January 3, 2025 • 49 mins
The Bears wrap up the 2024 season with a matchup against the Packers on Sunday at Lambeau Field. Shaw Local's Sean Hammond and Michal Dwojak preview the game here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to the show, Local Bears Insider Podcast.
We are back. It's week eighteen. The end is near.
I'm shot him and Shaw, local Bears beat reporter. He's
Michael Dwojek, joining me as he does every Monday and Friday.
This is our last Friday game preview episode. Michael, we've
(00:22):
reached the end Bears Packers this weekend, and maybe for
the first time in a while, it feels pretty weird
for a Bears Packers week. It feels I don't want
to say meaningless, but kind of Yeah, it's funnier, right,
Just I feel like, even like now, we were just
talking about like our plans for the I feel like
everyone's moved on ever since, Like Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Eberfu's kind of got fired, right, I feel like everyone's
kind of known that, you know, we're all looking for
the head coaching starch, who's going to be doing it
and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, I mean,
I'm sure the holiday probably played a little bit of
a role in it too, obviously, but you know, other
after you know that covering that game on Thursday against
the Seahawks, I haven't really cared or tried to care
about the Bears. I just I've just kind of stayed
(01:04):
away from it. Obviously, part of that's just, you know,
just trying to stay away from work with some time off,
but part of it's also just kind of like what
are after that Seahawks game? Just what do you what
are you supposed to say at this point? You know,
what are the players supposed to say? What are we
supposed to say? It's just it's just one of those
things where you kind of feel bad and you're just
kind of like do they need to play on Sunday
or like can they just like take the l or
(01:24):
you know, both teams forfeit or whatever. So, yeah, it's
an interesting situation. It's definitely not one that we thought about.
We thought this week, this final week game, could you know,
determine whether the Bears would be so you know we're
going to be getting into the playoffs. But instead we're
not looking forward to this game at all.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
This was supposed to be a fun, stressful, important week
for the Bears, and obviously they're instead on a head
game losing streak, potentially ending the season with eleven straight.
They've also lost what is it eleven straight against the Packers.
I think so you know it would be I don't
know if Jordan Love's going to play the whole game.
(02:02):
We don't know exactly what the Packers are going to do.
He is going to start there, The Packers can can
finish with either the sixth or the seventh seeds, so
not really that big of a difference, just maybe depending
on who their opponent might be. But really, you know,
it would be a weird way for this losing streak
(02:23):
against the Packers to end if they do sit him
in the second half or something crazy like that. But honestly,
I said this like a week ago, and I still
feel this way, like I don't know if the Bears
could beat the Packers' backups right now, Like it's just
the vibes are that bad, especially on the offensive side.
We didn't do a recap of that Seahawks game, and
I'm going to give you like a five second recap here.
(02:46):
That was trash and I don't ever want to talk
about it again.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That was like, when I've seen so many people talk
about it, that was like, might've been one of the
worst football games I've seen. And I've covered plenty of
high school blowouts and that sort of stuff. But that Yeah,
I mean, no of, but it was bad. There's no
need to talk about it. Really, it doesn't really matter
at this point, but woof, that was that was tough.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That was that was real tough. If you're joining us
here live on YouTube, do us a favor and hit
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Please subscribe. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple after
the fact, leave us a review and keep an eye
on our Twitter pages. We'll let you know when we're
gonna go live. I'm at Shawn Underscore him and he's
at m Joe Jack ninety four. We love joining you
(03:28):
a live here. I see some some thoughts and comments
already in the chat. We can we can hit a
couple of these before we dive into some other stuff.
Rick says, it feels like two seasons have gone by. Yeah,
I kind of get that. Mike Johnson asks, does DJ
reach a thousand yards? I'm gonna pull up where exactly
he is just for reference right now eighty so, I
(03:51):
mean I would lean know.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And has he had a one hundred yard game this year?
He has? Did he have one ear?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
He's had two? He had one hundred and five ins Carolina.
He had one hundred and six against Minnesota in the
first overtime game against Minnesota. It's doable, It's possible. We've
seen him have some big games. I don't know, it's
gonna be cold in Green Bay. It's not like weatherwise
(04:22):
perfect conditions obviously, and ah Man one hundred, so he
needs one hundred and twenty. Is that? Is that the
math on that you said he's at eighty eight eighty
I lean no, Personally, I don't know. What do you think, Michael?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I feel like it says a lot about this season.
The fact that I even had to ask if he
had one hundred yard you know, one hundred yard game
this year. I mean, it's just I mean, you're gonna
have He's gonna have a season high against the Packers. Sure.
I mean, maybe there are a bunch of backups on defense,
and maybe they're Caleb is kind of trying to enter
the offseason in a good mode, So maybe it could happen,
(04:56):
but I would like I would probably it feels like
a ninety five the five thing. I'm probably gonna say
ninety five percent chance that's probably not going to happen,
And maybe maybe Caleb just wants to air it out
and just kind of show, like Ben Jonson or whoever,
that you know, this is what you're getting with me
if you come here. And so maybe it could happen,
but I don't give it too much, especially like Marlin mentions,
(05:18):
all they seem to do is just throw screen passes
to DJ. So I don't know how much how he's
going to be able to accumulate one hundred and twenty
yards with just screen passes.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, I was thinking about this last time we were on.
I wanted to pull it up here. In the last
eight games, six of them, his average air yards per
target are six yards zero point nine two point nine.
He had a ten yard average against the Lions. I think,
you know, sometimes you throw one deep ball to a guy,
(05:48):
it really skews this number. Sure, And then a forty
nine ers game he was four point one against the Vikings,
zero point five air yards per target. And then again,
you know, they threw another deep ball to against the Lions.
Pulled that average over ten. Six of those eight games,
we're under ten yards per per attempt. And you're right,
(06:10):
like Marlin's right, they're not throwing him the ball down
the field. For whatever reason, we're seeing him get the
ball and those those screen passes they're lining up in
the backfield. I have a hard time seeing how he
gets to one hundred and twenty yards.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
In this game. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it's likely,
but I don't know. It just I don't know. It's
kind of hard to get a vibe. Well, you know,
we'll talk more about this in the second half, because
I know we want to talk some big pictures stuff
in the first half of this podcast, but it's kind
of hard to get a vibe for what this game
is going to be. Right, Like this team, I don't
(06:43):
I don't want to say that they've given up, because
that's just too harsh of a you know, it's too
harsh of a thing to say about NFL players, like
this is their livelihood. But it just hasn't been there.
It feels like since Ebra Flu's got fired, and it
hasn't really been there since that Commanders Hail Mary loss,
And I feel like it's just hard for me to
kind of believe that all of a sudden in the
final game of the season against Sure, I guess your rivals, Like,
(07:07):
I'm sure that's part of a part of the factor
of it, but all of a sudden in the finale,
like things are gonna look good and things are gonna
be happening. I don't It's kind of hard for me
to believe at this point.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I don't see that happening. And having been in that
locker room yesterday, I mean, for me, like the feeling,
the vibe was like last week of school before summer break,
you know, like the music was loud, and to be fair,
it was a lot of the young guys, a lot
of the practice squad guys, Like you know, I didn't
(07:38):
see like DJ or Keenan or any of those guys,
but like, sure it was. The music was blasting, those
guys were laughing, They're having a good time. It felt
like the last week of school. And obviously when you
lose ten straight, I mean, I think everyone has come
to grips with what this season is. Nobody like like
if you're you can't mopen it forever. I get that,
(07:59):
But at the same time, it didn't feel like it
didn't feel like a foreign and twelve football team yesterday.
And I don't know if it should. I don't know
what it should feel like, but this to me, this
team has moved on. They're ready for the offseason. I
think that's very very clear just from the vibe in
the room, like it's it's time to put all this,
(08:21):
all this crap, all this drama with the flue, the
way everything went down with Waldron and Fluce. These guys
are ready to put all that behind them and move
on to something new. They're ready for a new energy,
I would say, because it's been a long time since
there was a lot of positivity in that in that
locker room, and I think that they're ready for that.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, And I feel like there should be some optimism,
I guess, right, Like obviously, like you, this has been
a terrible season. It didn't go the way you wanted,
but there's there's a little bit of hope, and I
don't I feel like I feel like a lot of
Bears fans that like I talked to or like hear
from or whatever, it's interesting just to kind of see.
I feel like everyone just expects the Bears to make
(09:02):
this hot next hiring, and it's going to be bad already.
Like I feel like everyone is just expecting the worst,
which I mean, I don't I don't blame fans for
feeling that way, because I don't feel like there's been
much that this franchise has given them hopeful for like
the past what twenty years, like ever since they like
they had that blimp year in twenty eighteen, but other
than that, like there's really been no hope, and I
(09:23):
feel like fans are pretty defeated at this point. But
I feel like it would probably it does probably have
that end of school year by because you know that
once Monday happens, the off season starts, you're looking for
your new Heck's head coach, you might be looking for
a new general manager. TBD will talk about that. But
there's a lot of there's an opportunity to move on right,
(09:45):
there's an opportunity to kind of turn the page and
get this thing on the right track. And for the
past month and a half, and honestly for the past
half couple months, just this half season, it's kind of
felt like, when is this season going to end? I'm
kind of done with this? This is so bad?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, no, it absolutely has, and uh we we can
talk about some of that big picture stuff. I did
want to hit on a comment really quick from uh uh,
let's see from Robert. He was he was saying, uh, yeah,
we beat the Packers. You know, obviously the streak ends,
but you're you're hurting your draft pick. That's that's an
interesting point at this point. It's it's it's sad that
(10:22):
we're we're talking draft picks because that's not what we
expected to be talking at the end of this season.
But yeah, the Bears right now are sitting at number nine. Michael,
It's really interesting. There's a lot of there's a lot
of bad football teams this year. There's there's nine teams
with three or four wins right now.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, I was kind of I've been kind of looking
at the you know, overall standings in the draft positioning
over the past couple of weeks just to kind of
see where the Bears are. When I first started looking,
I feel like you don't kind of realize this when
you're kind of just in your Bears world and you're
kind of covering them, and like you see the big
highlights around the league, but there's a lot of bad
football and like this is a a really like it
(10:59):
feels like a media ocre league this year where you're
just kind of having a bunch of you know, a
lot of ten win teams and a bunch of like
three or four win teams, Like it is insane to me.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
It's very boom er bust.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
And the Bears are a game. The Bears are realistically
probably a game and a half away from the number
one overall pick. Again, and imagine saying that, you know,
at the beginning of this season, it's just insane that
this team could potentially be like a game and a
half out of the first overall pick and they're gonna
be choosing probably around nine because of the way the
tie breakers kind of work and those early wins against
(11:30):
the Titans, the Panthers and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, if this was an eighteen game season, they would
definitely still be in play for that worst pick, which
is there's just a lot of bad teams. Yeah, it
does feel very boomer bust. I mean, you look at
the standings a year ago the NFC, you know, the
teams tied for that number one seed had twelve wins,
and this week or this year this season, I mean
there's there's one, two, three, four, five teams already with
(11:56):
thirteen wins this season. It's very boom er bust teams
at the top that are have these great records. You know,
that's gonna be an exciting game between the Vikings and
the Lions on Sunday night. And then you have these teams,
you know, the Patriots, the Titans, the Browns, the Giants
are all sitting at three and thirteen, the Jags, the Panthers,
the Jets, the Raiders, and the Bears are right behind
(12:19):
them at four and twelve. There's a lot of bad
football right there. There's a lot of bad football. But
you know what, maybe that segues into some of our
big picture talk here. We're not gonna have a show
on Monday. We're gonna be up at House Hall doing
end of the year stuff. That's the last time we'll
(12:39):
get to talk to some of these players. So we'll
try to join you guys sometime next week. But Michael,
you know, Ryan Poles has been the talking point these
last couple of weeks. I personally feel like Bears fans
have just run out of people to blame, and so
they're pointing the finger at him because he's the only
guy left. But realistically, I mean, what do you think
is there any chance the Bears move on from Ryan
(13:00):
Holes after this week? Eighteen game.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
See, if you take what Kevin Warren said at face value,
then no, right, like he said at that point, he
could have very easily at that point in that press
conference after they fired Matt Eberflus, he could have said,
we're going to evaluate everything. I'm going to evaluate everything,
like he wanted to make that press conference about himself,
so he could easily said, listen, I'm the team president.
