Rookie minicamp

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Didn't see a topic started to discuss this so I figured I'd make one. Here's tidbits about day one:

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears ... -short-day

Some cherry-picked quotes from the article:
Eberflus brought in former Bears cornerback Charles Tillman to speak with the team earlier this week. Tillman’s presence rubbed off on the rookies as the defense forced several fumbles Friday, including defensive end Charles Snowden stripping sixth-round pick Trestan Ebner on the first play of the 11-on-11 period.
Undrafted free agents DeMario McCall, Kevin Shaa, Master Teague, and Allie Green IV had moments during their first practices.

Shaa, a wide receiver out of Liberty, made a sensational catch down the right sideline. McCall, a cornerback from Ohio State, nabbed an interception and returned it for what would have been a touchdown. Green, a corner from Missouri, displayed solid coverage at the outside corner opposite Gordon in 11-on-11s. Teague, a running back from Ohio State, is a big, powerful back who ran hard Friday and showed the ability to catch the ball out of the backfield.








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I'd almost forgotten about Charles Snowden. He's another Leonard Floyd sized edge rusher. Wonder if he's added any weight.

The rookie OL looks about as I expected with Jones at LT, Carter at LG, Kramer at OC, and Thomas at RG. Something odd on the Bears site though. Delance is listed at 6'5"/357lbs whereas all of his scouting reports have him at 296lbs and one at 309lbs. Looking at his photos I don't see a guy whose 357lbs but he's another OT with exceptionally long 36.5" arms and decent athleticism.
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Bearfacts wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 2:23 am I'd almost forgotten about Charles Snowden. He's another Leonard Floyd sized edge rusher. Wonder if he's added any weight.

The rookie OL looks about as I expected with Jones at LT, Carter at LG, Kramer at OC, and Thomas at RG. Something odd on the Bears site though. Delance is listed at 6'5"/357lbs whereas all of his scouting reports have him at 296lbs and one at 309lbs. Looking at his photos I don't see a guy whose 357lbs but he's another OT with exceptionally long 36.5" arms and decent athleticism.
Nearly every height/weight report is a lie in the NFL.
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Just read a short internet article that quoted Poles as also being impressed with the rookie O-line, and the reporter seemed to share that opinion. I was really intrigued with the Snowden signing last year, so it's good to hear he made an impact right off the bat. I don't remember how big Snowden is, but hopefully the transition to the 4-3 doesn't mean he'll be cut. The kid has a lot of potential.
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Yeah I forgot about Snowden as well - would be nice if he takes a step forward
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RichH55 wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 10:49 am Yeah I forgot about Snowden as well - would be nice if he takes a step forward
For sure. I also never trusted Nagy when it came to playing time, and who was on the field. Snowden could have already been better than Attaochu, for all we know...
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UOK wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 6:02 am
Bearfacts wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 2:23 am I'd almost forgotten about Charles Snowden. He's another Leonard Floyd sized edge rusher. Wonder if he's added any weight.

The rookie OL looks about as I expected with Jones at LT, Carter at LG, Kramer at OC, and Thomas at RG. Something odd on the Bears site though. Delance is listed at 6'5"/357lbs whereas all of his scouting reports have him at 296lbs and one at 309lbs. Looking at his photos I don't see a guy whose 357lbs but he's another OT with exceptionally long 36.5" arms and decent athleticism.
Nearly every height/weight report is a lie in the NFL.
I won't disagree with you on that but this is either an error or this kid gained 60lbs between his Pro Day and now. Not impossible but highly unlikely unless he was intentionally trying to sabotage his career. At 300lbs he fits as the type of OL Poles wants. At 357lbs he doesn't. That would put him close to what Borom weighed at the Combine (350lbs) and even 25lbs more than Borom is listed at now although there have been reports that he's been asked to play even lighter and has responded to that already.
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My guess is that 357 is a misprint.
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Interesting that they don’t have Zach Thomas playing RT because it feels like confirmation that Jenkins is staying there and the competition is at LT
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Seeing the Snowden reference got me thinking, who gets to go to “rookie camp?”
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Yogi da Bear wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 12:31 pm My guess is that 357 is a misprint.
It almost has to be. Here's some scouting reports and a photo. He actually looks small for an OT.

