye. The Minnesota game may have more value as Minnesota is still in the hunt for the Division and WC seeding. It's crazy to think GB is the #2 seed and tied with Seattle with 11 wins and GB could end up as the #1 seed if GB wins their last 2 and Seattle loses one of their last two.

So the Semifinal round will come down to MNF for both games: In the first game, both teams are projected to have 164 pts (at times within a tenth of a point) with Run Dem Pockets having Jack Doyle to play on Monday. SBSB has the New Orleans defense on MNF and has the remainder of the SNF game to get some pts from James Conner. In the second game, Dom Inc has build a decent lead (thanks to Julio Jones), but PapaBear has the Pittsburgh defense on SNF, then Thomas and Cook on MNF. This one will end up a lot closer than the current projection.

I think we have our WR1 and WR2. We need both locked up for the next 5+ years: Last 4 games Robinson 26-390, 4 TD Miller 27-377, 2 TD