Stock up, stock down: Bears-Falcons

Another week, and another frantic late comeback that seemed unlikely. Is anyone else getting sick of the heart-in-your-chest nail biter games? I’m not sure my blood pressure can take it.

But 3-0 is better than the alternative and we’ve had plenty of the alternative the last seven years.

Now the Bears have a new starting quarterback and the questions start; will the offense take off? Will we see less emphasis on running than we have the first three weeks?

All that remains to be seen, but for this week there is plenty to break down.

Stock up

Akiem Hicks - Hicks is back and healthy and fans should be glad to have him. He’s a wrecking ball out there. He registered 1.5 sacks, 1 TFL and 5 QB hits against the Ravens. He looks like where he left off last year and in 2018. The defense needs more of that.

Jimmy Graham - Everyone panned the signing, and I’m not saying he’s having a resurgence or that he’s any where near his peak of seven, eight years ago, but Graham has been quietly good. Maybe the bar was so low before he got here, but let’s be honest, if he ends up with eight or nine touchdown catches, which is actually well below his current pace, I don’t think many will complain about the signing like they were in April.

Allen Robinson - Robinson had a tough week two but bounced back Sunday. There was another questionable catch-turned-interception but I think almost everyone would say this week’s was a way worse call and circumstance. Robinson had 10 catches on 13 targets for 123 yards and a tackle-breaking, elusive touchdown that put the comeback in motion.

Stock down

Mitchell Trubisky - Here it is. The commenters have been begging to see him on the list for two weeks but now is the time. He’s just never taken that next step you hope to see and was done in by another deep miss to a WR and then an interception that was on his inability to read a change in coverage. It’s tough it had to end like this and I don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of Trubisky (Nick Foles doesn’t have a great injury-free record), but his time as a starter has ended. He could just never take that next step.

Robert Quinn - I think that along with Khalil Mack and Akiem Hicks utterly destroying opponents right now, it’s a somewhat minor quibble to have Quinn absent from the big stats. Sometimes it’s how opponents scheme for players or overall game plan, but I noticed that Quinn played more snaps this week (47 percent) but did not show up in the box score. That’s right, no tackles, no QB hits, nothing. Zip, zero. That’s surprising.

Darnell Mooney - This is probably being nitpicky, but it’s hard to come up with three when the team is winning, however, Mooney had just two catches for 19 yards on five targets. It was hard to get involved with the spotty QB play until Nick Foles came in, but it was interesting that he didn’t get many chances against such a generous defense, especially when Foles did get in the game.

Who is on your up and down lists this week? Who did I miss?