Ten-ish Thoughts on the NFL and the Chicago Bears

1.) I will admit it - I didn’t think the Saints had much of a chance before that game. With no Brees, Teddy Bridgewater played well, but Alvin Kamara became the wind beneath their wings. The third year back put up 151 all purpose yards with 2 TDs, and the Saints won a game that was a lot closer than the scoreboard suggests. It’s still difficult to go to Seattle and get the W, but if that’s the kind of play they’ll get there should be no worries for the Saints until Brees is ready to go.

2.) The New York Football Giants had me very jealous on Sunday afternoon. Daniel Jones was balling out with four touchdowns (two passing, two rushing). Down 28-10 at the half, they made the comeback despite losing Saquon. Lester said last week that they should go to Jones, and Jones made him look right for at least one week.

And how about Shaquil Barrett for Tampa? 8 sacks in 3 games - that’s just fantastic stuff. He should find his way to a good team.

3.) Speaking of young quarterbacks, I thought Josh Rosen actually flashed a lot of promise for the Dolphins yesterday, but the rest of the team seemed determined to keep him from succeeding. I have a friend of 25 years who is a big Dolphins fan, and even he can really only just shrug at this point.

4.) One more thing about young quarterbacks. Kyle Allen showed flashes of being the guy who will replace Cam Newton, maybe permanently. Mason Rudolph made the Steelers hope that Ben’s elbow is ready to go in 2020.

Seriously though, this was Rudolph:

As bad as Mitchell Trubisky has the capacity to be, I mean, holy cow. That’s some next level badness. Not great when you’re being compared to the lowest of the low.

5.) Antonio Brown is a free agent who self-reports that he will never be in the NFL again and has also apparently returned to school. So, that’s cool, I guess. One of the classes is Intro to Management, which is probably the one where they tell you not to jeopardize multi-million dollar contracts with your own stupidity.

6.) Jalen Ramsey seems to have fallen ill with a case of “I want to be traded and I don’t want to practice so I’ma stay home and play Madden and it won’t matter because you still have to play/pay me”-itis

7.) This is maybe one of the dumbest plays I saw this week:

A 4th & 9 draw play? I get not wanting to punt it there, but I don’t get calling that play. I crunched the numbers and I give this play a negative chance of succeeding. Specifically it’s a -32% chance.

8.) The Bears continue to insist on making things harder for themselves than they need to. After rolling out to a 28-0 lead against Washington on the road, they let them back into the game, and made it much more easy than it needed to be. Trubisky felt like he found a groove for a while, but a third quarter interception seemed to shake the team’s ability. For whatever reason they can’t put together a well-balanced offense, with the running game struggling on a night when the passing game was working pretty well at points. Losing Gabriel to a concussion was bad too.

9.) Seriously, though, you don’t have up the gut running backs. Running inside the tackles isn’t their strong suit. Maybe try something else - especially when you’re in the fourth quarter and trying to run clock down. Also, in the fourth quarter, stop throwing it to Cohen 30 yards downfield.

10.) Speaking of Cohen, he’s been disappointing so far this year. They can’t seem to figure out how to get him worked into the game plan in an effective way.

11.) This defense, though. It’s not their fault the offense spent the second half of the game crapping the bed. It is not their fault that Pagano tried to pull a classic Fangio and and let a mediocre quarterback do whatever he wants for two quarters.

It is their fault that Case Keenum had a very bad day.

12.) Eddy missed a kick. Panic will ensue.

Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images

13.) Friggin’ Packers.