Players to Watch Tomorrow Night
- Mitch Trubisky. Don’t get hurt, Mitch. The rest of tomorrow night has no meaning for you. Don’t. Get. Hurt. Because every shot you took against Cincinnati – several to the head – made me scream.
- Daniel Brown. Yes, Brown is fighting for a roster spot. And I think he deserves one. I’ll take it a step further and say I think Brown could be a productive, starting tight end on 2/3 of the teams in the league. Even if he doesn’t contribute for the Bears in 2018 I hope he puts together a preseason tape worthy of a roster spot somewhere else.
- John Timu. Honestly, Timu is a fine option as a fourth inside linebacker. But I’m not sure he’s put a worse product on tape than he did in the practice game vs. Cincinnati. He looked slow at both the point of attack and in space. Quite frankly he didn’t look like be belonged on an NFL field and he’s not shown that in his previous, actual game action. Think he could use a decent outing. (Also don’t think it matters much. He’s a special teamer in 2018.)
Tweet of the Week
— Nate Flint (@Nate_Flint) August 14, 2018
Dannehy Recall
Something Andrew wrote Wednesday cracked me up in editing:
A bigger issue is that they can’t sell the first few weeks of camp as actually being important if a guy who has never played in the NFL doesn’t need them to be ready to face Rodgers.
Dannehy’s point is astute. You’d think this situation would create, well, a situation. But here’s the truth. Roquan is going to start on opening night. And the Bears won’t try to sell anything. But even without the sales pitch, the fans will buy, buy, BUY the importance of training camp. And I’ll be having the same debates next summer I had this one.
My Song of the Summer
From their 1987 album “Bad Animals”, this is Heart. Alone.
Why? I drive my dead grandfather’s 2005 Chevy Cavalier and there’s a CD stuck in the player (as well as no front windows and a non-working horn). So I listen to the actual radio. And whatever song comes on most is my song. This is the winner.
Links!
- Good quote in this Jahns piece from Von Miller, regarding Trubisky. “With the offensive scheme and the players that he has around him, he’ll be great,” Miller said. “He’s their franchise quarterback. You’ve got to not let him scramble and not let him complete passes. That’s the same game plan every week unless you’re playing, like, a fast guy, which Mitch is fast and can run. He can do a little bit of everything, so you’ve got to be prepared for everything.”
- There have been many great Aretha Franklin obituaries published in the last twenty-four hours. I’d recommend checking out Brian McCollum’s in the Free-Press and Richard Williams’ in The Guardian. Read about Ms. Franklin. She changed the world.
- Robert Mays of The Ringer on the continuing evolution of the RPO in the NFL: “But that’s only the tip of the RPO iceberg. The strategy can exploit much more than just the tendencies of backside linebackers. In college, the number of defenders who can be read on a given RPO is extensive, offering offenses a wide array of options to attack.”