https://www.nfldraftbuzz.com/Player/Jea ... OL-Florida

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/new ... l-florida/

https://www.si.com/nfl/draft/scouting-r ... eandelance

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crueltyabc wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 12:58 pm Interesting that they don’t have Zach Thomas playing RT because it feels like confirmation that Jenkins is staying there and the competition is at LT
One thing I like about Poles and Getsy is that they seem to want to play guys at their natural position, most effective, position. No pounding square pegs into round holes like we saw under Pace/Nagy.
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Yogi da Bear wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 7:59 am
crueltyabc wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 12:58 pm Interesting that they don’t have Zach Thomas playing RT because it feels like confirmation that Jenkins is staying there and the competition is at LT
One thing I like about Poles and Getsy is that they seem to want to play guys at their natural position, most effective, position. No pounding square pegs into round holes like we saw under Pace/Nagy.
Thank god, amazing such an obvious thing eluded the prior regime.
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Another example of this, only on defense:
Bears DC Alan Williams said rookie Kyler Gordon will begin his career as an outside corner.

“To have him go outside and inside, it's tough on a rookie. To be able to stick him in one place and let him go and develop and learn and feel comfortable, right now that's the plan."
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A lot of rookies need to make an impact on special teams to make the 53 man roster. Sanborn played 3 years on it at Wisconsin. The WR and RB returned kicks.
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Yogi da Bear wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 8:08 am Another example of this, only on defense:
Bears DC Alan Williams said rookie Kyler Gordon will begin his career as an outside corner.

“To have him go outside and inside, it's tough on a rookie. To be able to stick him in one place and let him go and develop and learn and feel comfortable, right now that's the plan."
Odd. Who ever would have thought that would be easier than learning 3 or 4 different roles like that last coaching staff liked doing. :frustrated: :flick: :flick: :flick:
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McNagy perfected the art of "how to be wrong even when you're right". Yes Matt, it's better to have players who can play multiple positions - you're right. But if you don't grow them properly or if you throw too much at everyone, they'll never succeed at anything. Yes Matt, I get that you're offense is designed to run a certain way - but your OL isn't good enough to pass protect for the plays you keep calling, so maybe adjust? It's this home run or strikeout mentality that kills me.

Poles seems to be playing this same game with Fields. If Fields is Brady or Rodgers, then we're in great shape. But if he isn't that one in a million player and instead is just "really good", then we're screwed. It'll take more than "really good" to overcome a bottom 2 WR/TE group and bottom 10 OL, it requires HOF caliber play.
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dplank wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 10:14 am McNagy perfected the art of "how to be wrong even when you're right". Yes Matt, it's better to have players who can play multiple positions - you're right. But if you don't grow them properly or if you throw too much at everyone, they'll never succeed at anything. Yes Matt, I get that you're offense is designed to run a certain way - but your OL isn't good enough to pass protect for the plays you keep calling, so maybe adjust? It's this home run or strikeout mentality that kills me.

Poles seems to be playing this same game with Fields. If Fields is Brady or Rodgers, then we're in great shape. But if he isn't that one in a million player and instead is just "really good", then we're screwed. It'll take more than "really good" to overcome a bottom 2 WR/TE group and bottom 10 OL, it requires HOF caliber play.
And the built in excuses start. Move the goalposts, make excuses, underrate everything (Basically the opposite of what you did on Mitch)

Requires HOF caliber play - Just such a nonsense thing to say.
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Keep it civil.
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Yogi da Bear wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 8:08 am Another example of this, only on defense:
Bears DC Alan Williams said rookie Kyler Gordon will begin his career as an outside corner.

“To have him go outside and inside, it's tough on a rookie. To be able to stick him in one place and let him go and develop and learn and feel comfortable, right now that's the plan."
Does this mean they aren't going to try Gordon at TE or move him inside to guard? ;)

The guy was drafted at 39 overall. His value is as an outside corner. Put him there and get him the reps.
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RichH55 wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 10:30 am
dplank wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 10:14 am McNagy perfected the art of "how to be wrong even when you're right". Yes Matt, it's better to have players who can play multiple positions - you're right. But if you don't grow them properly or if you throw too much at everyone, they'll never succeed at anything. Yes Matt, I get that you're offense is designed to run a certain way - but your OL isn't good enough to pass protect for the plays you keep calling, so maybe adjust? It's this home run or strikeout mentality that kills me.

Poles seems to be playing this same game with Fields. If Fields is Brady or Rodgers, then we're in great shape. But if he isn't that one in a million player and instead is just "really good", then we're screwed. It'll take more than "really good" to overcome a bottom 2 WR/TE group and bottom 10 OL, it requires HOF caliber play.
And the built in excuses start. Move the goalposts, make excuses, underrate everything (Basically the opposite of what you did on Mitch)

Requires HOF caliber play - Just such a nonsense thing to say.
Let's look at the rankings shall we?

