Twitter has been a wild place since Monday morning, and arguably since its inception. But Elon’s “For You” function has become a bit of a guilty pleasure for me because that feed seems to understand my uncontrollable desire to watch cats do ANYTHING while also thinking I care even SLIGHTLY about the World Baseball Classic. It’s an emotional maelstrom, replete with an equal number of “Awww” and “Who the hell is Tim Anderson” outbursts. The stream also highlights the Tweets of many Bears fans I do not follow and do not know and their moment-to-moment responses to this free agency has been…interesting. (Full disclosure: I have started muting and blocking most of them.)

What have I learned?

• Most fans care way more about your ability to break a scoop than your ability to put together a great sentence, which for a writer is more than mildly dejecting. 75% of Tweets from fans are asking writers and media what they hear about potential future transactions. I’ve more than doubled my follower total since I got in the scoop business, and I can’t wait to be out of it.
• There are numerous fans on the platform who can name the 13th best running back in the 2023 NFL Draft but can’t name a single starting offensive lineman in the AFC South. How does this happen? 15-20% of the players drafted in April will be relevant in the league. 100% of those AFC South linemen are relevant in the league.
• The phrase “off-ball linebacker” needs to be retired. Tremaine Edmunds was signed by the Bears to a large contract specifically because of his ability to impact the football. He’s not a downhill, hole plugger like Lance Briggs. He’s a monstrous speedster, great in a coverage, whose range and length impacts throwing lanes as well as any linebacker in the league.
  • And I say this as someone who hasn’t missed a Bills game in several years. I had a business relationship with the head of Bills Mafia. One of my best friends is a die hard, and another close friend works in their building. I know that roster as well as I know the one in Chicago.
• The battle has been waged and PFF has won. So many fans, and now media members, use their absurd grades in arguments now. These grades have zero value in NFL front offices but that doesn’t seem to matter in the public debate. PFF is in the bloodstream.
• Every single starter on the 2022 Eagles offense was acquired via the draft, with AJ Brown being acquired with draft picks. Yet fans still think you can buy your way out of the basement in free agency. Bears fans on Twitter really wanted the Bears to buy a dozen new starters. When has that ever worked in the sport?
• In the “what have you done for me lately” department: it has been amazing how many fans simply moved on from the DJ Moore acquisition, the most important acquisition made by any team this off-season. Moore is a veritable Number One receiver, and the consensus is one of those was not available in FA or the draft.
• Two things that are driving much of the debate re: the Bears, and neither are surprising.
  • Fan obsession with Justin Fields. For many of these social media folks, arguing about Fields on the platforms is a full-time job. Poles not overpaying for a mid-level right tackle is considered a personal insult by many of these folks.
  • Fan belief in the quick turnaround. Can the Bears win the NFC North? Yep. Lions are currently +160, Vikings +275, Bears +330 and Packers +400 to win it. It is a crap shoot. But this will not be a championship-contending roster, even with a remarkable draft class. This is the year where the club/program needs to show significant progress and play meaningful games in the second half of the schedule.

For the first time since he became the GM, Ryan Poles is showing aggressiveness and his plans for the team are becoming clear.

In a vacuum, it’s hard to argue with trading the first overall pick to the Carolina Panthers for the ninth pick, their 2024 first and, perhaps most importantly, DJ Moore, amongst other pieces. That trade values Moore as a first-round pick, which makes sense when you compare his production to others who have been traded in recent years. Furthermore, getting Moore in the trade will make the Panthers worse in 2024 and 2025, thus improving the draft picks the Bears will receive in those years as part of the trade.

Moore doesn’t just give the Bears an actual Number One wide receiver, he goes them a WR1 who fits their quarterback. His average depth of target (ADOT) — 13.1 — was second amongst players with 100 or more targets. Justin Fields throws a great deep ball and with Moore, Darnell Mooney and Chase Claypool, the Bears will have three wide receivers who can be on the receiving ends of those bombs.

Edwards+Edmunds+2nd rounder > Roquan

Nobody who is qualified to speak on the subject will tell you the Bears upgraded from Roquan Smith, but they clearly upgraded the linebacker position with a series of strategic moves.

There was a clear, steep drop off once the Bears traded Smith for a second-round pick last year. As much as fans liked Jack Sanborn, the Bears clearly didn’t evaluate the UDFA out of Wisconsin the same way. On Monday, we learned of the team’s intentions to sign Philadelphia’s TJ Edwards and Buffalo’s Tremaine Edmunds — the latter to a rather large deal.

Both are quality starting linebackers who fill not only a position of need, but a position of great importance in the Matt Eberflus defense. The bonus is that, combined, they cost less than Smith and Nick Morrow would’ve in 2023 and the Bears still have a second-round pick from trading Smith.

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DBB is on spring break this week. And in lieu of spending the week drunk and shirtless in Daytona Beach, I’m hanging out with Sarah and the cats in Queens while doing very little mental labor. So, we’ll start this week with a series of three open threads during the legal tampering period and opening day of free agency, allowing the comments section to be the place to discuss the moves/non-moves. Thursday we will return with some longer reflections. 

DBB is on spring break this week. And in lieu of spending the week drunk and shirtless in Daytona Beach, I’m hanging out with Sarah and the cats in Queens while doing very little mental labor. So, we’ll start this week with a series of three open threads during the legal tampering period and opening day of free agency, allowing the comments section to be the place to discuss the moves/non-moves. Thursday we will return with some longer reflections. 

DBB is on spring break this week. And in lieu of spending the week drunk and shirtless in Daytona Beach, I’m hanging out with Sarah and the cats in Queens while doing very little mental labor. So, we’ll start this week with a series of three open threads during the legal tampering period and opening day of free agency, allowing the comments section to be the place to discuss the moves/non-moves. Thursday we will return with some longer reflections. 

