adam

Arthur Smith left TEN, and made the 16th scoring offense into the 26th scoring offense in ATL. So this looks to be very situational. He got a dying Matt Ryan, then Mariota, then Ridder as his 3x QBs. He has never replicated his offense in TEN again. McDaniels left NE and made the Raiders jump from 18th to 12th on offense. Shottenheimer left SEA in 2020, then didn't OC or HC until 2023 where DAL ended up with the #1 offense, up from 4th the year before, so a slight improvement. Carmichael left the Saints and in 2024 was on the DEN staff but not as OC. DEN did improve from 19th to 10th. VanPelt left CLE and joined NE where he made the 31st offense slip up one to 30th. So no big change there. So only Arthur Smith left as an OC and didn't improve his next team as an HC or OC.

So I looked back 5 years at the top 10 scoring offenses. I found 5 teams that lost/fired their OC after a season where they finished in the top 10 in scoring. Every one of them dropped out of the top 10 the following season with a new OC: TEN 2020-2021, 4th > 15th (lost A. Smith) SEA 2020-2021, 8th > 15th (lost Shottenheimer - gained Waldron lol) NE 2021-2022, 6th > 17th (lost McDaniels) NO 2023-2024, 9th > 24th (lost Kubiak) CLE 2023-2024, 10th > 32nd (lost VanPelt) My next one is to see how the top 10 OC faired on his new team (if he had one).

The OC/Playcaller will dictate the scheme and plays. So it is up to Morton, and I don't know if I have ever seen a new OC come in and adopt someone else's playbook. Before Johnson, the offense was 25th, in his first year they jumped to 5th with basically the same players. In the two seasons before Johnson, Goff averaged 3500 passing yards, with Johnson? Over 4,500. He went from 20 TDs per year to 32. A massive jump. That will likely come down. Also remember Goff has had McVay, Lynn for his first year in DET (his worst), then Johnson. Morton is no McVay or Johnson, so Goff having a year closer to 2021 is more likely than him having another 4600 yard season.

Yeah, that was it. When was the last time you can remember a team losing their OC/Playcaller and DC/Playcaller and follow that up with a great year?

It takes a good play caller, look at what Waldron did to the Bears and Seahawks. It was like a trail of tears. Morton comes in as a failed OC and hasn't called plays in the NFL in 8 years (2017). I honestly don't think he will last and DET will end up with the rotating OCs like Lovie had. The speculation was they would promote from within, and that did not happen.

Lions go from Johnson to Morton at OC. Morton has only been an OC once before in 2017, with the Jets, with the 24th scoring offense and 28th in yards. Fired after one season, never was an OC again. Talk about a downgrade. Waldron's offenses were better, that says a lot.

Also consider the timing for Dennis Allen and Al Harris. Allen was a HC and Harris was on the DAL staff. So we got Johnson, Allen, and Harris this year. Johnson is 38, so I am praying he is finally going to be our "franchise coach" like Tomlin, Reid, Harbaugh that we have in place for 10+ years. We are due.

Randle El has been St. Brown's WR Coach his entire career so far. Al Harris is a high end DBs coach that may get more out of Stevenson. Between Johnson and Allen, Randle El and Harris, both sides of the ball have some of the best coaches the team has ever had. Plus Morgan is gone, which is a net positive.

Allen would be a great hire, someone with HC experience and is one of the better defensive play callers in the NFL. So the Bears could possibly have 2x top 5 play callers on both sides of the ball.

This is an amazing hire. He was my top choice, but I expected Monken or McCarthy. This is not Nagy 2.0. Johnson called plays for 3 years in DET. In all 3, they had a top 5 scoring and yardage offense. The last time the Bears had that was in the early 60s. If you just go back in the Bears coaching hires, this one is the biggest fish. Flus was meh, Nagy was exciting, but a huge question mark about playcalling, which ultimately was his downfall. Fox was always just an interim guy to get the locker room back after Trestman. So Lovie was the last coach of this caliber. If they fix the OLine, get a true speedster and upgrade at TE2, this offense is comparable to DET next offseason. RB is about the only thing that the Bears would be lacking in, unless they sign or draft someone there. However, the WR Room is already solid with Moore and Odunze. Obviously Kmet at TE, and the biggest position is QB where Johnson is going from Goff to Williams. Nothing was easy for Williams, yet he still broke numerous rookie records. Goff numbers tell the story, he regressed in LA, they traded him, he struggled in Year 1 without Johnson, then Johnson arrived and since then he has AVERAGED over 4,500 passing yards a season with over 32 TDs.

Roquan is great and overrated at the same time which is hard to do.

Yeah, the script flipped pretty quick. Love is way to careless with the ball. Goff folds under pressure, and Darnold may not even play in the division next year. So year, Caleb may be the best QB in the NFC North next year.