I'm going to evaluate everything with ownership, and then at
(13:25):
the end of the year, we're going to make a
decision on the future of the franchise. And he decided
to say, like, Ryan Poles is the point guy. Well
in a way, obviously it took him a couple of
minutes to get to that point, but he did say
that Ryan Poles is going to spearhead this search and
that he is in charge of football operations. So if
(13:46):
you take Kevin Warren for what he says at face value,
Ryan Poles is going to come back. But I feel
like it just comes to it's an interesting thing at
this point where it's kind of like if you're bringing
in Ben Jonson, Mike Rabel, Joe Brady Cohen, all that
kind of stuff, you have to essentially give Ryan Poles
(14:10):
a contract extension, right, Like, no coach is going to
come here unless they're guaranteed that they're that GM is
going to stick around for you know, as long as
they are, or at least the next couple of years. Right,
And but then you also have the conflict of Ryan
Poles at this point owns two of the franchise's top
two longest losing streaks, right, And obviously with the context
(14:32):
of the first year being it was going to be
a rebuild year, that was never going to be a
win year like that, there's context to that. But if
the Bears lose on on Sunday, they're going to set
the franchise record for most consecutive losses within the season. Obviously,
I know that a couple of years ago I went
to like what fourteen games or thirteen games over a
couple of seasons, But like, it just feels weird then
(14:55):
to kind of give a contract extension to the coach
or to the general manager who has that distinction. Right.
And obviously we've talked about you know, yes he got
Caleb Williams, but other than that, what have you kind
of seen on this on this roster that kind of
has you encouraged. So it's a long way of saying
that I think that he'll stay, and I think that
(15:18):
Kevin Warren is going to keep him. I think the
mccaskey's obviously like or like polls and things that he's
young en up and coming. But it just makes me
a little a chiance scratchy. See, the worst case thing
you can do is not give him a contract extension,
I think, because that just sets you behind the bar.
It's going to continue to do what you need to do,
what you've been doing for so long. But at the
same time, it just feels weird and kind of wrong
(15:40):
to kind of do him a contract extension when other
than trading for Caleb Williams DJ Moore, what have you
kind of shown here has kind of grown into you know, successful,
you know players in the future.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, he's definitely. Look, he's a young GM who has
been learning on the job. You know, I know he
had a lot of good experience in Kansas City, but
you don't really know what that job is like until
you're in it. You know, none of us really know
what that is like because we haven't been in it
in his shoes and yeah, there's gonna be mistakes made.
(16:13):
I'm sure he regrets some of the moves. We don't
have to really go into a Chase Claypool, Nate Davis.
Some of those things just really did not work out.
At the end of the day. This comes down to
whether or not the Bears still believe in him, and
whether or not, you know, the Bears like him, and
I think that they do. I think that that every indication. Obviously,
(16:34):
the mccaskey's hired him, so they clearly like him. This
is gonna come down to what Kevin Warren wants to do. Really,
because they made this deal, they put Kevin Warren in
charge of the the operation, you know, of the football team.
He's making all these decisions. Obviously, that's going to have
to come with with, you know, the blessing of the
McCaskey family. George mccaskey's not gonna gonna give him complete control,
(16:58):
of course, but if Kevin Wore wants to move on,
they probably will. I don't see any reason why they
would do that. I think that they have to see
this thing out with Caleb and with Ryan Poles, you know,
get the right coach in here and see what you
can do like I don't think that you can just
a GM should have have two coaches, you know, obviously, yeah,
(17:20):
you want his first hire to work out, but he
hired the guy within forty eight hours of taking the job.
I think you've got to give him another chance to
really do his own search and just logistically what that
looks like right now. I mean, they've had five weeks
to you know, put together their lists, Kevin Warren and
Ryan Poles to start thinking about where they want to
(17:41):
take this thing. They cannot interview coaches who work for
other teams until after week eighteen, so you know, the
only people that they could have been reaching out to
were college coaches or coaches who were not employed by
a team, such as Bill Belichick. Before he took the
UNC job, Mike Rabel was working for the Browns, so
(18:02):
he wasn't even eligible to be interviewed. I believe that
that contract ran out before week eighteen. I imagined that
was probably planned by Mike Rabel and.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And he's interviewed with the Jets.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
He's interviewing with the Jets today on Friday, So starting Monday,
they can they can request they can request interviews with
with guys who are for other teams that would be
your Ben Johnson's and those coordinators who who you're gonna
really be looking at when you're thinking about the up
and coming coaches. I don't know where Pete Carroll fits
into that. He's he's technically an analyst or a consultant
(18:37):
for the Seahawks. Still, I don't know if that that
means that he's not available to interview till after the
season either. But anyway, the ball is going to get
rolling on Monday, and some of these interviews are going
to happen before the Ideally you want your first interviews
to be done before the divisional round, just with how
the the rules are laid out, because if you don't
(19:00):
do that, then you might get stuck. You know, if
they don't interview Ben Johnson before the divisional round, they
could be stuck not interviewing him till after the super Bowl,
and that's gonna obviously they don't want that situation to
play out anyway. That's a long winded way of saying
like they've been thinking about this, but it's it's gonna
move really quickly here over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And it feels like you know they, like you said,
they put in the work at this point, right, So
it doesn't really make sense for Ryan Poles. You would
have assumed for him to put in five weeks of
work or however long it's been, and then on Monday
to just be like, I forget that, like let's just
start at the let's start at the beginning again, and
let's just get a thing, let's get a new guy,
(19:41):
and then like, yeah, it doesn't make sense. And the
only reason I would even consider moving on from him
is if a Ben Johnson is like, listen, like, I
want my I know that he's been linked with the
Detroit assistant GM, Right, let's bring I want my own guy.
I want him in there. Maybe you listen to that.
Maybe if rabels like I want some because there's the
(20:04):
more modern NFL also has a lot of head coaches
like working with guys that they know, right, Yeah, and
Ryan Poles doesn't really have a relationship. It seems like, well,
I'm sure they've talked to these guys and that sort
of stuff in the past, but other than Brian Flores,
you know, there were teammates at Boston College, he doesn't
really have a past working relationship. With a lot of
these guys. So it'll be interesting to see just kind
(20:25):
of how this whole process unfolds, because you know, as
much as the Bears are going to be interviewing these guys,
I feel like if you're a candidate like Ben Johnson
or you're even like Mike Rabel, you're talking to the
Bears and you're like, what is Ryan Poles doing? What
is his role? What is the vibemin this building? How
are we going to make sure that what has been
happening here in the past eleven, twelve, twenty fifty years
(20:47):
doesn't continue to happen here and we can develop Caleb
the way they need to exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You know, I love what you said at the beginning,
because that's exactly it. Like, if you're a Bears fan
who wants to move on from Ryan Poles, then you're
signing up for another situation where you're gonna have You're
gonna have GM interviews and head coaching interviews happening concurrently
at the same time. And it's gonna be the same
thing again where they're gonna hire the GM and twenty
(21:12):
four to forty eight hours later they're gonna tell the GM, okay,
these were our favorite candidates for the head coach that
we already interviewed. Who do you like? It's gonna be
the same thing over again if you move on from
the GM. That's exactly it. They've had four to five
weeks to make this list. You can start requesting interviews
on Monday. You can start interviewing three days after a
(21:33):
coach's season ends. So if any of those, if any
of those coaches did not make the postseason, that would
be either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending if for the place,
Saturday or Sunday. You got to get moving here, like
you don't have time. If you're gonna also hire a GM,
you're gonna have to do them both at the same time,
or you're gonna be interviewing candidates at a later schedule
(21:57):
than some of these other teams.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Ye, I mean, at the end of the day, I
think it's pretty simple, right, Like I think you just
kind of as soon as the game ends on Sunday,
you obviously just kind of jump into things and you
start scheduling, you know, within the rules obviously of the NFL.
You start If I'm Ryan Poles, if I'm Kevin Warren,
I'm scheduling Ben Jonson's interview as quick as possible. I'm
talking about Frabo, you know, next week. Obviously they had
(22:22):
the opportunity to talk to him this week, and obviously
the Jets are talking to him on Friday, so we'll
see what that kind of looks like. But I'm reaching
out to you know, Liam Cohen, I'm reaching out to
Joe Brady, I'm reaching out to Brian Floor. I'm reaching
out to anyone that I'm interested in. And the other
thing that I think is kind of interesting in all
of this is I'm not getting worried if a team
(22:43):
continues to win and you have to wait, right, I
shouldn't like I'm and I think that. And I'm not
saying that. This was kind of the case with Matt
Eberflus a couple of years ago. But it was quick,
right Like they hired Polls and then a couple of
days later, forty eight hours later they hired Matt Eberflues
where And I know the comparison has been made a
lot with you know, the Minnesota Vikings, who were doing
the same exact thing. They wait until Kevin o'con O'Connell
(23:06):
was done with the Super Bowl, right too, like obviously,
in the week before you can kind of work through
negotiations and that kind of stuff, but you can't officially
announce anything until after the super Bowl. But I don't
care if you have to wait in the in the
Detroit Lions go all away to the super Bowl, and
Ben Johnson's your guy. You wait until the very end,
and you give him the money that he wants, and
you make sure that it happens because you need to.
(23:29):
You can't be afraid of waiting. You can't be afraid of, well,
maybe this guy won't be able to give this full
coaching staff. If you believe in the guy and you
think or you think that they can make a difference
for Caleb and for your franchise, it doesn't really matter
how much money they want, you know, realistically, or you
know what the timeframe is, you need to get him because,
like Kevin Warren said like a month ago, this is
(23:51):
a pretty pretty significant coaching hire for both your franchise,
just both with the development of Caleb Williams and where
you are at this point.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, it absolutely is. And and uh, you know, like
I said at the top, you have to interview Ben
Johnson as soon as possible, because once you get to
the conference championship rown, you cannot those coaches cannot do
interviews that week. They cannot do interviews the week of
the Super Bowl. Uh. You have to get those first
interviews in. Uh, you know these these first couple of
weeks before the divisional round.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And obviously we all expect the Lions to to potentially
go pretty far in the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I know that that's not.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Guaranteed, but I would expect that they're going to be
in the NFC Championship, in the potentially in the Super Bowl. Yeah.
