adam

Then the only hope is Cunningham and the new Coaching staff have more influence on personnel.

Receivers dropping passes, miscommunication, running the wrong route is good for 10%.

LVR and JAX both won. So there are 4 games with draft implications that could help the Bears draft position: MIA @ NYJ - (MIA is terrible in the cold), MIA favored by 1. JAX @ IND - IND just lost to the Giants, so JAX can beat them. IND favored by 5.5 (at home). LAC @ LVR - Is LAC resting starters for WC Weekend. LAC favored by 5.5. CAR @ ATL - CAR has looked good but keeps losing, with ATL basically eliminated who knows. ATL favored by 7.5 (at home).

We are finally put out of our misery for this season at around 3pm on Sunday. The Bears played GB tough the last time, but have not been the same team in weeks. Just like the 2nd game against DET and MIN, I don't see this one going too well. Game time temps are supposed to be in the low-20s to high teens with wind chills as low as 10 degrees. I can't see Santos making a kick longer than 40 yards. I expect them to dink and dunk, try to run the ball (won't be successful because of the OLine and Swift) and just survive the game without any major injuries. GB is playing for WC positioning, and it is a pretty big deal. It will be the difference between a game at TB/LAR or PHI. Besides weather, TB or LAR are much better matchups than PHI for most of the WC Teams. Washington plays at the same time and GB ends up as the last WC team and plays PHI with a WAS win or a win against CHI and a WAS loss. So if WAS is up big after halftime, GB may pull their starters to rest and prevent injury. I would. For the Bears, the only thing to watch for is Caleb's numbers. Can he get 207 passing yards to hit 3,600, 1 TD Pass to hit 20, and 21 rushing yards to hit 500. Those would all be huge milestones, especially if he can stay clean in the INT department. In the bad department, Caleb is 3 sacks away from 70, and 8 away from tying David Carr for the most in NFL history. Caleb is already 4th all-time lol, and only needs 2 to pass David Carr's other season of 68. It would be fitting for Caleb to get sacked twice and finish with 69 and 3rd all-time behind Carr (76) and Cunningham (72). Here is hoping he can keep it at 2 or under and not hit 70. Other potential milestones, Swift needs 106 rushing yards to hit 1K (unlikely). Moore needs 120 yards to hit 1K (possible). Allen needs 81 to hit 800, and Odunze needs 84 to hit 800, Kmet needs 29 to hit 500, and Scott needs 995 to hit 1K. One of the more funny ones, Taylor needs 343 punt yards to hit 4K, LMAO. The defense literally has no one near any sort of milestone. Back to the game, with GB having everything to play for, at home, in the cold, and CHI having virtually nothing to play for, I see GB winning handily 31-13.

I can't believe the Bears are gonna draft at #9 with a 4-13 record. I think some teams will want to move up, so unless an absolute blue chipper is there, I would trade down and try to gain some draft capital. Another pick in the top 75 or an extra pick next year would be great.

I know hindsight is always 20/20, but I keep getting "smartest guy in the room" vibes from Poles. He could've grabbed a Center or a Guard instead of Kiran, Taylor, or even Booker knowing how weak the line was. Kiran was a tackle, who was injured. That is a luxury pick, so was Taylor. That's great when your roster is stacked, but there were players to be had at those picks that would've contributed. Scott instead of Puka. Velus Jones, your 3rd pick ever, is a projected returner who is 3 years older than his competition. How embarrassing. Passing up on Carter, trading up for Stevenson, and drafting Pickens altogether. What is he thinking?

Revisiting this, man I love Odunze, but geez, they could've had Bowers, Thomas, or even McConkey, who all have over 1,000 receiving yards thru 16 games. Thomas has 10 TDs and McConkey has 7. I know that video of Odunze at the combine, redoing the drill over and over sold Poles on Odunze. I really like Odunze, but it is hard to ignore what those other guys have done. Especially Bowers and Thomas with crappy QBs.

Only the Giants could mess this up. They had sole possession of the #1 pick and decided to show up today and are winning 28-20. They may still lose, but man if they win, they would drop the 3rd pick, with the chance to slide all the way to the 5th pick because of a late season win with a backup QB. For the Bears, things are looking good, CAR is losing, and LVR and NYG are winning. Those wins would give the Bears a chance to get a better pick after Week 18's loss.

You are not wrong, but I am just saying that implies it was because of Flus and not the players. The problem has been other teams just started throwing at Stevenson every game. Then when Brisker went down, they had another spot to attack, Owens. Both have been below replacement level in coverage. Easy pickens. Then you add LBs that are bad in coverage and you have 4 out of the back 7 that are liabilities in coverage all the while the front 4 can't get pressure or stop the run. Next year's schedule is already more difficult than this year in terms of gimme wins. The Bears have to get stronger on the DLine with at least a 3rd "starter" at DT to rotate with Billings and Dexter, and get a real threat at Edge across from Sweat. Walker can play Edge on running plays and DT on pass plays. They have to address the hole at CB across from JJ and can't go another season with such huge liabilities in coverage at Safety.

