adam

The Mizzell stuff is baffling. Why keep him on the roster and take reps away from other players that might make the roster? Does he have nude pictures of Pace or something? Sowell is actually a good receiver, so this makes sense because there is now nothing stopping him from just lining up as a TE (without reporting) and going out into a route. Actually a pretty slick move. There seems to be some very clever things you can pull off with this type of flexibility. I could also see him blocking at first then peeling off for some easy catches on some delayed screens.

I forgot the quote, but Nagy and Mitch both have said in interviews that the offense is light years ahead of where it was at last year at this time. With so many returning players, I have to imagine a huge jump in performance for Mitch this year. Mitch's progress reminds me of some military schooling I had to do a long time ago. We had 7 minutes to wake up, make bunk, align shoes, brush teeth, shave, clean designated common area, and get to formation in 7 minutes. It was impossible to do at first and we got smoked for hours on end for what felt like an eternity. However, after repeating this over and over after about a month I would get it done in 5 and easily be in formation ready to go with time to spare. I feel like Mitch had to do that while also learning a new language on the fly. Now with the basics out of the way, he can really walk up to the line and feel confident and comfortable on what he is seeing, make necessary adjustments and know his progressions and where is outlet is at. The game is really going to slow down for him.

I would've broken the list down between offense and defense. The last Bear to win either award was Anthony Thomas in 2001 a year after Ulracher won the DROY award. Montgomery has the skills to win it, but I don't think he will get enough touches or percentage of the production (like Barkley) to win the award.

Horsted makes a ton of contested catches. He rarely gets separation, but he seems to catch everything.

If you watch the video, Aguayo is kicking 45 yarders and barely clearing the crossbar. Aguayo was really accurate in college, but never had a big leg. Pineiro has a big leg and is accurate. He hurt is groin, so who knows if he has recovered from that. His form seems really consistent, and knowing the Raiders blunders, watch this guy become a Pro Bowler on the Bears while their kicker struggles.

Yeah, the kicking consultant obviously had a lot to do with it. Hopefully it works out, we really need to get that position locked down. It is a conditional 7th round pick, so no biggie. It looks like he has to play 5 games for the pick to become official.

He was the most accurate kicker in the NCAA in 2017.

81-yarder

In practice, this kid kicked a 81-yarder in pads in 2017. In 2015, as an 18 yr old, kicked a 70 and a 77 yarder. All in practice, but that is really tough to do in any conditions. 77-yarder from 2015:

Looks like we were looking to move up to 74 with the Bills, they said no, so we moved up to 73 and took Montgomery. They took Singletary.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/ct-spt-bears-brad-childress-hiring-20190501-story.html I guess it can't hurt to have a guy with that much experience in the building.

I would love for them to do the 40 in pads. The smaller, lighter guys wear relatively the same amount of gear, but a higher percentage compared to their body weight. So a 185lbs WR wearing 10lbs of gear is going to be slower compared to their original speed than a 215lbs RB wearing 10lbs of gear. Both will be slower, but the lighter guy will traditionally take a bigger hit with the extra weight than the bigger guy. The difference between 4.5 and 4.6 is one yard of distance every 5 seconds. So a 4.5 player would take 5 seconds to make up one yard of distance if chasing a 4.6 player. In that time, the 4.6 player would have traveled 44 yards. So if the 4.6 player has a two yard lead, that's 88 yards.

Absolutely, I just think it shows his commitment and effort level. Very few kids at that age would be doing that.

Cool story about Montgomery: - from 2017 https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/college/iowa-state/football/2017/08/17/iowa-states-david-montgomery-working-avoid-sophomore-slump/570184001/ I also read that eventually half the team was in with him at the facility working out or watching tape after hours.

Oh yeah, definitely sarcasm. If he makes the team, it would be shocking.

The coaching staff has some input into the selections as well. Last year looks pretty solid with Smith, Daniels, Miller, and Nichols all contributing. Iggy, Fitts, and Wims still have a shot.

Then run Mizzell up the gut for 1 yard.

The Bears need to save some this year to rollover for next year. If they can save about $10M, they will be ok in 2020 and then have some tough calls in 2021. For next year, there will be some interesting decisions. Kyle Long goes from $5.6M to $9.6M from 19-20. Massie goes from $3.8M to $8.3M. Those two account for an increase of $8.5M. On defense, Goldman goes from $5.3M to $10.8M and Mack goes from $11.9M to $26.6M. Lastly, Floyd goes from $5M to $13.2M. Those 3 total a whopping $28.4M increase from 2019 to 2020 cap hits. So those 5 players will cost $37M more from 2019 to 2020. There is no way they all are on the team in 2020. The cap goes up about $10-$11M a year which can account for some of that. Then you have Parkey's dead money off the books ($4M), which then leaves about $22M unaccounted for. Cutting Prince saves $9M in 2020, cutting Long saves $8M and not resigning Daniel would save $6M. There is $23M right there. Then you have huge contract increases for Jackson and Whitehair, and potentially another one for Floyd. Trevathan leaving would have $7.6M coming off the books and Kwiatkoski would save just over $2M. We definitely can't resign those guys and pay Jackson, Whitehair and Floyd. We seem to be stuck with Burton and Skrine thru 2020. The only other option is cutting Gabriel and eating $2M in dead money for 2020. He would save $4M. So there are options, but Pace will have to continually turn over this roster and pick and choose who stays and who goes. The team will be due a complete overhaul when Trubisky hits year #6. So we have a 3-year window with the current team as constructed. Once QB1 goes from $10M to +$30M, we will be losing 2-3 top tier players, so picking up key draft picks in 2020 and 2021 is going to be critical to the long term success of the franchise.