That's UH. If you are interested in in some of
the logistics of how it works, I do have a
story coming out tomorrow on Saturday. Uh, head to shaw
Local dot com. Uh, you can can read exactly what
the rules are for how all this works. I know
(24:49):
it's a little bit nitty gritty football stuff, but uh,
if you're here with us, you're you're deep in the
weeds anyway, So, UH, we appreciate you joining us. I
do see a comment from Rober and actually, let's see
I want to scroll back up. Robert did have a
question about what we're gonna be up to. Yeah, we
(25:09):
we are gonna keep doing shows during the offseason. Uh,
we're kind of hoping maybe once a week that that
will kind of abb and flow based on on what
time of year it is. Obviously, once we get into
into free agency and the draft, I think we'll be
joining you guys at least once a week, but definitely
throughout the coaching search. Like, there's gonna be plenty to
talk about, and so we're gonna we're gonna keep joining
(25:31):
you guys. So so stick with us. We appreciate you
guys jumping on here live and chatting with us. Robert
had Phillips had another question in here, and I guess
I kind of want to hear from the room see
what some of the other folks think. Are you happy
that we're starting Caleb against the Packers? Yeah, Like there's look,
there's always an injury concern when you're throwing out a
(25:52):
guy onto the onto the football field like in the NFL,
guys get hurt. Obviously, if Caleb Williams were to suffer
a add injury, torn acl something like that, you know,
knock on wood, not trying to jinx anything, but that
would affect next season at this point. And so that's
that's a risk that you have to weigh. I absolutely
think you have to be thinking about that. I'm okay
(26:13):
with with him starting this game.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
If the Packers pull their starters in the second half,
I might do the same. Personally, what do you it's it's.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I don't think you mention him. I don't think that,
like he there's something to say about is he getting
valuable experience in these games and like this s wonky,
you know, format and the coaching piring and that kind
of stuff, Like is there value to it? And I
think there is, right, Like there's value to seeing a
pass frush, seeing coverages and that kind of stuff, And honestly,
(26:44):
there's value to just building confidence into the offseason, right
Like you you go through this ten game losing streak,
you know there's some highs. I don't know how many
highs that were there, a bunch.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Of lows there when there were even.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Like even even in the losses, even losing streak where
Caleb played well and he brought this team back right,
and you kind of want to see that again. Where
I feel like the last couple of weeks ever since
Eberflus got fired, I don't I don't. I'm not putting
at all on Caleb or anything like that, but it
hasn't been good, right, Like he hasn't really gotted the
team over the hump or anything like that. So I
(27:21):
think there's something to gaining experience in this game. Listen,
if he's being harassed in the offensive line can't protect him,
maybe you put Tyson Bagen in there. If he's good
seven times again, yeah, yeah, I mean you don't really
want to head into the off season with the with
the sack record, which what is it like nine? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
He would need nine to say.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I think I think if your Tom is Brown at
that point, if you're even sniffing five, you're just like
get out, like you're not. We're not We're not letting
you break the record. There's no need for you to
be in this game right now.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
But I think nine sounds crazy, but let's remember that
he was sacked nine times against the Patriots.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yes, but there is value. I think going to Green Bay,
being in that environment, seeing what it's like playing like
in a year from now. It's good to have that
experience of going through warm ups at Lambeau in the cold,
getting ready for you know, knowing what the circumstances are. Like.
I think it's like you can say, like, well, what
(28:18):
are you really going to get from that? But there
might be some value in getting some familiarity being like
the locker rooms here, this is how I like to
do things at Lambo. This is how the set up
as a Lambeau. This is what it's kind of like,
And this is how I'm going to prepare myself if
there is a big game next season, right at the
end of the season or that kind of stuff. Like,
I think there's value through just going through experiences and
being familiar with things for your future. Sure, this game
(28:40):
might not matter and you're not going to like change anything,
but there is value in going through the pregame routine.
You're going against defenses that will benefit you in the future.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, and look, you expect to win in Green Bay
in the future, like you expect you hold Williams to
be the quarterback who can can flip this rivalry, or
at least let's start by saying pull it a little
bit more even, and you're gonna have to try to
win some games in Green Bay to do that. That's
the place that they're going to be playing every single year. Yeah,
I fully expect Cale to start the game. I'd be
(29:13):
curious to see, based on the EBB and flow of
the game whether or not he plays the whole time.
Marlon Harris in the comment stinks that Tyson Vage wouldn't
take a single sack. Yeah, I don't know about that.
It would be honestly, I would like to see. We
didn't really get to see Tyson this year, and I
would like to see where he's at. But also I
(29:35):
understand why you're playing Caleb, like I get it, but
I would like to kind of see where Tyson Bageon
is because we haven't really seen him all year.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Do you going off of that? Do you kind of
like the approach that Thomas Brown's kind of taken where
you know, I feel like he's been asked the last
couple of weeks, but are you going to see more
developmental guys, more younger guys and that kind of stuff,
And he's kind of been on the mind so that
if the veterans are healthy, they're going to play. Do
you yeah, what are your thoughts about that? Do you
like that? Like I are you or are you kind
of like well, Keenan Allen might not be here next year,
(30:06):
maybe we need to get see more Tyler Scott or
whatever like have you, like, do you want to see
Kuran kind of get in there? Like what are your
thoughts about, like maybe about them deciding to stick with
the veterans as opposed to maybe some getting some younger
guys so you can kind of see what your younger
guys are doing.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
My thoughts are they should be playing the young guys.
But my concurrent thought is, you know who else might
not be here next year. It probably won't be as
Thomas Brown, And I think he is trying to pad
his resume for his next job as well. I think
not that. Look, I don't think there's a huge difference
between going one and four and going oh and five,
But oh and five certainly looks bad as the head coach,
(30:46):
not that one and four looks all that much better.
But yeah, I think he's trying to win football games.
He's got this golden opportunity to be an interim head coach.
His goal should be to wait as many games as
he can. So I do kind of get it from
that perspective, But yeah, like I agree, like if you know,
if you had your your head coach of the future,
(31:07):
if your coach wasn't going anywhere, I would absolutely play
the youngest. I would play Tyler Scott, I would play
Karana Magaji. I don't know. I mean, we don't have
to get into the Koran stuff, but I think I
would be comfortable playing Koran if you had a full
week of practice. We obviously that that's that wasn't the
case in that Minnesota game and he got the short
end of the stick there. But I would be happy
(31:30):
with playing playing some of those young guys. I absolutely
think so.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Because you need to see what you have, right, Like
this is like we can talk about this obviously in
next week's episode, and obviously obviseason episodes about who he
thinks is gonna stay, who's going to come back or whatever.
But listen, like the last few months has been a
good evaluation period for Ryan Poles to see what he has,
like what not even like the production on the field,
but like what have players been like in the locker
(31:54):
room during down times? Have they been you know, positive?
Have they kind of kept things down or have they
kind of let the moment kind of sink in? And obviously,
I know, you know, it's easy for us to say, like,
we don't go through the day to day. We don't
go through you know, the losing and that kind of
stuff as much as players do. But you're learning a
lot about your team right now, and there's a lot
of evaluations to be made, and you got to see
(32:15):
whether Kuran can play, whether Javon Dexter can kind of
get in there, like he was a healthy scratch last week,
right like you at some point you got to say,
Zach Pickens, say Zach Pickens, Yeah, my bad. At some
point you just need to see what these top picks
are because at this point, not many of them are
clicking right now.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
For Ryan Pols, yeah, no, I would agree with that.
What about another name too? Who I I'd love to
see Austin Booker get a few more snaps. He's been
playing roughly twenty percent of snaps down the stretch here,
Like I'd like to see him, you know, get a
couple more opportunities to see what he can do. Yeah,
I'm all for playing some of the young guys when
(32:52):
the season like it's over. We all know that, you know,
going back to the top like these the players know that,
like just having been in that locker room yesterday, like
it's they know that this is over, and Marlin says
he's seen enough of Zach Pickens. I kind of feel like,
I mean, look, yeah, he's high, had opportunities. I do
(33:14):
agree with that, and it's gone the way it's gone.
He hasn't done the whole lot. Mike Johnson said that
Detroit announced their arrival by beating the Packers in the
last game a few years ago. Yeah, sure that that
could be. That could be, you know, if the Bears
do win this game, that would be somewhat of a statement,
assuming that the Packers try to win and play. Jordan
(33:37):
loved the whole game. At the same time, so much
is going to change. You don't have a head coach
right now, and so it's hard to really build off
of anything.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I feel like, yeah, it'll be interesting just to see
what they decide to do. And I you know, with
that and that kind of stuff, with what sick Pickens
has done, another guy's have done, it'll at some point
you just kind of see, need to see what they have.
But it'll be interesting to see what they do, especially
if you know, for the Packers there is seeding, right
so they're going to get a little bit of difference. Yeah,
(34:07):
and obviously I think it's either the sixth seed or
the seventh seeds, so there's somebody to play for, and
you don't really want to have to be the seventh
seed heading into the playoffs with what are they like,
twelve win or thirteen win team at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah, it will matter. I believe the Eagles are locked
into the two seed as well, so that that is
something to keep in mind sure when you're looking at that,
whether you're you're the six or the seventh seed. For
the Packers, we got about ten minutes left here. I
do want to roll through our final pregame segments here.
It feels a little anti climatic doing this for this,
(34:40):
this somewhat meaningless game, but let let's let's do it, Michael,
A game within the game. What do you watch and
what what position battles? Who are you paying attention to?
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I'm going to be consistent. I'll just go with Caleb, right,
and that's what I've been saying. That's what I've been
saying for the past three weeks. And to be honest,
I haven't liked what I've I haven't disliked like I
don't nothing that I've seen over the past few games
has made me be like, well, is Caleb not the guy?
He's the guy, like he's your quarterback, but I would
have liked to see more and there's still some like, yes,
(35:12):
he's being pressured, but like he even talked about it
this week where he's kind of tired of his offensive
line getting like flack for all the sacks, where he's
admitted and said like a bunch of those sacks are
on me. And that's kind of one thing that I've
kind of been concerned about where I've kind of wanted
that to get better and for his accuracy to get better,
and you haven't seen that really, Like he's still taking
(35:35):
some sacks that he shouldn't be taking, and there's still
some miscommunication or off throws, right, So you know, it
could be fool's gold if you do end up playing
well this week, obviously, especially if you're going against backups.
But I do want to see some tangible things from
Caleb this this week that kind of have me encouraged
and kind of have him encourage heading into the offseason,
(35:55):
where he's avoiding some sacks, he's getting rid of the
ball quicker, he's accurate on some deep is that I
think you can build on flip and kind of work
through once you kind of get back together for OTA's
mini camp.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
And that sort of stuff. Yeah. Look, anyone who's tuning
in for this game is who's still watching this team
is doing it because of Caleb Williams, and so yeah,
I'm one hundred percent with you. I'm watching what Caleb
is doing. I'll join Mike in the comments here. He's
watching DJ go for a thousand yards. Sure, I'll throw
that in the ring too. I don't think he'll get there,
(36:26):
but if it's important to him, maybe they will force
feeding the ball. You know, he's their guy moving forward.
He's under contract for six years. They want to keep
him happy. If he wants to go for a thousand yards,
I'm sure that they will have opportunities to do that.