Some of the best blocks are the chips where the TE or WR pushes the Edge back inside to the Tackle who is expecting it. It also pinches the DT making it easier for the G. It just doesn't make sense. They can still run a route after the chip. Baffling.

The defense was playing better, but the level of talent of the opponent went up too when their production went down. Without looking, I had no clue which week Brisker or Billings went out. Brisker's last game was the Carolina game in Week 5. Billings last game was ARZ in Week 9. Dexter was way more recent. Also, one or two guys should not make the entire unit fall flat on its face. DET lost a potential DPOY Candidate and are doing fine. This looks even worse on Poles to be honest. Having quality depth is just as important a top tier starters, and the Bears have neither. Since the Hail Mary before Flus was fired the defense was allowing 24.2 pts and 380 yds per game, and since he was fired 27.0 pts and 380 yds per game. So zero yardage difference and 2.8 pts. They also played 60% at home vs 50% at home, so the difference of 2.8 pts is easily within the margin of error for schedule and opponent. Meaning, the defense has been about the same with or without Flus over the course of multiple games. At the end of the day, the offense has been the deciding factor in most games. They were 2-0 when they scored 30, and 4-1 when they scored 24 or more and the one loss was to MIN in OT. When the opponent scored 21 or less, they were 4-6. They should've been 8-2 in those games, but the offense is what failed.

There is a good chance the Giants part ways with Brian Daboll. My assumption is that the Bears will interview him because he is an Offensive Guy, A Leader of Men, and has HC experience. The issue is, outside of a fluky 2022, they have been terrible.

There is no way Warren can look at this team and say with a straight face that Poles is up to standard at his job. He had one job, the product on the field, and it is one of the worst products in the league, literally the bottom 2 over the last 3 seasons. He has to go. Bring in a GM with a vision that aligns with the new HC, get those guys in the building, then do some house cleaning with the 53-man roster in preparation for free agency and the draft. Looking at the best teams in the league, it comes down to having solid players in almost every starting spot, in some cases more, but it looks like you need at least 8 above-average players on both sides of the ball to compete. On offense, you need at least 4 on the OLine, the QB, and 3 skill position players. On defense, you need 3 on the DL, 1 LB, and 4 in the secondary (includes Slot CB). The more the merrier, but that seems like the lowest you can have to be a consistent playoff contender. So for the Bears, the offseason targets are no-brainers: OLine - need 3 (Wright) Skill - need 0 (Moore, Odunze, Swift/Kmet) - Jones, Jenkins - injured DLine - need 1 (Dexter, Sweat) LB - need 1 (None) CB/S - need 1 (Johnson, Gordon, Byard) - Brisker, Billings - injured - Edmunds - terrible, Edwards - terrible in coverage So they need 2 OL before they should even consider another position group. Then once it is 1ea left, then you can go BPA. As much as we don't want to see it, LB is a need. They have been a huge problem all year, Sanborn has probably been the best one, but because of his contract/draft status, he is rotational at best. Edwards is fine if his partner is a coverage stud. Edmunds has been neither, he can't tackle, can't cover, but looks intimidating presnap. To put Edmunds into perspective, there are only 2 LBs with more snaps than him that have a lower PFF Grade (I know PFF, blah blah, but you can pretty much use any metric and he is near the bottom). Guess who is one ahead of him, Edwards, lol. Edmunds is a problem because he will have the 4th highest cap hit of any player on the team in 2025, there is just no way you can pay someone that much for literally being a huge liability on the field. He would be a cap casualty, saving $4.3M from his current 2025 cap hit. I would rather have $4.3M in free money and a roster spot than to pay him $17.4M to waste a roster spot. Other easy cuts, Bates - saves $4M, Everett - saves $5.5M. Byard would be the only other one I would consider as he would save $7M on the cap.

The challenging piece is knowing what Caleb is being coached to do, what the scheme is, progression, etc. To me, there are 4 basic components to a pass play, the play/scheme (does it scheme someone open, does it stress the point defender?), the O-Line/Protection (can include blitz/stunt pickups), the QB, and the receivers. The QB is obviously the most influential, so the play's success rate will more times than not come down to how well they performed individually on any single play. The next most influential is the receiver, because everything else can go right and they can still drop the ball. The next is scheme and O-Line which both can fail, but be overcome by a great QB and Receiver (see Cincy). The goal is to have none of those below average. If Caleb had an average O-Line, average scheme, and average receivers, he would've thrown for 4K yards, probably 30 TDs, etc. He would've still had high sacks, but probably around 40-50, but not 70. The Receivers were not good enough to overcome a bad scheme, less time to get open due to the O-Line, and some inaccurate passes by Caleb. Caleb, as a rookie, was not good enough to play above the bad O-Line, scheme, and receivers. My project this weekend is to watch every sack from the end zone view, look at the receivers between 2-3 secs after snap and see if any are open. I feel like the combination of everything made everything else worse. No unit picked up the play of the other. 2 vet WRs, 3 vet TEs and none of them picked up their QB. Way too many dropped passes, wrong routes, presnap penalties, etc. We all know how bad the O-Line was, it is not even up for debate. Caleb was a rookie QB that struggled against the blitz and immediate pressure, he held onto the ball too long, took unnecessary sacks and was too young to understand the urgency in the 2-minute drill. They will obvious get a new scheme next year, one can only hope it is better than what we have seen out of Getsy and Waldron. The O-Line needs to be the focus of free agency and the draft. They need to put money into it and draft capital, then repeat that every year. The WR Corps needs a burner that can stretch the field, maybe that is Scott, I don't know, but having the Safeties at 15 yards makes for a very condensed secondary. Caleb is going to need to learn how to bail after 2 reads, not 4, and run more than he probably wants to until the O-Line is above average. Every receiver needs to use the juggs machine for 1K reps per day until they stop dropping passes. The good thing is there is nowhere to go but up next year. Hopefully....

