adam

Now seeing the KC NE game, Parkey screwed us. We beat all these teams and it is not even close. The one interesting consistent factor for these teams? Elite kickers.

Pundits point out Trubisky's near interceptions but don't mention Mahomes had 3 picks dropped by New England; he barely broke 50% in completions (16/31) and didn't do anything until the Patriots started dropping 8 into coverage in the 4th. He is absolutely going to be a boom or bust QB. I can imagine the media outrage if Trubisky had that many incompletions. The double standard is crazy.

That was pretty bad but you can't let the game come down to a single call. Should have never been that close.

Man, if we beat the Eagles, I can't see how we would've lost to either the Rams or Saints. The Rams won without Gurley and beat the Saints in New Orleans. Funny to see Trubisky still have the 3rd highest passing yards in the playoffs (per game) only behind Brady and Rivers (who were in a shootout).

There was some talk that Ed Reed might come in as a Secondary Coach. That would be some crazy amount of knowledge to impart on Jackson and the other DBs.

I think it comes down to the price. If he is willing to come back for comparable money, then you probably do it for the continuity.

That's my exact point though, time was not a factor for Philly. They had to score based on the amount of downs. They had 4 chances to score with goal to go. Time was not a concern for them. It was for us. Since they couldn't get another first down and needed a TD to take the lead, time was our biggest enemy there. If we stop them then our timeouts wouldn't matter anyway. Our timeouts only mattered if they scored a TD. That's why he used them the next two downs, but by then we lost over 30 seconds. Hindsight being 20/20, that may have been the biggest mistake. Just think if we have the ball at the Eagles 25, 2nd down after spiking the ball with 40+ seconds.

Ugh, freaking Parkey. Weakest link on the team.

or 5 like Parkey? I am done with Parkey to be honest. Yes kickers miss kicks, they don't hit 100% of them. It's kind of odd because technically Connor Barth was a more accurate kicker and we let him go for Parkey who was worse on all kicks.

I know there is a lot of talk about his record as a HC. To me, the biggest jump in coaching is from Coordinator to HC. Not many can do it as seen by the revolving door each year. Some guys are also better suited as Coordinator only handled one side of the ball. I think Pagano is the perfect transition from Fangio. He is well-liked by players and will fit seamlessly into the locker room.

I would not create another hole by moving someone already on the roster. Howard combined with Cohen make up a pretty formidable pair. If we upgrade at RB, it should be for Mizzell and Cunningham. I would focus in the trenches and secondary. That is where we need the most help.

Here are the Bears snap count leaders on offense and defense for the season. If you could replace two players per unit, who would they be? On offense, I feel like our weakness was still our offensive line. Just based on the eyeball test, Massie seemed like the weak link on that unit. The only other "proclaimed starter" that I would get rid of would be Sims. Where else is there a blatant upgrade on offense, in terms of starters? On defense, if feels like the D-Line could use an upgrade outside of Hicks and Goldman. The only other upgrades I could see are at CB and SS (if Amos goes). I think we need an infusion of youth and talent on special teams. Keep Scales, but I would look to upgrade our kicking. Mega-Punt never lived up to his billing and Parkey has been obviously very inconsistent. If we can get two new kickers, let's do it. Offense: QB: Trubisky - 929 RB1: Howard - 624 RB2: Cohen - 585 WR1: Robinson - 771 WR2: Gabriel - 830 WR3: Miller - 614 TE1: Burton - 870 OT: Leno - 1141 OG: Daniels - 836 (every snap of last 10 games) OC: Whitehair - 1149 (played on every snap for the entire season - WOW!!!) OG: Long - 548 OT: Massie - FA (1144 snaps, 2nd on offense) Honorable Mentions: Witzmann - FA: 575, Bellamy: 566, Kush- FA: 408 Defense: DL: Hicks - 808 DL: Goldman - 601 DL: Nichols - 350 DL: RRH - 474 Edge: Mack 755 ILB: Trevathan - 1046 ILB: Smith - 897 Edge: Floyd - 806 CB: Fuller - 1109 (led defense in snap) CB: Amukamara - 929 NB: Callahan - FA (688 snaps, 10th most on defense) FS: Jackson - 946 SS: Amos - FA (1092 snaps, 2nd most on defense) Honorable Mentions: McManis: 489, Kwiatkowski 417, Bush: 407, Lynch: 367, Bullard: 364 Special Teams: K: Parkey P: O'Donnell - FA KR: Cunningham - FA LS: Scales - FA

AZ, Oh yeah, it is very apparent that he doesn't have a consistent setup. There is no way you can kick like that long term. If we are stuck with him, he really needs to train this offseason to fix those issues.

