adam

We are too small on the D-Line, we need some bigger dudes to clog up the lanes. Nichols and RRH are not it.

So Mike Boone runs around Floyd who doesn't keep the edge, then Boone runs over Fuller for a 1st Down.

Kwit is looking good, makes a huge TFL.

Yeah, this is bad. We should have 14 pts right now and looking to score 40+ on this team. Mannion looks better than Trubisky and Mannion is playing with 2nd and 3rd stringers. He is actually making NFL throws.

Yeah, very few QBs would be successful with this garbage O-Line. However, if we can get one of the QBs that have played above-average in DVOA, they would be an upgrade over Trubisky immediately. Then you add an improved O-Line and the offense magically becomes a top-15 unit.

Lucas doesn't even look at the DE on his side on 3rd Down as Trubisky gets sacked and they settle for another RZ FG. This is laughable. We can't score a TD against backups, how embarrassing.

Yeah, he is a keeper. Him with Roquan would be great duo inside. They both can cover a lot of ground.

Trubisky only throwing to first read. On 3rd Down, Safety knew it and almost jumped a pass to ARob. Everything is short. Nothing down field.

Vikings 3rd String RB fumbles hand-off, Bears get the ball. Offense drives down the field, then like the ole days, can't get a TD, so they settle for a short RZ FG. Bears 3-0. On Vikings next drive, RB doesn't catch short pass and the bounce pops right into KPL's hands for the INT. One silver lining is I think we found our new starting ILB in KPL. He is all over the field, makes hard hits, and can rush the passer.

The first play a backup RB goes for 59 yards. Great effort Defense, what a joke.

Some additional milestones: - Horsted needs 2 receptions to reach double digits and surpass Shaheen - Pineiro needs to make at least 2 FG's without a miss to raise his PCT over 80% on the season, which takes him out of the worst kicker in the league talks. - Amukamara needs 1 INT to get above 0 on the season. The same for Skrine. - Nichols needs 1 sack to get to 1 on the season. - Floyd needs 1 sack to reach 4, the total he had last season. That would give him 12.5 sacks in the last 3 years. Chandler Jones, the league leader, has 19.0 this year. I guess they are not doubling him. - Nick Williams has as many sacks as Floyd, Hicks, Nichols, HHCD, Fuller, KPL, Skrine, Amukamara, Goldman, Urban, and Trevathan combined. That's great for Williams, sad for the others.

If you are watching, it looks like we will see some Alex Bars on the O-Line. Hopefully some of the other younger guys get some reps. I would like to see more of Ridley too. Some other things to watch: 1. Montgomery needs 39 all-purpose yards to hit 1,000 yards from scrimmage and 24 rushing yards for 800 on the season. 2. Robinson needs 34 receiving yards for 1,100 and 11 receptions to get to 100. 3. Miller needs 49 yards to break 700 yards receiving. 4. Mack needs 1.5 sacks to hit 10 on the season. 5. Trubisky needs 69 yards to hit 3,000 and 3 TDs to hit 20 on the season. If he gets 293, he will have a career-high of 3,224 yards. He also needs 8 rushing yards to break 200 yards for his 3rd straight year over 200 yds.

If the Bears win but no one sees it, did it happen?

Bears playing for .500, Vikings playing for absolutely nothing. Hard to see the Bears not winning this one with Minnesota basically resting all their starters. Bears 20-10

One thing to point out, Watson is not a top 10 QB in DVOA.

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.