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Old thread hit 100 pages, so starting a new one.

Not that I think this season will mirror last season, but interesting to note the Bears were 3-3 last year to start the season as well. Let's hope for a 9-1 run.

unable to edit my last post due to thread lockage, but I said that it was debatable whether the bears would have hosted a playoff game last season w/o khalil mack. but given the weakness of the division, the bears almost certainly would have still hosted a playoff game w/o making the trade for mack

dougthonus wrote:Not that I think this season will mirror last season, but interesting to note the Bears were 3-3 last year to start the season as well. Let's hope for a 9-1 run.

Yeah, the schedule is night and day

Last Year:

Jets
Bills
Lions
Vikings
Lions
Giants
Rams*
Packers
49ers
Vikings

* = Made the playoffs

This Year:
Chargers
Eagles
Lions
Rams*
Giants
Lions
Cowboys*
Packers*
Chiefs*
Vikings*

* = Currently in the playoffs

dice wrote:unable to edit my last post due to thread lockage, but I said that it was debatable whether the bears would have hosted a playoff game last season w/o khalil mack. but given the weakness of the division, the bears almost certainly would have still hosted a playoff game w/o making the trade for mack

I don't think that's true. I don't think many other people think it's true either.

dice wrote:the argument could be made that the bears were more likely to beat the eagles in the playoff game had they never made the mack trade given that he was neutralized without double teams and his salary would have spent elsewhere on the roster. would they have been hosting the eagles to begin with w/o mack on the field? that's certainly debatable. but the defense was excellent even without him last season

and if the "window" ends up only being a single season, the trade was an unmitigated failure

Nah.

The trade happened after training camp. What players were available that they could have signed that would have made up any sort of difference in the free agent market after training camp?

The window is extended out to next season and beyond because of elite talent on the defensive side of the ball.

After looking at the history of picking QBs in the draft since 2000, it's pretty clear that NOBODY knows what they're doing when evaluating the position. People clown on the Glennon signing but I think it's far less egregious than trading up and using assets because you like a guy. That contract was easy to cut and run from. Teams over the past 20 years have liked a lot of guys and a lot of guys have been busts and there's been a good deal of QBs landed in FA/late rounds that have been excellent - (Brady, Romo, Wilson, Brees, Dak, Minshew, Manning)

If the Bears DO NOT beat the Chargers, one of two things HAS TO happen:

1: Either you trade for a legitimate QB and bench Mitch.
2: You start making off-seasons plans because you will not be making the playoffs with this Trubisky led offense.

Susan wrote:

dice wrote:the argument could be made that the bears were more likely to beat the eagles in the playoff game had they never made the mack trade given that he was neutralized without double teams and his salary would have spent elsewhere on the roster. would they have been hosting the eagles to begin with w/o mack on the field? that's certainly debatable. but the defense was excellent even without him last season

and if the "window" ends up only being a single season, the trade was an unmitigated failure

Nah.

The trade happened after training camp. What players were available that they could have signed that would have made up any sort of difference in the free agent market after training camp?

you mean like the patriots do all the time?

every hole you fill on your team is meaningful. particularly on defense. you simply don't need superstars

The window is extended out to next season and beyond because of elite talent on the defensive side of the ball.

makes no difference if you don't have money left to spend on the offense. and again, the defense was going to be excellent with or without mack. and they would have won double digit games and the division without mack

astute GMs fill holes before they chase big names with spare money. the packers screwed up by nearly trading for mack in a desperation move to improve a bad defense, spent wisely on defense this past offseason and their D has performed as well as the bears so far this season. despite spending only $56 mil on that end of the ball vs the bears $82 mil. and by backloading mack the bears already have $101 mil committed to only 14 defensive players under contract for next season!

vet backloaded salaries 2019 vs 2020:

mack 11.9/26.6 (124% increase)
fuller 13.5/17.5 (30%)
leno 3.3/10.3 (212%)
goldman 5.3/10.8 (104%)
massie 3.8/8.3 (118%)
skrine 2.1/6.1 (190%)

and then there are rookie deal extensions/option pickups:

floyd 5.0/13.2 (164%)
whitehair 2.4/7.4 (208%)

the cap is projected to go up by 12%. pace is running a trumpian shell game here. the squeeze is a-comin'

Jeffster81 wrote:If the Bears DO NOT beat the Chargers, one of two things HAS TO happen:

1: Either you trade for a legitimate QB and bench Mitch.
2: You start making off-seasons plans because you will not be making the playoffs with this Trubisky led offense.

if they lose at home to the chargers, they could trade for mahomes and they'd still have to be making offseason plans

dougthonus wrote:

dice wrote:unable to edit my last post due to thread lockage, but I said that it was debatable whether the bears would have hosted a playoff game last season w/o khalil mack. but given the weakness of the division, the bears almost certainly would have still hosted a playoff game w/o making the trade for mack

