adam

For injuries, we had Trubisky hurt and missed a game. ARob missed some time. Mack and EJack did as well. Long and Shaheen both missed half season plus. So even though we didn't have any season ending injuries, we did have some key guys miss some time.

GB plays both KC and LAC on the road in back to back weeks, then comes home to play CAR before their bye. They could easily lose all 3 of those.

Here we go. We need to go into the bye at 4-1 or 5-0. The next 11 are tough. I am hoping 6-5 in that set, but 5-6 looks more realistic. Back to back Thursday Night games are in interesting. The Cowboys will also be coming off a Thanksgiving game like us and traveling to Chicago. We will be coming home from Detroit. So I think we have the edge there. The only back to back away games are Week 2 and 3 with Week 3 being a MNF game against Washington. That gives us an extra day of rest which helps on the back to back away games. Week 1: Green Bay Packers (NFL Kickoff Game) - W (after last year, I can't see us losing this game, HHCD Revenge Game) Week 2: at Denver Broncos - W (Vic Fangio Revenge Game) Week 3: at Washington Redskins (Monday Night Football) - W (I can't see us losing to WAS, HHCD Revenge Game #2) Week 4: Minnesota Vikings - W (At home, we are in Cousins head) Week 5: at Oakland Raiders (London) - W (Khalil Mack Revenge Game - Carr might die) Week 6: BYE Week 7: New Orleans Saints - L (Saints are not as good on the road or on grass, so we could win this one, Hicks/Pace Revenge Game) Week 8: Los Angeles Chargers - W (This is a tough matchup, but I think we win this one at home) Week 9: at Philadelphia Eagles - L (Philly is a tough out at home, Jordan Howard revenge game?) Week 10: Detroit Lions - W (Lions are bad) Week 11: at Los Angeles Rams (Sunday Night Football) - L (We beat them last year, so we could win here as well) Week 12: New York Giants - W (Giants are terrible) Week 13: at Detroit Lions (Thanksgiving) - W (Lions are bad) Week 14: Dallas Cowboys (Thursday Night Football) - W (We get Dallas at home after they travel from DAL to CHI) Week 15: at Green Bay Packers - L (Split home and away, but we will have extra rest coming off a THU Night game) Week 16: Kansas City Chiefs (Sunday Night Football) - L (This might be the game of the year and SB preview, at home so we could win here) Week 17: at Minnesota Vikings - L (Split in Division, no other reason for the loss) I have us at 10-6, splitting with MIN and GB in the Division and sweeping DET for a 4-2 Division Record. However, 12-4 is just as realistic as I don't see us losing 3 straight to end the season. So flip GB and MIN and we are 12-4. I still say 10 is our basement and 12 is our ceiling. Trubisky will need to take a huge step forward and the defense will have to be close to what it was last year for us to win more than 10.

Depends on how far we move back, it could be a late 5th or early 6th.

I am thinking Patterson will get some carries as well (2-3 a game). So that's 30-50 carries there. I really think Davis can handle more than he had in Seattle, definitely 150-175. After his lack of use during Philly, it will be interesting to see how Nagy uses Cohen this year. My gut says we still draft a RB, but it won't be with the 3rd round pick. I am thinking that the 5th rounder would be a good spot if it is the right value. However, if a high rated RB falls into the 3rd, its hard to see us passing on him. Hopefully Pace just goes BPA and takes the best talent on the board.

I would not be surprised if Pace moves a pick from 2020 to pick up another pick this year. The nice thing is we have options and some cap flexibility to continue to re-sign 3-4 of our core players every year.

It was 10, but we lost the 5th for Callahan, so now 9 if you count the conditional from OAK.

The good news is we have 10 draft picks next year. We can easily flip one or two to move into this draft (if needed), or wait and use them all next year to restock some of these role players.

Punter and LS back in the fold. So RB (Howard), S (Amos), CB (Callahan), and K (Double Doink) are the only starters that didn't return out of the starting 25 on Offense, Defense, and ST. We also already signed Davis, HHCD, and Skrine to replace three, so Kicker is the last starter needed.

This dude would fit right in kicking in Chicago in the winter. I don't think we can wait to draft him in the 7th or pick him up as a UDFA. We do not have a 6th rounder so is he a worthy 5th round pick (#162)?

Yeah, just saying that we are in really good shape and will have even less turnover next offseason.

Depending on how you look at it, we lost 2-3 starters from the core roster this offseason (Howard, Amos, and Callahan). Callahan is debatable based on the number of snaps and games played. What I find very interesting is that we will go into next offseason with even less turnover, which is incredible. We will more than likely extend Whitehair, and with Floyd's 5th year option a done deal, that only leaves Trevathan and HHCD as the only starting 22 not under contract for 2020. With Jackson's contract extension looming in 2021, I assume they will extend him in 2020 with a long term deal. With the cap going up and Trubisky under his rookie deal thru 2021, it looks like they could pay Whitehair and Jackson, but will more than likely have to part ways with HHCD and Trevathan unless they take a team friendly deal. Players with expiring contracts after 2019: 1. Chase Daniel 2. Bradley Sowell 3. Cody Whitehair - *starter* 4. Jonathan Bullard 5. Roy Robertson-Harris 6. Aaron Lynch 7. Danny Trevathan - *starter* 8. Nick Kwiatkoski 9. HaHa Clinton-Dix - *starter* 10. Sherrick McManis 11. Deon Bush 10/11 Offensive starters signed thru 2020 (Whitehair) 9/11 Defensive starters signed thru 2020 (Trevathan, Clinton-Dix)

We needed him to sign with another team to maintain the Callahan compensation. Since we didn't lose him, we don't get that benefit. There is a Twitter thread about it.

