adam

Taylor is going to be a top 10 Punter, and huge upgrade over limped legged Gill. There has only been 1 rookie punter ever to break 50 yards per punt. I think Taylor joins Stonehouse with his average per punt. Due to a better offense, I don't know how often he will be punting, but I don't think averaging over 50 yards per punt is out of reach for him. The other thing he excels at is pinning team inside their 20. Last season Stonehouse (again), averaged 52.8% of his punts inside the 20. Wishnowsky was the only other punter over 50%. I think Taylor can go 50/50% this year, which would be a top 5 punter in the NFL.

Odunze looks even better than advertised. If not for Caleb, Rome would be the talk of the town. Recently, he talked about breaking Puca's rookie receiving records and talked about how they played together at Washington. That is a great personal goal, but with Moore, Allen, Kmet, Everett, and Swift also looking to eat, I don't think Odunze will break the records, but I still think he will have a better season than most are projecting. There are 28 rookies who broke 1K yards, I think Odunze will do that. There are only 3 players to break 100 catches, Nacua, Waddle, and Boldin. What is interesting to me is there are no other players over 92 receptions, as Michael Thomas comes in 4th at 92. Rashee Rice had 79 for 14th and Zay Flowers had 77 for 15th. I think Rome is better than both of them. So I could see him getting 85-1050, or something like that. Other recent rookies: Olave - 72-1042 Wilson - 83-1103 Waddle - 104-1015 To hit 85 catches, all he would have to do is catch 5 balls a game. I don't think that is unrealistic. Moore and Allen are going to draw a lot of attention leaving Odunze on either CB2 or CB3 every game.

The extra game is huge. For Caleb to hit 4,043, he would only have to average 238 yards per game. In a 16 game season, that would only be 3,804 yards. So he could technically break the franchise mark for yards, but still have a per game average lower than Kramer's mark for a full season since Kramer averaged 240. I feel like there are too many weapons for him not to hit 250 per game.

There have only been 5 rookie QBs to throw for more than 4K yards, 3 are active, 2 starters. For TDs, surprisingly, only Herbert has thrown for more than 28. For QB Rating, there have only been 4 QBs to end the season over 100. So to have a top 5 rookie season ever, Williams would have to throw for 4,043 yards, 25 TDs, with a QB Rating of 98.4 and a Comp% of 66.5%, for each category. I feel like he has the potential to achieve all of those, especially with 17 games. I was surprised to see Mac Jones on there for yards and Comp%. Top Passing Yards (over 3800) 1. Luck - 4374 2. Herbert - 4336 3. Stroud - 4108 4. Newton - 4051 5. Winston - 4042 6. M. Jones - 3801 Top 5 TDs (over 24) 1. Herbert - 31 2. Mayfield - 27 3. Manning - 26 4. Wilson - 26 5. D. Jones - 24 Comp % (over 65) 1. Prescott - 67.8 2. M. Jones - 67.6 3. Mills - 66.8 4. Herbert - 66.6 5. Roethlisberger - 66.4 6. Griffin III - 65.6 7. Burrow - 65.3 QB Rating 1. Prescott - 104.9 2. Griffin III - 102.4 3. Stroud - 100.8 4. Wilson - 100.0 - Italics for players in more than one category

If they trust that Dexter and Pickens will improve, Edge seems like all that is left to address. The WR battle is going to be a fun one, but instead of figuring out who is going to be WR2 or WR3, we are now talking about WR5 or WR6. That is a great place to be. What do you think about Scott, is he a bubble player too? We know the top 3 are locked in, but WR4 could easily be Scott, Jones, Pettis, Carter, or even Jackson (played with Williams). They are only keeping 3 from Scott, Jones, Pettis, Carter, and Jackson.

Yeah, I don't like to use them but they are normally in the ballpark, meaning Shelton was definitely a mid-tier Center. However, that is a huge upgrade from Patrick.

I am just wondering if Bates was really brought in as an insurance policy for Davis, and I don't know what Shelton is getting crapped on. Shelton started every game for the Rams at Center last year, had the 2nd most snaps for the Rams, and was the 16th rated Center according to PFF. In comparison, Patrick was 27th. Shelton's PFF Grade was comparable to SF's Brendel, DAL's Biadasz, and CIN's Ted Karras. John Michael Schmitz, the Center most wanted from the 2023 draft, was the worst in the NFL last year.

Davis only played meaningful snaps in 9 out of 17 games. He had zero snaps in 6 games, and 10 and 13 in the other two. Interestingly enough, Davis played 100% of the offensive snaps in the 3 meltdown games (Denver, Detroit, and Cleveland). Wright, Jones, Jenkins, Patrick, and Whitehair all had more snaps than Davis. He was 6th on the OL in snap count ahead of Borom.

If you go off fumbles lost, it is a huge gap. Carter has 5 career fumbles lost on 374 touches (1.3%), Jones has 3 fumbles lost on 71 touches (4.2%). So Jones is 3 times more likely to lose a fumble than Carter.

It's wild that the Falcons can tamper with 3 players and only lose a 5th rounder. It feels like they got off too lightly.

I like Carter, and from what I am hearing, Special Teams coaches are planning to use two guys back deep. I thought that was not allowed, but I guess it is.

and the messed up, they have Miami as the wrong playoff seed on the inside of the ring.

Sort of Bears related, Lawrence signs $275M 5-year extension - $55M per year with $200M guaranteed. He already had his 5th Year option (for next year at $25.6M) so they have to shed $30M from their cap after 2025 with Christian Kirk the only player with salary to shed. It is going to be fun to see how these teams handle the QB bump. He is not Mahomes, so it is not like his performance along overcomes the loss of other players. The Bears would be in the same boat with Fields, if they kept him, and maybe not this offseason, but next one for sure.

