These have become must-watch analysis, as O’Sullivan does a wonderful job.

Luke Getsy on trying Teven Jenkins at right guard: “The guards get stressed mentally more than the tackles in this system…that’s the strength of his game…we want to try that and see what that looks like.”

— Courtney Cronin (@CourtneyRCronin) August 15, 2022

Michael Schofield is another body, a perfect swing guard for this roster.

Teven Jenkins is an offensive lineman with first-round talent. This move likely would have been made a week ago if Jenkins were able to practice. Jenkins has the athleticism to play guard in this offense and 2022 will be better served seeing if he can adapt to that role, as opposed to sticking with a 31-year-old journeyman.

The NFL said that this field met minimum testing standards. We clearly need to re-evaluate what is an acceptable surface for players to compete on. We need new testing metrics looking at the performance and safety of every field. The NFL can and should do better. pic.twitter.com/Vh1NDgLQBk

— JC Tretter (@JCTretter) August 13, 2022

Read the above tweet and understand two things.

One. J.C. Tretter is the current President of the NFLPA, the National Football League Players Association.

Two. The union did nothing to prohibit the playing of Saturday afternoon’s contest at Soldier Field.

This begs a simple question: what is the point of the NFLPA?

You can scavenge the internet and read plenty about the origin of trade unions. Most think the concept was conceived in 18th century Britain, as industry became concentrated in the cities, drawing the multitudes to work. Tailors went on strike in New York City in 1768 and in Philadelphia, the shoemakers established the first sustained union in America in 1794. These organizations were forged to protect two essentials: wages and working conditions.

When it comes to wages, the NFLPA has been relatively useless. They’ve allowed the second most lucrative sports league in the world to institute a hard salary cap. They collectively bargained the franchise tag, the most owner-friendly contract quirk in modern sports, which has an approval rating among the membership south of 0%. And, most absurdly, the NFL remains the only major sports league without guaranteed contracts for its players. From Dom Consentino at The Score:

There are some longstanding structural barriers that have prevented guaranteed contracts from becoming more common in the NFL. But contrary to popular belief, there is nothing to prevent a player or player’s agent from negotiating a contract that is fully guaranteed. In fact, that’s exactly how such deals became the norm for players in MLB, the NBA, and the NHL. The difference is that years ago, a variety of competitive circumstances provided players in those leagues with a strong enough bargaining position to establish contract guarantees as standard in ways that never happened in the NFL.

As Roger Noll, an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University, told me: “Guaranteed contracts were created by competitive necessity.”

Noll’s point is well taken but incomplete. Guaranteed contracts were also created by bold leadership.

As for working conditions, the NFLPA has been slightly better. They excommunicated two-a-days from the football lexicon and basically eliminated practice contact. But they did nothing to prevent the proliferation of the Thursday Night Football schedule – a clear health risk for the membership – and did less than nothing to prevent the increase to a 17th game, something no one in the football world, aside from owners, wanted.

And then, Saturday happened.

Andy Reid compared the turf to his high school field. Cairo Santos complained about the “sandy” conditions. (Sandy? Fucking SANDY????) Everyone knew, hours before kickoff, the football pitch was unfit for professional use. And yet, the game wasn’t canceled. Fan money wasn’t refunded. The players all jumped onto the grass and risked their ACLs, with only a mildly concerned tweet emanating from the top of their union.

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This is not photoshop. This is what the field actually looks like today. pic.twitter.com/NCtRAJxYWK

— Jason Lieser (@JasonLieser) August 13, 2022

Let’s start in the only appropriate place: the disgrace that was the Soldier Field pitch. It is unacceptable. It is an embarrassment. And both coaches were crazy to put their players out there. But they did. So, I watched. Now, you read.

Quarter One.

• Trestan Ebner is a solid kickoff return man; north to south runner who will not make mental errors. Ebner back on both early kickoffs seems to signal it’ll be his job.
• Braxton Jones had a very strong first few drives, holding up in protecting and sealing the outside on a nice Khalil Herbert run. Jones has a chance to be a real bright spot in a potentially dark season.
• Defensively, it’s difficult to know what this team will look like with that many starters not on the field. But Al-Quadin Muhammad paid off what’s been a very strong start to camp, getting to the QB multiple times.
• Dazz Newsome got the first punt return opportunity and capitalized by fumbling it and then losing thirteen yards. Probably not the start he was looking for.

