adam

There is another component to this as well. Refs can either miss a call by not calling a legitimate penalty or by calling a penalty that was a legal play. Both are bad and the Bears seem to be subject to a ton of the phantom calls this year, and with Mack held on every play, I am surprised the team didn't send anything into the league complaining about it. This week is Holding Week and the under/over on missed GB holding calls is 8.

Here we go! The real test starts this week. We need to take care of business this week or the remaining games will only matter for draft position. In our Week 1 loss, Montgomery only got 6 carries as Davis started. Miller only had 1 target and did not have a reception in Week 1. This week should be a lot different in terms of the offense. We are going to score some points. On defense, the biggest change will be with our LB corps. However, with the forecast, running the ball is going to be critical and Kwit is a huge run stopper, which works in the Bears favor. KPL is the wild card, as is Tolliver. If those two guys can step up and we can get some production out of our TE's, I think we have a great chance to win. Based on DVOA, Packers are 10th, 6th on Offense and 20th on Defense while the Bears are 15th, 23rd on Offense and 7th on Defense. Last week the Bears were 19th, so the DAL game made us jump 4 slots, which is a big jump. Not that it's a big deal, but Trubisky is out of the cellar in QBR and DVOA, now he ranks 27th in both. Hopefully, he moves up the ranks again after this game as well. I am thinking this one will be close, but the Bears win 23-20.

Slowly but surely we have lost a ton of starters from our original 53-man roster. On offense, we have lost Long, Massie, Burton, Shaheen, Gabriel, and Trubisky to injuries. On defense, we have lost Nichols, Hicks, Trevathan, Smith, and Prince. That's basically half the starters from both sides of the ball with several missing 4+ games. The one silver lining is we might have some good depth with fresh legs. At this time of the season, players start to get dead legs, especially in the cold weather. Also, most players who have played every game are beat up in some way shape or form. Now you bring in some fresh bodies who are way closer to 100% than the guys they replaced. The draw back is they won't know all the plays and won't have the same chemistry as the starters. KPL looked really good and hopefully with 1st team practice reps he can get in a groove. One interesting fact is that KPL and Kwit practiced together a lot as the backups, so they have a good working relationship. Bond is just a bottom end of the roster type of guy. Has never had a sack in the NFL in limited playing time in TB. I am assuming he would be filling more of a special teams role so KPL and Kwit don't have to do double duty all the time.

It has been bad for several years now and it seems with every rule change, it actually gets worse. With all the technology today, I don't understand why they don't leverage some of it. They could easily put sensors in each of the balls (at the tips) to determine the spotting of the ball, they can have the sky judge in the stadium to assist with calls that are hard to see from ground level. The one thing I will point out is that most TV viewers and those in the stadium have a better view of what's going on than some of the officials on the field. So that's why the ones they see, they have to get right. They also need to spell out the rules for holding and pass interference better to make less of a gray area.

Oh, I was not comparing what he did to Trubisky, I was just saying that Trubisky has zero margin for error. His pick, that was a toe tap and drag on the sideline was a bad throw. Mahomes throw into clear double coverage (with the ball underthrown) was a good play by the defender. KC got away with murder in NE. The refs had to be from KC. That was in the top 5 of the worst officiating games I have ever seen.

Yes, the 4th pick in next year's draft

PapaBear chose a great week to score 200pts and looks like the first lock to advance to the next round of the playoffs against Pepe. The other game is close and will come down to Golden Tate vs PHI defense. Cali Bears needs Tate to score 5 more pts than the PHI defense to win this week. It will be decided on MNF.

Well damn, Seattle shit the bed at the wrong time. The Rams actually looked really good and dominated the Seahawks. They really muddied the waters with that win and move to 8-5. They play at Dallas and at SF next. We really need them to drop BOTH of those games. Otherwise, they are going to win 10 games and beat us in the head to head tiebreaker. There is some weird 3-team tiebreaker that uses conference record as the second tiebreaker if three teams tie, but we would need MIN to finish with 10 wins as well. If that happens, things get complicated. A 10-6 Rams team would end up with an 8-4 conference record. If Bears win 10, you guessed it, an 8-4 conference record. If MIN loses to GB and CHI, they would end up with 10 wins and a 7-5 conference record. The next tiebreaker is common games (minimum 4), if you count the head to head, we only played LAR, DAL, and NO commonly, so it goes to strength of victory. If you projected the remaining games for both teams and counted the records of the teams we beat, the Bears would have a 4 game lead on the Rams right now. However, that can easily change based on the teams we each beat. We need teams like CAR, NO, CLE, ATL, CIN, ARZ, and SEA all to lose, while we want teams like DEN, WAS, DET, NYG, GB, and KC to win when they don't play us. Besides us winning out, the best scenario is for MIN and LAR to go 9-7 (MIN losing to GB and CHI and LAR losing to DAL and SF). The Chargers looked really good, and there could be an upset brewing there. That would be incredible if the Chargers could pull out a win against the Vikings and while we beat the Pack and the Rams lose to the Cowboys. That would be an epic weekend and would set us up for a crazy last two weeks of the season.

