Highlights.

Senior Bowl.

Analysis.

This is from a scouting report at SI, attributed to The NFL Draft Bible:

An athletic quarterback who moves around the pocket well, Newman can move the chains with his legs when the play breaks down. Newman is tough and can take hits. He has enough arm strength to toss it anywhere on the field, but he won’t overwhelm anyone with his arm. His best accuracy tends to come in the short-to-intermediate range of the field. However, Newman does demonstrate excellent patience in the pocket and he is rarely flustered. He must do a better job of reading the field and not stare down his main option, which often results in turnovers and missed opportunities. Experience is not on his side, as he only has one full season under his belt as a college starter. He is sure to be a project and his upside is as great as any quarterback in the draft, but there is some unknown to him. After transferring from Wake Forest to Georgia, Newman decided to opt out of the 2020 season, without ever taking a snap for the Bulldogs, leading some in the scouting community to question whether he struggled to pick up the playbook during his transition. With an impressive combination of arm strength, size and athleticism, Newman projects as a mid-round gamble who could pay huge dividends down the road.

The Chicago Bears seem to have answers on the interior of their offensive line, thanks to a former undrafted rookie. Both Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy went out of their way last week to compliment Sam Mustipher as being a calming presence on their offensive line and essential to the improvement they showed down the stretch.

“I can’t say enough about Sam Mustipher, we’re so lucky to have him,” Ryan Pace told Jeff Joniak and Tom Thayer last week. “His leadership, his intelligence, his ability to calm everybody down. It’s infectious. He’s the guy sprinting 20 yards down field, picking up the ball carrier, leading the whole group.”

In an interview with Dan Wiederer and Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune, Matt Nagy offered similar remarks.

“Things really got calm,” Nagy said about when Mustipher entered the lineup. “He proved to use that he is more than capable of being a starting center in the NFL. The number one thing he brings is leadership. He’s such a multiplier.”

That last line from Nagy is crucial.

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We discussed absolutely everything.

Good morning, Twitter. Stay focused on RW, but don’t lose track of DW. pic.twitter.com/CEqk5hJX7x

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) March 8, 2021

My 2021 Draft QB Rankings. Taping the podcast soon with full breakdown/explanation. pic.twitter.com/dkzlcKeZEJ

— Chris Simms (@CSimmsQB) March 3, 2021

This tweet seemed to drive some folks in #DraftTwitter crazy. I have no idea why since all #DraftTwitter does is guess which players are going to be good and they are ALL wrong AT LEAST half the time. But I know I wasn’t alone when I started looking up Mond tape immediately after seeing the Tweet. Good work by Simms to mix it up.

If Mond is a first-round prospect, he’s officially part of the Bears storyline.

Our ears perked up and our minds began to wonder: Who is the quarterback the Chicago Bears are trying to get that we don’t know about?

The secret: The player doesn’t exist.

Both Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace made obvious reference to there possibly being something in the works that has not been reported in the media. The fan base and media reacted exactly as the Bears intended. The hope is that other teams – namely Seattle – would too.

The popular name circulated has been Matt Ryan, but Atlanta would have to eat $44 million in dead cap if they traded Ryan and the return certainly wouldn’t be significant enough to justify that. Once they put themselves in position to pull off that trade, the price would likely be comparable to what the Eagles got for Carson Wentz; maybe less considering Ryan’s age. They’re in an obvious position to try and win now, while building for the future. They have pieces to make Arthur Smith’s first season a success and then focus on the future. Trading Ryan for not much while eating a ton of cap space doesn’t make sense.

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On the Tom Herman hire. pic.twitter.com/CqukcNq89F

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) March 4, 2021

We all sit on Quarterback Watch 2021.

So what else is happening?

