adam

My last one, under Zimmer, the Vikes are 2-2 coming out of the bye, but 1-2 on the road after a bye. Also, they outscore their opponent 23-7 in the first quarter and get outscored 30-16 in the 4th in those 4 games. So it is going to be crucial that the Bears get an early lead and neutralize this advantage.

Some additional numbers: DVOA: Offense/Defense/Special Teams CHI 7.9/-20.1/-5.1 MIN -2.8/-8.4/-2.5 Looking at DVOA, we have a more efficient offense and an absolute dominant defense compared to Minnesota. They have a slight edge on Special Teams (shocker). Looking at Minnesota's games, they had a terrible outing against the Rams, allowing over 550 total yards and 38 points. To ensure that was not an outlier, I removed that game and their best game, and did the same for the Bears to see how the numbers compared: CHI 371 Total Yards (OFF) 29.3 pts/g 304 Total Yards (DEF) 18.3 pts/g MIN 372 Total Yards (OFF) 25.6 pts/g 305 Total Yards (DEF) 22.4 pts/g So the offenses and defenses are literally within a yard of each other. Pretty crazy, but the Bears average about 4 pts more on offense and allow 4 less on defense for an 8 pt differential. If you play our offensive average vs their defensive average, you get 26 pts for us and 22 for them. So a score of: CHI 26 MIN 22 on a neutral field. If you give us +3 for home field or (+2 for us and -1 for them), you get Bears 28-21. So we will see how this goes, I had 27-21 in my first look, so it was interesting to see the numbers come up so close.

By this time next week, we could be 8-3, Vikes 5-4-1, Packers 4-5-1, and Lions 3-8. Crazy.

Trubisky now 4th in the NFL in QBR at 75.1, only behind Brees, Mahomes, and Rivers (75.4).

So much for Trubisky not being able to throw to his left. /Narrative

We are still either -2.5 or -3.0, which means we are favored. We are not underdogs anywhere that I can see. https://www.oddsshark.com/nfl/odds

3 prime time games in 4 weeks, the league must be noticing something. 2 out of 3 at Soldier Field. If KC beats LAR, we could be playing for a first round bye at that point.

If you had to rank the skill positions individually, WR would probably go Hopkins, Hill, Robinson; RB would go Hunt, Howard/Cohen, Miller; TE: Kelce, Burton. So lowest top end talent, but probably the best group as a whole. Also, consider what Trubisky had to throw to last year (Wright, Bellamy, and Inman were his leading WRs).

Alaska, I was being a little tongue in cheek with the actual rankings understanding that Trubisky clearly had more games so would have more raw stats. However, how many top 10 WR's, TE's, and RB's does these QB's throw to? Watson has Hopkins, who is a top 5 receiver, and Mahomes has Hill, Kelce, and Hunt all in the top 5 at their positions. So technically, Trubisky has the worst supporting cast for his career.

No, that would suck. Let's get a blow-out win and put the rest of the league on notice.

Playoff Odds: LAR 100% vs KC NO 99.2% vs PHI CHI 86.8% vs MIN WAS 75.0% vs HOU CAR 76.5% @DET MIN 43.9% @CHI GB 42.1% @SEA KC 100% vs LAR NE 93.9% BYE PIT 92.5% @JAX HOU 79.9% @WAS LAC 92.4% vs DEN TEN 41.9% @IND BAL 32.8% vs CIN

Career Passing Numbers for First Round QB's in the 2017 Draft (w/ analytical ranking system similar to PFF): Passing Yards 1. Trubisky - 4497 2. Watson - 4088 3. Mahomes - 3434 Rushing Yards 1. Trubisky - 568 2. Watson - 537 3. Mahomes - 168 Wins 1. Trubisky - 10 1. Mahomes - 10 3. Watson - 9 Passing TD 1. Watson - 36 2. Mahomes - 31 3. Trubisky - 26 Rushing TD 1. Trubisky - 5 2. Watson - 3 3. Mahomes - 2 Comp 1. Trubisky - 386 2. Watson - 311 3. Mahomes - 253 Att 1. Trubisky - 620 2. Watson - 489 3. Mahomes - 380 Comp% 1. Mahomes 66.6% 2. Watson - 63.6% 3. Trubisky - 62.3% Sacks 1. Mahomes - 19 2. Trubisky - 49 2. Watson - 49 INTs 1. Mahomes - 8 2. Trubisky - 14 3. Watson - 15 Ranking Pts (3 pts for 1st, 2 pts for 2nd, 1 pt for last): 1. Trubisky - 24 2. Watson - 19 2. Mahomes - 19 * Note - Over 20 is a franchise QB, under 20 is a QB with a great supporting cast of skill positions players that boost up his stats.

