LinvilleGorge

Probably only if the 3rd becomes a 2nd.

I always love the irony of someone writing a novel on a message board attempting to mock someone for posting on a message board. That's good stuff.

Good point. He absolutely TRASHED Thielen in that week one breakdown.

This is another CMC situation IMO. We suck so why push him back onto the field? Plus it's another son of a former player and those types tend to be much more conservative with how they manage injury situations. They have someone in their ear with a lot more experience handling the business side of this game. They know that as long as he bounces back and has the type of season he's capable of having next year he's gonna get PAID.

I respect respecting the kid's privacy. None of that stuff should've mattered. His transfer was complete before the new rules came out and the NCAA decided they would make them retroactive in this case. I'm not crying about the NCAA being out to get us or anything like that. It's just the NCAA has a long history of making baffling decisions and trying to throw their weight around to make a point.

I like his stuff. His biggest flaw IMO is he tends to stick to his biases and preconceptions until he just can't defend them anymore. He was a big Bryce Young guy pre-draft. So for him to start being critic is pretty telling.

This should've never been an issue. The kid completed his transfer then days later the NCAA came out with new transfer rules and bafflingly made the retroactively apply to Tez Walker.

Yes he can! That's awesome. Just saw it.

Wait what? He can play?

I think any QB that goes to the Bears is screwed. History dictates it.

The reality is that if you're going to be taken high in the draft you're going to a really bad team outside of a trade up scenario. What really sucks is going to one of those really bad teams as a non-1st rounder.

Maybe Mingo isn't as terrible as we think.

I just can't see them getting through their schedule and two playoff games with that D. At some point they're going to fail to outscore someone. Their margin of error on offense against elite teams is going to be nil because their D is definitely giving up a basketball score.

It's gonna be really tough with that D.

Stop this or take it to the Tinderbox.

If they can get Burrow's leg right I would expect them to hang onto Higgins and take their 3rd round comp pick when he leaves via FA. If it looks like Burrow is going to be limited all year or limited for long enough to put them out of playoff contention at some point they should bite the bullet and trade him for more than a late 3rd comp pick. I get it, it's loudly announcing that you're waving the white flag on the season but at some point you just have to make the smart move.

At the end of the day, fandom is basically all about hope. You have no actual ability to fundamentally impact anything, you just hope the team will be good. Without hope there is no fandom.

Under JR we never had consistent sustained success but we had enough sporadic success to maintain interest and hope. This feels boring and hopeless.

Something has to change. We have to have a competent vertical threat in the offense. We can't run the ball or get YAC in large part because the D is just crowding the field on us because they're not worried about getting burned deep.

When you can't threaten the defense vertically and force them to defend every blade of grass offense is difficult. That's why it gets so much tougher in the redzone. And when you're not throwing past 20 yards you're turning the entire field into redzone offense. The field is crowded. We gotta chuck a few deep just to make the opposing D account for the fact that we will.

We'll see. I said leading up to the draft that for Bryce to be elite he's going to have to be the smartest guy in the stadium every Sunday. That's a tall ask.

I definitely think Bryce is in his own head right now. We always knew that his success was ultimately going to come down to outsmarting the defense, not making chicken salad out of chicken poo with physical talent. Pre-snap reads, audibles, etc. But he's still an NFL Rookie and he might just be trying to do too much mentally right now. It's up to the staff to help him reel that in.

This. The cost was steep but I was on the same page. We played well enough down the stretch under Wilks last year to legitimately believe we were ready to shoot our shot on a QB and the opportunity was there. It's just looked like a colossal disaster so far. Just because it makes sense on paper doesn't mean it will work out.

Historically that was usually a big knock against QBs that came out of shotgun offenses in college translating to an NFL style offense. But now that everyone's offense is heavily shotgun it has become less of an issue overall. But yeah, Bryce has that college shotgun footwork. He gets square to the LOS way too much. His arm is already subpar and when you're trying to throw squared up you're going to struggle to throw with velocity no matter how great your arm is. The footwork definitely needs revamping.

Oh for sure. Everyone in this upcoming class was a year away and we chose to shoot our shot. Stroud and Richardson are the two guys Bryce is always going to be measured against as top 4 draft picks on the same class.