Bottom 10 OL per PFF:

32. Miami
31. Carolina
30. Giants
29. Texans
28. Raiders
27. Falcons
26. Steelers
25. Seattle
24. JAX
23. Minnesota

Of those teams, which ones had QBs worth a damn? Carr was good. Roethlisberger sucked in his last year. Russell Wilson, a HOF QB, had a pretty good year. Matt Ryan, a HOF QB, had an OK year.

So yeah, based on last year anyway, if you play behind a shitty OL and want to put up good numbers anyway, you pretty much have to be a HOF QB.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-final-2021 ... e-rankings
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It's really not even a hot take. Very few QB's are so transcendent that you can roll out there with one of the worst two WR/TE groups in the league and still post high end numbers - it's just extremely rare. The examples that keep getting pointed out where someone succeeds in spite of having garbage weapons around them are, in fact, HOF caliber players. I went ahead and put the list out there and I'm waiting for someone to disagree with where I have our weapons ranked in the league - if someone wants to make a case that we're higher than I think, let's hear it.

Then we double down by sporting a turd OL? BTW TMP, those OL rankings include run and pass, and our run blocking was better than our pass pro. We took a stupid amount of sacks, and while Fields rookieness played a part in that, we also saw Andy Dalton take a bunch of sacks. His last game he almost set his 10 year career high in sacks taken, he was only off by 1 lol - Nagy man, just so glad he's gone.

Add all this up, and what we are asking Fields to accomplish is simply unreasonable. If you want him to be successful, protect him and provide him with weapons - we did neither. I understand we're playing the long game here, so I'm just going to hope he improves his own play demonstrably even if the stats don't really pop out. The stuff we should look for is the stuff I agreed with Rich on: Get the ball out, reduce turnovers (fumbles in particular), get on the right side of your TD:INT ratio, take less sacks. I think that's what we can look for with Fields. We can't really look for yardage, TD's, team scoring, etc because the talent level is so low.
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crueltyabc wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 12:58 pm Interesting that they don’t have Zach Thomas playing RT because it feels like confirmation that Jenkins is staying there and the competition is at LT
Eberflus said that they're going to start out trying Borom at LT and Jenkins at RT. I'm not sure that's the best move, but we'll see how things go. They've given us every indication that they view Thomas as a guard, too. I don't think that's written in stone...but I believe there was even some quote to back that notion up. He was also listed as "OL" on the Bears site when drafted.
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I wouldn’t read too much into where people line up for rookie minicamp, there aren’t a whole lot of guys so they need to fill in wherever. Mandatory team minicamp will tell us a lot more.
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The Marshall Plan wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 3:16 pm
RichH55 wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 10:30 am

And the built in excuses start. Move the goalposts, make excuses, underrate everything (Basically the opposite of what you did on Mitch)

Requires HOF caliber play - Just such a nonsense thing to say.
Let's look at the rankings shall we?

Bottom 10 OL per PFF:

32. Miami
31. Carolina
30. Giants
29. Texans
28. Raiders
27. Falcons
26. Steelers
25. Seattle
24. JAX
23. Minnesota

Of those teams, which ones had QBs worth a damn? Carr was good. Roethlisberger sucked in his last year. Russell Wilson, a HOF QB, had a pretty good year. Matt Ryan, a HOF QB, had an OK year.

So yeah, based on last year anyway, if you play behind a shitty OL and want to put up good numbers anyway, you pretty much have to be a HOF QB.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-final-2021 ... e-rankings
Bears aren't even on there - The whole the OL is terrible!!! take is a bad one. Is it Elite? Heck no. Dumpster Fire? No as well (and we are replacing the worst player on that Line BTW)


It's a bad take - I don't know what to tell you.

Look at the OL that Joe Burrow had as a Rookie (not even a 2nd year guy like Fields will be). AND this was PRE Chase. (*)

(*) If you are defending Fields here - You might want to point out - you know Rich - Burrow did wind up getting seriously injured that year- Fair point

But Burrow was good.

The Herbert OL? Not great either

The notion that if your OL is bottom 10 (i.e. bottom 33% of the league or so) that you can't play QB unless you are a HOFer.

It's just a bad take. We should do better here.