Yeah, I agree. What a waste of a pick. I can't believe they didn't try to move him already, they were probably waiting to see how Robinson looked coming off the injury. I think they know now.

By the way, Trubisky now is 190/290, 65.5%, 2304 yards, 19 TD, 7 INT, and a QBR of 75.2 (4th in NFL) only behind Brees, Mahomes, and Rivers. In regards to QBR, Trubisky has the 3rd best game this year (TB), and 3 total games in the top 25, with the 19th (DET), and 23rd (NYJ). Compared to other young QBs, Mahomes has one game in top 25, Watson has one game, and Mayfield has two. Brees has 3 in the top 25. Trubisky's game against TB was the 47th best QBR game since 2006 (out of 6323 games). Trubisky's 16-game projection now at: 338/516, 4096 yards, 34 TDs, 12 INTs Kramer most yards: 3838 (1995), 258 yards ahead of pace for record Kramer most TDs: 29 (1995), 5 TD's ahead of pace for record Cutler most completions: 370 (2014) Cutler most attempts: 561 (2014) For fun: Trubisky is now 19th for Passing Yards in franchise history with 4497, next up, Bobby Douglass with 4932. If Trubisky stays near his projection, he will surpass Grossman, Evans, Tomczak, Bukich, and Lujack to land in the top 10 by season's end. That's crazy. Mitch is also 19th with 10 wins (next up Zeke Bratkowski with 11) and 20th with 26 TD's (next up Douglass and Orton with 30). Rushing QBs, Trubisky now 9th all-time in team history and is 18 yards from 8th. For a single-season, Trubisky is projected to have the 2nd best rushing season for a QB behind only Bobby Douglass' 968 yards in 1972. The 2nd best season right now is Douglass with 525, and Trubisky is projected to have 568 rushing yards.

