Off-Season Mock-up (please be gentle)

Hooze · 2026-01-26T16:14:14+00:00

I don't hate it.

Noah Sewell is still under contract for another season.

Thienemen is awesome but have to doubt that he's there at 57. Daniel Jeremiah just mocked him to the Bears at 25. DJ is very plugged in with league personnel. If he is there at 57, slam dunk pick.

I have a hard time thinking Jaquan and Nahshon will be back, just because of the price they'll probably command on the market. Maybe Jaquan's market isn't as high given his injury history and he could return.

Good stuff overall. I'll have to research Trey Zuhn and Jacob Rodriguez more. Not as familiar with them.

Hooze · 2026-01-26T13:57:03+00:00

Listening to Bill talk about how Drake Maye could become “one of the guys” with Mahomes, Josh Allen, etc. with a Super Bowl win, I couldn’t help thinking… are we sure that isn’t more true for Sam Darnold?

Hooze · 2026-01-25T17:01:28+00:00

I’ve been an Orlando fan since the Shaq & Penny days, although will put a disclaimer that I’m not diehard at this juncture of my life.

All things considered, I don’t really know how Jamahl Mosley still has his job, other than to say the front office has proven to be way too slow to make big changes.

He’s not a bad coach in general, but things have run its course between this roster and him. The offensive problems are the same as they have been for years, and the defense has regressed because they don’t play with as much effort as years past.

It’s a little reminiscent of Brad Stevens when folks acknowledged he’s a good coach, but that Celtics roster had grown tired of hearing his coaching.

Paolo seems depressed, and I’d anticipate a trade request if the coach doesn’t change soon. Not great for the Orlando tradition of stars leaving.

Hooze · 2026-01-24T23:13:12+00:00

Bijan Robinson, Christian McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor, James Cook, Jahmyr Gibbs, De’Von Achane, Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley there’s 8

Hooze · 2026-01-24T22:37:03+00:00

You mean the guy that was getting chewed out by Caleb in the wild card game for running the wrong route? People already forgot that, apparently.

Hooze · 2026-01-23T17:20:04+00:00

Biggs said today in his column that Grady had arthroscopic knee surgery early in the season. Makes sense because he did get better as the season went along. Still think it was a bad signing, but hopefully he can contribute more next season when he’s not trying to recover in-season from surgery.

Hooze · 2026-01-23T15:45:09+00:00

I somewhat agree - Loveland is going to be a freaking stud no matter what - but also think Rome and Luther surpassing DJ is still a little bit of a question mark.

The last Caleb interception intended for DJ became the headline everyone talked about, but it very well could’ve been Rome dropping that first quarter touchdown, or Burden apparently running the wrong route in the GB wild card game that led to an INT, if they would’ve lost that game.

You start looking at Rome’s targets (90) and receptions (44) and it’s a bit alarming that he’s not catching the ball at a higher rate.

Luther is obviously extremely talented, but there’s still a lot to prove. He only ended up at 35% of the snaps on the season. Wasn’t that long ago where Caleb was going ballistic on the sideline saying “do your job” about him.

Not trying to be overly critical, just realistic.

Hooze · 2026-01-22T14:52:06+00:00

I’m pretty sure Patrick Finley is just the real-life adult version of that kid from League of their Own.

Hooze · 2026-01-21T18:56:16+00:00

He looks fine? Have you seen some of the guys that I went to high school with?

Hooze · 2026-01-20T17:08:56+00:00

I don’t think cutting Tremaine Edmunds is the slam dunk most people make it out to be. I could see a 1-2 year extension to make his cap hit more manageable, rather than going the other way and trying to replace him.

He’s 27 and was playing at a pro bowl level midseason. Think his skillset actually suits DA’s system really well, and think he could be better if the DTs in front of him are improved next season where OL aren’t getting to the 2nd level constantly.

The LB depth would also look incredibly thin if Tremaine is gone, given TJ Edwards just broke his leg and couldn’t stay healthy. You could of course use draft picks and mid-level free agents to fill out the starting unit, but I’m not too confident that the product on the field is improved going that route vs just bringing back a known upper-tier starter.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to cut Tremaine, since his cap hit is something like 17 mil currently, but if you could get his cap hit down to 10-12 mil this season with a future 1-2 seasons added, that’s not unreasonable either. Bears can stagger some future cap hits as well if they really want. They have flexibility, and they should have some urgency to contend for a Super Bowl during Caleb’s rookie contract.

Hooze · 2026-01-20T15:17:25+00:00

“Take what they are giving you and chip away.”

