One must suffer pain

to relish budding pleasure.

This year is the pain.

Is Fields fully formed?

No. But the thrills he provides

are reason for hope.

Our expectations,

non-existent this season,

rise in September.

poems by haikhughes.

The injury risks should outweigh the developmental rewards at some point for Justin Fields.

The Bears are down to their third-string RG. Chase Claypool has barely played.

And Fields has been stretched out, hit awkwardly, sacked five times and treated in the medical tent.

— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) January 1, 2023

With first pick in sight,

the Bears rush to victory.

Draft haul comes no more.

Chicago Bears 34, Detroit Lions 31

Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?

I always like…

Thoughts on the opponent…

Stats that matter…

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

There is only one relevant question facing the Bears as they head to Detroit Sunday: should the team actually want to win? It is hard to argue that answer is yes.

The team is currently positioned with the second pick in the NFL Draft and, as Dannehy pointed out yesterday, they should be considered the frontrunner for the top pick, as Houston is playing their best football in the final weeks of the season. Winning might provide some cosmetic confidence but it would also throw the Bears into a jumble with Denver, Arizona, and Indianapolis, three four-win teams with considerably easier strengths of schedule, the tiebreaker when it comes to draft order.

(Gaining confidence from meaningless victories is inherently nonsensical. A great number of 2022 Chicago Bears won’t be 2023 Chicago Bears. And the ones that stick around won’t require meaningless victories for confidence.)

If it were just about selecting a player, one could argue the difference between picking second and fifth isn’t that big a deal. Selecting players is a crap shoot. Don’t tell me you know what Jalen Carter or Will Anderson will be at the next level because you don’t. The fourth and fifth picks in 2022 – Sauce Gardner and Kayvon Thibodeaux – had significantly more impactful rookie campaigns than first overall pick Travon Walker. (Is there any question the Jags would take Sauce in a 2022 re-draft?)

What is not a crap shoot is the league’s consistently absurd overvaluing of quarterback prospects come draft time. The best years to select at the top of the draft are years where your team doesn’t need a quarterback and four-to-five QBs are projected into the first round. That’s exactly what 2023 looks like for the Chicago Bears. Ryan Wilson at CBS Sports projects four QBs in round one. Jamie Eisner at The Draft Network also projects four, with three of the first four picks being quarterbacks. Walter Football only projects three but all three gone in the first six picks. This may not be a draft deep at quarterback, but it is top heavy. And that’s when you want your pick at the top.

When you’re rebuilding your roster, the key is word is options. You re-sign key contributors to give yourself options in free agency. You’re judicious in free agency to give yourself options in the draft. And the higher the draft pick in the first round, the more options you have at that event. If the Bears have the first or second pick, they will have multiple teams making offers. There is no question about it. Look at how many teams currently slotted in the top 15 need QBS: Houston (1st), Seattle (3rd), Indianapolis (5th), Atlanta (6th), Detroit (7th), Carolina (8th), Vegas (9th), Tennessee (13th) and the Jets (15th). You can nitpick these quarterbacks all you like, but historically NFL franchises err on the side of hope.

The Bears will play Sunday. And with their rushing attack, and the porous Detroit rush defense, they could actually win the game. But with a roster in turnover, and the rostered group decimated by injury, it is hard to argue the positives of that potential victory. Having the first pick in the 2023 NFL Draft gives the Bears the clearest path to a quick turnaround. That means losing on Sunday.

The Chicago Bears can’t possibly know if Justin Fields is capable of winning games for them if they don’t give him the opportunity to at least try to do so.

While many storylines have been about Fields’ inability to take the team down the field for wins late, those arguments have mostly ignored the positions in which the Bears have put the quarterback. The 2022 season has, essentially, been the organization asking Fields to make it look good without much support.

We saw it again last week.

The Bears had a chance to make the game interesting when on the last play of the third quarter, Fields uncorked a strike 44 yards down the field for Velus Jones Jr. Trailing 21-10, the team had life.