I don't think that's true. I don't think many other people think it's true either.

the vikings finished 3.5 games back. khalil mack did not add 4 wins to last year's team. that's preposterous. they had 6 close wins (7,7,7,5,5,2). i doubt that mack was the difference in more than 2 of them (cards +2, vikings +5)

dice wrote:

dougthonus wrote:

dice wrote:unable to edit my last post due to thread lockage, but I said that it was debatable whether the bears would have hosted a playoff game last season w/o khalil mack. but given the weakness of the division, the bears almost certainly would have still hosted a playoff game w/o making the trade for mack

I don't think that's true. I don't think many other people think it's true either.

the vikings finished 3.5 games back. khalil mack did not add 4 wins to last year's team. that's preposterous. they had 6 close wins (7,7,7,5,5,2). i doubt that mack was the difference in more than 2 of them (cards +2, vikings +5)

If one of them was the Vikings, then the Vikings would have been 9-6-1, and the Bears would have only needed to lose 3 games to miss the playoffs. Also quite possible that season finale would have been played a whole lot different against the Vikings if the playoffs were on the line for both teams which would have been the case had they lost 2 more games.

I agree with your assessment that the Cards/Vikings games were games the Bears lose without Mack.

In the Cards game, Mack had a sack on 3rd down for a 7 yard loss that resulted in the Cards punting rather than a FG attempt, given the two point margin, it's pretty easy to suggest that one play may have swung the outcome of the game.

In the Vikings game (5 point win), Mack had a forced fumble and fumble recovery on the 15 yard line of the Vikings which led to an easy touch down. It's pretty easy to draw the dots that Mack is the difference in that game as that ends up being a crucial play and one of the game swinging plays.

Of the other games that were within one score were the constant double teams that Mack received enough to be a difference maker? Hard to say, but I think the answer is more likely yes than no, that having a superstar defensive end probably occupied enough of the defenses attention that even though there wasn't a big shining example of one play, that he probably swings at least one of those other ones.

were done.

just like last year when we lost Eddie Jackson near the end of the season and could not replace him-

losing Aikem Hicks is an absolute killer and were still WTF with Roquan.
Those 2 were a huge part of what made that D elite. We're not elite now.

We can't run the ball either.

We're not going 9-1 to end the year

I'm already on the Please don't let the Packers win the Super Bowl bandwagon

dougthonus wrote:

dice wrote:

dougthonus wrote:
I don't think that's true. I don't think many other people think it's true either.

the vikings finished 3.5 games back. khalil mack did not add 4 wins to last year's team. that's preposterous. they had 6 close wins (7,7,7,5,5,2). i doubt that mack was the difference in more than 2 of them (cards +2, vikings +5)

If one of them was the Vikings, then the Vikings would have been 9-6-1, and the Bears would have only needed to lose 3 games to miss the playoffs. Also quite possible that season finale would have been played a whole lot different against the Vikings if the playoffs were on the line for both teams which would have been the case had they lost 2 more games.

I agree with your assessment that the Cards/Vikings games were games the Bears lose without Mack.

In the Cards game, Mack had a sack on 3rd down for a 7 yard loss that resulted in the Cards punting rather than a FG attempt, given the two point margin, it's pretty easy to suggest that one play may have swung the outcome of the game.

In the Vikings game (5 point win), Mack had a forced fumble and fumble recovery on the 15 yard line of the Vikings which led to an easy touch down. It's pretty easy to draw the dots that Mack is the difference in that game as that ends up being a crucial play and one of the game swinging plays.

Of the other games that were within one score were the constant double teams that Mack received enough to be a difference maker? Hard to say, but I think the answer is more likely yes than no, that having a superstar defensive end probably occupied enough of the defenses attention that even though there wasn't a big shining example of one play, that he probably swings at least one of those other ones.

we also don't know the performance of the player that would have replaced mack in the lineup as well as any other roster improvements that would have been made with the money spent on him. it's hard to make any definitive judgments. but on the macro level, edge rushers simply don't have huge impacts on overall team play. khalil mack doesn't dress, point spread doesn't change by more than a couple of points. mack got traded for, team wins over/under increased by 1 (and that was of course due to fans piling in and taking the over). only quarterbacks have profound impacts on a team's prospects for success

by the way, the notion that mack got "constant" double teams is a fallacy. i believe that only aaron donald was doubled on the majority of snaps last season

Nagy is taking a beating this week... https://www.bleachernation.com/bears/2019/10/25/nagys-scheme-isnt-the-whole-problem-the-players-arent-the-whole-problem-videos/

As he should. I think scheme is problem 1a. Trubisky is problem 1b.

Play simple football and get the run game going. Get Trubisky using his legs again and some bootlegs.

I think the worst part about Nagy is he can be guilty of making things harder than they need to be... 7 rushing attempts.