Quarter Two.

• Trenton Gill’s punt off the opening drive of the quarter was a beauty. Gill was one of the players I was interested in seeing in game action and he didn’t disappoint. (He had another punt later that deserved a better outcome.)
• Dante Pettis is given the second punt return. Have to believe the plan wasn’t for Dazz to only get one attempt. Not good for the kid.
• Jaquan Brisker bossed the game a bit against the second (third?) string Chiefs. That’s exactly what he should do.
• Tajae Sharpe is going to be that guy, isn’t he? Follow social media. Fans will be calling for him to start by the end of the day today.

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The official DBB talking points when it comes to the preseason are well established. These games are glorified practice sessions. The “schemes” are vanilla. The intensity is non-existent. The value is nil. But the 2022 Chicago Bears find themselves in an interesting place as they begin their preseason calendar tomorrow. Here are a few things worth looking at as the Chiefs come to Soldier Field.

• Braxton Jones. The new regime is not repeating the mistakes of the previous one. They have spent the early days of camp trying to firmly establish a starting five across the offensive line. That line looks to be Jones-Whitehair-Patrick (Mustipher backing up)-Schofield-Reiff. But with young tackles waiting in the wings (Borom, Jenkins) Jones can ill afford to lose the confidence of his coaches, or quarterback, in the weeks leading up to the regular season. The job is his to win. A few stable efforts in these practice games should achieve that.
• Darnell Mooney’s Reps. Calling the Bears thin at wide receiver would be a massive understatement. They have Mooney, a rookie with significant potential (and speed) and a bunch of fourth options. Oh, and most of the fourth options are dealing with injuries. Any significant injury to Mooney would relegate this position group to worst in the league status. And not just worst WR group. Worst position group, period. Flus and Getsy are playing with fire if Mooney has pads on tomorrow.
• The Opening Drive on Offense. Doesn’t it just feel like this group could use some points to start things off? They don’t need a touchdown, even, just a nice 30/40-yard drive and an easy field goal. Get some first downs. Develop some rhythm. Don’t get the quarterback hit. Something. A start.

Coach Flus has said the starters will receive substantial playing time tomorrow. So, as always, the most important part of this ball game is the Bears coming out of it as healthy as they go into it. With the season still a month away, it would be difficult to argue for the importance of much else.

Thought #Bears QB Justin Fields had his best day today in terms of decision-making and getting rid of the ball quickly. Progress is evident.

— Larry Mayer (@LarryMayer) August 10, 2022

If Ryan Poles has made one thing clear during his short time as the general manager of the Chicago Bears, it’s that he never wants to spend more than he thinks a player is worth. But, when it comes to Roquan Smith, getting him signed should be a no-brainer.

Smith is the best player on the Bears roster, without question. He is also unquestionably one of the five best linebackers  in the entire league and a perfect fit for what the head coach Poles hired wants to do.

It is hard to see where the disconnect is. Good players cost money and Smith is a really, really good player.

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No practice for the Bears on Monday. So here are some things I wasted time reading on Monday.