• As we veer towards the draft, Mac Jones is veering towards having his name called quite early. In Nick Shook’s piece for NFL.com, former teammate Tua refers to Jones as a “more mobile Tom Brady”. A month ago, many believe the Bears would be reaching for Jones at 20. Now it’s becoming quite clear the Bears would need to make a significant trade to acquire his talents.
• Jason Fitzgerald at Over the Cap provides pretty solid analysis re: the Bears releasing Buster Skrine this week. Many have wondered if the Bears would designate Skrine a June 1 release. Fitzgerald poo poos that notion: “I would say that the June 1 is very unlikely as the Bears are hoping to be active in free agency and the June 1 would force them to carry the $6.03 million cap number until June 1st. Using a regular cut allows them to free up $2.7 million immediately.”
• Somehow I ended up reading about George Blanda in a piece by Tom Lamarre on Raider Maven. I’m not sure how I ended up there but the writing wasn’t bad. Here’s a Bears-related cut: “Playing on the same team with Sid Luckman and Bulldog Turner and against people like Sammy Baugh, those were nostalgic days for me,” Blanda said years later. “Halas was a great coach, but the only problem I had with him, the problem all the players had with him, was that we didn’t get paid very much.”
• ACTUAL BEAR NEWS! Have you ever seen photos of a bear waking up from hibernation? Well you have now because News 22 has a terrific slideshow of the aforementioned occurrence in Belchertown, Massachusetts.
• When new Bears analyst Tom Herman was asked about his job status in December, this is how he answered: “When you don’t get on the internet and you stick to Yahoo News and Words with Friends and the Chive app when you’re bored, you tend to stay above the fray a little bit.”
• There are very few local reporters as connected to the organization they cover as (former podcast guest) John McClain in Houston. When he writes it is time for the Texans to entertain trade offers for Deshaun Watson, he knows which way their ownership is trending.

Once Russell Wilson has been dangled in front of the faces of Bears fans, little else will do. And recent reports out of Seattle make two things clear:

• Wilson doesn’t want to keep beating his head against the wall in Seattle.
• Seattle doesn’t want a QB who publicly speaks his mind.

None of that would matter except, shockingly, the Chicago Bears just so happen to need a quarterback and Wilson listed them on his list of teams to which he would accept a trade. Like the Texans with Deshaun Watson and the Packers with Aaron Rodgers, the Seahawks seem to have little interest in trading their star quarterback right now. Doing so would actually cost Seattle $39 million in 2021; keeping Wilson would cost them $32 million. Paying $7 million to get rid of a franchise quarterback is bad business, no matter how upset they might be with him.

So, what can the Bears do? Well, there is an unconventional way in which the Bears and Seahawks could work out a trade.

The teams would have a handshake agreement to finalize the trade after June 1, and doing so would mean trading Wilson is only a $13 million cap hit for Seattle in 2021 and they’d save $19 million — that math is much better for them. The teams couldn’t necessarily exchange draft picks in 2021, but — in theory — the Bears could make a pick with the idea that they’d be trading that player to Seattle. The cleaner way would be to not include any draft picks until the 2022 season, but the Bears have to be flexible.

The problem, however, is that Seattle couldn’t use any assets they would get from the Bears to make trades. If they’re trading a franchise quarterback, they’d surely like to get one in return and there’s no telling if that could happen with the 20th pick. The Bears would surely want to know if they have the 20th pick to use or if it’s traded before then. Then again, Seattle doesn’t ever want to pass anyway, so maybe Nick Foles would be good enough for them.

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The following is Reverend Dave’s response to Adam Hoge’s suggestion that the Bears buy the Arlington Park property in Arlington Heights and irrationally move the team into the suburbs. 

I like Hoge, but what is the point of this article?

Question answers itself.

Didn’t stop me from getting riled up like everyone else.

“Soldier Field offers nothing in terms of convenience. It’s hard to access, with limited public transportation options…”

The fuck it does.

Hoge claims the Arlington Metra stop makes it more accessible than Soldier Field. Accessible to who? The northwest suburbs? Are those the only people who count? From Joliet south and anywhere East, Arlington is a longer drive than Solider Field.

Meanwhile, there are multiple Metra stops in walking distance of the stadium. There’s the El train. Hell, Union Station itself is only 40-minutes. I can already hear the outcries at that ambulatory demand, but as someone who has taken the train from the Meadowlands (departing a mere 50 yards from the stadium entrance) many times, a 40-minute walk is way better than 40 minutes squashed in a mass of humanity waiting on that one method of egress.

“What Chicago needs – a legitimate multi-purpose, 80,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof.”

The fuck it does.

Why do we need a roof? I don’t romanticize freezing but sitting in the cold can be fun at a Bears game, even if it’s not for Hoge. Feels a lot more like football in the cold. Would the Pack put a lid on Lambeau?  

More importantly though, how does the fan experience benefit from an extra 20,000 people? Will that make parking or accessibility easier? Do I want the air to be even thinner when I buy tickets in the nosebleeds? Do I care if the McCaskey’s make more off ticket revenue?  

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