DBB’s Jeff Hughes discusses all things Bears with Trent Condon and Ken Miller on the radio in Des Moines. Is tight end a liability? How did we get here with kicker? Is preseason dead? What about the rest of the NFC North?
Much has been written about the Bears needing one Georgia product — Leonard Floyd — to break out and complement Khalil Mack in the pass rush department. But if that doesn’t happen, perhaps Roquan Smith can ease the pain. While nothing of actual substance can be gained by watching preseason games, seeing Roquan burst through the line faster than anybody could react for a sack two weeks ago was a nice reminder of what the second-year linebacker is capable of when he’s sent after the quarterback.
Floyd’s lack of pass rush has been disappointing. But his ability to drop back in coverage and move in space is extremely rare for players at his position. His exceptional coverage skills will allow new defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano to do what he does best: design creative blitz packages. And Roquan has already proven to be exceptional at finding his way to the quarterback. Smith’s very first NFL play was a sack and he followed with four more, many looking similar to his sack in the preseason against Carolina.
Pagano never had a plethora of great pass rushers in Indianapolis, so he had to get creative. One year Jerrell Freeman had a career-high 5.5 sacks. The next year it was D’Qwell Jackson with four. Smith is a lot better than both of them and had five last year despite a coordinator who has been more conservative upfront than Pagano.
This space has been belittling preseason football for a decade. These games have no relevance. They have never had any relevance. And they are a useless health risk. It seems the entirety of the league has finally figured that out. And now the media has noticed!
Pre season is officially broken.. and needs a complete overhaul.
— trey wingo (@wingoz) August 19, 2019
Step 1. Two Games.
One of the biggest issues with the preseason is the ridiculousness of playing four games. The only reason these four games exist is because owners (a) can rip off their season ticket holders by forcing the purchase on them and (b) charge exorbitant rates to local television providers for the broadcast rights. But networks are getting smarter and starting to realize these games not only have no value in their second halves, they have almost no value from the opening whistle. Thus you’ll notice endless commercials for local car dealers.
So cut the thing in half. And really push one of the two games as a developmental display. That means don’t play a single starter or relevant player. I would have been far more interested in seeing Tyler Bray play four quarters than seeing the Chase Daniel play with a bunch of guys he’ll never see in actual game action. Especially when you consider the Bears are a Mitch Trubisky or Daniel injury away from Bray being a pivotal component of their 2019 roster.
But the point here is ending the duplicity of the enterprise. Stop pretending these games are in any way a preparation for the regular season. It’s insulting.
Step 2. Free Entry, Half-Price Concessions Including Merchandise
Open the gates to everyone for the one game you’d be hosting.
Sell beer and soda and hot dogs for half price.
Sell jerseys and hats and all that bullshit for half price.
Turn this preseason game into a celebration of the fans. Make it ABOUT them. A father is way more likely to buy jerseys for the kids if the jerseys are $50 instead of $100. And he’ll definitely slam down a few $6 MGDs.
It’s been a long offseason, and I’ve covered a lot of ground with a variety of articles. Now that the 2019 season is fast approaching, I’m pretty much finished writing new content, but since I have a hard time remembering everything I’ve researched and shared on here, I thought it might be helpful to re-visit what we learned and see how it relates to the Bears in 2019.
I’m going to try and highlight the most relevant stuff in 1 sentence per article, grouped together by topic. Think of it like a TL;DR for the offseason.
There’s been an assumption that Daniels will naturally slide into the starting center role and stay there for half a decade. Hell, it’s an assumption I’ve made on the radio in Des Moines with Daniels-centric hosts Trent Condon and Ken Miller.
But while Cody Whitehair struggled early with snaps, his ability to call out protections and lead this unit was a key to their success in 2018. The center is the most underrated position on the NFL roster. (Just look what happens to teams when they lose their starters there.) Daniels is now sliding into his natural position. But is he a natural leader?
P.O.D. was having his best punting game as a Bear in the Eagles playoff loss until a nightmarish shank late allowed Nick Foles a short field for the go-ahead touchdown drive. Here’s what someone who works inside the organization texted me a few weeks ago:
He looks different. He looks good. He looks confident.
With a defense this good, long fields will kill opponents. The Bears need a different, good, confident O’Donnell.
The Bears were last in the league in kickoff return average last season and added one of the two or three best kick returners in the game. Patterson’s signing should lead to a huge improvement in field position from day one.
But Patterson also had 21 catches for 247 yards last season in New England and paired that with 42 carries for 228 yards. This is an exceedingly productive offensive weapon who may cover some of the production the club is currently lacking from a struggling tight end group.
The first two plays of Thursday’s preseason opener gave Bears fans the full Nick Kwiatkoski experience. On the first play, the fourth-year linebacker pushed an offensive lineman back as he made a tackle near the line of scrimmage.
On the second, he got lost in space and allowed a big gain off of a dump off. He later overran a screen pass for another big gain.
Those plays look all too familiar, as it was Kwiatkoski regularly burned in the loss to Green Bay in the 2018 opener. It took less than one full game for Kwiatkoski to lose his job to Smith, despite the then-rookie missing almost all of the preseason. Ten years ago, Kwiatkoski would’ve been a star, but his failures in coverage make him unplayable against good offenses.
Danny Trevathan and Roquan Smith are both among the 20 or so best inside linebackers in the league, with the latter likely cementing himself inside the top five this season. But health has always been an issue with Trevathan and last Thursday’s preseason game showed that the Bears simply can’t be without the veteran.
What if I told you that less than 14% of plays determine the outcome of most NFL games?
Everybody loves watching big plays in football. Highlight reels are filled with bone-crushing sacks, long runs, deep bombs to a streaking WR, and big interceptions, because those are the exciting plays fans love to watch.
It turns out those are the plays that decide games too, and I have the stats to prove it.
Earlier this offseason, I wrote about the strong correlation between long runs and passes and overall offensive success, which got me thinking about what other plays might prove to be crucial to a team’s success. I ended up settling on four types of plays, which I will briefly describe below:
My hypothesis was that the team who produces more of these big plays than their opponent will usually win the game. To test this, I tracked all four categories for all 256 NFL games in 2018, along with the final score of each game.