Romo Dunese has been sick this week. That's another thing
to keep in mind when you're talking about the receivers. Also,
(36:49):
Kyler Gordon has been sick too. There's something going around
the building. It seems it's that time of year. The
only other like major injury concern is Tevin Jenkins has
still got the calf injury. He has not practic this
this week.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
You feel like he's played this final game with the
Bears quite possibly, I don't.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
I'd have to dig into two similar comps to look
at what kind of contracts they got. I don't think
the Bears are going to break the bank for him.
If they can get him at a somewhat friendly deal,
I think they would bring him back. But yeah, he's
missed a lot of time. I mean he I know
he gets crapped for missing a lot of time. He
hasn't missed that much time this season. He's played in
(37:30):
fourteen games. You know, it's looking like it's probably going
to be fourteen. Like that's the most he's played in
his whole career. And I get it, you want guys
to play seventeen games, but offensive linemen are hurt a lot,
and so I I feel like he deserves a little
bit of props for being relatively healthy this year, But
(37:50):
I don't know that that's going to be enough to
bring him back.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
No, And like maybe you bring him back on a
not a minimum, but you're definitely not putting a top
tier contract for him. And I don't really know who
else around the league would do that for him, right, Like,
just given his injury passed and yes, I know obviously
he's played more, but he still has ended up on
the injury report a lot this year and it's been
an okay performance. So yeah, it was just interesting just
(38:15):
to kind of see what they're going to decide to
do with that, because at this point you're probably sticking
with Darnell, right and you're just trying to figure out
what else is going to work on the offensive line.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, I would expect that they are going to approach
the offensive line, both in free agency and in the
draft in multiple ways. I mean, you got money to spends,
You're going to spend it like that's what it's for
and and you know you, especially after the way this
season has gone, like there's gonna be an urgency to
get that fixed. And I think that they will will
(38:47):
look at at all their options there. Okay, most valuable
bear that there's a game feels like a long time ago, Michael,
I had DJ Moore, you had Caleb Williams and DJ
Moore scored nine point two Fantasy points and have PPR.
Caleb Williams scored six point five. I got the victory.
(39:09):
I have clinched. I have won. It's nine to seven
going into going into the last week of the season.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Should have listened to Rick a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I'll work on I'll work on my postseason victory speech
for next time. We can, uh, we can hand out
the trophy that that doesn't exist yet. But yeah, this
is this is a victory for me. So I'm I'm,
you know, gonna pat myself on the back and I'm
gonna turn it over to you. It is your week
to pick first, who you got who's your most valuable bear.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
I'll go with DJ because we're all feeling it and
we're all hoping just one thousand yards and I just
don't like anything else that I've seen. Well, I can't
take Caleb obviously, and I looked at DeAndre Swift's numbers.
They're not good rooms six, so he might not be
at one hundred percent. That's the baby between Keenan Allen
or maybe DJ Moore, but I'll go with DJ Moore.
(39:58):
I feel like there might be an incentive. I can't
guarantee that there is, but there might be an incentive,
and he might be motivated to get some extra money
if he gets close to over a thousand yards.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, I like that. I think that's a really good pick.
I can also not not pick Caleb. We have we
have exhausted our Caleb Williams picks. We did three three
each was the the maximum this season. You know what,
I'm I'm actually gonna do something that neither of us
have done in a while. I'm gonna go on the
defensive side. I'm gonna take the Pro bowler. I'm gonna
(40:29):
take Jalen Johnson. Here's an interesting stat. Jordan Love has
not thrown an interception since he saw the Bears. Remember
early midway through the season, he was He threw a
pick in every single game up until that Bears game,
and since then he has not thrown an interception. I
think Jala Johnson's gonna get a pick and his season
(40:51):
on a positive note. It would feel like a good
way for him to end the year. And hey, he's
he's coming off a high. He made the Pro Bowl.
That's good for him. Obviously, that's a lot of respect
for a cornerback because look, he's only got two picks
this year. Like that tells you that the people, the
(41:11):
coaches and the players who are watching the tape. They
know how good he is.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, and you see it in the numbers, right, like,
isn't it isn't he one of the top of not
the top like cornerbacks that is being like not being
thrown to, Like people are deliberately avoiding him, like they're
not throwing the ball near Jalen Johnson as much as
any other cornerback in the league.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I think he has fifty two targets in sixteen games.
I'm not a mass guy, but that's not a lot.
That's what three per game or something like that. And
according to the Bears that they put out a stat
among cornerbacks who have started at least thirteen games, that
is the fewest targets. And yeah, obviously we all know this.
(41:54):
You know, opponents are going after Tyreek Stevenson, they're going
after Kyler Gordon, They're going after some of these other guys.
They're staying away from Jalen Johnson. I'm taking Jaialen this week.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
I think it's a good pick. I mean, if you're
gonna choose a defensive player like I saw Rich Show's
Montes sweat, I don't hate that pick. He's kind of
he's kind of been m I a for half a
year at this point, like he's had some moments or whatever,
but I think injuries have kind of hurt him. But
I feel like, I, if you're gonna choose a defensive guy,
I like Jalen Johnson's pick. Kyler Gordon has been pretty good,
(42:25):
like Roberts dimensions.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah, Kyler has been good. You know this is this
is a good game to pat your stats too. We
all know how much those defensive ends value their sacks.
Montese is sitting at five and a half this season,
probably not the season he was envisioning when when things started, Uh,
you pick up two more. You know, seven and a
half looks a lot better than five and a half. Okay,
(42:49):
surprise prediction, Michael, you got any surprise predictions heading into
this game? Something we're not talking enough about.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
I'm not gonna go as crazy as to say that
the Bears win this game, but I do think that
it's a close scheme. I don't think. I think I
think the offense shows some light that are going to
leave people being like, where has this been all year long?
And I think that I think that's my biggest thing, right.
I think the spread is like six and a half points.
I forget what it is. I think the Bears cover
(43:16):
and I think that I only they'll win, but I
don't They're not going to get blown out, and I
think it's going to be a closer loss than maybe
some people might expect it to be.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Some other surprise predictions coming in. Rick says an opening
drive touchdown, that would be a favorite. Yeah, that would
be a surprise, and that would be a funny way
at the end of the year. Robert has col comeect
in one hundred yards.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Marlin says, surprise pick a special team's touchdown? All right,
I like that. Mike says, defense scores a safety. Yeah,
we have. Have we seen the safety this year? I
don't think we have either into the verity. No, I
am going to go with the ultimate surprise. I think
Caleb Williams is sacked two or fewer times. I don't
(43:58):
know why. That's that's where my head's going. But you
know what, sometimes, uh these narratives get talked about and overblown.
And I know it was really bad last game, but
I think that, you know, Caleb, it's like they come
in bunches this season. You know, there's been the there's
been games where he wasn't sacked a lot, and then
there's games there's been multiple games where he sacked six, seven,
(44:21):
nine times. I think, coming off that that poor performance
last week, I think, uh that Caleb will play a
relatively clean game and keep keep his eyes down field
get the ball out of his hands.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, I could see that. You know, I don't have
the numbers in front of me, but it does feel
like he's been packed a lot over the past few games.
So you know, I can see that happening, especially if
the Packers decided to rust some of their defensive players.
Maybe you're not able to get as much of a
pass rush against this offensive line as you would if
you were playing all your starters.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
He had seven, let's just go since since Fluse was
fired these four games, seven against the forty nine ers,
He had only two against Minnesota and only two against
Detroit and then seven more against Seattle. Yeah, it really
has been coming in bunches. Shoot, that's one. Like I said,
(45:17):
I'm not a math guy, but I'm gonna try to
add this up real quick. One two, three, four, five
games with six or more sacks If I'm if my
math is correct there, that's they come in bunches. They
come in bunches. Michael, what's your prediction and your score
for this one.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I'll go with the Packers win. I think the losing
streak goes to twelve against the Packers, eleven overall of
the season, new franchise record, all the good stuff. I
think the Packers win. Let's make it a twenty twenty
one to seventeen game. I think it's relatively close toward
the end Bears aren't able to get it going. But yeah,
I mean, you know, I haven't been left encouraged at all,
(45:59):
especially after that, you know, game against the Seahawks. That
was a winnable game that you just kind of blew
at the end with poor management and poor execution. And
it's tough, and I know it's obviously not what people
want to hear, but I mean, I think that's just
a cherry on top of a band season. You just
lose to your arrival, You set a franchise record, and
you lose your twelve straight to them.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Yeah, I am less optimistic that the Bears are going
to keep this thing close. I feel like this team
is ready for the offseason. I'm taking the Packers. I
honestly haven't thought about the score. But as I'm thinking
about it now, I'm going to go something like, I
don't know, twenty seven to seventeen, something like that. I
(46:43):
do think that this will probably be a double digit
win for the Packers, assuming that they do, you know,
keep their starters in Jordan Love plays the whole game.
I think the Packers will win this relatively easily. I
do think that they probably want to win this game.
If you're the seventh seed, you're going at Philadelphia. That's
a little bit tougher than it looks like. The Rams
(47:04):
are probably going to be the three seed, but it's hard,
Like you can't weird things happen. Even if they win,
they might not move up a seed. But I still
think that that this Bears team has checked out. I
think they're ready for the offseason. I have zero confidence
that they're going to keep this close.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
How about the Rams too? Right, Like, this is the
team that the Bears are beating, and they kind of
handled and limited Matthew Stafford And what a run they've
kind of gone on that that's a that's a nice win.
You kind of look at back in the season, you're like,
why why were we able to continue that. Obviously the
Rams figured some things out and they didn't have Cooper, Cooper,
Kupper and Nikola against the Bears.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, they were pretty back then. That was a nice
win back the NFL man, the NFL man, there's there's
always weird results. There's always weird results. Yeah, that was man,
This team was foreign to Can you believe that we
are all right? I think? Oh, go ahead, go ahead. No.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I was just gonna say, what's your prediction the as
the polls here on Monday? As he absolutely the media.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
I don't know if he meets the media on Monday,
but he'll he'll he'll be the one hiring the coach.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I I do believe. Yeah, wait, what do you think?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
No?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
I would agree. I think that everything we've kind of
been led to believe. I think that I feel like
it'd be pretty I wouldn't say shocking, but it'd be
pretty surprising if on Sunday night, Monday morning, we get
like Adam SCHAFTERI and I would say when fired by
that like that, that would be pretty surprising.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
I would be shocked. I know that's been talked about
a lot the last couple of weeks, but I've never
thought that that is really where this is heading. So
personally I would be surprised after after trotting him out
there with Kevin Warren five weeks ago, and and and
all that stuff, I just don't see that happening. Yeah,
but we will find out, and we will uh we
will uh come, we'll We'll join you guys again next week.
(48:53):
Thanks if you if you've lasted this long, thanks for
for listening with us. Hit the thumbs up on YouTube.
We really appreciate you guys joining the show live. If
you're listening after the fact on Spotify or Apple or
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I'm at Shawn Underscore Hammond. He is at Mdwojack ninety
four and as always, head over to shaw Local dot
(49:14):
com to read all of our work. That is the
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over at Shawlocal dot com and you can read all
of our Bears coverage. He's Michael Dwojack. I'm Sean Hammond.