and has played worse than Trubisky over the last 5 weeks, but you will never see that in the mass media. Very odd at this point. There were a bunch of "experts" quick to jump on Trubisky for his one INT last game, yet you hear nothing about Mahomes or Watson when they do the same thing. Even the NFL is in on it. Goff had almost an identical throw (to Trubisky's) through two Seahawks and his throw was a great throw through a small hole. When Trubisky does it, its a bad through into double coverage. I don't understand the disdain for the kid. It's not like he is Cutler or someone who is rude to the media. You can tell the entire team and locker room are behind this kid. It's just unfortunate that he continually gets crapped on by the national media minus a few smart analysts.

Yep, and Mahomes had some terrible passes. All the INTs today were brutal. Trubisky's was on a toe tap and drag and he was ripped by the media for that throw. Look at Mahomes and Watson's interceptions, worse. The point is all QB's make good and bad throws, Trubisky has come under such scrutiny where he can't make one bad pass. The offensive struggles were not all his fault and now that is coming out. He is owed a ton of apologies and respect for fighting through that adversity.

Here are the last 5 weeks of the season to give a good sample size on the 2017 QBs most recent play (which is the most relevant). This is now more than a quarter of a season of play in the part of the season where every game matters: Trubisky 117-176, 66.5%, 1223 yds, 6.95 Y/A, 11 TD, 5 INT, 2 Rush TD, 11 Sacks, 0 Fumbles lost (13 total TDs, 5 total Turnovers) Watson 105-162, 64.8%, 1194 yds, 7.37 Y/A, 8 TD, 4 INT, 2 Rush TD, 14 Sacks, 1 Fumble lost (10 total TDs, 5 total Turnovers) Mahomes 106-162, 65.4%, 1162 yds, 7.17 Y/A, 7 TD, 2 INT, 1 Rush TD, 5 Sacks, 0 Fumbles lost (8 total TDs, 2 total Turnovers) Regardless of opponents, Mahomes has 11 TD passes in his last 8 games, Trubisky has 11 in his last 5. It's hard to go this long and not see that things have changed. Trubisky may truly have turned the corner.

Our winning streak (3) and the Raiders losing streak has obviously changed the draft order for 2020. We would now be giving up pick #18 for pick #49 and our 2nd round pick is currently pick #50. If the Eagles win to go to 6-7, the Raiders 2nd round pick jumps to #45 (due to the tie rotation on picks). Every Raiders loss helps us a lot since we are losing our 1st and 3rd anyway, so our 2nd is the only relevant pick based on our draft position. The Raiders 2nd rounder now looks like it will be our first pick now. They end the season with JAX, LAC, and DEN. All those teams are eliminated from playoff contention but could figure into the draft order. My assumption is the Raiders will win between 1-2 of those games and finish at best 8-8. That should give us a pick between 46-49. If we somehow find a way to make the playoffs, we would be trading them a pick in the 20's (or 30's) for a pick in the mid to late 40's. Either way, it is shaping up that we will have at least one pick in the 40's (from OAK) and our pick, which I wouldn't mind seeing it in the 50's or 60's since that would mean a playoff run occurred this year.

Hmmm, just think if Trubisky did this:

Not much help from the listless Lions against the Vikings, and Washington is at least keeping it close into the 4th quarter down 17-9 against Green Bay. It doesn't look like we will make any ground against either of those teams. Hopefully, Seattle can beat the LA Sunday night. Rodgers numbers through 3 1/2 quarters? 13-23, 56.5%, 148 yards, 6.4 Y/A, 1 TD, 1 fumble lost and 4 sacks. Watson? 19-33, 57.6%, 216 yds, 6.5 Y/A, 1 TD, 2 sacks, and 1 nice rushing TD. MVP Jackson? 14-22, 63.6%, 134 yds, 6.1 Y/A, 2 TD, 1 INT, 1 sack. How about Josh Allen, someone the media has had more confidence in than Trubisky even though they have similar numbers: 11-27, 40.7%, 89 yds, 3.3 Y/A, 5 sacks, 1 fumble lost. Just think if Trubisky had a game like this?

Very cool, and great to see. Kudos to Mack.

Thankfully nothing more than a sprain, which should give him a chance to play on the long rest.

You also have to consider the screwball scheduling, back to back Thursday games? Also, the Thanksgiving one was the early morning game, which made it an incredibly short turn around. Division opponents are always tough to play.

