Week 18: Saturday NFL Open Thread
Monday, on Twitter, I posted two polls, attempting to discern what fans were looking for in return for the first pick of the draft. The results were interesting.
Poll #1.
Would you like this trade?
Bears send Carolina the first pick.
Bears get pick 9, Carolina’s first rounder next year, and DJ Moore.
— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) January 16, 2023
Poll #2.
Okay, take two.
Would you like this trade?
Bears send Carolina the first pick.
From Carolina, Bears get pick 9, the second rounder they acquired from SF in McCaffrey trade, first rounder next year, and DJ Moore.
— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) January 16, 2023
Today I want to open the discussion up to the comments section below. Open your comment with TRADE ALERT and write, in detail, a trade for the first pick you’d be content to see. (I’m going to skip by all posts that don’t open with those two words IN CAPS.) We’ll take the best ones and use them in a larger post early next week.
Why do I Like the Chicago Bears this Week?
I.
Always.
Like.
THE.
Chicago.
Bears.
With Justin Fields, who accounts for about 90% of the offense, not playing, and Nathan Peterman, one of the worst starting quarterbacks in modern NFL history, playing, the Vikings will have their starters on the bench by early third quarter.
Vikings 33, Bears 9
Houston is simply playing better football, week in and week out. And while folks will argue they have no impetus to win this game and fall out of the first pick, the Deshaun Watson trade gave them more than enough ammunition to ensure they come out of the 2023 draft with whomever they deem their top prospect.
Texans 19, Colts 13
And with this prediction, the Chicago Bears will secure the first pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Week 9 was one of the strangest in league history but two things struck a note of predictability: the Falcons couldn’t hold a lead and the Cowboys couldn’t win a big game.
Atlanta is figuring out their offense without Calvin Ridley, and it involves a heap load of “tight end” Kyle Pitts. (Side note: what makes Pitts a tight end? Because it sure isn’t the position he plays when on a football field.) This season’s offensive revelation has been Cordarrelle Patterson and the Cowboys don’t have an answer for him in the passing game.
Dallas is desperate. And home. These weapons aren’t being held down two weeks in a row. This feels like a game where both teams could get into the thirties.
There seems to be a general belief that at some point the Titans have to lose. But Mike Vrabel’s team had the most impressive win of the season Sunday night in Los Angeles; without their best player; on the back of their defense; against perhaps the league’s best team (before Sunday). Tennessee’s schedule down the stretch is a pathway to the number one seed. Sure seems like that is the direction in which they’re headed.
And while Sean Payton is one of the best coaches in the league, he’s now playing with third stringers at QB. (He opened the season with a backup playing the position.) Eventually, that car runs off the road. They lost last week and three of their next four are against the Titans, Bills and Cowboys.
Colts point totals since October 3rd: 27, 25, 31, 30, 34, 45.
Average: 32.
Jaguars point totals since October 10th: 19, 23, 7, 9.
Average: 14.5.
Colts 32, Jaguars 15.
This three-game parlay goes off at +581 so $100 bet will win you $681.38.
You hear coaches saying it, and it is so true: except for the occasional turnover, defenses don’t stop offenses late in these games anymore. Offense wins almost all the time.
— Mike Francesa (@MikeFrancesa) November 23, 2020
(1) Colts came into the week as the league’s top-ranked defense. Chiefs came into the week as the favorite to win the Super Bowl. Both teams allowed 31 points. Both teams won. The above Tweet from Mike Francesa mirrors something Gil Brandt Tweeted not so long ago and something I’ve been harping on this season. The days of building a team around the defense are over. You have to build a team that can score seven points with a minute remaining. Explosive players. Speed. Oh and someone who can accurately throw the football to explosive players with speed.
Monday Night Football’s game between two top 5 defenses should have cemented this idea.
(2) Just marvel at what the Steelers have done. This was a team defined by running the ball and playing defense for fifty years. They still do the latter well, drafting consistently good players on that side of the ball. But they saw how the league was changing and completely shifted their offensive philosophy. And year-after-year they’ve added more weapons, and more speed on the outside. Smith-Schuster. Washington. Diontae. Ray-Ray. Claypool. They’ve adapted to the modern game. And they have the quarterback.
(3) Carson Wentz is broken. His mechanics have gotten shaky. His internal clock is way off. Sometimes he rushes throws because of phantom pressure. Sometimes he holds onto the ball for an eternity. Is it fixable? Probably. But one has to believe Doug Pederson is considering more than just a Jalen Hurts package. Can Hurts possibly be worse than this?
(4) Everyone needs to stop with their anti-NFC East nonsense. We have divisions. You win the division, you get into the tournament. That’s the sport. And for those who don’t know, the NFC East carried the league’s ratings water for about twenty years. This was the best division in the sport for a long, long time. They’re having a down year. But I’m going to seriously enjoy watching this play out. (And I think it may be decided on the field, Week 17, when the Giants and Cowboys meet.)