This has been the Shaw Local Bears Insider podcast. Thanks
for joining us, everybody, and try to enjoy the last
Bears game of the season,
Hello, and welcome to the show, Local Bears Insider Podcast.
We are back. It's week eighteen. The end is near.
I'm shot him and Shaw, local Bears beat reporter. He's
Michael Dwojek, joining me as he does every Monday and Friday.
This is our last Friday game preview episode. Michael, we've
(00:22):
reached the end Bears Packers this weekend, and maybe for
the first time in a while, it feels pretty weird
for a Bears Packers week. It feels I don't want
to say meaningless, but kind of Yeah, it's funnier, right,
Just I feel like, even like now, we were just
talking about like our plans for the I feel like
everyone's moved on ever since, Like Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Eberfu's kind of got fired, right, I feel like everyone's
kind of known that, you know, we're all looking for
the head coaching starch, who's going to be doing it
and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, I mean,
I'm sure the holiday probably played a little bit of
a role in it too, obviously, but you know, other
after you know that covering that game on Thursday against
the Seahawks, I haven't really cared or tried to care
about the Bears. I just I've just kind of stayed
(01:04):
away from it. Obviously, part of that's just, you know,
just trying to stay away from work with some time off,
but part of it's also just kind of like what
are after that Seahawks game? Just what do you what
are you supposed to say at this point? You know,
what are the players supposed to say? What are we
supposed to say? It's just it's just one of those
things where you kind of feel bad and you're just
kind of like do they need to play on Sunday
or like can they just like take the l or
(01:24):
you know, both teams forfeit or whatever. So, yeah, it's
an interesting situation. It's definitely not one that we thought about.
We thought this week, this final week game, could you know,
determine whether the Bears would be so you know we're
going to be getting into the playoffs. But instead we're
not looking forward to this game at all.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
This was supposed to be a fun, stressful, important week
for the Bears, and obviously they're instead on a head
game losing streak, potentially ending the season with eleven straight.
They've also lost what is it eleven straight against the Packers.
I think so you know it would be I don't
know if Jordan Love's going to play the whole game.
(02:02):
We don't know exactly what the Packers are going to do.
He is going to start there, The Packers can can
finish with either the sixth or the seventh seeds, so
not really that big of a difference, just maybe depending
on who their opponent might be. But really, you know,
it would be a weird way for this losing streak
(02:23):
against the Packers to end if they do sit him
in the second half or something crazy like that. But honestly,
I said this like a week ago, and I still
feel this way, like I don't know if the Bears
could beat the Packers' backups right now, Like it's just
the vibes are that bad, especially on the offensive side.
We didn't do a recap of that Seahawks game, and
I'm going to give you like a five second recap here.
(02:46):
That was trash and I don't ever want to talk
about it again.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That was like, when I've seen so many people talk
about it, that was like, might've been one of the
worst football games I've seen. And I've covered plenty of
high school blowouts and that sort of stuff. But that Yeah,
I mean, no of, but it was bad. There's no
need to talk about it. Really, it doesn't really matter
at this point, but woof, that was that was tough.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
That was that was real tough. If you're joining us
here live on YouTube, do us a favor and hit
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Please subscribe. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple after
the fact, leave us a review and keep an eye
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gonna go live. I'm at Shawn Underscore him and he's
at m Joe Jack ninety four. We love joining you
(03:28):
a live here. I see some some thoughts and comments
already in the chat. We can we can hit a
couple of these before we dive into some other stuff.
Rick says, it feels like two seasons have gone by. Yeah,
I kind of get that. Mike Johnson asks, does DJ
reach a thousand yards? I'm gonna pull up where exactly
he is just for reference right now eighty so, I
(03:51):
mean I would lean know.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And has he had a one hundred yard game this year?
He has? Did he have one ear?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
He's had two? He had one hundred and five ins Carolina.
He had one hundred and six against Minnesota in the
first overtime game against Minnesota. It's doable, It's possible. We've
seen him have some big games. I don't know, it's
gonna be cold in Green Bay. It's not like weatherwise
(04:22):
perfect conditions obviously, and ah Man one hundred, so he
needs one hundred and twenty. Is that? Is that the
math on that you said he's at eighty eight eighty
I lean no, Personally, I don't know. What do you think, Michael?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I feel like it says a lot about this season.
The fact that I even had to ask if he
had one hundred yard you know, one hundred yard game
this year. I mean, it's just I mean, you're gonna
have He's gonna have a season high against the Packers. Sure.
I mean, maybe there are a bunch of backups on defense,
and maybe they're Caleb is kind of trying to enter
the offseason in a good mode, So maybe it could happen,
(04:56):
but I would like I would probably it feels like
a ninety five the five thing. I'm probably gonna say
ninety five percent chance that's probably not going to happen,
And maybe maybe Caleb just wants to air it out
and just kind of show, like Ben Jonson or whoever,
that you know, this is what you're getting with me
if you come here. And so maybe it could happen,
but I don't give it too much, especially like Marlin mentions,
(05:18):
all they seem to do is just throw screen passes
to DJ. So I don't know how much how he's
going to be able to accumulate one hundred and twenty
yards with just screen passes.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, I was thinking about this last time we were on.
I wanted to pull it up here. In the last
eight games, six of them, his average air yards per
target are six yards zero point nine two point nine.
He had a ten yard average against the Lions. I think,
you know, sometimes you throw one deep ball to a guy,
(05:48):
it really skews this number. Sure, And then a forty
nine ers game he was four point one against the Vikings,
zero point five air yards per target. And then again,
you know, they threw another deep ball to against the Lions.
Pulled that average over ten. Six of those eight games,
we're under ten yards per per attempt. And you're right,
(06:10):
like Marlin's right, they're not throwing him the ball down
the field. For whatever reason, we're seeing him get the
ball and those those screen passes they're lining up in
the backfield. I have a hard time seeing how he
gets to one hundred and twenty yards.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
In this game. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it's likely,
but I don't know. It just I don't know. It's
kind of hard to get a vibe. Well, you know,
we'll talk more about this in the second half, because
I know we want to talk some big pictures stuff
in the first half of this podcast, but it's kind
of hard to get a vibe for what this game
is going to be. Right, Like this team, I don't
(06:43):
I don't want to say that they've given up, because
that's just too harsh of a you know, it's too
harsh of a thing to say about NFL players, like
this is their livelihood. But it just hasn't been there.
It feels like since Ebra Flu's got fired, and it
hasn't really been there since that Commanders Hail Mary loss,
And I feel like it's just hard for me to
kind of believe that all of a sudden in the
final game of the season against Sure, I guess your rivals, Like,
(07:07):
I'm sure that's part of a part of the factor
of it, but all of a sudden in the finale,
like things are gonna look good and things are gonna
be happening. I don't It's kind of hard for me
to believe at this point.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I don't see that happening. And having been in that
locker room yesterday, I mean, for me, like the feeling,
the vibe was like last week of school before summer break,
you know, like the music was loud, and to be fair,
it was a lot of the young guys, a lot
of the practice squad guys, Like you know, I didn't
(07:38):
see like DJ or Keenan or any of those guys,
but like, sure it was. The music was blasting, those
guys were laughing, They're having a good time. It felt
like the last week of school. And obviously when you
lose ten straight, I mean, I think everyone has come
to grips with what this season is. Nobody like like
if you're you can't mopen it forever. I get that,
(07:59):
But at the same time, it didn't feel like it
didn't feel like a foreign and twelve football team yesterday.
And I don't know if it should. I don't know
what it should feel like, but this to me, this
team has moved on. They're ready for the offseason. I
think that's very very clear just from the vibe in
the room, like it's it's time to put all this,
(08:21):
all this crap, all this drama with the flue, the
way everything went down with Waldron and Fluce. These guys
are ready to put all that behind them and move
on to something new. They're ready for a new energy,
I would say, because it's been a long time since
there was a lot of positivity in that in that
locker room, and I think that they're ready for that.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, And I feel like there should be some optimism,
I guess, right, Like obviously, like you, this has been
a terrible season. It didn't go the way you wanted,
but there's there's a little bit of hope, and I
don't I feel like I feel like a lot of
Bears fans that like I talked to or like hear
from or whatever, it's interesting just to kind of see.
I feel like everyone just expects the Bears to make
(09:02):
this hot next hiring, and it's going to be bad already.
Like I feel like everyone is just expecting the worst,
which I mean, I don't I don't blame fans for
feeling that way, because I don't feel like there's been
much that this franchise has given them hopeful for like
the past what twenty years, like ever since they like
they had that blimp year in twenty eighteen, but other
than that, like there's really been no hope, and I
(09:23):
feel like fans are pretty defeated at this point. But
I feel like it would probably it does probably have
that end of school year by because you know that
once Monday happens, the off season starts, you're looking for
your new Heck's head coach, you might be looking for
a new general manager. TBD will talk about that. But
there's a lot of there's an opportunity to move on right,
(09:45):
there's an opportunity to kind of turn the page and
get this thing on the right track. And for the
past month and a half, and honestly for the past
half couple months, just this half season, it's kind of
felt like, when is this season going to end? I'm
kind of done with this? This is so bad?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, no, it absolutely has, and uh we we can
talk about some of that big picture stuff. I did
want to hit on a comment really quick from uh uh,
let's see from Robert. He was he was saying, uh, yeah,
we beat the Packers. You know, obviously the streak ends,
but you're you're hurting your draft pick. That's that's an
interesting point at this point. It's it's it's sad that
(10:22):
we're we're talking draft picks because that's not what we
expected to be talking at the end of this season.
But yeah, the Bears right now are sitting at number nine. Michael,
It's really interesting. There's a lot of there's a lot
of bad football teams this year. There's there's nine teams
with three or four wins right now.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, I was kind of I've been kind of looking
at the you know, overall standings in the draft positioning
over the past couple of weeks just to kind of
see where the Bears are. When I first started looking,
I feel like you don't kind of realize this when
you're kind of just in your Bears world and you're
kind of covering them, and like you see the big
highlights around the league, but there's a lot of bad
football and like this is a a really like it
(10:59):
feels like a media ocre league this year where you're
just kind of having a bunch of you know, a
lot of ten win teams and a bunch of like
three or four win teams, Like it is insane to me.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
It's very boom er bust.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
And the Bears are a game. The Bears are realistically
probably a game and a half away from the number
one overall pick. Again, and imagine saying that, you know,
at the beginning of this season, it's just insane that
this team could potentially be like a game and a
half out of the first overall pick and they're gonna
be choosing probably around nine because of the way the
tie breakers kind of work and those early wins against
(11:30):
the Titans, the Panthers and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, if this was an eighteen game season, they would
definitely still be in play for that worst pick, which
is there's just a lot of bad teams. Yeah, it
does feel very boomer bust. I mean, you look at
the standings a year ago the NFC, you know, the
teams tied for that number one seed had twelve wins,
and this week or this year this season, I mean
there's there's one, two, three, four, five teams already with
(11:56):
thirteen wins this season. It's very boom er bust teams
at the top that are have these great records. You know,
that's gonna be an exciting game between the Vikings and
the Lions on Sunday night. And then you have these teams,
you know, the Patriots, the Titans, the Browns, the Giants
are all sitting at three and thirteen, the Jags, the Panthers,
the Jets, the Raiders, and the Bears are right behind
(12:19):
them at four and twelve. There's a lot of bad
football right there. There's a lot of bad football. But
you know what, maybe that segues into some of our
big picture talk here. We're not gonna have a show
on Monday. We're gonna be up at House Hall doing
end of the year stuff. That's the last time we'll
(12:39):
get to talk to some of these players. So we'll
try to join you guys sometime next week. But Michael,
you know, Ryan Poles has been the talking point these
last couple of weeks. I personally feel like Bears fans
have just run out of people to blame, and so
they're pointing the finger at him because he's the only
guy left. But realistically, I mean, what do you think
is there any chance the Bears move on from Ryan
(13:00):
Holes after this week? Eighteen game.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
See, if you take what Kevin Warren said at face value,
then no, right, like he said at that point, he
could have very easily at that point in that press
conference after they fired Matt Eberflus, he could have said,
we're going to evaluate everything. I'm going to evaluate everything,
like he wanted to make that press conference about himself,
so he could easily said, listen, I'm the team president.