My Scouting Report: The Vikings are coming off a bye, so I looked back at their last 3 games to see anything that stood out. First, they went 2-1 beating the Lions 24-9, losing to the Saints 30-20, and beating the Jets 37-17. Diggs had a rib injury against the Saints, DNP against the Lions, then had the bye. In their most recent game against the Lions, Stafford went for 25/36 for 199, no TD's or INTs, but he was sacked 10 times. Protection is going to be huge. I would like to see some planned rollouts and screens to keep the pass rush honest. On offense, they got Dalvin Cook going with 10/89 yds with Thielen being the highest targeted receiver with 7. The offense looked a lot different without Diggs. Stopping Thielen is going to be key if Diggs is out. Thielen has more receiving yards (947) than our top two receivers, which means we can limit more production by focusing on one player than Minnesota can against us. We have 5 receivers with over 300 yards receiving and 3 runners with over 200 rushing yards. Minnesota have 3 and 1 respectively. In the two games before the DET game, against NO and NYJ, Dalvin Cook did not play, and Diggs did, totaling 26 targets and 18 receptions, more than Thielen at 17 targets and 16 receptions. So the Bears game might be the first with Cook and Diggs both playing since September. They are way more balanced with Cook in the lineup. Against DET, their Run/Pass split was almost 50/50. Without Cook in the two other games, they were 36/64 leaning heavily towards the pass. Cousins is having a great season, he is completing 71% of his passes and has a 17-5 TD/INT ratio with over 2600 yards. He has thrown 3 picks in his last 4 games, so we will need to capitalize on any mistakes. Cousins has been sacked 24 times (just under 3 per game) and has lost a fumble 6 times. So with his INTs, he averages over a turnover a game. Cousins seems very consistent regardless of down or distance except for 2nd and 8-10 yards where he has a 72.5 Rating, 2 INTs and 3 sacks in 40 attempts. 3rd down is where Cousins takes most of his sacks. He has been sacked 13 times in 95 attempts on 3rd down. We really need 4-5 sacks and two turnovers from him. They are 3-0 when they win the turnover battle, and 1-3-1 when they lost it. Turnovers will decide this game. I think our defense will be up to the task limiting the Vikings to 21 or less. When they score over 23, they are 4-1-1, and when they score 21 or less, they are 0-2. So 21 is the magic number for our defense (and Special Teams). Our losses have come when the opponents have scored 24, 31, and 38. When we allow 22 or less, we are undefeated. So again, 21 seems like the sweet spot. So their defense has allowed 27 pts or more 4 times, and went 0-3-1 in those games. So the magic number for our offense is 27. Put up 4 TD's, 3 TDs and 2 FG's (made) and we should be in good shape (easier said than done). Minnesota allowed 30 against the Saints, 29 against GB, and 39 against the Rams. Comparably to us, they held ARZ and NYJ both to 17, but somehow allowed 27 against Buffalo. We allowed 14 against ARZ and 10 against NYJ, while only 9 to Buffalo. So in common games, we look a lot better. The Vikings defense is very similar to ours, good against the run and pass, tied for the league lead in sacks (31) but only 8 INTs. So the pressure is going to be key. Hunter is 2nd in the league with 11.5 sacks, but no other player has more than 3.0, so stopping Hunter is going to be huge. Hunter also has 13 TFL's, with is next closest teammate at 5. Hunter is the key up front. Hendricks is their leading tackler at LB and Harrison Smith is 2nd at S. Knowing where Smith is will be key. He has 4 TFL, 2 sacks, 5 PD, and 3 INTs from the Safety position to go with 47 tackles. Odds makers have us as -2.5 favorites, which really means nothing since we are at home. I think this might slip to -3.0 by game time, especially with the forecasted weather. As long as we don't have any Special Teams blunders, I think we win, have a decent lead and then allow a late TD which makes the score look closer. Bears 27-21 This is probably the biggest regular season game we have experienced this late in the year, in 6 years, since 2012 (Lovie's last season). We were 7-1 that year and then the wheels fell off and we finished 3-5 but every game had meaning from November on. That season we were 7-1, then lost 2 straight, won one to go to 8-3, then proceeded to lose 3 straight to go to 8-6 before winning the last two games and finish 10-6. Week 17 was brutal, we beat Detroit in the early game behind 4x Olindo Mare FG's (lol) and then had to watch Minnesota's Blair Walsh hit a GW FG with no time left on the clock to win 37-34 against GB in an afternoon game, who they would play again the following week and lose to in the WC round. If GB wins in Week 17, they would've gotten a bye and we would've played in the WC game at SF.

The MMQB article has some odd comments: "Indeed, the Bears feature a lot of pre-snap motion, misdirection and multi-option designs. But the difference is, while Reid uses the scheme as a weapon to feature his young QB, Nagy uses the scheme as a tool to hide his. The Bears are Chiefs Lite." So Nagy uses the scheme to hide Trubisky? That is what it is called now. Not playing to his strengths? If anything, we are handcuffed at RB because Howard now seems too one-dimensional, especially compared to Kareem Hunt. Yet the article states this about Howard: "Instead of just pounding the rock and relying on tailback Jordan Howard’s tackle-breaking prowess".... I like Howard and all, but tackle-breaking prowess? Like he is running over people. Howard has the 4th lowest YPC for qualified players.