Then, it didn’t.

The Bears proceeded to run the ball three straight times before calling a pass play that relied on Fields threading the needle short of the first down marker. The Bears didn’t let Fields open the offense up again until the outcome of the game was already decided.

The next drive began with a swing pass that lost two yards (do they ever gain yardage on those plays?). On second-and-12, they ran the ball for no gain and relied on Fields to save them on third-and-12.

They got the ball back again, trailing 21-13. They proceeded to run the first two plays then asked Fields to make magic happen on third-and-13.

It isn’t as if the running game was working. After the first drive, David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert combined or 30 rushing yards on 18 carries. Montgomery has averaged more than 4.5 yards per carry in just two games this season. Herbert wasn’t quite up to speed after missing a handful of games on IR.

Fields is the straw that stirs the drink. Yet, with the game on the line, the Bears decided to go with what wasn’t working and ignore what could have. What about calling play action passes? RPOs? Rollouts? Anything that might have a chance to work because the traditional running game was not.

Read More …

I have nothing more to say about the 2022 Chicago Bears. So here are some thoughts on the other teams.

• The Jets have to decide if they believe Mike White is a quarterback capable of leading a talented roster into the postseason. If they believe he is, and don’t believe Derek Carr or Jimmy G would be significant upgrades, the team should abandon the Zach Wilson Project and select a quarterback early in the draft. The Jets are talented, but they’re also young. White and a rookie could be the ideal QB room for them next summer.
• Denver fired Nathaniel Hackett but it’s not going to matter. Russell Wilson is shot, and his teammates hate him. There is no easy escape from this situation for the franchise but if they were smart, they’d simply eat the financial horror and move in a different direction. Start rebuilding the entire team now. Trade off viable assets.
• The most complicated contract negotiation this off-season: Daniel Jones. It is highly unlikely the Giants don’t resign him, but at what price? At what length? If the Giants don’t get a deal done with Jones, he’ll end up a starting QB next September somewhere in the league.
  • Also, I think Brian Daboll has been every bit the coach of the year. He won’t win the award but he’s getting absolutely everything possible out of an undermanned and decimated Giants roster.
• There is a lot of talk about potential landing spots for Sean Payton in 2023 but I don’t see him going anywhere without a quarterback already in place. Where is that? Maybe the Chargers, should things get wonky down the stretch. But there is little appeal in Denver, Indy, Carolina right now.
• Amazon should fire Kirk Herbstreit, Joe Thomas and Tony Gonzalez. Move Ryan Fitzpatrick into the booth next Al and let the “studio” show be Charissa and Richard Sherman. Fitzpatrick has intelligence/wit to be great in the moment, and Sherman’s analysis is wasted by time limitations. If they did this, they would have the best NFL broadcast around.
• With those receivers, Tua will always have production. But he’s simply not that talented a player. He’s got off-the-chart intangibles and a bottom of the league arm. He’s an MLB fourth starter who thrives against bad competition.
• Is that the most Lions loss ever? Just when they’ve built their fan base to a fever pitch, they get run over by the Carolina Panthers. 320 rushing yards? 320!?!?!?
• This is Bill Belichick’s worst season as a head coach. The Patriots are losing games mentally every week and it is still inexcusable that Bill handed over the offense to Matt Patricia.
• Deshaun Watson. Almost like professional football is difficult and you can’t take two seasons off.

Kyler Gordon vs Stefon Diggs pic.twitter.com/82PIdPafPx

— NFL Rookie Watch (@NFLRookieWatxh) December 24, 2022

Kyler Gordon is improving. He has a GREAT feel for zone coverage and is one of the better tackling CB’s in the league. This Bears secondary will be dangerous once they get a pass rush. #DaBears #Bears #ChicagoBears pic.twitter.com/8TOKUIv5aA

— Clay Harbor (@clayharbs82) December 25, 2022