I'm going to evaluate everything with ownership, and then at
(13:25):
the end of the year, we're going to make a
decision on the future of the franchise. And he decided
to say, like, Ryan Poles is the point guy. Well
in a way, obviously it took him a couple of
minutes to get to that point, but he did say
that Ryan Poles is going to spearhead this search and
that he is in charge of football operations. So if
(13:46):
you take Kevin Warren for what he says at face value,
Ryan Poles is going to come back. But I feel
like it just comes to it's an interesting thing at
this point where it's kind of like if you're bringing
in Ben Jonson, Mike Rabel, Joe Brady Cohen, all that
kind of stuff, you have to essentially give Ryan Poles
(14:10):
a contract extension, right, Like, no coach is going to
come here unless they're guaranteed that they're that GM is
going to stick around for you know, as long as
they are, or at least the next couple of years. Right,
And but then you also have the conflict of Ryan
Poles at this point owns two of the franchise's top
two longest losing streaks, right, And obviously with the context
(14:32):
of the first year being it was going to be
a rebuild year, that was never going to be a
win year like that, there's context to that. But if
the Bears lose on on Sunday, they're going to set
the franchise record for most consecutive losses within the season. Obviously,
I know that a couple of years ago I went
to like what fourteen games or thirteen games over a
couple of seasons, But like, it just feels weird then
(14:55):
to kind of give a contract extension to the coach
or to the general manager who has that distinction. Right.
And obviously we've talked about you know, yes he got
Caleb Williams, but other than that, what have you kind
of seen on this on this roster that kind of
has you encouraged. So it's a long way of saying
that I think that he'll stay, and I think that
(15:18):
Kevin Warren is going to keep him. I think the
mccaskey's obviously like or like polls and things that he's
young en up and coming. But it just makes me
a little a chiance scratchy. See, the worst case thing
you can do is not give him a contract extension,
I think, because that just sets you behind the bar.
It's going to continue to do what you need to do,
what you've been doing for so long. But at the
same time, it just feels weird and kind of wrong
(15:40):
to kind of do him a contract extension when other
than trading for Caleb Williams DJ Moore, what have you
kind of shown here has kind of grown into you know, successful,
you know players in the future.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, he's definitely. Look, he's a young GM who has
been learning on the job. You know, I know he
had a lot of good experience in Kansas City, but
you don't really know what that job is like until
you're in it. You know, none of us really know
what that is like because we haven't been in it
in his shoes and yeah, there's gonna be mistakes made.
(16:13):
I'm sure he regrets some of the moves. We don't
have to really go into a Chase Claypool, Nate Davis.
Some of those things just really did not work out.
At the end of the day. This comes down to
whether or not the Bears still believe in him, and
whether or not, you know, the Bears like him, and
I think that they do. I think that that every indication. Obviously,
(16:34):
the mccaskey's hired him, so they clearly like him. This
is gonna come down to what Kevin Warren wants to do. Really,
because they made this deal, they put Kevin Warren in
charge of the the operation, you know, of the football team.
He's making all these decisions. Obviously, that's going to have
to come with with, you know, the blessing of the
McCaskey family. George mccaskey's not gonna gonna give him complete control,
(16:58):
of course, but if Kevin Wore wants to move on,
they probably will. I don't see any reason why they
would do that. I think that they have to see
this thing out with Caleb and with Ryan Poles, you know,
get the right coach in here and see what you
can do like I don't think that you can just
a GM should have have two coaches, you know, obviously, yeah,
(17:20):
you want his first hire to work out, but he
hired the guy within forty eight hours of taking the job.
I think you've got to give him another chance to
really do his own search and just logistically what that
looks like right now. I mean, they've had five weeks
to you know, put together their lists, Kevin Warren and
Ryan Poles to start thinking about where they want to
(17:41):
take this thing. They cannot interview coaches who work for
other teams until after week eighteen, so you know, the
only people that they could have been reaching out to
were college coaches or coaches who were not employed by
a team, such as Bill Belichick. Before he took the
UNC job, Mike Rabel was working for the Browns, so
(18:02):
he wasn't even eligible to be interviewed. I believe that
that contract ran out before week eighteen. I imagined that
was probably planned by Mike Rabel and.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And he's interviewed with the Jets.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
He's interviewing with the Jets today on Friday, So starting Monday,
they can they can request they can request interviews with
with guys who are for other teams that would be
your Ben Johnson's and those coordinators who who you're gonna
really be looking at when you're thinking about the up
and coming coaches. I don't know where Pete Carroll fits
into that. He's he's technically an analyst or a consultant
(18:37):
for the Seahawks. Still, I don't know if that that
means that he's not available to interview till after the
season either. But anyway, the ball is going to get
rolling on Monday, and some of these interviews are going
to happen before the Ideally you want your first interviews
to be done before the divisional round, just with how
the the rules are laid out, because if you don't
(19:00):
do that, then you might get stuck. You know, if
they don't interview Ben Johnson before the divisional round, they
could be stuck not interviewing him till after the super Bowl,
and that's gonna obviously they don't want that situation to
play out anyway. That's a long winded way of saying
like they've been thinking about this, but it's it's gonna
move really quickly here over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And it feels like you know they, like you said,
they put in the work at this point, right, So
it doesn't really make sense for Ryan Poles. You would
have assumed for him to put in five weeks of
work or however long it's been, and then on Monday
to just be like, I forget that, like let's just
start at the let's start at the beginning again, and
let's just get a thing, let's get a new guy,
(19:41):
and then like, yeah, it doesn't make sense. And the
only reason I would even consider moving on from him
is if a Ben Johnson is like, listen, like, I
want my I know that he's been linked with the
Detroit assistant GM, Right, let's bring I want my own guy.
I want him in there. Maybe you listen to that.
Maybe if rabels like I want some because there's the
(20:04):
more modern NFL also has a lot of head coaches
like working with guys that they know, right, Yeah, and
Ryan Poles doesn't really have a relationship. It seems like, well,
I'm sure they've talked to these guys and that sort
of stuff in the past, but other than Brian Flores,
you know, there were teammates at Boston College, he doesn't
really have a past working relationship. With a lot of
these guys. So it'll be interesting to see just kind
(20:25):
of how this whole process unfolds, because you know, as
much as the Bears are going to be interviewing these guys,
I feel like if you're a candidate like Ben Johnson
or you're even like Mike Rabel, you're talking to the
Bears and you're like, what is Ryan Poles doing? What
is his role? What is the vibemin this building? How
are we going to make sure that what has been
happening here in the past eleven, twelve, twenty fifty years
(20:47):
doesn't continue to happen here and we can develop Caleb
the way they need to exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You know, I love what you said at the beginning,
because that's exactly it. Like, if you're a Bears fan
who wants to move on from Ryan Poles, then you're
signing up for another situation where you're gonna have You're
gonna have GM interviews and head coaching interviews happening concurrently
at the same time. And it's gonna be the same
thing again where they're gonna hire the GM and twenty
(21:12):
four to forty eight hours later they're gonna tell the GM, okay,
these were our favorite candidates for the head coach that
we already interviewed. Who do you like? It's gonna be
the same thing over again if you move on from
the GM. That's exactly it. They've had four to five
weeks to make this list. You can start requesting interviews
on Monday. You can start interviewing three days after a
(21:33):
coach's season ends. So if any of those, if any
of those coaches did not make the postseason, that would
be either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending if for the place,
Saturday or Sunday. You got to get moving here, like
you don't have time. If you're gonna also hire a GM,
you're gonna have to do them both at the same time,
or you're gonna be interviewing candidates at a later schedule
(21:57):
than some of these other teams.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Ye, I mean, at the end of the day, I
think it's pretty simple, right, Like I think you just
kind of as soon as the game ends on Sunday,
you obviously just kind of jump into things and you
start scheduling, you know, within the rules obviously of the NFL.
You start If I'm Ryan Poles, if I'm Kevin Warren,
I'm scheduling Ben Jonson's interview as quick as possible. I'm
talking about Frabo, you know, next week. Obviously they had
(22:22):
the opportunity to talk to him this week, and obviously
the Jets are talking to him on Friday, so we'll
see what that kind of looks like. But I'm reaching
out to you know, Liam Cohen, I'm reaching out to
Joe Brady, I'm reaching out to Brian Floor. I'm reaching
out to anyone that I'm interested in. And the other
thing that I think is kind of interesting in all
of this is I'm not getting worried if a team
(22:43):
continues to win and you have to wait, right, I
shouldn't like I'm and I think that. And I'm not
saying that. This was kind of the case with Matt
Eberflus a couple of years ago. But it was quick,
right Like they hired Polls and then a couple of
days later, forty eight hours later they hired Matt Eberflues
where And I know the comparison has been made a
lot with you know, the Minnesota Vikings, who were doing
the same exact thing. They wait until Kevin o'con O'Connell
(23:06):
was done with the Super Bowl, right too, like obviously,
in the week before you can kind of work through
negotiations and that kind of stuff, but you can't officially
announce anything until after the super Bowl. But I don't
care if you have to wait in the in the
Detroit Lions go all away to the super Bowl, and
Ben Johnson's your guy. You wait until the very end,
and you give him the money that he wants, and
you make sure that it happens because you need to.
(23:29):
You can't be afraid of waiting. You can't be afraid of, well,
maybe this guy won't be able to give this full
coaching staff. If you believe in the guy and you
think or you think that they can make a difference
for Caleb and for your franchise, it doesn't really matter
how much money they want, you know, realistically, or you
know what the timeframe is, you need to get him because,
like Kevin Warren said like a month ago, this is
(23:51):
a pretty pretty significant coaching hire for both your franchise,
just both with the development of Caleb Williams and where
you are at this point.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, it absolutely is. And and uh, you know, like
I said at the top, you have to interview Ben
Johnson as soon as possible, because once you get to
the conference championship rown, you cannot those coaches cannot do
interviews that week. They cannot do interviews the week of
the Super Bowl. Uh. You have to get those first
interviews in. Uh, you know these these first couple of
weeks before the divisional round.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And obviously we all expect the Lions to to potentially
go pretty far in the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I know that that's not.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Guaranteed, but I would expect that they're going to be
in the NFC Championship, in the potentially in the Super Bowl. Yeah.
