Austin Lyons

Justin Fields is the Chicago Bears Starting QB!

Justin Fields will make his first NFL start against the Browns this Sunday and I couldn’t be more excited. Sure he didn’t exactly light it up against the Bengals when he came in after Dalton got hurt but he looked solid and had been practicing with the scout team all week. We saw some of the plays he can make with his feet and a couple of beautiful passes even if they didn’t end up as completions. I fully believe that after a full week of practicing with the starters and an offensive game plan tailored to him (hopefully, who knows with Nagy) he’ll be ready to put up big numbers against Cleveland. There shouldn’t even be a question of who will start once Dalton is healthy again, this is Fields’ team now and there’s no looking back. If things go so poorly that Dalton needs to be brought back in then it’s 1000% time to fire Nagy and Pace.


Sidenote: I saw some articles saying that with Dalton hurt the question of who would start was between Fields and Foles… was that ever really an option? I don’t even know how I would’ve reacted if Nagy came out and said Foles would start against the Browns, probably would’ve exploded or something. I think Nagy would’ve very literally been run out of Chicago at that point.

Austin Lyons

Football is Back!

We have a football game to watch tonight. It may just be the pre-season, neither of the starting quarterbacks may be playing in this game, and it may just be real sloppy football throughout the whole game, but there is a football game tonight nonetheless. The NBA finals being so much later than usual actually ended up being kind of nice because the gap in sports where there’s nothing on but baseball felt incredibly short (of course the Olympics helped with that too). Betting pre-season games may not be the wisest of decisions considering you really don’t know who’s going to play for how long or how the 3rd string players will do when it’s their time to shine, but damn it I’m going to bet it anyway. With neither teams starting QB playing at all tonight, it’s all in the hands of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stringers; and since I recognize more names from the Steelers’ backups, I’m going to rock with them at -1.5. I feel like defenses typically look more put together at this point of the season which would make a smart man want to bet the under… but no one has ever accused me of being a smart man. Defenses can score points too and I don’t want to cheer against points in the first football game of the season so I’ll be putting my money on O 32.5. 7 o’clock (8 ET) can’t come soon enough, football is back!

Austin Lyons

Stafford Hits Thumb on D Lineman’s Helmet at Rams Practice

It sounds like Stafford’s hand is ok which is great, but I want to know how the D lineman whose helmet he hit is doing? Obviously it depends on what the scenario in practice was at the time. If it was 1s vs 1s then obviously the D lineman probably got a stern “don’t get so close to the QB” and they moved on; but if it was 1s vs scout team then that guy must’ve been shitting his pants. Say it was a late draft pick or an undrafted free agent, he probably saw his NFL opportunity flash before his eyes. If Stafford had actually hurt his hand on that play that lineman would be cut right then and there, hell he still could’ve been without a serious injury. Hopefully if it was a 3rd stringer the lack of serious injury bought him some more time on the Rams.

Austin Lyons

Do the Chicago Bears have the 2 Best QBs in the NFC North?

I don’t think much has to be said about Justin Fields. Sure, Matt Nagy has said Andy Dalton will start the season but any NFL fan knows that once Fields gets thrown in he’ll be a top-tier quarterback right off the bat. The only question is how long will it be until he gets the reins because Dalton is looking awesome at training camp. The tweets below show the beautiful passes he’s been throwing, making me think he’s taken the next step and is about to have a breakout year competing with the best QBs in the league. I know you may be thinking “that’s just the Bears twitter account tweeting out highlights,it’s not indicative of any kind of big leap by Dalton” but I disagree. Why would the Bears tweet these if every throw hasn’t been this good? That would just be getting fans’ hopes up for nothing. Now let’s look at the other NFC North quarterbacks.


Packers: Aaron Rodgers is coming off of an MVP season and has consistently been among the top 3 QBs throughout his career, but this off season showed it will be a down year for Rodgers.He hates the Packers organization and simply does not want to be in Green Bay. He made them trade for Randall Cobb so that he can have a friend to just kick back and relax with while he goes through the motions for his last year in Green Bay. I have no doubt he’ll be back to MVP level play when he finds a team he actually wants to play for. Until then, he’ll just be in a holding pattern.

Vikings: Kirk Cousins has just entered the NFL’s Covid protocol and will have to miss at least 5 days of training camp before returning to practice. I’d put Dalton and Cousins pretty close to each other in terms of skill level so these missed reps are really going to cost the Minnesota QB. While he’s sitting in quarantine, Dalton and Fields will be continuing to get better and really separating themselves from Cousins.


Lions: Jared Goff is a decent QB but he’s no Matt Stafford. If the Lions still had Stafford they’d most likely have the best quarterback in the division this season but unfortunately for them he’s gone. Goff will do fine but I haven’t seen any clips of him making overly impressive throws in the first week of camp (I also haven’t looked for any).

Austin Lyons

Tarik Cohen Still Walking Gingerly at Practice

This really sucks to see. Apparently Tarik Cohen is still walking around gingerly after tearing his ACL last season. He’s an extremely fun player to watch and one of the guys I’ve been most excited to see on the field again this season. If he’s still not walking at 100%, then I guess we won’t be seeing him at the start of the season. Hopefully he’ll be back to dancing around defenders before the half way point of the season to provide a nice boost for the Bears offense.