Prince was out all game, so Hicks, Trevathan and Prince were out all game, and Roquan was out after the first scoring drive (when the defense actually played better).

Yeah, not good. 6-9 months out for a pectoral tear.

I wouldn't even call it a terrible INT, the defender had to make a great catch, then get a toe tap and drag just inside the line to make the play. Also, early reports are Miller gave up on the route too early and faded into the end zone. When Mitch released the ball, Miller was in position to continue to run to the sideline to make the play, he peeled off and literally stopped running.

Right now, the early line has the Packers favored by 7.5. I assume it will fall to 6 as the money pours in on the Bears. Based on something like DVOA, technically DAL is a tougher opponent than GB will be. For DVOA, DAL had the 2nd best offense and 20th defense, GB comes in at 7th and 22nd respectively. Also, Rodgers has been struggling of late: last 4 games passing yards: 243, 104, 233, 161 last 4 games comp%: 63.6%, 60.6%, 58.6%, 65.7% The difference for the Packers is their offense. That unit determines the outcome of the game. So it's going to be up to our defense to stop the Packers like some of the other teams have done in recent weeks. For their defense, they have held 2 opponents to less than 300 yards total offense, 299 to the Lions, and 254 to the Bears in Week 1. So with our offense clicking a little better now, we should be able to put some points up on the board. Weather is going to be a factor next weekend, which makes it a crapshoot. Right now it looks like high 20's to low 30's with winds between 5-10mph, and 1-3 inches of snow expected.

Connor, that's sorted by points. If you take away kicks inside 30, which are shorter than an XP, and those longer than 50 because those have a success rate lower than other kicks, and only look at kicks between 30-49, which is where NFL kickers attempt the bulk of their kicks, Pineiro is at or near the bottom. There might be a few below him, but some of those guys are no longer on their teams. Eddie has missed 7 kicks between 30-49 yards. That puts him in Vinatieri, Maher, and Rosas territory. The team is content on giving Eddie a chance, but I would just hate to lose a game because of our kicking situation. The sad part is Nagy is avoiding kicking beyond 40 yards. So if the Bears have the ball between the opponents' 25 and 37 (normal FG range), he is electing to go for it on 4th down. If you haven't noticed, Eddie has not attempted a kick longer than 36 yards in the last 3 games. He missed an XP in the NYG game. The game before that, he missed 2x kicks in the 40's (we lost by 10). Remember, he missed 2x FGs against the Chargers, we lost by a point. After that game, Nagy went two games without attempting a FG. Here is the bottom line, it doesn't really matter how he relates to other kickers. The last kick he has made over 40 yards was a 46 yarder against the Saints. That is the only kick beyond 40 made since Week 2. Think about that for a second. He has made one kick longer than 40 yards since Week 2, we just played in Week 14.

So SEA and CHI took care of business. We are in much better shape at 7-6 on a mini-bye waiting for GB. I know a lot of people are talking about how hard it is to win 6 in a row in the NFL, but looking at all the good teams in the league, that's exactly what they do. Here are all the largest win streaks by all the teams with at least 7 wins coming into today: BAL 8 (current) SF 8 NE 8 NO 6 SEA 5 (current) GB 4 MIN 4 PIT 4 KC 4 BUF 3 (current) TEN 3 (current) CHI 3 (current) LAR 3 HOU 2 (current) We can win out and only get to 6. If SEA beats LAR, they then they hit 6, making them the 5th team to reach 6 straight wins this season. I know the competition matters, but if you look at some of the other streaks, they also beat good teams (besides NE and SF who had creampuff schedules). Baltimore's streak has been the most impressive, in their 8-game streak, they have beaten (PIT, SEA, NE, HOU, LAR, and SF), wow. So ultimately, it's very possible for us to beat GB, KC, and MIN to end the season.

It wouldn't have been a loss but I don't know if it was going to the house. I would rather have Patterson on the move presnap as very few people are keeping up with him from a stand still.

Stinger, I believe he has. The question that comes up is why did he wait so long? Everyone could see in the first few games that his plays were not fooling anyone other than his own team. He still tries to get a gadget play in from time to time, and it still doesn't work, but at least those are few and far between now. The Wildcat formation with Patterson at QB where Leno misses the block and Patterson takes a 4 yard loss is a prime example. Just take that crap out of the playbook. Also, stop being cute when you need a yard. Put a jumbo package in there and push for 3 feet. I do think he has slowly adapted the playbook to highlight Mitch's strengths and I also think it's due to the personnel. We have had no TE production, and with Gabriel out, he had to highlight Miller more and look to get the new TE's into the action. Magically all that worked. Now if you are GB, you have no clue what to do defend against. I assume they will make Mitch beat them over the top, so our receivers will have to win someone on one matchups, which they have shown they can.