They ultimately swapped out Dee Ford for Frank Clark, and are now replacing Hill with the rookie Hardman. Outside of those moves, it is hard to see where this team is better in 2019. If anything they have taken a step back.

Yeah, if they lose Hill, which they should. They will only have Kelce left as their only legitimate receiving threat. Hill was a game changer, and most of Mahomes chunk plays were to Hill. You can't replace that production. I think Mahomes comes back down to earth next year.

Some of these are just camp bodies needed for the scrimmages/drills. Ultimately need to field a full team and compliment of players from every position in order to run thru drills effectively. I think they picked up a wide combination of raw players and some with huge upsides as well as some other guys with recent position changes. It will be interesting to see. You are correct though, very unlikely that any of them actually make the team, let alone the PS. Guys like Hall, Raymond, and Bars have a legit shot. So do the Kickers and Punters.

I think Ridley is going to surprise a lot of people. The competition is going to be insane. Our depth is better than some team's starters. Gabriel may be the odd man out really soon. Between Marvin Hall and Emanuel Hall, we have the Halls of speed. One will stick. Raymond is an upgrade over Daniel Brown already. The roster composition is going to be interesting. How many WRs, TEs, or RBs will they keep this year?

Safety will definitely be a need if HHCD walks. It will be interesting to see how he plays with Jackson. If they play well together, it would be nice to lock both of them up. However, depth will be an issue regardless. Safety will be a need. Floyd has two year's left, so anything would be a depth move before 2020. In next year's draft, it would be a depth selection. Whitehair is getting re-signed, I can't see them letting him walk. So we are technically good thru 2020 if Whitehair gets extended. So I would say OG is a secondary priority for next year's draft. DL will be a priority with Bullard, Williams, and RRH all hitting free agency. Definitely a top priority. ILB will be a need with both Trevethan and Kwiat hitting free agency. We need to shed some salary, and I think we will do it here. That's almost $10M off the books if we let these guys walk. QB - They won't be able to afford Daniel at $6M after this year with Mack's big money hitting next year. So I assume they will go with Bray and bring in a rookie. My priority for next year's draft would be Priority 1: ILB, DL, and Safety (depending on HHCD), and Priority 2: Edge, OG, and backup QB 2nd Round (Raiders) 2nd Round 5th Round 5th Round (Raiders-conditional) 6th Round 6th Round (Eagles) 7th Round Right now we have 6 guaranteed picks and a 7th pick conditionally from Raiders (do not know the qualifier for it). I assume we will trade down from one of the 2nd rounders to pick up some additional picks. We do not have a 3rd rounder (Mack trade) or a 4th rounder (Montgomery trade), so moving back with one of the 2nd's to possibly recoup those makes a lot of sense. If the Raiders are bad again, we could be looking at a mid-30's 2nd rounder, which are normally highly sought after (early pick in Day 2). For math purposes, let's say they finish with the 6th worst record, the 2nd rounder would be #38 worth 520 pts. We could potentially move back to #54 and gain back a mid-3rd rounder. I would then make that selection and consider trading out of #64 at the end of the 2nd for an early 3rd rounder to gain back a 4th. So theoretically, we could end up with: #54 (2nd): Our first pick after trading back from #38 #76 (3rd): Trade back from #64, pick up a 4th #86 (3rd): Extra pick from moving back from #38 to #54 #114 (4th): Extra pick from moving back from #64 to #76 #144 (5th): Raiders conditional pick #170 (5th): #194 (6th): Eagles conditional pick (could move to a 5th if Howard balls out) #205 (6th): #246 (7th): Besides winning the Super Bowl, it would be hilarious to give Oakland the #32 pick and then get back something like #33-35 in the same draft.

I have no complaints about Howard, he was the lone bright spot on a terrible team in 2016 and 2017. It just seems like that was his ceiling and the team wanted a little more dynamic play out of a guy with that many touches. It will be interesting to see what Howard commands on the open market after this season. As good as Howard was in 2017, 2018 was somewhat disappointing and was masked by how well the team played overall. I don't know if we could get by with the same stats if the defense wasn't so good. Howard was 22nd in YPG at 58. Only 3 players had over 175 carries and less than 4.0 YPC (David Johnson, Peyton Barber, and Howard) out of 20 RBs. His 3.7 YPC was good for 37th among qualified RB leaders. If you like advanced stats, using DVOA, Howard was 36th: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/rb So if the team feels like RB1 was a weak spot on the roster, and Montgomery is an upgrade there, I am all for it.

Sorry an Army term, I meant a replacement. He backfilled Callahan as HHCD backfilled Amos. The last "starter" hole was RB. There has to be a little more to the Howard story than we know. I don't think he was happy with his role and I don't know if the coaching staff believed he was the right fit for what they were trying to do. That's not to say Howard is not a good RB. There have been rumors about him "not fitting" into the system since last year. So we don't really know what Nagy and the offense had to do to accommodate Howard's skill set or lack thereof. However, we will see if they are right this year. If not, we are screwed. Philly has a whole bunch of different guys. Josh Adams, Corey Clement, and Smallwood are all on the roster with Howard. Now with Sanders too. So it will be interesting to see who is left standing after final cuts and if Howard is RB1 or RB2.