Todd Bowles seems to be a top candidate with ties to Nagy. You would also have to think Gregg Williams is in play with his ties to Pace. I think either would be a great picks. If you are going straight off of character guys, it would hard not to see Bowles as the pick.

Yeah, bittersweet. Highly deserving individual and I wish him nothing but the best. I hope, for our sake, the drop off in defensive play calling doesn't suffer too much. Another concern, does new DC have to be a 3-4 guy? I know they play in subs most of the time, but 3-4 vs 4-3 does play a role in player and skill scouting and acquisition.

As much as I hate to say it, I think Cunningham is back. Of the others, they will probably bring Lynch back at a lower number. I do not want O'Donnell, and if you cut Sims and Parkey, you save some additional cap there as well even if you do incur some dead money. For those wanting Parkey, he had the 2nd lowest combined kicking pct in the league (only behind Boswell) and had the lowest percentage of kicks missed inside 42 yards.

Oh I was just saying that I see this as an average year of injuries and this should be what we expect going forward. I don't think we were better off than other teams, just better than our previous teams.

There is a good chance that most of the players that made mistakes in the Philly game won't be on the team next year. Parkey, obviously; Amos, who did have a pick but also had a bad penalty and was burnt on the first Philly TD. I don't know how the team sees Amos, but not signing him like Goldman should've been an indication. Massie, who played ok, but seemed to get beat more times than not. I am ok if he is gone. Priority in the off-season needs to be OLine and Secondary.

It doesn't excuse the lack of Cohen in the game plan though. The most dynamic player on the field had one carry. We also had 3 timeouts after PHI had a first and goal. Time is the most important thing at that point and Nagy allowed 40+ seconds to come off the clock when he didn't use a timeout after the first down play. To me, the game came down to Pace (Parkey not replaced earlier in the season) and Nagy (game plan and clock management). I am being critical but the season was a huge success so it is easy to be picky. I just think they had another week of football in them.

I don't know, we lost Trubisky, Long, Robinson, Mack, Jackson, Callahan, Miller, and Lynch to several games. 3 missed the playoff game.

After Watson's terrible performance yesterday, it's Trubisky's time to shine. No turnovers from the offense and we win.

Yeah, I don't want to be over-confident, but we should win handily. Minnesota is a better team than Philly and we dominated them with a few guys out. We just can't beat ourselves. All the analytics point to a win. My biggest concern is Parkey shitting the bed and missing a couple of kicks and keeping the Eagles in the game.

Who knows, looks like he is still a project. Hopefully we will see more usage in the playoffs.

Baldy's breakdowns are great too, he has the same sentiment as Orlovsky:

Yeah, we were all expecting some bigger numbers, but he did miss two games, played hurt in the Minnesota game and seemed to be sore/not 100% against the Rams. If you just project his averages for 16 games, he would end up with 3680 yards and 27 TDs, which would be much closer to the initial projections. If you take out the MIN and LAR games, his averages go way up to almost 4k yards and 30 TDs. I think that is where he will be with a full season next year. I know you can't cherrypick numbers, but he was hurt, missed games, and seemed way off against LAR. He had 5 INTs in those two games, and 7 in his other 12 games. Also, Burton and Cohen all ended with career highs in receptions, yards, and TDs, and Gabriel had his best year in terms of receptions and yards. The Robinson and Shaheen injuries might have had a slight impact on Trubisky's numbers. In his last 3 games, Trubisky completed 75.9% of his passes with 3 TDs and 0 INTs with a 3-0 record and 2 wins on the road. Ultimately, I think we over-rated the raw numbers a little bit. Did he need to reach 4000 passing yards and 30 TDs to have a successful season? What if he did that and we went 8-8? Mahomes threw for over 5k yards and 50 TDs, yet KC ended up with the same record as CHI and Trubisky ended up with a better winning pct with an 11-3 record (.786) compared to Mahomes 12-4 (.750).