Bears4Ever_34

Caleb has to go back to working his check downs. He's passing up too many open guys underneath in favor of hunting for a big play that never comes. For all the talk about him leaving the pocket too early coming in to the NFL, I actually think he's staying too long in the pocket now, and it's leading to too many negative plays. The fact that he's regressing in that area from the previous 3 weeks tells me it's a coaching issue. If Waldron can't get him to do it, you have to get somebody else that will drill that into his head, whether that's Brown or Joseph. This team is going to need a massive overhaul on the OL in the offseason. I think they need 5 new guys—4, for sure. Wright looks like a bust at RT.

Bears best defenders are made of glass. This defense without Sweat is horrible. They simply can't compete with anybody without Sweat, Brisker, and Gordon.

Caleb's dad is taking passive aggressive shots at Eberflus and the Bears on X, in a tweet that he now deleted. Things are going great in Chicago.

Stevenson has reverted back to the first half of his rookie season when he was god awful. Jaylon Johnson is the best CB in football. The Bears have to have a reliable #2 capable of taking advantage of the opportunities that will inevitably come their way because nobody is throwing at Johnson, and Stevenson has done a horrible job so far this season proving he can be that guy.

I think we'll have a pretty good idea whether Eberflus is staying or going after these next 2 games. If they lose either one, it's highly unlikely this team can eclipse their win total from last season, which almost 100% guarantees he won't/can't be back, given what the expectations were going in to this season. The answer to the question though is Ben Johnson. Nobody is a close second behind him right now, although it would be hilarious if they hired Kingsbury after they passed on him for the OC job.

True. The Commanders had 480 yards of offense and had 2 touchdowns that were called back due to penalty. They were lucky this game wasn't over at halftime. Matt Eberflus is a bottom 10 head coach and Dan Quinn is top 10 right now with the job he's done with a bad roster. That's the difference with the two football teams. This team had their chance to upgrade in the off-season and declined. You reap what you sow. They never learn.

You encapsulated it perfectly. Matt Eberflus has 3 road victories in almost 3 years as a HC. He lost 3 games alone last year in historic fashion and somehow kept his job despite being gifted the #1 overall pick and an opportunity to reset the clock with the entire staff. He will always be the team's limiting factor in big games, especially within the division, where he might as well be coaching in a different league compared to Lafleur, OConnel, and Cambell. He's not even remotely in the same universe as those other 3. The players always deserve blame, but this was the most obvious coaching loss I've probably ever seen. They had 2 weeks to prepare for this game and scored 0 points in the 1st half, against one of the bottom defenses and worst secondaries in the entire NFL. The two biggest plays that lost them the game was the Kramer play at the goal line and the decision to not blitz the hailmary or guard against the deflected pass. That's not a player issue, that's 100% on the coaches, and they both occurred in the final 4 minutes of the game!

Of course Daniels gets the lucky hail mary. Of course, the Bears defense implodes after their QB leads what should have been a game winning drive. It has never been clearer that this team has a major coaching deficit issue, and this loss is 100% on Ryan Poles for not seeing the obvious in the off-season to get rid of Matt Eberflus. What a joke of a team.

Brisker and Gordon being out is scary news if Daniels decides to play. I think, even with Mariota, that makes the Commanders dangerous on offense. The secondary was lucky Jacksonville couldn't catch the ball in the endzone. Trevor Lawrence was doing some nice things until the lead just became too insurmountable. This Commanders team is much better running the ball than Jacksonville. I worry this could be a game the D gets exposed more than they have in the last year if those two are unable to play. And, yeah, Bears need to look at a Brisker replacement next year. I'm not re-signing an injury prone safety. Maybe there's a team in the off-season who'd be willing to give up draft capital for him. Otherwise, I'd just let him walk and collect the comp pick. Gordon, on the other hand, is a trickier situation. He's just as injury prone, but plays a more important position. He's a little like what we had with Bryce Callahan under Fangio. Good player, but just can't stay healthy. Not sure what to do with him.

Schefter says the plan is to attempt to see if Daniels can practice on Friday. I still think he plays.

Love is the luckiest quarterback in the NFL. HOU dropped a game ending INT on the Packers final drive of the game. Houston mismanaged their last drive which gave GB enough time + an extra timeout to drive down the field. HOU was missing 5 starters on defense + no Nico Collins. Stroud was terrible. Collins might be more of a difference maker than I ever gave him credit for last season. Matt Lafleur has been padding the hell out of Jordan Loves stats the last 2 years in goal line situations. It's almost all pass plays down there. Last year, the Packers only had 4 rush TD's all season. This year, Jacobs has just 1 touchdown on the ground. That's not even counting goal line, either. That's ALL touchdowns. Anytime they are down inside the 5, you can rest assured Love will be throwing something off play action that is wide open at least once a game. And of course, the Packers win on a GW FG with a guy they just signed off the street the week before. So frustrating the Bears couldn't make up any ground in the division on their bye.