If Dexter takes a Year 2 jump and Booker is league average, the line will be solid with Billings, Walker, and Sweat. Those are the top 5 guys and then probably Pickens as the top 6.

Where is the bigger need, someone to add to Walker+Booker or someone to add to Dexter+Pickens?

Bates for sure and Amegajie should get there, are some of the best subs in the league. Bates has always been a spot starter level guy and Amegajie is a 3rd rounder. That is some quality depth there. If Bates wins the Center battle, then Shelton becomes a Super Sub. So if Nate Davis can get back to his Titans form, the line will be a plus.

Having 4 out of 2 position groups (they haven't done Center yet) in the top 32 actually puts the group easily in the top 12, probably 8th or 9th before the Center is added. Just say Shelton is the 24th best Center, the Bears would still have a top 10 line.

I would think Walker gets the first shot at Edge across from Sweat with Booker rotating in as the first rotational guy, and Booker would be in as Edge 2 for known passing downs like 3rd and long. Walker is solid against the run, and Booker will need to show that he can set the edge on running plays.

Yeah very smart move, TE3 and true blocking TE was a hole, now filled.

They are also having fun. Poles is bringing in guys that love football and want to be the best (besides Davis). This is Year 3 for Poles/Flus, so that is when it's their team with very few leftovers from the past regime. What I like is the Bears have enough outgoing characters that Williams doesn't get 106% of the attention. The defense is full of dawgs who like to yap, and now with Allen and Everett, the offense has some of that too.

PFF has published most of their position group rankings, and I keep seeing multiple Bears on the lists, but in terms of team rankings the Bears are not as high. So right now they have published 11 position groups, and you would hope the Bears would have at least one player per group in the top 32, which would just make them an average team, especially if all the rankings were in the 20s and 30s. For the Bears, they have 16 players listed out of the 11 position groups. Since they didn't have any players listed for DL, that means they had 6 players that are ranked higher than any starter on another team w/o any players listed. They also had 5 position groups with multiple players with the WR Group having 3 in the top 30 (insane right?). Also, the Skill positions are stacked with 7 players listed which does not include Herbert, who was one of the most efficient RBs over the last few years. Here is the rank of the Bears players by group, with the name of a player that was not ranked. QB (19) - Bagent RB (20) - Herbert TE (11/19) WR (12/22/29) OG (16/26) OT (31/32) DL (N/A) - Dexter, Billings Edge (22) LB (9/11) CB (5) - Stevenson, Gordon S (12) - Brisker Using my highly advanced Kungonkulator (patent pending), with the listed position groups, the Bears have the 13th best team in the NFL. When you add in Kicker and Punter as a net positive and Center as a net negative, the Bears still stay right around the high 12s (actually between 12th and 13th). So to me, that feels a lot more accurate than 19th-22nd as I have seen them elsewhere. I think if you consider the Bears depth and starters not listed, with Herbert/Roschon, Sanborn, Gordon, Smith, Brisker, and Owens, the Bears probably have a top 15 bench as well. Even for Center, the Bears have Shelton or Bates, and the loser is a super sub. Kiran is the new Swing Tackle as a 3rd Round pick. Pickens, another 3rd Rounder is backup DL, then you have either Walker or Booker as backup Edge which would be solid on most teams. I know there is a lot of hype around the team because of the Bears drafting Taylor, but I think the hype is justified based on these scientifically proven findings. Note - For the Kungonkulator, I made an average team with a 16th ranked player per position group, where the Bears had a 2nd player listed, the average team would have a player ranked 48th, and if they had a 3rd player, it would be ranked 80th. Using the totals of those ranked positions, I divided back down to a range of 1-32, and the Bears were 13.6, but because this is an average, there were only 11 teams higher.

Stevenson compliments JJ very well. Stevenson is more boom or bust and will have more INTs and PDs while JJ is the shutdown guy who lets up very little of anything, but will have fewer splash plays.

I love Tyrique but JJ is still the top CB on the team. No one throws at him, so his PD and INT numbers are lower than they would be. Stevenson may surpass JJ and think both are CB1s which is awesome for the Bears.

Literally every position group goes thru this sequence, so I don't think of this as any new type of issue. The Bears can extend guys like Jenkins and Moore and when their big money kicks in, guys like Davis and Edmunds will come off the books. Like today, how big of a drop off would the Bears have with Edwards, Sanborn, and Sewell with a rookie LB as LB4 vs Edmunds, Edwards, Sanborn and Sewell today? The drop off ain't that big but that allows the Bears to extend Jenkins. Then if you replace Davis with a rookie OG, that allows you to extend Moore. This roster is basically locked in and cost controlled thru 2025, and Williams is cost controlled thru 2028, so the Bears will more than likely front load some of their vets to pay them in 2027 and 2028 to give them flexibility in 2029 and 2030 when Williams QB pay bump will force the cap for the rest of the roster to drop. If Poles does it correctly, they won't lose any core players until 2031, which is 8 years from now.

I saw the college reps mentioned again. Not that there is 100% correlation between raw number of attempts and success, but there is a point where you can say you know who the QB is, that there is something to work with and room to grow vs an unknown due to lower reps. That is why it always fascinates me on why Pace chose Trubisky over Watson or Mahomes (I wanted Watson). Then, with another shot at drafting a QB, which is rare for a GM, he goes with another QB with low reps and question marks in Fields. Guys with extra years at QB might have the high volume reps, but that is only because of the extra seasons. Penix is #2, but with 6 years (Williams had only 3), so when you take away some years of service, you can see Penix drop all the way to dead last on this list with 4 years of play. McCarthy seems high risk with less than 500 completions.