I finally see Roquan stepping up, he had 9 tackles (team high), 1 sack, 1 TFL, and 1 PD. Oh btw, he is a rookie. Another rook showing up on defense is Bilal Nichols, in 29 snaps, he got a tackle, a sack, and a forced fumble. On the other side of the ball, James Daniels played every snap (so did the entire O-Line - Witzmann too), and oh, this WR named Anthony Miller went 5-122 and a TD on 6 targets. So needless to say, this draft class of Smith, Daniels, Miller, and Nichols is killing it. Not to mention last year's (Trubisky, Cohen, Jackson) are killing it and Shaheen should be back this week. That's basically nailing 8 picks in two years and that's not even counting guys like Iggy, Fitz, Wims, etc who should get a chance at some point. Pace has to get some consideration for Exec of the Year. On offense, Trubisky by far had his best game and showed that the TB game was not an anomaly. He is now playing at an elite level, which is great to see. If he can limit mistakes and beat teams with his arm and legs, we are going to be a tough team to beat. I am a little concerned about the running game, and outside of 3-4 runs all year, Howard really looks disinterested. I don't know why they don't put him out there to chip and then roll to the flat. That would be open every time because teams literally put 8 in the box when Howard is out there, and go to 5 DB's when Cohen is out there. We will need to win games with Howard when the weather gets bad, so hopefully that will come soon. The only other thing I can think of is that Nagy is purposely not showcasing Howard and certain plays to keep for later. Well if he is, this week is a good time to open up Pandora's box of plays. On defense, it was great to see Mack back in there. He seemed a little rusty at first, but then you could feel his presence. It was nice to see Floyd have a solid game, and he was showing some different moves, which will only make his speed rush that much more lethal down the road. Bryce Callahan has really stepped up his play, playing at or near an All-Pro level, which gives us 3x starter quality CB's. Amos seems like the odd man out on the starting defense. Of the starting 11, he is clearly the worst player. For the defense overall, hard to argue with 6 sacks, 2 INT's, and holding DET to 26% on 3rd downs. Next up Minnesota at Soldier Field, game time temperature projected to be in the high 20's after touching 30 for a few hours that day. Bear Weather!!! This is a must win because we need to have a two-win lead on MIN heading into Week 17. With the stupid tie, we have to end the season with one more win than Minnesota and Green Bay, so 10-6 will beat 9-6-1, but not 10-5-1. So I would rather shoot for 11 wins, which would basically make GB run the table and force MIN to go 6-1. To get to 10-5-1, Minnesota has to finish 5-2 against (@CHI, vs GB, @NE, @SEA, vs MIA, @DET, vs CHI). We have to split with them at least, preferably winning this one, and forcing them to go 5-1 the rest of the way to get to 10 wins. For GB, they have to finish 6-1 against (@SEA, @MIN, vs ARZ, vs ATL, @CHI, @NYJ, vs DET). I don't see that happening. At best maybe 5 wins if you give them NYJ, DET, and ARZ, and winning 2 of 4 from SEA, MIN, ATL, and CHI. At 6-3, we need to go 5-2 the remainder of the way, 2x MIN, DET, GB, LAR, SF, and NYG. That means we have to split MIN/MIN, beat GB and DET, and then go 2-1 against LAR, SF, and NYG. That seems reasonable, especially with a win against MIN on SNF.

23/30, 76.7%, 355 yds, 3-0, 148.6 Rating, most yards for his career, best Comp% this year and no INTs. He also ran for a TD. 17 TD - 4 INT in last 6 games.

He has already lost a game for us and missed other kicks.

After a few crappy drives to start the 3rd quarter, the Bears go down at score from the 50. Trubisky to Robinson, then for the 2-pt conversion to make it 34-10. Outside of Parkey's missed kicks, this is a complete team effort right now.

Parkey has now hit the uprights on 4 kicks today, 2 XPs and 2 FGs. He needs to be cut.

Golladay fumbles, missed call on the field, Nagy throws the challenge flag but doesn't get it in before the play. Now Lions driving for the first time all game.

Trubisky sneaks it in, Bears up 26-0.

Holy crap, now a Callahan INT (who had a sack earlier).

Wow what a start, Trubisky is 12-13 for 206 yds and 2 TD's with a perfect passer rating. Bears up 19-0 due to 2x missed XP's by Parkey. Defense has only allowed 3 first downs and 41 total yards so far.