After watching two weeks of the playoffs, for how bad the Bears played this season, they played way too many of these teams close enough that with small changes, the outcomes could've been much different. Just like 2023, the Bears were a better team than their record. We now know a lot of this was on Flus and the coaching staff. The Bears had 5 games decided by a FG or less, two others by 6 or less, and then the NE game where they didn't even show up. That is 8 games. If they just won half of those, that is a 9-win team. Win 75%, and it's an 11-win team. With the right coaching staff, a few key FAs, a solid draft, and this team will look magically transformed come next summer.

The Lions scored 31 pts in the playoffs with 4 INTs and a fumble lost.

Turnovers were the theme of the weekend, DET, BAL, and LAR all lost and had multiple turnovers. DET threw 4 INTs and had a fumble lost.

Looking at the paths for each team, WAS had one of the easiest paths to the NFC Championship game. First TB, who was only 5-4 at home, then to DET where they had 16 Day 1 starters out. No other path for a WC team was easier. Good for them. MIN was always playing by fire over the last few years. No coach or team have won more 1-score games than MIN. So their overall record was inflated. They also had to travel the farthest to play on the road against a team that was finally healthy. So neither of the MIN or DET losses surprise me. Goff shit the bed like he does, and Darnold came back down to earth. I am surprised those games didn't occur more often.

I feel like McCarthy is the equivalent of an offensive Tomlin, who has a high floor. Then if the GM can get some superstars on the roster, that is what makes the difference. I like the core of Caleb + Rome + DJ + Kmet. I think they need an upgrade at RB to be an elite skill position group. The Oline needs a complete overhaul. One interesting thing I haven't see talked about, who is going to be the DC? Would someone like Rivera come in as a DC with someone like Johnson as the HC?

I am kinda at the point where I want Johnson, would be fine with Monken or Brady (for Caleb Dev), but understand if they went with McCarthy. Wild card is Matt Campbell. Thoughts?

Remember GB was 1-5 in the DIV and a blocked FG from 0-6. They should not have been a playoff team. For MIN, McVay knows the KOC playbook, because it is his. The league watered the playoffs down when they added the 7th team. Only one #2 seed has ever lost a #7 seed, and that was DAL. It feels like there are way too many non-competitive games this year.

From watching way too much all-22, there are no hot routes, I have no clue why. A TE or WR should be running a quick slant or in cutting route for an easy completion towards the pressure since that is where the vacated spot is at. I rarely see that. When it happens, I ask, where was this all year and why don't they go back to it?

Yeah one in 2025 and one in 2026. Basically replaces the lost 4th rounder since it is at the end of the 3rd Round, but would give the Bears 5 picks in the top 105, which they would need to hit on.

McCarthy immediately becomes the top candidate. HC experience, offensive guru, has worked with a bunch of different QBs, including Rodgers, which Caleb emulates on the field. He checks all the marks. For him, it is an easy decision. He gets Caleb, and gets to beat GB twice a year for the next 20. I would be fine with him or Johnson tbh.

My only concern with Daniels was staying healthy. Unless he adds some meat on that frame, he is at risk for how much he runs. If he stays healthy, I feel like he will be a consistent 3,600 / 750 QB Outside of the Bears game, the most yards he ever threw for was 275. The most combined yards he put up was 354 and that was with 127 rushing yards against ATL. Caleb hit that number 3 times on a terrible team. Since he is a one-read, half the field QB, I think he is close to his ceiling, maybe a 3,800 / 1K guy, but that is max, which is really good. I just don't think you are going to see many 4K passing seasons from him ever. I could be wrong, but if you watch his games, his stats are saved by a huge chunk play on a busted coverage. 11 games with a 30+ yard pass, with 6 over 50. That is not sustainable. Another thing that is not sustainable, winning games on the last play in regulation, they have won their last 6 like that and I believe 8 on the season. Not sustainable.

So far it feels a little watered down compared to recent years. 3 games decided by 2 TDs or more. WAS seems to be blessed with the best luck. Down by 4, TB fumbles on their own 13 yard line, 4 plays later, WAS scores a TD and never trails again. They won by 3, so that play was the deciding factor and at least a 7 pt swing if not more. The best part of this weekend was seeing the GB frauds get sent packing where Love throws for 3 INTs and 0 TDs. Their only TD drive was when Jacobs accounted for 55 of the 78 yards. Herbert was just as bad if not worse than Love against HOU. He threw 4 picks and was sacked 4 times. So Herbert + Love threw more INTs (7) this weekend than Caleb did all season.

He ended up with 68 sacks, exactly 4 per game. If he can cut that down to 51, it would still be near the league lead but down 25%. Also, when he breaks contain, he tries to extend the play with a pass until the very last possible second. However, he has to know down and distance. There were several plays where he could easily get the 5-6 yards for a first by running, but he elected to stay behind the LOS until the defense swarmed, ending in an incompletion.