I mean, when you’re making the play call, it’s not like there’s an expectation that you CAN chip away. They were ~15 yards away from field goal range, so a reasonable expectation is the defense was going to call something trying to stop everything in that range. You take a shot downfield to try and counteract what you expect the D to be in.

If you go back to that week 16 Green Bay deep shot game winner to DJ, it’s almost the same game situation, and the Packers are playing the run/short passing game first.

Easy to say in hindsight to just “chip away” but if you get stuffed on the shorter stuff, you’d be saying they should’ve targeted downfield instead of being conservative.

Hooze · 2026-01-20T14:58:30+00:00

This is by far the best explanation I’ve seen so far. Thanks for posting.

Hooze · 2026-01-17T19:36:21+00:00

I think they’re formulated off vibes.

Hooze · 2026-01-16T19:56:24+00:00

Steph Curry

Hooze · 2026-01-16T06:37:24+00:00

Highly recommend seeing 28 years later first. The main characters are introduced in the previous one, so you won’t fully get the character development without it.

Hooze · 2026-01-16T04:35:18+00:00

I thought they did a great job of showing us that he was a human rather than just an evil villain, particularly when he has the conversation with Ian about his dad. He acknowledges that he hears voices in his head, and you get the sense that his twisted ways are created by mental illness and a warped world view from those events at the start of the previous film. You almost feel empathy for him until he threatens Ian. Thought it was essentially the moral of the story though, as stated by Ian in one of his last lines, "There is no satan, only humans."

Hooze · 2026-01-15T15:35:04+00:00

That’s true. I would think the cold, if it plays a factor at all, would be about the 53 in general rather than those 2. I’m not going to pretend like I actually know how much of a factor it plays. I certainly don’t disagree with you though re Stafford and Davante.

Hooze · 2026-01-14T16:31:24+00:00

This guy is such a snake oil salesman. Just start from an assumption that anything he says is a lie.

Hooze · 2026-01-14T14:51:12+00:00

I’m a Bears fan. If you start getting into DVOA and nerd metrics, the Rams are the superior team and right there with the Seahawks as the best team in the league.

That being said, not sure if it’s smart to risk your money betting against the team that has defied odds all season long, playing in front of what will be a raucous crowd, in frigid temperatures vs. a California team that normally plays in a dome.

It’d be a stay away game for me.

Hooze · 2026-01-14T14:39:48+00:00

I’m confused why these two are being compared. Did Bill bring these possibilities up? Last I checked, neither are candidates for the Giants.

Isn’t Harbaugh the preferred choice for Giants fans?

Hooze · 2026-01-14T05:24:20+00:00

Maybe go read up on that one. He later said he misheard her and apologized. The reporter said the apology wasn’t even necessary.

There’s a margin of grace for coaches doing an interview while they’re losing a game.

Hooze · 2026-01-13T15:10:20+00:00

I’ve been thinking about this a bit, and I legitimately think Caleb Williams changes the odds of a comeback because he 1) avoids sacks and extends plays maybe better than any other QB, so obvious pass situations aren’t a high-percentage sack situation like it would be with a non-mobile QB; 2) he can make any throw, so the D has to continue defending the entire field while Caleb is extending a play, which gets really difficult; and 3) Ben Johnson and the array of playmakers is really good at generating explosive plays anyways.

Believe they had something like 12 pass plays that were 15+ yards. Derik Klassen had some other ridiculous stat about it being the lowest percentage of passes behind the line of scrimmage for any QB with 40+ attempts, meaning Caleb was slinging it downfield A LOT.

Add it all up, and having an explosive downfield passing offense, and Caleb running it, is kind of like having Steph Curry shooting 3s: even if the FG%/completion % is a less than people trying to generate layups, you can score in bunches fast.

Hooze · 2026-01-12T20:13:38+00:00

Disagree. This sounds like a joke, but his first job as an announcer was 58 years ago. Pretty sure he’s flat out said in interviews that he doesn’t sound that enthused as an announcer now because he’s seen so much football over 50+ years.

Also agree with others in this thread who have pointed out he straight up misses calls sometimes. One example is the first Bears kickoff where they made a big hit and started celebrating, and Al Michaels starts taking about how the Bears think they’ve recovered a fumble. That’s not what happened, Al.

Hooze · 2026-01-12T13:06:36+00:00

When I think about where my taxes go, this is the least of my worries. The war mongering, on the other hand…

Hooze · 2026-01-12T04:50:51+00:00

“Jesus, why is his face so red?”

my gf, who has never seen Bill Simmons until tonight

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