Schefter was pretty adamant last week saying that he didn't expect players like Crosby or Garrett to be traded by the deadline. Neither team is dying to get rid of their best player. To me, this team has too many holes on the OL to be making such a deal. I think you hold tight and use next off-season to go all in. They are going to need 4 new OL, potentially 5 down the line if Wright continues to underwhelm. Use free agency and that extra 2nd round pick to bolster both sides of the line, and then make a serious run at a SB.

He also had 2 dropped interceptions go right through the defender's hands on back to back series. It wasn't as good of a game as the stats indicate. I'll give him a little credit, though, because I thought he'd look MUCH worse. I just can't see that slow delivery work, long-term, at the NFL level.

Are the Bears actually the 6th seed right now? Tankathon has them the first team out. I'm not sure how the tiebreakers work, but seems strange the Packers would be ahead of them given they've already lost a divisional game.

I continue to be perplexed at the lack of Herbert usage in this offense. He's too good of a runner not to play. Roschon might be a better receiver out of the backfield, but Herbert is much more explosive, and I actually think he's better in short yardage than Roschon, but I digress. With Wheeler on IR, I think you have to keep Herbert in case of injury, because otherwise you're down to trusting Velus Jones or another practice squad guy to fill in, and I don't think that's a risk I would take if I'm the Bears and am trying to compete for a playoff spot.

Thought this was interesting. Definitely matches the eye test, too. Caleb has been scanning the field and Daniels has been throwing to his 1st read nearly 80% of the time, though with crazy efficiency.

Been watching JT Osullivan's breakdowns on Caleb the last couple of weeks, and he's been pointing out since the beginning of the season that the Bears are not utilizing their personnel as effectively as they should with their WR's. He thinks Rome should be our #1 because of his ability to create separation. DJ Moore's route running is not #1 level, in his mind, and Keenan Allen isn't creating separation at all, though his ball skills were evident in the game the other day. I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment. Caleb has been making up for some of these issues with elite mobility and ball placement, but we really need to start lining Rome up as the team's X and start taking more deep shots with him. He was the best deep ball, contested catch receiver in the draft. He needs to get more opportunities, moving forward.

Not to reopen old wounds, but Justin Fields was in the bottom 3rd of the league in each one of these stats all 3 years of his Bears career. It's refreshing to see a Bears quarterback is no longer in the basement of his peers when it comes to passing.

Or Zach Miller, who I don't believe ever played again after his. Hopefully, Hutchinson makes a full recovery, but anytime you see a compound fracture like that, you immediately think, "Will this guy every play again" and "If he does, will he ever be the same?"

What are the odds the NFC North has 4 of the 5 best teams in the conference? If the Bears can get a big win against the Commanders, I think they have to be in that conversation.

Caleb very easily could have had 6 touchdown passes today. DJ was inches from #5, and the interception to DJ would have been a 40+ yard play, at the very least. Caleb's deep passes continue to be perplexing. I thought he sorted that shit out last week, but apparently not. At any rate, he responded about as well as you could hope—had a couple of pinpoint TD passes to Allen to make up for the one bad throw, and the team cruised to its 3rd straight win. You have to feel pretty good going in to the bye week, and I think it's coming at a good time, given the injuries. Hopefully everyone is healed up before the Commanders game. Week 8 is definitely a statement game. 5-2 with a bad AZ and NE team after that would be huge. If Caleb outperforms Daniels in a W, he's likely going to vault himself ahead in the ROTY rankings. I continue to say this team needs to be at least 6-3 before the Packers to give themselves a chance at the playoffs, but 7-2 would put them close to a virtual certainty.

He's definitely still improving. BAL also dropped a couple interceptions from him in that game today. I do think teams will try to copy what BAL did to contain their run game in the future.

Brisker being out could be a bigger deal than we realize. Stopping the run has been a problem with this team all year, even when Brisker has been playing. The drop off between him and Hicks worries me against a team that can run the ball. I expect JAC to test Hicks early with deep shots off play action. On the flipside, their defense is horrible. Caleb should be in line for another huge game through the air, but the neutral site and perhaps shoddy field conditions could throw a wrench in how we'd like to think this game should play out. The Bears are the better team, but JAC is desperate, and they have the experience playing in this game. Not to mention, I think they're also getting a few guys back on offense. This one is probably going to come down to whether the Bears can limit the explosives on defense and not giving away the ball on offense while staying discipline with pre-snap penalties. Out of the remaining opponents on the schedule, JAC is probably the 2nd worst team besides the Patriots they'll play the rest of the season. This is one they have to have.

Can anybody explain how QBR average is calculated? ESPN still has him at 36.2 for the season, but if you add up his totals and divide by the 5 games, it comes out to 40.9. I don't understand.