• The Jahns and Fishbain practice report at The Athletic seems to suggest an order is forming along the offensive line and that order has Braxton Jones at left tackle and Riley Reiff at right tackle. If Braxton ultimately wins the job, and is on the blindside come opening day, he immediately becomes one of the two or three most interesting players on this roster in 2022.
• It feels like the drama surrounding Teven Jenkins has come to an end and the focus will now be back on the field. (Courtney Cronin details the whole ordeal here.) If Braxton is one of the most interesting players heading into this regular season, Teven is THE most interesting of the preseason. When will get into these games? Where will Getsy and Morgan play him? How will he respond?
• Unsung Tweet from Brad Biggs: “#Bears DC Alan Williams praises LB Joe Thomas – saying he is leading that group in takeaways. He has a shot to compete for strong side job and has been a previous core special teams player in the league.”
• With N’Keal Harry’s comeback derailed by what looks like a serious injury, I wanted to read more about the kid. Sometimes we fixate on the football player without paying any respect to the human being. Harry seems a very, very good young man. From a blog post by Bernd Buchmasser in 2019: “[I want to] give back in any way that I can,” Harry said during the photo op and Q&A session inside Gillette Stadium yesterday. “Definitely help my family, help some people on the island. I feel like with this platform I’ve been given, it’s my duty to do something good with it. God has blessed me to be in this position. So it would be a disservice if I didn’t give back and if I didn’t show appreciation, so that’s my biggest goal.”
• Somehow, I missed the report that Nicholas Morrow, and not Roquan Smith, would be the signal caller in the new defense, as that duty is exclusively handled by the middle linebacker. (Somehow = I didn’t look.) Patrick Finley in the Sun-Times wrote about this about a week ago. From the piece: “That’s a pretty standard thing, I think,’’ Morrow said. ‘‘I think the biggest thing is making sure we’re all on the same page and we’re over-communicating. Sometimes you get those young guys in there, and there are certain calls where it’s gotta be communicated consistently. Just getting that together is probably bigger than the calls, I think.’’
• ACTUAL BEAR NEWS: “Danvers residents are being asked to take precautions after a bear was spotted in the Massachusetts town on Sunday. A Danvers resident shared video from her Ring video camera that showed a black bear roaming across her driveway Sunday morning. The bear ended up scaling a short stone wall before moseying along.”
• Per Alex Shapiro at NBC Sports, the Bears coaching staff thought they’d get pushback for their H.I.T.S. program. But that hasn’t happened. “…the team’s response to Eberflus’ demanding philosophy got its challenge over the weekend, when the team was put through two long padded practices, with plenty of running around, in the hot sun. Cole Kmet said it was the toughest practice of his life. Khalil Herbert said players were “laid out” in the locker room afterwards. Yet, by all accounts, the players gritted through it.”

I wish people would go back and look at what the “camp stories” were in years past and notice how none of them correlate to anything that subsequently happens in the regular season.

• Teven Jenkins said, “I want to be here in Chicago, so I’m playing wherever they want me to play.” This is absolutely the best-case scenario for the team. Jenkins is talented and the Bears don’t have a ton of talent along their offensive line.
• Liked this Tweet from Kevin Fishbain: “Bears OC Luke Getsy on rookie LT Braxton Jones: “You get into the pads and there was zero intimidation. Going against Robert Quinn your very first one-on-one pass rush, right? It’s an intimidating thing. He stepped up and did a great job. He’s answered the bell.” If the Bears are going with their best five up front, Braxton will be in that group.
• Injuries to N’Keal Harry and Byron Pringle. Not good. The Harry injury sounds somewhat serious. (I think it was unlikely Harry was going to play a significant role in 2022 anyway but he at least provided something to watch in the practice games upcoming.)

Thoughts on “Man Caves”

I don’t get ’em. Never have.

The way I understand the man cave is you take a room of your house, usually in the basement, put a bunch of televisions in there, cover the walls with your memorabilia, and that’s where you go watch sports.

My first question is, why is this necessary? Why can’t you just watch sports on the same television you watch Turner Classic Movies? And what happens to the room when sports are not on? Is it the room empty? Isn’t that a massive waste of space?

But my other problem might be that I don’t have any memorabilia. I find memorabilia, quite honestly, stupid. Other than the original Super Bowl Shuffle album and my childhood Jim McMahon shirt, every other thing I have with Chicago Bears on it was given to me. I couldn’t fill the shelf in a linen closet with memorabilia, let alone a cave.

If you have to create a space in your house to get away from other people and just watch sports, why not just go to a sports bar? At least then you have someone else serving you the beer and food and there’s no clean up. Hell, you might even meet another likeminded human being and strike up one of those friendships people keep talking about.

Even the word “cave” denotes the neanderthal, man at his most primitive, reducing the (male) sports fan to his most base self. I must have own room to yell about football. Woman, you stay upstairs! One of the things I have cherished about my years at Josie Woods with Maciej, Reverend Dave, Steph, etc. is the conversations in the commercial breaks about soccer, politics, food, movies, whatever. If I ever had a “cave” in my apartment, I’d use the massive television to screen The Umbrellas of Cherbourg for my friends.