Welp, it happened. I finally dipped my toes into the Harry Potter universe. Maybe it’s the subtle Star Wars parallels, but I’m into it and want more. What else have I been missing out on?
This is the kind of wisdom and guidance I was needing on the night before a Bears primetime game:
Breathe. Stay calm. Relax. Thursday Night Football is almost here.
There were moments when the Bears offensive line played better than it had in recent weeks. But this particular sequence was painful. And … yeah, the commentary here nails it:
A fun factoid from last week’s Vikings game via NBC Sports Chicago’s Josh Schrock is that of PFF’s five highest-graded players from that game, the best-scoring offensive player was a lineman (Braxton Jones). I want to dive a little more into what is going on with the rookie left tackle a little later. You can check out the rest of the top-graded players here.
FACT: The Bears offense has produced more big plays than teams quarterbacked by Russell Wilson, Derek Carr, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, Kyler Murray, Trevor Lawrence, Tom Brady, Joe Burrow, and Matthew Stafford.
My heart skipped a beat seeing this:
There has been so much left to be desired from the offense in the early going. But seeing Luke Getsy take a departure from the stuff that was falling short to implement some more things that have better chances to work is the type of development we like seeing around here. There is a time to be stubborn. But being too entrenched in stubbornness is a good way to watch your offense devolve into a full-on mess. It’ll be nice to see some more Getsy growth this upcoming week.
Getsy on Fields: “I thought he did a pretty good job. Again, we’re getting a little bit better each week and that’s truly our purpose, that’s our goal.” (Sun-Times)
On the other side of the ball, Alex Shapiro (NBC Sports Chicago) writes about how Defensive Coordinator Alan Williams is essentially falling on the sword when it comes to that unit’s issues. From the article:
“It’s my job to get them ready to go early on,” Williams said. “So it’s completely on me. And I think the better that we play, the more confidence that they’ll have. Starting off the second half, we are— I like to look at the positive parts of it— the second half, that we’re playing lights-out football. And so we just want to make sure that we can move that second half into the first half, first quarter, second drive, second quarter.
“We’ll look and see what we did in the second half and the energy that we bring, the tackling, the turnovers, all those things, make sure that theyー we want those things to show up in the first half.”
We saw this from Getsy earlier in the year. But that we’re seeing another assistant coach, unit play-caller taking the hit for their squad’s shortcomings has been refreshing. Accountability starts at the top. Good on the coaches. Ideally, this will trickle down to players, too. And that’s how you’ll get everyone pulling from the same end of the rope.
Second-half defensive performance and standout plays from defensive rookie draft picks Kyler Gordon and Dominique Robinson highlight the positives that caught Jeff Hughes’ attention last week. (Da Bears Blog)
I hope we see a lot of Tress Way tomorrow night. And not just to justify bringing in a left-footed punter for a tryout:
A non-Bears thing I read that had my interest was this from FiveThirtyEight about the ever-evolving offense Lane Kiffin is running at Ole Miss:
Kiffin is one of football’s most intriguing characters. And if you’re a fan of offenses, watching the ones he runs has been a treat. Quarterback Matt Corral put a bunch of eyes on Kiffin’s bunch last year. But he is in the pros now, and the Ole Miss offense is still humming along. Successfully flipping to a run-heavy style piques my interest. Oftentimes, we see NFL teams borrow from college offense to level up their offenses. If we’re starting to see college offenses properly use run-game action to take scoring up a notch, then it’ll soon reach the NFL. And I’m here for it (especially so long as the Bears have multiple playmaking backs.
Nah, man. This ain’t it:
I’m going to need Mitchell and Ness to re-focus their efforts on re-making throwback jerseys that were worn in Fabolous videos from the early-mid 2000s.
A Bears-adjacent transaction: The Browns cut former Bears cornerback Thomas Graham Jr. yesterday. Graham was snagged off Chicago’s practice squad in September, but lasted about one month with his new team. The Bears signed another defensive back to fill Graham’s vacancy almost immediately. But I wonder if they’d finagle their way into bringing Graham back to bolster secondary depth with a familiar face.
Here come the Hawks:
AYO! Look who’s running point to start the year for Chicago’s basketball team:
The baseball was baseball-ing last night:
Break the bank, Jed:
NEWSLETTER