And Kirk Cousins - behind that Bottom 10 Line (Please note I am not a believer in Cousins) 4000+ Yards 30+ TD only 7 INT.

Kirk Cousins folks - is not a HOFer. And I'm not even expecting Fields to put up Cousins numbers this year -

So this notion that he has to be a HOFer to play here. Just nonsense

Its pre-blaming Fields potential failure on anyone but the QB
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dplank wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 3:46 pm It's really not even a hot take. Very few QB's are so transcendent that you can roll out there with one of the worst two WR/TE groups in the league and still post high end numbers - it's just extremely rare. The examples that keep getting pointed out where someone succeeds in spite of having garbage weapons around them are, in fact, HOF caliber players. I went ahead and put the list out there and I'm waiting for someone to disagree with where I have our weapons ranked in the league - if someone wants to make a case that we're higher than I think, let's hear it.

Then we double down by sporting a turd OL? BTW TMP, those OL rankings include run and pass, and our run blocking was better than our pass pro. We took a stupid amount of sacks, and while Fields rookieness played a part in that, we also saw Andy Dalton take a bunch of sacks. His last game he almost set his 10 year career high in sacks taken, he was only off by 1 lol - Nagy man, just so glad he's gone.

Add all this up, and what we are asking Fields to accomplish is simply unreasonable. If you want him to be successful, protect him and provide him with weapons - we did neither. I understand we're playing the long game here, so I'm just going to hope he improves his own play demonstrably even if the stats don't really pop out. The stuff we should look for is the stuff I agreed with Rich on: Get the ball out, reduce turnovers (fumbles in particular), get on the right side of your TD:INT ratio, take less sacks. I think that's what we can look for with Fields. We can't really look for yardage, TD's, team scoring, etc because the talent level is so low.

Dalton's sack rate was markedly lower than Fields

Dalton had sack rate of 7.1 %. - NOT the highest in his career - Not even the 2nd higherst

Fields was 11.8% (and his fumbles were astronomically high as well)

Please note that in this stat 7.1% v. 11.8% is a BIG gap.

And here's an objective source on Bears Pass Blocking (https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/321 ... s#pbwrteam)

Upshot : We were nowhere near as bad as you'd like to make it out to be

Also this: "get on the right side of your TD:INT ratio". 1:1 is not like a good number - it's actually terrible on that stat. (If you meant get to at least 2:1 - ok then)

Otherwise I feel like Chris Rock when you brag about never having been to Prison
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Yogi da Bear wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 7:59 am
crueltyabc wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 12:58 pm Interesting that they don’t have Zach Thomas playing RT because it feels like confirmation that Jenkins is staying there and the competition is at LT
One thing I like about Poles and Getsy is that they seem to want to play guys at their natural position, most effective, position. No pounding square pegs into round holes like we saw under Pace/Nagy.
It would seem that Zach Thomas was drafted to be a prospect to take over at RG because of his run blocking skills. Carter is a currently seen as a better pass blocker and his Senior Bowl video showed a guy whose a tenacious pass blocker who could handle bigger and higher ranked DL. . My guess is that's what sold Poles on drafting him. He'll try to earn the LG backup spot but could also get his shot at RG. Braxton Jones was the best LT prospect out of the three who were all OT in college so he stays at OT and Kramer is a pure OC only at least for now.

I could be wrong but since we aren't talking about my history of bad choices with wives and lovers I may still be OK here.
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dplank wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 3:46 pm It's really not even a hot take. Very few QB's are so transcendent that you can roll out there with one of the worst two WR/TE groups in the league and still post high end numbers - it's just extremely rare. The examples that keep getting pointed out where someone succeeds in spite of having garbage weapons around them are, in fact, HOF caliber players. I went ahead and put the list out there and I'm waiting for someone to disagree with where I have our weapons ranked in the league - if someone wants to make a case that we're higher than I think, let's hear it.
I thought I did. Maybe I don't see this group as being as bad as you do.

Mooney is a proven 1000 yard guy even playing as a #2 like he did in 2021. Pringle had half his yardage and catches in 2021 alternating with two others at KC and should do better this year. Are either of them good enough to virtually take over a game? No, but then one was a 5th round pick and the other an UDFA and together they're costing us less than $3 mil this year.

That's two starters who put up over 1600 yards receiving in 2021 for less than $3 mil. That just a shade more than Davante Adams had in 2021 but we couldn't buy Davante Adams cleats for $3 mil if he was in them. Assuming both stay healthy and play all 17 games this year what do you feel they can produce; number of catches, yardage, tds? Individual or combined.