Red Larrivee wrote:

dougthonus wrote:Not that I think this season will mirror last season, but interesting to note the Bears were 3-3 last year to start the season as well. Let's hope for a 9-1 run.

Yeah, the schedule is night and day

Last Year:

Jets
Bills
Lions
Vikings
Lions
Giants
Rams*
Packers
49ers
Vikings

* = Made the playoffs

This Year:
Chargers
Eagles
Lions
Rams*
Giants
Lions
Cowboys*
Packers*
Chiefs*
Vikings*

* = Currently in the playoffs

If the offense was as good as last season we would probably be 5-1 right now.

We have the worst offense in the league right now. Mitch isn't that bad. Nagy isn't that bad either.

I think Nagy will get us back to last year production but without Hicks and Roquan disappearing it won't be enough.

dice wrote:we also don't know the performance of the player that would have replaced mack in the lineup as well as any other roster improvements that would have been made with the money spent on him. it's hard to make any definitive judgments. but on the macro level, edge rushers simply don't have huge impacts on overall team play. khalil mack doesn't dress, point spread doesn't change by more than a couple of points. mack got traded for, team wins over/under increased by 1 (and that was of course due to fans piling in and taking the over). only quarterbacks have profound impacts on a team's prospects for success

by the way, the notion that mack got "constant" double teams is a fallacy. i believe that only aaron donald was doubled on the majority of snaps last season

This isn't true. The three most important phases of a football team:

1. Quarterback
2. Offensive Line
3. Pass Rush

Of course Mack by himself will not be the reason you win a SB, much like J.J. Watt, Michael Strahan, and other all-time great edge rushers wouldn't be, but they are much better than replacement-level players or slightly above-average edge rushers on flexible contracts. The fact is that Mack changes the way the offensive line has to protect the QB in ways that only a select few players in the league can claim.

I get that your shoes are pretty dug in on the Mack deal, but it's really a non-issue. The Bears payroll is not in trouble. They don't have to worry about giving a $30M+ to a QB with Trubisky likely not panning out and the only core players we should be interested in keeping right now are Eddie Jackson and Allen Robinson. They can afford to keep both. The issue right now is that we used high draft capital and assets to select a QB who is not very good. It really doesn't matter how you build your payroll around that.

Red Larrivee wrote:

dice wrote:we also don't know the performance of the player that would have replaced mack in the lineup as well as any other roster improvements that would have been made with the money spent on him. it's hard to make any definitive judgments. but on the macro level, edge rushers simply don't have huge impacts on overall team play. khalil mack doesn't dress, point spread doesn't change by more than a couple of points. mack got traded for, team wins over/under increased by 1 (and that was of course due to fans piling in and taking the over). only quarterbacks have profound impacts on a team's prospects for success

by the way, the notion that mack got "constant" double teams is a fallacy. i believe that only aaron donald was doubled on the majority of snaps last season

This isn't true. The three most important phases of a football team:

1. Quarterback
2. Offensive Line
3. Pass Rush

Of course Mack by himself will not be the reason you win a SB, much like J.J. Watt, Michael Strahan, and other all-time great edge rushers wouldn't be, but they are much better than replacement-level players or slightly above-average edge rushers on flexible contracts. The fact is that Mack changes the way the offensive line has to protect the QB in ways that only a select few players in the league can claim.

they simply don't impact winning to remotely the same degree as a QB does. vegas knows this. anybody who has done the positional research knows this

i have never claimed that mack is not a top defensive player. he's a stud. i wish people would stop using that strawman argument

I get that your shoes are pretty dug in on the Mack deal, but it's really a non-issue. The Bears payroll is not in trouble.

going forward it most certainly is. i showed that in an above post

They don't have to worry about giving a $30M+ to a QB with Trubisky likely not panning out

then they're not going to win anyway. this whole "strategy" was based on the ASSUMPTION that trubisky would become a QB that would well outplay his rookie contract. and so pace mortgaged the future to win before the end of trubisky's deal. meanwhile, one of the draft picks pace dealt to trade up one spot for trubisky (passing on mahomes and watson, indicating that pace thought trubisky was a MUCH better prospect) turned into this guy, who makes less than a million bucks a year:



and the FIRST first rounder shipped off in the mack deal turned into this guy, who makes about $3 mil a year, averages 5.1 yards a carry as a rookie, is 2nd in offensive rookie of the year odds, and who ran over the bears defense a couple of weeks ago while mack had little impact:




while bears fans lament the lack of a running game

and the only core players we should be interested in keeping right now are Eddie Jackson and Allen Robinson.

which means that you have to fill out a 50+ man roster with free agents...which requires money that will be in limited supply in comparison to other teams. particularly since we've dealt a good number of draft picks to get to where we are today

dice wrote:

Red Larrivee wrote:

dice wrote:we also don't know the performance of the player that would have replaced mack in the lineup as well as any other roster improvements that would have been made with the money spent on him. it's hard to make any definitive judgments. but on the macro level, edge rushers simply don't have huge impacts on overall team play. khalil mack doesn't dress, point spread doesn't change by more than a couple of points. mack got traded for, team wins over/under increased by 1 (and that was of course due to fans piling in and taking the over). only quarterbacks have profound impacts on a team's prospects for success

by the way, the notion that mack got "constant" double teams is a fallacy. i believe that only aaron donald was doubled on the majority of snaps last season

This isn't true. The three most important phases of a football team:

1. Quarterback
2. Offensive Line
3. Pass Rush

Of course Mack by himself will not be the reason you win a SB, much like J.J. Watt, Michael Strahan, and other all-time great edge rushers wouldn't be, but they are much better than replacement-level players or slightly above-average edge rushers on flexible contracts. The fact is that Mack changes the way the offensive line has to protect the QB in ways that only a select few players in the league can claim.

they simply don't impact winning to remotely the same degree as a QB does. vegas knows this. anybody who has done the positional research knows this

i have never claimed that mack is not a top defensive player. he's a stud. i wish people would stop using that strawman argument

I get that your shoes are pretty dug in on the Mack deal, but it's really a non-issue. The Bears payroll is not in trouble.

going forward it most certainly is. i showed that in an above post

They don't have to worry about giving a $30M+ to a QB with Trubisky likely not panning out

then they're not going to win anyway

and the only core players we should be interested in keeping right now are Eddie Jackson and Allen Robinson.

which means that you have to fill out a 50+ man roster with free agents...which requires money that will be in limited supply in comparison to other teams. particularly since we've dealt a good number of draft picks to get to where we are today

Realistically, the Bears can't cut Mack until 2023 for any meaningful funds. Otherwise, you're foolishly eating dead money for a great player. You could trade him, but there's no reason to move a player like that if you're in the business of winning games.

Over the next couple of offseason, the Bears are going to have a lot of turnover. A lot of money is going to be freed up and they're not going to be hurting in draft picks or cap to fill out the roster. You're right that it likely means nothing anyway until you get a QB, but you're not going to fold up the team simply because of that.

dice wrote:then they're not going to win anyway. this whole "strategy" was based on the ASSUMPTION that trubisky would become a QB that would well outplay his rookie contract. and so pace mortgaged the future to win before the end of trubisky's deal. meanwhile, one of the draft picks pace dealt to trade up one spot for trubisky (passing on mahomes and watson, indicating that pace thought trubisky was a MUCH better prospect) turned into this guy, who makes less than a million bucks a year:



and the FIRST first rounder shipped off in the mack deal turned into this guy, who makes about $3 mil a year, averages 5.1 yards a carry as a rookie, is 2nd in offensive rookie of the year odds, and who ran over the bears defense a couple of weeks ago while mack had little impact:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

while bears fans lament the lack of a running game

Kamara and Jacobs are good players, but I'm not losing sleep over running backs who are playing behind offensive lines that are run blocking at elite levels. That's the difference. New Orleans is 2nd in adjusted line yards and Oakland is 4th. Not having those players isn't the problem. The issue is the offensive line has regressed in run blocking each of the last three years.

Red Larrivee wrote:

dice wrote:

Red Larrivee wrote:
This isn't true. The three most important phases of a football team:

1. Quarterback
2. Offensive Line
3. Pass Rush

Of course Mack by himself will not be the reason you win a SB, much like J.J. Watt, Michael Strahan, and other all-time great edge rushers wouldn't be, but they are much better than replacement-level players or slightly above-average edge rushers on flexible contracts. The fact is that Mack changes the way the offensive line has to protect the QB in ways that only a select few players in the league can claim.

they simply don't impact winning to remotely the same degree as a QB does. vegas knows this. anybody who has done the positional research knows this

i have never claimed that mack is not a top defensive player. he's a stud. i wish people would stop using that strawman argument

I get that your shoes are pretty dug in on the Mack deal, but it's really a non-issue. The Bears payroll is not in trouble.

going forward it most certainly is. i showed that in an above post

They don't have to worry about giving a $30M+ to a QB with Trubisky likely not panning out

then they're not going to win anyway

and the only core players we should be interested in keeping right now are Eddie Jackson and Allen Robinson.

which means that you have to fill out a 50+ man roster with free agents...which requires money that will be in limited supply in comparison to other teams. particularly since we've dealt a good number of draft picks to get to where we are today

Realistically, the Bears can't cut Mack until 2023 for any meaningful funds. Otherwise, you're foolishly eating dead money for a great player. You could trade him, but there's no reason to move a player like that if you're in the business of winning games.

i'm not suggesting that they move him. no team would want that backloaded contract going forward anyway