DaBearsBlog on the Radio! [AUDIO]
Last year’s column saw my predictions ONCE AGAIN surpass the 50% mark though down slightly from the previous year’s 67%. But as my daddy always said, “If you’re right half the time, that’s better than being wrong a bunch.”
Here are 50 prognostications and thoughts for the 2014 NFL season. Every team gets their moment. The Bears get more.
1. If Jay Cutler stays healthy he’ll throw for 4,000 yards but come up short of his career high 4,526.
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2. In a deliciously dramatic moment, Devin Hester will break the all-time return record not against the Chicago Bears but against his former head coach Lovie Smith on week four’s Thursday Night Football installment.
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3. If the Broncos beat Seattle the third week of the season I give them a more than plausible chance to go undefeated. The offense is a machine. The defense is going to be terrific.
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4. Bears tied the Jacksonville Jaguars for fewest sacks in football last year with 31. (Carolina had 60 last year. That is DOUBLE!) This year they move to mid-table and finish the season with 45.
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5. Kelvin Benjamin will win offensive ROY because of this depth chart:
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6. I completely agree with Brandon Marshall’s assessment on Jay Cutler. If he stays healthy he is going to have an MVP-type season this year. But there is no way the writers will give Cutler the MVP. None.
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7. Never rent an apartment from a guy calling himself Tom Benson! From Scambook:
The so called Tom Benson claims to be the doorman of an apartment complex that is situated just across from the Crowne Plaza. He mentions that he is the doorman and that the owners are away for vacation but that they rent the home. He then goes on to send you pictures and says that he will even offer a free airport shuttle. This is an illegitimate offer and the Department of Homeland Security has already investigated this crime. I sent out a money transfer, only to then quickly cancel. I was lucky and I hope that this helps other people as well.
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8. Sammy Watkins (and all NFL fans) will wake up midseason and wonder aloud, “Why did he have to end up in Buffalo?” Bills will be forced to get Watkins the ball on bubble screens and underneath when they realize EJ is both afraid and unable to get him the ball over the top.
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9. Every season a team goes from worst to first they tell me. This season that will not happen. I repeat: this season that will not take place.
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10. Tampa Bay will have them some…
I am heading away into the mountains of Colorado for the next 5 days. Reverend Dave does not return from Malaria Malawi until the end of my trip. Being that we are less than a week or so away from DaBearsBlog becoming my full-time job, I figured why not give my brain the rest for the week. But that means I need a writer.
Enter Andrew Dannehy. I’ve conversed and debated with Andrew on Twitter for about a year now and while I don’t always agree with his opinions, I respect them. He is a diligent collector of information and passionate defender of his beliefs. I believe he will be an asset to this site and hope the following week won’t be his only contributions moving forward.
From Monday to Friday of this week, this site will be run by someone not me for the very first time. I may come back from Colorado and say never again. Or…I may not.
Be nice, people. My next column will post on Monday, August 25th. It will be my 50 predictions for the 2014 season column. I will still be somewhat active on Twitter.
Here are some thoughts on last night’s “game”.
There’s only one more week of survival remaining for the Chicago Bears roster. One more injury-less week and the preseason will be considered a success, having only lost last year’s seventh-round pick Marquess Wilson to an injury of significance. One more week.
Four positions to focus on tonight.
Marc Trestman’s decision to move Jimmy Clausen into the backup role tonight means the organization has decide whom they’d like to win the spot. Both Trest and Emery have made no attempt to hide their excitement over Clausen since he auditioned for them a few months ago.
A few thoughts on this:
I’ve argued for months the Bears lack of depth at the wide receiver position is playing with fire and they’ve gone from relying upon an unproven 7th round draft pick who produced a whopping 2 catches a year ago to a collection of journeymen.
With Chris Williams feeling more like a speed specialist, Josh Morgan has an opportunity over the next three weeks to assume this role and his track record in the league would lead most to believe the job belongs to him.
According to Jim Miller on the preseason opener, three wides is the most utilized offensive formation in the NFL. He also said that night Jordan Lynch played Division III college football. So he could be very wrong.
The 2013 Chicago Bears season came to a fittingly sad conclusion.
Chris Conte, one of the emerging stars of the previous campaign who seemed to have not only lost his way in the secondary but his confidence as well, missed an assignment. The physical side of the game had let him down all season long. Now the mental side was delivering a final, crippling blow. Peppers leaps. Kuhn blocks. Rodgers scrambles. Cobb scores. The culprit was Conte. Not only had he, in that moment, become the poster child for this devastating loss. That wasn’t enough to pour onto the slumping shoulders of a beleaguered safety. No, in that moment, Conte became the symbol of the entire season’s defensive futility.
Shots were fired at Conte from every discernible angle. Once news of an off-season surgery surfaced many, myself included, wrote off Conte’s potential future with the Chicago Bears. When Marc Silverman of ESPN Radio bet Tom Waddle Conte would not play a down for the Bears this season, Conte met that challenge with a Twittery terrific, “fuck u all.”
(1) I’d like to see the Bears interchange Eric Weems and Josh Morgan on the first team offense this week. (I had forgotten about Morgan’s most boneheaded moment in Washington until I did a bit of searching.)
(2) I’d like to see Chris Williams rebound quickly from his hamstring pull but I fear that won’t be the case. Hamstring injuries and speed receivers can be a dicey proposition but his skill set is a perfect complement to Bears star receivers.
(3) I’d like to see Jordan Palmer and Jimmy Clausen given a shot with the first-team talent. How much can we really learn from these two quarterbacks dodging defenders behind the second offensive line and throwing passes to Michael Spurlock? History tells us the Bears will need their backup quarterback at some point during the regular season. It would be good to know which is most comfortable with skill players.
NFL sold me their Preseason Live package. They might as well have sold me the Brooklyn Bridge. Most of the night the program failed to load. When the program loaded it was awful. I shall keep you up to date on the battle I began with folks at the league last night. Apparently I’m not alone.
A few thoughts…
I posed a simple question to DaBearsBlog’s followers on the Tweet machine. What do you, as a Bears fan, hope to see during Bears 1st preseason game tomorrow night?
My favorite answer came from @sjaskovi:
I hope to see none of the starters.
But while I have begun notorious for my preseason cynicism I will admit the Bears do need to see SOMETHING over the course of this preseason.
(1) They need to see a backup quarterback emerge from the Jordan Palmer v Jimmy Clausen competition. Anytime either man is on the field this August I think every Bears fan should be paying awfully close attention.
(2) They need to see the ball long-snapped to their punter and holder accurately. This is the only “starter” I want to see in all four preseason games.
I disagree with the assessment that anything happening defensive tonight has any relevance but here are some more responses I liked.
Presented live!
Way Bears are expertly handling Martellus Bennett is why I thought troubled player like Will Hill would have found perfect home in Chicago.
Emery/Trestman exude authority, project confidence and lead with genuine compassion. Rare in sports.