That's UH. If you are interested in in some of
the logistics of how it works, I do have a
story coming out tomorrow on Saturday. Uh, head to shaw
Local dot com. Uh, you can can read exactly what
the rules are for how all this works. I know
(24:49):
it's a little bit nitty gritty football stuff, but uh,
if you're here with us, you're you're deep in the
weeds anyway, So, UH, we appreciate you joining us. I
do see a comment from Rober and actually, let's see
I want to scroll back up. Robert did have a
question about what we're gonna be up to. Yeah, we
(25:09):
we are gonna keep doing shows during the offseason. Uh,
we're kind of hoping maybe once a week that that
will kind of abb and flow based on on what
time of year it is. Obviously, once we get into
into free agency and the draft, I think we'll be
joining you guys at least once a week, but definitely
throughout the coaching search. Like, there's gonna be plenty to
talk about, and so we're gonna we're gonna keep joining
(25:31):
you guys. So so stick with us. We appreciate you
guys jumping on here live and chatting with us. Robert
had Phillips had another question in here, and I guess
I kind of want to hear from the room see
what some of the other folks think. Are you happy
that we're starting Caleb against the Packers? Yeah, Like there's look,
there's always an injury concern when you're throwing out a
(25:52):
guy onto the onto the football field like in the NFL,
guys get hurt. Obviously, if Caleb Williams were to suffer
a add injury, torn acl something like that, you know,
knock on wood, not trying to jinx anything, but that
would affect next season at this point. And so that's
that's a risk that you have to weigh. I absolutely
think you have to be thinking about that. I'm okay
(26:13):
with with him starting this game.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
If the Packers pull their starters in the second half,
I might do the same. Personally, what do you it's it's.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I don't think you mention him. I don't think that,
like he there's something to say about is he getting
valuable experience in these games and like this s wonky,
you know, format and the coaching piring and that kind
of stuff, Like is there value to it? And I
think there is, right, Like there's value to seeing a
pass frush, seeing coverages and that kind of stuff, And honestly,
(26:44):
there's value to just building confidence into the offseason, right
Like you you go through this ten game losing streak,
you know there's some highs. I don't know how many
highs that were there, a bunch.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Of lows there when there were even.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Like even even in the losses, even losing streak where
Caleb played well and he brought this team back right,
and you kind of want to see that again. Where
I feel like the last couple of weeks ever since
Eberflus got fired, I don't I don't. I'm not putting
at all on Caleb or anything like that, but it
hasn't been good, right, Like he hasn't really gotted the
team over the hump or anything like that. So I
(27:21):
think there's something to gaining experience in this game. Listen,
if he's being harassed in the offensive line can't protect him,
maybe you put Tyson Bagen in there. If he's good
seven times again, yeah, yeah, I mean you don't really
want to head into the off season with the with
the sack record, which what is it like nine? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
He would need nine to say.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I think I think if your Tom is Brown at
that point, if you're even sniffing five, you're just like
get out, like you're not. We're not We're not letting
you break the record. There's no need for you to
be in this game right now.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
But I think nine sounds crazy, but let's remember that
he was sacked nine times against the Patriots.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yes, but there is value. I think going to Green Bay,
being in that environment, seeing what it's like playing like
in a year from now. It's good to have that
experience of going through warm ups at Lambeau in the cold,
getting ready for you know, knowing what the circumstances are. Like.
I think it's like you can say, like, well, what
(28:18):
are you really going to get from that? But there
might be some value in getting some familiarity being like
the locker rooms here, this is how I like to
do things at Lambo. This is how the set up
as a Lambeau. This is what it's kind of like,
And this is how I'm going to prepare myself if
there is a big game next season, right at the
end of the season or that kind of stuff. Like,
I think there's value through just going through experiences and
being familiar with things for your future. Sure, this game
(28:40):
might not matter and you're not going to like change anything,
but there is value in going through the pregame routine.
You're going against defenses that will benefit you in the future.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, and look, you expect to win in Green Bay
in the future, like you expect you hold Williams to
be the quarterback who can can flip this rivalry, or
at least let's start by saying pull it a little
bit more even, and you're gonna have to try to
win some games in Green Bay to do that. That's
the place that they're going to be playing every single year. Yeah,
I fully expect Cale to start the game. I'd be
(29:13):
curious to see, based on the EBB and flow of
the game whether or not he plays the whole time.
Marlon Harris in the comment stinks that Tyson Vage wouldn't
take a single sack. Yeah, I don't know about that.
It would be honestly, I would like to see. We
didn't really get to see Tyson this year, and I
would like to see where he's at. But also I
(29:35):
understand why you're playing Caleb, like I get it, but
I would like to kind of see where Tyson Bageon
is because we haven't really seen him all year.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Do you going off of that? Do you kind of
like the approach that Thomas Brown's kind of taken where
you know, I feel like he's been asked the last
couple of weeks, but are you going to see more
developmental guys, more younger guys and that kind of stuff,
And he's kind of been on the mind so that
if the veterans are healthy, they're going to play. Do
you yeah, what are your thoughts about that? Do you
like that? Like I are you or are you kind
of like well, Keenan Allen might not be here next year,
(30:06):
maybe we need to get see more Tyler Scott or
whatever like have you, like, do you want to see
Kuran kind of get in there? Like what are your
thoughts about, like maybe about them deciding to stick with
the veterans as opposed to maybe some getting some younger
guys so you can kind of see what your younger
guys are doing.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
My thoughts are they should be playing the young guys.
But my concurrent thought is, you know who else might
not be here next year. It probably won't be as
Thomas Brown, And I think he is trying to pad
his resume for his next job as well. I think
not that. Look, I don't think there's a huge difference
between going one and four and going oh and five,
But oh and five certainly looks bad as the head coach,
(30:46):
not that one and four looks all that much better.
But yeah, I think he's trying to win football games.
He's got this golden opportunity to be an interim head coach.
His goal should be to wait as many games as
he can. So I do kind of get it from
that perspective, But yeah, like I agree, like if you know,
if you had your your head coach of the future,
(31:07):
if your coach wasn't going anywhere, I would absolutely play
the youngest. I would play Tyler Scott, I would play
Karana Magaji. I don't know. I mean, we don't have
to get into the Koran stuff, but I think I
would be comfortable playing Koran if you had a full
week of practice. We obviously that that's that wasn't the
case in that Minnesota game and he got the short
end of the stick there. But I would be happy
(31:30):
with playing playing some of those young guys. I absolutely
think so.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Because you need to see what you have, right, Like
this is like we can talk about this obviously in
next week's episode, and obviously obviseason episodes about who he
thinks is gonna stay, who's going to come back or whatever.
But listen, like the last few months has been a
good evaluation period for Ryan Poles to see what he has,
like what not even like the production on the field,
but like what have players been like in the locker
(31:54):
room during down times? Have they been you know, positive?
Have they kind of kept things down or have they
kind of let the moment kind of sink in? And obviously,
I know, you know, it's easy for us to say, like,
we don't go through the day to day. We don't
go through you know, the losing and that kind of
stuff as much as players do. But you're learning a
lot about your team right now, and there's a lot
of evaluations to be made, and you got to see
(32:15):
whether Kuran can play, whether Javon Dexter can kind of
get in there, like he was a healthy scratch last week,
right like you at some point you got to say,
Zach Pickens, say Zach Pickens, Yeah, my bad. At some
point you just need to see what these top picks
are because at this point, not many of them are
clicking right now.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
For Ryan Pols, yeah, no, I would agree with that.
What about another name too? Who I I'd love to
see Austin Booker get a few more snaps. He's been
playing roughly twenty percent of snaps down the stretch here,
Like I'd like to see him, you know, get a
couple more opportunities to see what he can do. Yeah,
I'm all for playing some of the young guys when
(32:52):
the season like it's over. We all know that, you know,
going back to the top like these the players know that,
like just having been in that locker room yesterday, like
it's they know that this is over, and Marlin says
he's seen enough of Zach Pickens. I kind of feel like,
I mean, look, yeah, he's high, had opportunities. I do
(33:14):
agree with that, and it's gone the way it's gone.
He hasn't done the whole lot. Mike Johnson said that
Detroit announced their arrival by beating the Packers in the
last game a few years ago. Yeah, sure that that
could be. That could be, you know, if the Bears
do win this game, that would be somewhat of a statement,
assuming that the Packers try to win and play. Jordan
(33:37):
loved the whole game. At the same time, so much
is going to change. You don't have a head coach
right now, and so it's hard to really build off
of anything.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I feel like, yeah, it'll be interesting just to see
what they decide to do. And I you know, with
that and that kind of stuff, with what sick Pickens
has done, another guy's have done, it'll at some point
you just kind of see, need to see what they have.
But it'll be interesting to see what they do, especially
if you know, for the Packers there is seeding, right
so they're going to get a little bit of difference. Yeah,
(34:07):
and obviously I think it's either the sixth seed or
the seventh seeds, so there's somebody to play for, and
you don't really want to have to be the seventh
seed heading into the playoffs with what are they like,
twelve win or thirteen win team at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah, it will matter. I believe the Eagles are locked
into the two seed as well, so that that is
something to keep in mind sure when you're looking at that,
whether you're you're the six or the seventh seed. For
the Packers, we got about ten minutes left here. I
do want to roll through our final pregame segments here.
It feels a little anti climatic doing this for this,
(34:40):
this somewhat meaningless game, but let let's let's do it, Michael,
A game within the game. What do you watch and
what what position battles? Who are you paying attention to?
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I'm going to be consistent. I'll just go with Caleb, right,
and that's what I've been saying. That's what I've been
saying for the past three weeks. And to be honest,
I haven't liked what I've I haven't disliked like I
don't nothing that I've seen over the past few games
has made me be like, well, is Caleb not the guy?
He's the guy, like he's your quarterback, but I would
have liked to see more and there's still some like, yes,
(35:12):
he's being pressured, but like he even talked about it
this week where he's kind of tired of his offensive
line getting like flack for all the sacks, where he's
admitted and said like a bunch of those sacks are
on me. And that's kind of one thing that I've
kind of been concerned about where I've kind of wanted
that to get better and for his accuracy to get better,
and you haven't seen that really, Like he's still taking
(35:35):
some sacks that he shouldn't be taking, and there's still
some miscommunication or off throws, right, So you know, it
could be fool's gold if you do end up playing
well this week, obviously, especially if you're going against backups.
But I do want to see some tangible things from
Caleb this this week that kind of have me encouraged
and kind of have him encourage heading into the offseason,
(35:55):
where he's avoiding some sacks, he's getting rid of the
ball quicker, he's accurate on some deep is that I
think you can build on flip and kind of work
through once you kind of get back together for OTA's
mini camp.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
And that sort of stuff. Yeah. Look, anyone who's tuning
in for this game is who's still watching this team
is doing it because of Caleb Williams, and so yeah,
I'm one hundred percent with you. I'm watching what Caleb
is doing. I'll join Mike in the comments here. He's
watching DJ go for a thousand yards. Sure, I'll throw
that in the ring too. I don't think he'll get there,
(36:26):
but if it's important to him, maybe they will force
feeding the ball. You know, he's their guy moving forward.
He's under contract for six years. They want to keep
him happy. If he wants to go for a thousand yards,
I'm sure that they will have opportunities to do that.
