On this short pod, Jeff discusses Ryan Pace’s inability to get the tight end position right in his first years on the job. Shaheen’s expectations should be low, if existent at all.
Short Pod: Shaheen Injury Disconcerting [AUDIO]
On this short pod, Jeff discusses Ryan Pace’s inability to get the tight end position right in his first years on the job. Shaheen’s expectations should be low, if existent at all.
It’s starting to get real.
The Sun-Times scribe wrote an excellent “five questions” preview for Bears camp. It was so good I scrapped the idea of writing of my own. (I shouldn’t have been alone.) Finley takes on the big, obvious questions (Trubisky improvement, health, kicker…etc.) but it was his focus on the backfield that caught my attention. I urge you to go and read the entire piece HERE.
4. How much did they upgrade at RB?
In his three NFL seasons, Jordan Howard posted more rushing yards than all but two players: Ezekiel Elliott and Todd Gurley. Still, he wasn’t a fit in Nagy’s offense.
“When you have a running back that doesn’t excel at running routes and creating mismatches on the perimeter in the passing game, it makes you predictable,” Bears player personnel director Josh Lucas said in June. “One of the reasons we moved on from Jordan.
The Bears got little back when they dealt him to the Eagles in March: a sixth-round 2020 pick that could improve to a fifth-rounder. They believe their two new running backs — third-round pick David Montgomery and signee Mike Davis — can fare better than Howard.
The Bears will search for the right timeshare in the preseason. Tarik Cohen will continue to be the Bears’ dynamic, do-everything weapon. Nagy and Pace praised Davis’ offseason work, but the well-rounded Montgomery is the likely favorite to lead the team in rushes.
“It’s hard to always predict the number of carries in this offense by a running back,” Nagy said. “Who knows? Maybe one guy is hot and he gets 20 carries in this offense. It really hasn’t happened yet, but it can happen.”
My theory: Montgomery is going to be the horse running back in this offense by October.
One of the most surprising developments in my Bears news consumption over the years has been how little time I spend with anything coming out of the Tribune. But this excellent piece from Tim Bannon deserves your attention. It’s just…amazing. Here’s the first few paragraphs of the article.
George Halas was late.
The 20-year-old had a summer job with Western Electric, and on Saturday, July 24, 1915, he planned to join his coworkers aboard the SS Eastland to cross Lake Michigan for the telephone company’s picnic in Michigan City, Ind.
But by the time Halas reached the Chicago River dock, the Eastland was overturned.
Roughly 2,500 employees and their families had boarded the ship, and at 7:25 a.m. it began listing and swaying from side to side.
A large crowd of horrified spectators watched as the Eastland — a few feet from the bank of the Chicago River between LaSalle Drive and Clark Street — turned on its side. It was in 20 feet of water, deep enough to drown 844 people trapped or trampled below decks.
It is the deadliest day ever in Chicago and the greatest peacetime inland waterways disaster in American history.
In his quarterback tiers story, @SandoNFL got more favorable reviews than Mitch Trubisky’s ranking would suggest. A must-read for NFL fans, see how the QBs are ranked with insight from 55 coaches and execs https://t.co/trcQxP6fYn pic.twitter.com/RJ0uDUc57u
— Kevin Fishbain (@kfishbain) July 22, 2019
On this short pod, Jeff discusses why this training camp opening is different from all over training camp openings.
The best place kicker in movie history?
I. A Tweet from Data.
I found that the average K finished 13th in the NFL in FG % in the Super Bowl season. 6 top 10, 8 11-19, 6 20th or worse.
So it turns out you can win a Super Bowl without a great kicker. But he can’t be too terrible; worst was 23rd in field goal percentage.
— Johnathan Wood (@Johnathan_Wood1) July 17, 2019
Data did a nice thread on Super Bowl kickers and this Tweet was the basic summation.
I agree with his basic conceit that the Bears don’t need a great kicker over the duration of the NFL season to have a great NFL season. But how many times do we need to see kickers make SIGNIFICANT kicks in the postseason to understand that this position makes and breaks postseason runs almost every season. I’m not questioning whether the Bears can win ten games with one of these kids kicking their field goals. They can. I’m questioning whether they can win a title. And that’s the goal now.
II. A Comment from the Comments
From “That Guy”:
We gave @ChicagoBears head coach Matt Nagy the Statcast treatment for his first pitch at Wrigley! ⚾️
🔥🔥🔥: https://t.co/ewSoAyZNHs pic.twitter.com/RHhekVs4Ls
— Cubs Talk (@NBCSCubs) July 17, 2019
When one peruses NFL.com for statistical information regarding the only two kickers on the current Bears roster – Eddy Pineiro and Elliot Fry – one is met with a disconcerting sentence:
And so sums up the kicker situation for the 2019 edition of the Bears. Maybe one of these two kids will be the next great kicker in Chicago. Maybe both will completely flame out over the summer. You don’t know. I don’t know. The Bears don’t know. And therein lies the problem. The Bears are heading into this campaign with their most talented roster in a few generations, as genuine contenders to win the Super Bowl, and they’re doing so with a significant liability at this critical position.
The scary part of this process is the Bears could potentially not find out if the kicker position will cripple them until opening night against the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field. Camp success is by no means a precursor to season success, no matter how many gimmicks Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace create around the competition. And even if Pineiro and Fry are both perfect through the summer’s fake games, a crucial miss late in that Thursday nighter will make them THE story on Friday morning.
Imagine making the bold move on draft night to get up one spot for the quarterback you covet. And imagine making the franchise-altering trade to acquire one of the game’s best defenders. Now imagine doing those things and risking everything by only having on your roster two kickers, neither of whom has ever ATTEMPTED a field goal in the NFL. To quote Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, “Sounds crazy, no?”
It is crazy. It is also negligent. NFL teams are far too close talent-wise these days and we consistently see playoff games decided by a kick here or kick there. The 2019 Bears are going to be a good team, no matter who is kicking the football. But they won’t be a championship team if Fry or Pineiro doesn’t emerge as a better-than-average option at this pivotal position. And there’s no evidence to suggest they will…or they won’t.
With special thanks to Gatorade, Eddie Jackson joins the podcast. In a great interview, Eddie discusses changing from Vic Fangio to Chuck Pagano, how they are gunning for the ’85 Bears, the rookie he’s most impressed with so far, and just how close was he to playing against the Eagles?
