2018 Needs Rankings

Need 1. Wide Receiver

Outside of a few teams desperate for a quarterback, the Bears may have a bigger need at WR than any team’s need at any position. In the last few weeks they have lost their number one and number two options while already heading into 2017 with one of the weakest receiving tandems in the game. It would be great to know if the quarterback of the future is capable of elevating lesser receiving talents before the Bears invest big money/high pick in the position, wouldn’t it?

Need 2. Pass Rusher

Bears have Leonard Floyd. They need another one.

Need 3. Smooth Tackling Safety

Bears need a bopper at the third level. They need a sure-thing tackling machine. Quintin Demps Sunday missed two pivotal tackles, one in the backfield and one down field on the big Hooper touchdown. Make those tackles, change the score.

Hoge on the Glennon/Barkley Comparison

This is as good a passage as I’ve read from a beat this season:

Last November against the Titans, Matt Barkley was the quarterback making his first start for the Chicago Bears. He wasn’t great early, but surprised everyone in the fourth quarter as offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains aired it out in a comeback attempt. Operating with replacement-level receivers, Barkley got the Bears down to the Titans’ 7-yard-line with 47 seconds left in the game. On first down, Bellamy dropped a touchdown. On second and third down, Barkley failed to connect with his intended targets. And on fourth down, Deonte Thompson failed to haul in a low, but catchable pass in the end zone. The Bears lost.

Sunday against the Falcons, Mike Glennon was the quarterback making his first start for the Chicago Bears. He wasn’t great early, but surprised everyone in the fourth quarter as Loggains aired it out in a comeback attempt. Operating with replacement-level receivers, Glennon got the Bears down to the Falcons’ 5-yard-line with 21 seconds left in the game. On first down, Bellamy was held slightly coming out of his break and couldn’t secure a catchable pass in the end zone. On second down, running back Jordan Howard dropped Glennon’s pass near the goal line. On third down, Glennon failed to connect with tight end Zach Miller and on fourth down, Glennon was sacked. The Bears lost.

Not much was different Sunday at Soldier Field. Except that this time the Bears might have had their own Marcus Mariota standing on their sideline in uniform.

Was Mike Glennon the reason why the Bears lost to the Falcons? No. But Trubisky could have been the reason why they beat the Falcons. We’ll never know.

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The Chapel Hill Story

An excerpt from Dan Wiederer’s magnificent piece in the Trib:

As Pace does with all such get-to-know-you dinners, he asked Trubisky to pick the restaurant and make the reservation. It’s a minor request. But it often can be revealing of a player’s reliability.

Pace also ordered Trubisky to keep the meeting top secret, so as not to tip off anyone — not any Tar Heels coaches or teammates, not any other NFL execs or agents, not even a campus meter maid — to the Bears’ interest.

Trubisky took the directive and pieced things together.

Before Pace and his cohorts arrived on campus, the Bears GM had a text. Dinner at 7 p.m.

The venue: Bin 54, a top steakhouse in North Carolina’s Triangle region. And to keep the gathering covert, Trubisky made the reservation for six under an alias: James McMahon.

“I thought that was cool,” Pace says.

Read the entire article. It is the best work Dan has done since coming to Chicago.

Kyle Long on the Move?

Brad Biggs was first to report the Bears intend to shift Kyle Long from right to left guard, as one of the team’s few offensive stars rebounds from injuries. The positional move leaves little to be discussed. Right guard, left guard, who really gives a shit? But it was one paragraph in the piece that stood out to me:

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A rather mundane and boring training camp gave way to drama over the last half week. Let’s dive in.

Media Betrayed By Secret Regime!

From a Tweet by Tribune beat Dan Wiederer:

The Bears bungled how they framed this Kevin White injury to the public from the start. Still not sure what they hoped to gain w secrecy.

Wiederer was not alone over the last few days. Many of the Chicago sports media were bitching and moaning about the secrecy surrounding the Kevin White injury. But here’s the truth:

1. Fans don’t give a shit. Sports media is an information delivery apparatus for fans; getting them the news and notes access affords. I have not spoken to, Tweeted or emailed with A SINGLE fan who cares how much detail a team reveals about a player’s injury.  Is he playing or not – that’s all they care about. The whining from Potash and Haugh over the last few days is press room only type stuff. It’s shop talk. And it could not land with more a thump when it comes to the public.
2. This is sports. Can the sports media stop acting like they are covering a presidential election or an escalating conflict in the Middle East? Ryan Pace did not choose to be coy with Kevin White’s status out of “secrecy”. He chose to be coy with White’s status out of gamesmanship. The same gamesmanship employed routinely by the best coaches and organizations in the sport. This is a game. It’s not a disease epidemic ravaging a third world nation. Maybe everybody needs to take a step back and remember this is all about moving a ball up and down a field.
3. It’s a false narrative. White, as of last week, was making significant progress. The organization did not believe this was coming. Then it came. So what’s the big deal here?

Camp Fights!

I love em.

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