Compensation update, per sources: Bears trading No. 1 overall pick to Carolina for:

pick No. 9
pick No. 61
a first-round pick in 2024
a second-round pick in 2025
WR DJ Moore pic.twitter.com/hHrHn1UIR2

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 10, 2023

The Academy Awards are this Sunday, and normally I would be publishing a lengthy piece on my favorite films of the year at the end of the week. (With Maciej publishing the day before.) But this year, quite frankly, I forgot. And I could also make the argument I did not love any films released in 2022, though I’ll mention two below, that I’m excited to revisit.

Having returned to the academic world of Cinema Studies, the discipline in which I received my BA 18 years ago, I found myself in a constant process of cinematic discovery, beginning with my preparations last summer. So today I am sharing my favorite of those discoveries, a film I consider landmark, the Michael Curtiz/John Garfield collaboration, The Breaking Point.

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Defensive Tackle Market Will Be Interesting.

The market took am initial hit when the Washington Commanders placed the franchise tag on Daron Payne. But a bigger shock came when a warrant was issued for the arrest of Georgia star Jalen Carter. The number of impact guys is dwindling but there are still a lot of interesting names.

• Javon Hargrave is probably the best player available, but the Bears might not be interested in giving a large contract to a seven-year veteran who just turned 30 years old.
• Dre’mont Jones – 26 when the next season begins – has been playing in Denver’s 3-4 since coming into the league in 2019 but could thrive switching to a scheme that allows him to shoot the gap every play.
• Zach Allen, who will also be 26, has been a defensive end in his career, but could benefit from a move inside.
• Without question the most interesting potential option is Northwestern’s Adetomiwa Adebawore. While the Wildcats moved him around the line of scrimmage, Adebawore showed burst inside at the Senior Bowl and lit up the combine with a 4.49-second 40-yard dash (1.61 10-yard split) and a 37.5-inch vertical, while weighting 282 pounds with arms that are about 34 inches long.

Looking for an Edge.

While the Bears will have a ton of interesting options on the interior of their defensive line, the edge market might not be as strong as once thought.

For starters, the free agent market has very few adequate options. And while Will Anderson is the consensus best player in the draft, the Bears probably won’t be able to draft him if they trade back.

In Matt Eberflus’ time as a defensive coordinator and head coach, his teams have exclusively drafted ends who have weighed at least 250 pounds with at least 33-inch arms and a 35-inch vertical jump. The only defensive ends to jump 35 inches with the aforementioned size and length were Pittsburgh’s Habakkuk Baldonado, Missouri’s Isaiah McGuire, Louisville’s Yaya Diaby and Adebawore, who the Bears could see as a tackle.

The Pro Day circuit will be interesting to watch here. There were a number of players — like Iowa’s Lukas Van Ness — who showed very good all-around athleticism but didn’t jump well. The NFL changed the combine workouts around again this year, so it’s possible that the jumps were impacted by that.

Otherwise, the Bears might be scrambling to revamp their defensive line, especially on the outside.

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Prior days explored the tackles and guards, and today will focus on center, with a bonus glance at tight end and wide receiver blocking.

Center

Let’s start with center, the last position on the offensive line and an area that has been held down exclusively by Sam Mustipher for the last two seasons.

Pass Blocking

The table below shows how Mustipher held up in pass protection compared to the 39 centers around the NFL who had at least 200 pass blocking snaps. All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF), and true pass sets are intended to remove plays designed to minimize the pass rush, such as screens, play action, and rollout. Cells highlighted in green indicate a rank in the top 25%, while red indicates the bottom 25%.

There’s really only one takeaway here: Sam Mustipher is awful in pass protection. Every column that’s not red just missed the cutoff. (Every Bears fan already knows this, so I don’t think we’re breaking any new ground.)

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Yesterday, we explored the tackles, where Braxton Jones looks like a solid starter. Today, we will look at the guards.

Pass Blocking

The Bears had four guards play meaningful snaps last year, and the table below shows how they held up in pass protection compared to the 77 guards around the NFL who had at least 200 pass blocking snaps (Lucas Patrick did not have enough snaps to qualify, so his ranks are where he would have fit if he did). All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF), and true pass sets are intended to remove plays designed to minimize the pass rush, such as screens, play action, and rollout. Cells highlighted in green indicate they ranked in the top 25%, while red indicates the bottom 25%.

A few thoughts:

• Like we saw with the tackles, the Bears minimized the amount of true pass sets in order to protect an offensive line that they didn’t trust to hold up in protection. And like we saw with tackles, they generally had good reason not to trust the line, as there’s a whole lot of red and not a lot of green in this chart.
• Looking at individual players, the top three aren’t too bad. Nobody really stands out as being all that good, but they’re mostly around average to maybe a bit below average.
• Lucas Patrick, on the other hand, was horrible. I know he struggled through injuries last year, but he was legitimately one of the worst guards in the NFL.

Teven Jenkins got a lot of hype from Bears fans last year, but he seemed to struggle a bit as a pass protector, especially in true pass sets. Of course, it was his first season as a starter, so it’s possible that he improved as the season went on, like we saw from Braxton Jones yesterday. The table below looks at his performance when splitting the season into four-game intervals. Jenkins got hurt during the season in 2022, so he only played five games from Week 9 on, and those are all put into one sample.

Here you can see that some improvement was made as a pass protector, at least based on PFF’s grades. This is especially evident in the true pass sets, which is where Jenkins most struggled. Hopefully that progress can continue going forward.

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