I like this re-signing even if we lose a comp pick now (for Callahan). This fills a void at OLB3 and allows the team to focus te draft in other need areas. A crazy fact, Lynch is younger than Floyd and Mack. If Lynch can stay healthy, he is very productive when he plays.

With 10 picks in 2020, there is some potential to move up this year or even trade into a pick using 2020 picks, especially in the 4th-7th.

Just a thought, if Howard played another season and walked, at most he would return a 5th rounder in 2021. With this trade, the Bears get a 6th (and potentially a 5th) a year earlier, which has the same value and could potentially be worth more than the comp pick in 2021. So from a draft value perspective, this is not a bad deal.

Oh don't get me wrong, there were too many 1-yd runs this season. His YPG was terrible and he really wasn't a clean fit for the offense. I understand the trade, but the timing is odd for a 2020 draft pick IMO. Like I said before, if he signs any type of league average deal next season with a new team, Philly gets their pick back in 2021.

6th rounder in 2020 = a 7th rounder this year. What the hell? This was a bad move IMO. There was no need to do this now if it wasn't a 2019 draft pick. There are so many injuries in the preseason that we could've gotten more for him at that point for a RB needy team. Head scratcher for me. I know he wasn't great, but how many RB's are his age averaging 1100 yards get traded for 6th round pick in next year's draft? To me he was at least worth what we drafted him at, a 5th rounder this year, or a 4th rounder next year. This has to be a Nagy-Pederson deal where they "owe" us later. If we let Howard walk after his 4th year, and he signed for any decent deal after, we would've had a comparable comp pick. Now Philly can do that, and basically get their pick back or better.

When I watch some of the Bears games from 2018, I keep seeing Amos missing a tackle or blowing a coverage on a bunch of TDs. I am going to have to go back now and look at each opponent TD and see if there is something there. Also, HHCD was in coverage a lot more than Amos ever was, so I don't know how relevant Amos' stats are for coverage. To me, using something like WAR or AV. Using AV from Pro-Football-Reference, Amos has had the following seasons of AV:6,5,4,6 (5.25), while HHCD has had the following: 4,7,9,5,6 (6.2). HHCD averages a point more per season and had two seasons better than Amos' best while playing on a much worse defense. Very hard to argue that Amos is better other than stopping the run (or in the box), but with the way the league is going, having safeties with coverage skills seems like it is becoming more of a necessity. We will see, but I still believe Jackson+HHCD will be better than Jackson+Amos.

What a way to open the season. Most of us assumed that we would open up playing the Pack, but I didn't expect to open the entire NFL season on Thursday against them. What more could you want? The Bears are not going to allow what happened last year in Week 1 occur again. Another minor benefit, a couple of extra days off for Week 2. One time where a Thursday game is not a short week.

To hit on that many free agents (Robinson, Gabriel, Burton), draft picks (Smith, Daniels, Miller, Nichols) and trade (Mack) while also hiring the Coach of the Year, matching Fuller offer and letting Meredith walk all in one offseason is pretty remarkable. However, how much influence does the coach have in these decisions? This was following the year where he drafted Trubisky, Cohen, and Jackson (great) but missed on a ton of free agents (bad). Crazy what a year can make. I guess for every Cohen, we will have to live with a Shaheen, for every White, a Smith. Remember the 2017 free agents: Glennon, Sanchez, Demps, Sims, Amukamara, Cooper, Wheaton, Wright, Jenkins, Cunningham. Only Amukamara remains on the roster. I like the pieces that we have added, and I remember what we were saying in August (What the hell are the Bears going to do opposite of Floyd?) and somehow Mack fell in our laps. However, I don't know if we can continue to wait for something like that to happen again. In the end, the roster is his responsibility, and he has built a good one with some cap flexibility going into the season.

I don't think it is bad luck: Robbie Gould w/ POD- 42-51 82.3%, w/o- 316-357 88.5% Connor Barth w/POD- 29-39, 74.3%, w/o- 139-164 84.8% Cody Parkey w/POD- 23-30 76.7%, w/o- 76-88, 86.4% Gould's is hilarious, he had one season below 83% for FG% (his rookie year) before POD was on the team and the first year with POD he has a career low in FG% at 75% and also missed an XP. That was technically his worst year of his career. He followed that up with 2 misses from inside 39 yds and a missed XP in his last year as a Bear in 2015. Once he left the Bears and had a new holder, he magically returned to form and has only missed 10 total kicks of any variety in the last 3 seasons. So his dip in performance was literally the two years that POD was his holder. Barth came in with a decent percentage, then mysteriously couldn't hit the side of a barn while he was on the team. Parkey, even though he jumped around, still had a decent kicking percentage overall, then he comes to Chicago with POD as the holder and can only hit uprights. Some say it is kicking in Chicago, well someone on Twitter did the work: POD kickers- 81.8% on road, opponents on road- 92.5% POD kickers- 75% at Soldier Field, opponents at Soldier Field- 87.5% So even though our kickers should kick better than visiting players, they didn't with POD as the holder.

Only if Houston had a connection to our team.............