There are endless numbers, always a different way to look at the same thing.

Caleb had a 24.4 QBR for the game. Terrible performance. One of his worst games as a pro. At 3,393, he would need 207 yards next week to hit 3,600 on the year. He has failed to hit 200 in 3 out of the last 4 games. So this is going to be a challenge. He did have 231 against GB last time, but that was at home, and not in GB in January. Obviously Erik Kramer's team record is safe for another year.

Serious question, why are there not TEs chipping on that side? Just stick Kmet or Lewis there and smash them inside to squeeze the DE and DT. On the play that Caleb got sacked where players ran on either side of Borom and he blocked neither, there were 2x OLinemen blocking air to the right. The line needed to shift left. They didn't, which is the norm.

Remember all the "Cord-cutting" stuff. Lol, that is hilarious now because EVERYONE pays more now for less. If you want the same cable TV subscription that you had a few years ago, it is likely close to double because they have to make up for all the customers that left. Then with the streaming services, it is so fractured, that you have to get 3-4 different services to get most of what you had before. The ecosystem is completely broken. I have Netflix thru T-Mobile, so the last two games I could watch, but for some reason, they restricted casting to a TV for live events. Like how stupid is that? So if I have the Netflix app on the TV it is no problem, but if I try to cast it to a TV (using Chromecast), it won't allow me.

He cost the team a TD AND killed the game ending drive. Seriously crazy that we are at this point. 110% on Poles, who should go with Curhan. Both are worthless.

Thomas Brown looked like the OC of the 2023 Panthers coaching the 2024 Bears. The one game in the last 3 months that the defense actually shows up and that is what the offense looked like? How about Kmet? Zero targets. That is 2 out of the last 4 games without a target, and only 3 total in the last 4 games. For a top 10 TE contract. Unbelievable really. The defense actually played much better with their gaps. Fant was their leading receiver, so JSN, Metcalf, and Lockett were kept in check. I really hope these brutal offensive concepts and now all the sacks piling up haven't killed Williams already. He looked terrible. Outside of 2-3 throws, he was out of sync, missing throws, running into rushers. He seemed to revert back to needing to see someone open, and that extra .5 sec was causing some sacks. The O-Line was worse than I expected. I knew they would be bad, but wow. Borom and Curhan were revolving doors. Brutal loss, one more and this abortion of a season is done.

So now you need Sunday Ticket, Netflix, Amazon, and Peacock to watch all the games. It is really getting out of hand.

I am still really disappointed in the WR Room. The WR coach should be fired. How do you misuse Moore, over target Allen, and do nothing to develop Odunze? Out of all the position groups, this one dropped the most. I would say LBs, mainly Edmunds has been a disappointment. The secondary, which was supposed to be a strength all of a sudden turned to crap without Brisker. Stevenson also on the most disappointed list. I also think the TE room failed. They don't really have a TE2, Everett was a overpaid waste. It seems like every time Everett or Lewis come in the game, they are good for at least one presnap penalty. According to the official stats, Lewis (201 snaps) has a team leading 3 False Starts to go with Wright and Pryor.

Yeah, crazy draft. One of the best all-time for any team. Considering how scouting was back then, it makes it even more impressive. I am curious what people think of CJ Stroud, he was the golden boy last year, little brothered Caleb this year and now looks like a bottom 3rd QB. He now has 19 TD with 12 INT and 52 Sacks on the season, and that is with Mixon at RB, had Dell back for a good chunk of the season and had Diggs for the first half. He doesn't look like the same QB.

These are not all of them, but the Bears stacked their OLine and DLines for the 85 Team, using 5 1st rounders in the trenches, with the others being McMahon, Gault, Marshall, and Wilson. So 5 out of 9 in the trenches, all others were starters at their positions. 1979 #4 - Dan Hampton - DE 1981 #11 - Keith Van Horne - OT 1981 UDFA - Jay Hilgenberg - C 1983 #6 - Jimbo Covert - OT 1983 #91 - Tom Thayer - OG 1983 #203 - Richard Dent - DE 1983 #219 - Mark Bortz - OG 1985 #22 - William Perry - DT The Bears hit on every 1st round pick from 79 to 87 (Harbaugh), then the wheels fell off after that (Muster, Wendell Davis, Woolford, Armstrong, Carrier, Stan Thomas, and Spellman.

The great thing is they can do no worse than #10 right now as the Saints are the only 5-win team. They would have to win the last two to drop out of the top 10.