It's gonna be tough to come up with estimates for Jones because we don't know how much he'll be used as a WR vs his other duties but let's estimate 600 yards or so like Mooney did as a rookie. We don't know what St. Brown can do but like Pringle at least here he won't be pushed as far down on the depth chart and hopefully he has better rapport with Fields than Rodgers.

That's our top four. What can we expect from just those four WR? 2500 yards? 2800 yards? 3000 yards?

We don't know who the other 2 or 3 will be but Newsome will likely be one who may share snaps at Slot WR provided he makes the team and then we have another half dozen or so competing for a spot. Is it a stellar cast of proven players? No. It's a cast of mostly unknowns like many other teams have. They have little or no previous history to go by so we'll have to wait to see how well they produce but at least one or two should produce something this year.

At TE Kmet caught 60 passes for just over 600 yards in 2021. Horsted only caught two passes but both were TDs. He should get a better shot this year. Both could do a little better especially Horsted. Historically O'Shaughnessy is good for another 250 yards and then we have some other prospects. So being conservative lets say 1000 yards from our TE. I agree it should be more but then we don't know how much TE will figure into Getsy's passing game vs say his RB.

So very conservatively and without considering the RB this bunch should be able to ring up at least somewhere between 3500 and 4000 yards in 2022. When was the last time we had a QB throw for 4000 yards? Never? If you want me to rank them I'd say bottom third but they sure as hell are not as bad as some of the WR we trucked out over the years or even last year. With ARob we may have looked better on paper but what happened? ARob mailed it in and only had 38 catches for just over 400 yards.

I'll just say I don't believe it's as bad as it looks now or will look once they start playing and I'll stand by that ready to eat crow if I'm wrong.
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RichH55 wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 8:37 pm
The Marshall Plan wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 3:16 pm

Let's look at the rankings shall we?

Bottom 10 OL per PFF:

32. Miami
31. Carolina
30. Giants
29. Texans
28. Raiders
27. Falcons
26. Steelers
25. Seattle
24. JAX
23. Minnesota

Of those teams, which ones had QBs worth a damn? Carr was good. Roethlisberger sucked in his last year. Russell Wilson, a HOF QB, had a pretty good year. Matt Ryan, a HOF QB, had an OK year.

So yeah, based on last year anyway, if you play behind a shitty OL and want to put up good numbers anyway, you pretty much have to be a HOF QB.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-final-2021 ... e-rankings
Bears aren't even on there - The whole the OL is terrible!!! take is a bad one. Is it Elite? Heck no. Dumpster Fire? No as well (and we are replacing the worst player on that Line BTW)


It's a bad take - I don't know what to tell you.

Look at the OL that Joe Burrow had as a Rookie (not even a 2nd year guy like Fields will be). AND this was PRE Chase. (*)

(*) If you are defending Fields here - You might want to point out - you know Rich - Burrow did wind up getting seriously injured that year- Fair point

But Burrow was good.

The Herbert OL? Not great either

The notion that if your OL is bottom 10 (i.e. bottom 33% of the league or so) that you can't play QB unless you are a HOFer.

It's just a bad take. We should do better here.

And Kirk Cousins - behind that Bottom 10 Line (Please note I am not a believer in Cousins) 4000+ Yards 30+ TD only 7 INT.

Kirk Cousins folks - is not a HOFer. And I'm not even expecting Fields to put up Cousins numbers this year -

So this notion that he has to be a HOFer to play here. Just nonsense

Its pre-blaming Fields potential failure on anyone but the QB
The Bears were #22. And look at Cousins' last few years. He's only 33 and QBs are playing until they're 40 now. If he has 7 more years of this, then yeah, he's a HOF'er.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... usKi00.htm
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Rich as I said, it’s a combination of lack of weapons AND bad OL. Weapons are worst or second worst in the NFL (show me where you’d rank them and specifically who you think we are better than), and OL sucks particularly in pass protection.

Burrow has elite weapons, too 3 in the NFL. Cousins isn’t far behind with Jefferson and Thielen. Some guys like Mahomes has had both weapons and strong OL.

Take the whole point, not part of it.

Specific to weapons, that’s where the HOF comment comes from. Brady and Rodgers and maybe Brees pulled off big numbers with shit weapons around them - they are all HOF players. Are there others? If so, please share. The two examples you brought up support my point completely.
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