Romo Dunese has been sick this week. That's another thing
to keep in mind when you're talking about the receivers. Also,
(36:49):
Kyler Gordon has been sick too. There's something going around
the building. It seems it's that time of year. The
only other like major injury concern is Tevin Jenkins has
still got the calf injury. He has not practic this
this week.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
You feel like he's played this final game with the
Bears quite possibly, I don't.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
I'd have to dig into two similar comps to look
at what kind of contracts they got. I don't think
the Bears are going to break the bank for him.
If they can get him at a somewhat friendly deal,
I think they would bring him back. But yeah, he's
missed a lot of time. I mean he I know
he gets crapped for missing a lot of time. He
hasn't missed that much time this season. He's played in
(37:30):
fourteen games. You know, it's looking like it's probably going
to be fourteen. Like that's the most he's played in
his whole career. And I get it, you want guys
to play seventeen games, but offensive linemen are hurt a lot,
and so I I feel like he deserves a little
bit of props for being relatively healthy this year, But
(37:50):
I don't know that that's going to be enough to
bring him back.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
No, And like maybe you bring him back on a
not a minimum, but you're definitely not putting a top
tier contract for him. And I don't really know who
else around the league would do that for him, right, Like,
just given his injury passed and yes, I know obviously
he's played more, but he still has ended up on
the injury report a lot this year and it's been
an okay performance. So yeah, it was just interesting just
(38:15):
to kind of see what they're going to decide to
do with that, because at this point you're probably sticking
with Darnell, right and you're just trying to figure out
what else is going to work on the offensive line.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, I would expect that they are going to approach
the offensive line, both in free agency and in the
draft in multiple ways. I mean, you got money to spends,
You're going to spend it like that's what it's for
and and you know you, especially after the way this
season has gone, like there's gonna be an urgency to
get that fixed. And I think that they will will
(38:47):
look at at all their options there. Okay, most valuable
bear that there's a game feels like a long time ago, Michael,
I had DJ Moore, you had Caleb Williams and DJ
Moore scored nine point two Fantasy points and have PPR.
Caleb Williams scored six point five. I got the victory.
(39:09):
I have clinched. I have won. It's nine to seven
going into going into the last week of the season.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Should have listened to Rick a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I'll work on I'll work on my postseason victory speech
for next time. We can, uh, we can hand out
the trophy that that doesn't exist yet. But yeah, this
is this is a victory for me. So I'm I'm,
you know, gonna pat myself on the back and I'm
gonna turn it over to you. It is your week
to pick first, who you got who's your most valuable bear.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
I'll go with DJ because we're all feeling it and
we're all hoping just one thousand yards and I just
don't like anything else that I've seen. Well, I can't
take Caleb obviously, and I looked at DeAndre Swift's numbers.
They're not good rooms six, so he might not be
at one hundred percent. That's the baby between Keenan Allen
or maybe DJ Moore, but I'll go with DJ Moore.
(39:58):
I feel like there might be an incentive. I can't
guarantee that there is, but there might be an incentive,
and he might be motivated to get some extra money
if he gets close to over a thousand yards.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, I like that. I think that's a really good pick.
I can also not not pick Caleb. We have we
have exhausted our Caleb Williams picks. We did three three
each was the the maximum this season. You know what,
I'm I'm actually gonna do something that neither of us
have done in a while. I'm gonna go on the
defensive side. I'm gonna take the Pro bowler. I'm gonna
(40:29):
take Jalen Johnson. Here's an interesting stat. Jordan Love has
not thrown an interception since he saw the Bears. Remember
early midway through the season, he was He threw a
pick in every single game up until that Bears game,
and since then he has not thrown an interception. I
think Jala Johnson's gonna get a pick and his season
(40:51):
on a positive note. It would feel like a good
way for him to end the year. And hey, he's
he's coming off a high. He made the Pro Bowl.
That's good for him. Obviously, that's a lot of respect
for a cornerback because look, he's only got two picks
this year. Like that tells you that the people, the
(41:11):
coaches and the players who are watching the tape. They
know how good he is.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, and you see it in the numbers, right, like,
isn't it isn't he one of the top of not
the top like cornerbacks that is being like not being
thrown to, Like people are deliberately avoiding him, like they're
not throwing the ball near Jalen Johnson as much as
any other cornerback in the league.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I think he has fifty two targets in sixteen games.
I'm not a mass guy, but that's not a lot.
That's what three per game or something like that. And
according to the Bears that they put out a stat
among cornerbacks who have started at least thirteen games, that
is the fewest targets. And yeah, obviously we all know this.
(41:54):
You know, opponents are going after Tyreek Stevenson, they're going
after Kyler Gordon, They're going after some of these other guys.
They're staying away from Jalen Johnson. I'm taking Jaialen this week.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
I think it's a good pick. I mean, if you're
gonna choose a defensive player like I saw Rich Show's
Montes sweat, I don't hate that pick. He's kind of
he's kind of been m I a for half a
year at this point, like he's had some moments or whatever,
but I think injuries have kind of hurt him. But
I feel like, I, if you're gonna choose a defensive guy,
I like Jalen Johnson's pick. Kyler Gordon has been pretty good,
(42:25):
like Roberts dimensions.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Yeah, Kyler has been good. You know this is this
is a good game to pat your stats too. We
all know how much those defensive ends value their sacks.
Montese is sitting at five and a half this season,
probably not the season he was envisioning when when things started, Uh,
you pick up two more. You know, seven and a
half looks a lot better than five and a half. Okay,
(42:49):
surprise prediction, Michael, you got any surprise predictions heading into
this game? Something we're not talking enough about.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
I'm not gonna go as crazy as to say that
the Bears win this game, but I do think that
it's a close scheme. I don't think. I think I
think the offense shows some light that are going to
leave people being like, where has this been all year long?
And I think that I think that's my biggest thing, right.
I think the spread is like six and a half points.
I forget what it is. I think the Bears cover
(43:16):
and I think that I only they'll win, but I
don't They're not going to get blown out, and I
think it's going to be a closer loss than maybe
some people might expect it to be.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Some other surprise predictions coming in. Rick says an opening
drive touchdown, that would be a favorite. Yeah, that would
be a surprise, and that would be a funny way
at the end of the year. Robert has col comeect
in one hundred yards.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Marlin says, surprise pick a special team's touchdown? All right,
I like that. Mike says, defense scores a safety. Yeah,
we have. Have we seen the safety this year? I
don't think we have either into the verity. No, I
am going to go with the ultimate surprise. I think
Caleb Williams is sacked two or fewer times. I don't
(43:58):
know why. That's that's where my head's going. But you
know what, sometimes, uh these narratives get talked about and overblown.
And I know it was really bad last game, but
I think that, you know, Caleb, it's like they come
in bunches this season. You know, there's been the there's
been games where he wasn't sacked a lot, and then
there's games there's been multiple games where he sacked six, seven,
(44:21):
nine times. I think, coming off that that poor performance
last week, I think, uh that Caleb will play a
relatively clean game and keep keep his eyes down field
get the ball out of his hands.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, I could see that. You know, I don't have
the numbers in front of me, but it does feel
like he's been packed a lot over the past few games.
So you know, I can see that happening, especially if
the Packers decided to rust some of their defensive players.
Maybe you're not able to get as much of a
pass rush against this offensive line as you would if
you were playing all your starters.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
He had seven, let's just go since since Fluse was
fired these four games, seven against the forty nine ers,
He had only two against Minnesota and only two against
Detroit and then seven more against Seattle. Yeah, it really
has been coming in bunches. Shoot, that's one. Like I said,
(45:17):
I'm not a math guy, but I'm gonna try to
add this up real quick. One two, three, four, five
games with six or more sacks If I'm if my
math is correct there, that's they come in bunches. They
come in bunches. Michael, what's your prediction and your score
for this one.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I'll go with the Packers win. I think the losing
streak goes to twelve against the Packers, eleven overall of
the season, new franchise record, all the good stuff. I
think the Packers win. Let's make it a twenty twenty
one to seventeen game. I think it's relatively close toward
the end Bears aren't able to get it going. But yeah,
I mean, you know, I haven't been left encouraged at all,
(45:59):
especially after that, you know, game against the Seahawks. That
was a winnable game that you just kind of blew
at the end with poor management and poor execution. And
it's tough, and I know it's obviously not what people
want to hear, but I mean, I think that's just
a cherry on top of a band season. You just
lose to your arrival, You set a franchise record, and
you lose your twelve straight to them.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Yeah, I am less optimistic that the Bears are going
to keep this thing close. I feel like this team
is ready for the offseason. I'm taking the Packers. I
honestly haven't thought about the score. But as I'm thinking
about it now, I'm going to go something like, I
don't know, twenty seven to seventeen, something like that. I
(46:43):
do think that this will probably be a double digit
win for the Packers, assuming that they do, you know,
keep their starters in Jordan Love plays the whole game.
I think the Packers will win this relatively easily. I
do think that they probably want to win this game.
If you're the seventh seed, you're going at Philadelphia. That's
a little bit tougher than it looks like. The Rams
(47:04):
are probably going to be the three seed, but it's hard,
Like you can't weird things happen. Even if they win,
they might not move up a seed. But I still
think that that this Bears team has checked out. I
think they're ready for the offseason. I have zero confidence
that they're going to keep this close.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
How about the Rams too? Right, Like, this is the
team that the Bears are beating, and they kind of
handled and limited Matthew Stafford And what a run they've
kind of gone on that that's a that's a nice win.
You kind of look at back in the season, you're like,
why why were we able to continue that. Obviously the
Rams figured some things out and they didn't have Cooper, Cooper,
Kupper and Nikola against the Bears.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, they were pretty back then. That was a nice
win back the NFL man, the NFL man, there's there's
always weird results. There's always weird results. Yeah, that was man,
This team was foreign to Can you believe that we
are all right? I think? Oh, go ahead, go ahead. No.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I was just gonna say, what's your prediction the as
the polls here on Monday? As he absolutely the media.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
I don't know if he meets the media on Monday,
but he'll he'll he'll be the one hiring the coach.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I I do believe. Yeah, wait, what do you think?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
No?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
I would agree. I think that everything we've kind of
been led to believe. I think that I feel like
it'd be pretty I wouldn't say shocking, but it'd be
pretty surprising if on Sunday night, Monday morning, we get
like Adam SCHAFTERI and I would say when fired by
that like that, that would be pretty surprising.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
I would be shocked. I know that's been talked about
a lot the last couple of weeks, but I've never
thought that that is really where this is heading. So
personally I would be surprised after after trotting him out
there with Kevin Warren five weeks ago, and and and
all that stuff, I just don't see that happening. Yeah,
but we will find out, and we will uh we
will uh come, we'll We'll join you guys again next week.
(48:53):
Thanks if you if you've lasted this long, thanks for
for listening with us. Hit the thumbs up on YouTube.
We really appreciate you guys joining the show live. If
you're listening after the fact on Spotify or Apple or
wherever you get your podcasts, keep an eye on our
Twitter pages. We'll let you know when we're gonna go live.
I'm at Shawn Underscore Hammond. He is at Mdwojack ninety
four and as always, head over to shaw Local dot
(49:14):
com to read all of our work. That is the
number one best way to support us. Please consider subscribing
over at Shawlocal dot com and you can read all
of our Bears coverage. He's Michael Dwojack. I'm Sean Hammond.
This has been the Shaw Local Bears Insider podcast. Thanks
for joining us, everybody, and try to enjoy the last
Bears game of the season,
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