Bears-Bengals - who gets a game ball?

Bagent?
Booker?
Baskerville?

The first team, against seconds, did not impress me.

Decent?

The defense looks really, really good.  It hasn't allowed a TD in about 10 quarters vs 3 playoff caliber teams.  I'd call that way better then decent.  Both starters and depth at LB and DB look outstanding.  We are only 1 more high-caliber DL player away from being an elite unit IMO. 

I gotta give Flus some props today.  Been very critical of him but I give him a lotta credit for the lessons he seems to have learned over a year ago.  The team looks way more prepared and game-ready this year.  Most pre-snap penalties and other mental screwups have been on the opponents.  And today he didn't coach scared.  After 3 poor possessions offensively, he kept most of his starters, most importantly CW, out there and didn't turtle-up.  It worked.  CW looked outstanding when they cut him loose on that last drive.  

    Man what a throw that was to Scott on the deep ball.  Impressive arm strength and accuracy.  (Just like Trubisky LOL)

    The deep ball to Rome was freakin sick.  There's maybe 5 NFL QBs who can make that throw.  

    The EZ one was a ridiculous play marred only by RO making a rookie mistake with his foot placement.  Again, only a handful of NFL QBs can make that play.

Stats don't matter that much in PS.  Scores don't matter much either.  CW LOOKS THE PART to me and that's the difference.  His pocket awareness and shiftiness reminds me of Rodgers.  His off-platform throwing reminds me of Mahomes.  He just looks comfortable out there even on plays that don't work out.  He looks wayyyyyyyy better to me than Trubisky or Fields ever did in PS.  I'm very optimistic.


Only a few negatives:

• The OL was good again in pass pro except for Nate Davis giving up a sack.
• Tyler Scott still looks a little awkward to me tracking deep throws in flight.  
• Pass rush didn't get home today as much as I hoped they would.
• Would have liked to see Velus get more than one KOR.

But all in all, I'm very happy.  I hope they gives the starters 1 series on Thursday.

Very encouraged by what I'm seeing from Flus so far.

Last PS was a joke in the way they handled Fields.  He threw like 3 screen passes the entire month, that's it.  They clearly didn't trust him at all and it showed in week 1.  It appears Flus has learned from that mistake.  He opened 0-4 last year looking terrible the whole way and it nearly ended his career as a HC.  Can't let that happen again.

Flus seems way more confident this year.  Let your damn QB get reps in the PS!  Yeah, you do risk injury but I think you gotta do it when you don't have a PROVEN starter yet.  Love seeing Flus not turtle up and turning Caleb loose.

BTW, 2 other minor points I forgot:
1) It is sooooo nice to have a QB that can finally throw a proper slant.  Both MT & JF sucked at it.  
2) Bagent is a perfect #2 QB.  The guy is smooth and crisp and CHEAP.  He's good enough to get you a win or two if needed.  So nice to not have any more Caleb Hanies or Nathan Petermans or PJ Walkers around.  Love Bagent -- great UDFA find by Poles.

That's one of the best, posts I've read here in a few weeks.  And that bold/red part I especially liked.  In hindsight I was remembering how Nagy trotted out Fields for his first start in that 3rd game of the 2021 season against the Browns (LINK).  He had not been allowed to work with the 1's in preseason.  Andy Dalton started the preseason games against the 1's too.  Fields?  He got 2 games working as the Bears' backup.  When he was against real starters in the regular season in that 3rd game it was shocking how unprepared he was for the NFL.  About the only thing Nagy had done for fields to "prepare" him for that start was to make him change his mechanics as a rookie - and then try to make Fields play Nagy's QB vision for Fields that just wasn't a fit for him at all.  Square peg into round hole stuff.  I don't think I'll ever be able to forget just how bad that was.

Fast forward to how Caleb Williams is being prepared for his first NFL start, and it is stunning how different Eberflus is setting this up for CW.  Night-and-day different.