chw42

Will...this is over managing. Gilbert is not good. Just let the kid try to close this out.

This has always been the thing with Caleb. He'll wow you a few times a game and make throws 95% of QBs can't, but then he'll throw it to grass a few times and confuse the hell out of you. The inconsistency is too much.

Yeah it was bad. I watched the Tim Jenkins breakdown and he's probably one of the more positive guys who does QB breakdowns. He was pissed at how bad some of the turn downs were from Caleb. There were at least 5 instances where Caleb had a guy wide open and either turned it down or decided to check down too quickly. So on top of the missed throws to the reads he did make last night, he also left a ton of yards out on the field. That being said, the interior offensive line has to play better. The Vikings consistently pushed Dalman and Jackson back into the pocket. And they let stunts up the middle get immediate pressure on him multiple times. It just magnifies Caleb's problems with playing in the pocket. He had his arm hit so many times on follow throughs because he couldn't really step into throws with how little room there was. Ultimately he's gotta hit the layup throws he missed, but I can see why he feels jittery in the pocket.

The positive is that Ben Johnson schemed a ton of guys open. The drive where nobody was open was actually the first drive of the game weirdly enough. But Johnson constantly got guys wide ass open. Caleb either missed them or didn't see them half the time.

Yeah you're probably not getting that overturned when there's no hard evidence he wasn't down by contact.

PFF Was surprisingly generous to Caleb. 2nd highest graded player on the team and a 67 passing grade. Just watching some of the all 22 so far (I'm on the 2nd drive) and he's already missed 2 wide open guys. Those are probably no grades in PFF's grading system since he checked it down, but it's a huge missed opportunity.

I thought he was contacted prior to the punch. Any part of their body even grazes him while his knee is down and he's considered down by contact.

The phantom holding on Wright where the Minnesota player just slipped started all of it. The Bears got a first down on that play and would have been on the 10 while actually running the ball well. So many things went wrong besides that though. We spent $50 million on 3 interior linemen and we still can't run the ball effectively. Jonah Jackson is trash. The Rams were going to cut him and Poles decided to actually trade draft compensation for him and then extended him. Caleb, while holding onto the ball too long, still had pressure up the middle too many times. Caleb still can't play within structure. I'm sure the all 22 will tell it better, but there were so many times where he'd just bail after standing 3 seconds in the pocket. You can't blame Waldron for drawing up s%*# plays, because Johnson got guys open. Caleb missed them too, way too many times. The inaccuracy issues weren't just on deep balls today, they happened on short and intermediate throws. Not being able to hit Rome on a WR screen. Missing a wide open DJ Moore on 4th and 2 up the middle. Missing a wide open Kmet up the middle. Not to mention the wide open TD to Moore that he missed right before the 2 minute warning. His accuracy was poor. Then the WTF plays from last year showed up. The 3rd and long throw where he threw it near Rome, but it was really to grass. His ability to improvise is nice and we saw that in the first drive, but he needs to do it cause he seemingly can't read the defense. It's really disappointing because the struggles last year really seemed like it was a coaching staff issue. But you bring in a guy who ran the best offense in the NFL last year in Detroit and the same problems persist. The most glaring one is the inaccuracy. I can understand not being acclimated to a new offense immediately, but when you're missing the open throws, that's not excusable. I'm willing to give him more time because like it or not, we're stuck with Caleb for another 2 years. You gotta make it work and it takes time, but a lot of the issues he has don't seem like they're easily fixable. Johnson was also disappointing. The decision to not kick on 4th and 2 in comfortable field goal range in the first half while up 4. It's the first half dude, you don't need to play for 7 all the time. Take the points. This offense isn't the 2024 Detroit Lions. The challenge on the non-fumble was just head scratching. Who's telling him to challenge that? You can see he was down in real-time. Who on the staff saw the replay and said, "yeah let's waste a time out on that"? In the end, that timeout ended up mattering. I don't think they would have won if they had it, but I sure would have liked to see 50 seconds on that last drive instead of 10. Lastly, you should know Cairo Santos has no leg strength. If he can't kick the ball out of the end zone, tell him to kick it out of bounds. 35 yard line vs. 40 yard line, who cares? It's 5 yards. I'd take the 40 seconds every time. Santos is a whole other issue, but it just goes to show that Poles doesn't have his priorities straight when our kicker can't make it from 50 on a consistent basis. Meanwhile Reichard kicked a 59 yarder like it was nothing. That matters in close games.

If Thorpe doesn't come back and become at least a back of the rotation starter, we basically just gave Cease away for free. Iriarte has been awful. Zavala has no pop. Wilson is whatever.

Hinch not real confident in his offense I guess.

I swore that was a GIDP off the bat. Good thing they were playing the infield in.

Being .500 basically means you're in the wild card race these days. This team right now is a decent bullpen away from having 65 wins (probably a 75 win team over 162). A reliable closer with a few reliable 7th/8th inning arms, a good starter, and a few decent vets and this team is knocking on the door of .500.

6 in a row

Colson Montgomery vs. sliders/cutters/sweepers from right handers: .300/.333/.825 for a .477 wOBA with an ISO of .525. He's also 11th in home runs despite only playing for about 2 months. That is the 8th highest ISO among all hitters with at least 100 of those types of pitches seen. Kyle Teel actually has a higher wOBA than Colson for those pitches, but not anywhere near as much power.

Why did Chase not slide?

You absolutely cannot throw sliders/cutters against Colson in the zone as a righty. He crushes them.

Colson!

Not sure I believe most of what's in there. The Bears gave Williams a ton of responsibility to start the year. If he had no idea what he was doing, they wouldn't have let him call audibles or change the protections. A lot of the stuff just reads as revisionist history. Who in the pre-draft process had Caleb Williams as the worst of the 6 QBs taken in the first round? The only one I saw was some guy who said Spencer Rattler was the best QB in the draft. Is there a chance that Caleb didn't respect the coaching staff last year? Yeah, and it wasn't a Caleb-only issue. Guys like Keenan Allen and DJ Moore were a part of that too. And honestly, the coaching staff deserved no respect after what happened in the Commanders game. Eberflus was a bad head coach who commanded no respect and definitely didn't deserve any at the end of his tenure.

I still hate the Twins for what they did to us in the 2000s.

Hard to believe we've never had a 4 game sweep against the Twins on the road.

He looked like Ken Griffey Jr after the HR swing.

Yeah, which kinda makes their bullpen woes look worse cause they have more leads to blow.

The catchers are having a hell of a game.

Taj Bradley finally went over his scouting reports in his last start. Maybe he won't suck so much now.

We actually have a shot at 60 wins.