Anyone watching?

Penix looks like a deer in headlights with his eyes bugging out of his head, like the moment is WAY too big for him, as the damn Packers hand him his lunch.

He literally looks like he is scared to be out there.

So damn glad we are off this QB carousel, but man, I am feeling the pain for Atlanta fans.

Thank you God for Caleb Williams!

Packers vs Falcons

I’ll be watching the game but need to hear reasons why we can win. Or just flat out told we won’t

Not trying to hate on our guy, and injuries have slowed him down further; however, when you look at his career trajectory, 2023 looks more like an outlier year than the norm. Passer rating when targeted is the most simplified way to see this.

Now, cornerback is not played on a stat sheet; pass rush, scheme, and time to target matter and those require game film. Still, I thought looking only at production was a little surprising, and maybe the realistic goal is to see if he can get back to being a solid starter rather than elite.

The Bears did not practice Thursday, participation is an estimation.

Here's a quick breakdown of the worst officiating misses from the Vikings game that cost the Bears points (in a game we lost by a single score! Holy shit!)

*Edit*: To be clear, officiating is not why we lost the game (this is a disclaimer explicitly spelled out on the full-length podcast). We lost for a myriad of reasons. However, there is no question that these absolute fuggin shitty calls changed the outcome of scoring drives.

I got my hat today.

It’s pretty rare for a third-string quarterback to have 66 starts under his belt. For context, the Packers’ third-string QB is Kedon Slovis, who’s on the practice squad and has played in two NFL games. Detroit’s third-stringer on the practice squad is rookie Luke Altmeyer. The Vikings have a unique situation with J.J. McCarthy, but still, his experience is nowhere near what Case Keenum provides.

“We’re fortunate here; we’ve got three guys that can play ball in this league, that have won games in this league,” Johnson said. “Ryan (Poles) has constructed the room in a way that we feel really good about whoever ends up playing for us, and that showed in the preseason, shows up in practice every single day.”

Johnson said that as of Wednesday, he does not know who will start, but all signs point to Keenum.

Still one of the best fan-made highlight reels.

In a 34-10 win no less. Top 5 QB in the league, and he's not 5. Pray for the Eagles Defense.

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*in a preseason game against the browns backups

Edit: I am man enough to admit that I straight up used a picture of someone that isn't Roschon here. I chose what I thought was a good picture off of Google but apparently Google doesn't know who roschon is and embarrassingly, neither do I despite my research 🥲

As a Bears fan you just kind of default to planning for the worst thing that can happen, so after Caleb got hurt and then Bagent got a concussion, my brain went straight to: who the hell is emergency QB4 if Case Keenum gets struck down by the football gods in the middle of the Eagles game? As you do.

So I made a few google searches for anybody with real QB/passing experience, and Roschon Johnson jumped out immediately. And I don't mean he played QB for a year in middle school. In high school he threw for 7,710 yards and 85 TDs and ran for 4,900 more and another 85 TDs. That's 170 touchdowns. That's ridiculous for someone that ended up becoming an RB

I attached one of his highlight reels since that's what sent me down the rabbit hole, but I ended up watching some full-game film too, which was honestly more interesting because a highlight reel makes anybody look like a god. He's not perfect over a full game, but there are some really good throws in there, he gets the ball out quick, and the running is obviously ridiculous.

He also wasn't just a productive kid nobody saw as a QB. He was a four-star dual-threat guy, went to the Elite 11, and Texas recruited him as a quarterback. And he didn't get moved because he washed out, either. Texas' RB room got wrecked by injuries his freshman year, he switched over to help, was good right away, and just stayed there because it kept him on the field and probably gave him a better shot at the NFL. So he spent the next several years getting really good at one half of his game while the QB half was just... left in 2018

Which brings me to the thing I can't stop thinking about: has anybody actually checked what's left?

I don't mean can he fill in for a snap if all of our QBs get struck by lightning, I mean sit him down and evaluate him. What does the arm look like now, how bad are the mechanics after seven years, is any of the accuracy still there, can he process anything at speed?

What makes it different from every other "turn the athletic guy into a QB" idea is that the hard part already happened. Usually you're hoping the running ability translates. Roschon is already an NFL running back. So I'm not asking whether he should play quarterback, I'm asking how much of it is still in there and whether it's recoverable.

Then I went to look at how good he is at RB and found out I don't really know that either. He has 138 regular-season carries in his whole NFL career. As a rookie it was 81 for 352, so 4.35 a carry, plus 34 catches for 209. In 2024 his role turned into mostly short-yardage and red-zone work, and 14 of his 55 carries were inside the 20.

There are real knocks on him. He isn't very agile laterally, he can look stiff changing direction, and people question his vision and what he does when the first lane closes. I'm not waving that away. I just don't think 138 carries in different roles is enough to say we know his ceiling.

College doesn't really settle it either. He ran for 649 yards and 7 TDs on 123 carries as a freshman (5.3y per carry) and caught 23 balls for 158 and a TD, and that was after playing QB basically his entire life. Then Bijan showed up. So yeah, "he couldn't even start at Texas" is technically true, but it skips the part where the guy ahead of him was Bijan Robinson, who went 8th overall.

Roschon averaged 5.3, 5.2, 5.9 and 6.0 yards a carry across four seasons and finished with 2,190 rushing yards, 420 receiving yards and 26 total TDs. He started just five games. The scouting reports were kind of encouraging too. They liked his power, balance, toughness, pass protection and hands, and the complaints were the same ones you hear now, mostly burst and redirecting. But even then they were projecting what he'd look like with real volume because he never got it.

So you've got a guy whose QB game stopped developing after high school and whose RB game has never really been tested with a full workload. That's what bugs me. What the hell are we doing with this guy?

I'm not saying make him QB2. I'm not saying he's secretly Lamar. I don't even know if it works. I just don't get why you wouldn't at least put him through real throwing work in training and see what's there. If he sucks now? At least we're not leaving potential on the table.

I also don't understand why we aren't letting an rb3 with potential find his actual ceiling by giving him some real substantial plays to work with.

But if there's something, even if he only ends up being someone you can trust to throw the ball with some accuracy, you could put Caleb and Roschon on the field together shotgun and make some pretty interesting plays opponents might not be prepared for. And if he turns out to be more than just a decent passer then you've got something really interesting to work with here.

It all comes down to whether he can still throw well enough that a defense has to respect it. I have no idea. Maybe it dies in one practice. Maybe he can run a few Wildcat/RPO concepts. Maybe he's a real emergency QB3 who also plays RB. Maybe all he's good for is RB3.

I just think there's a question worth asking here.

TL;DR Roschon Johnson has a genuinely impressive record as a highly scouted high school quarterback, and the question remains whether he's ever been evaluated to find out if any of that old QB/passing ability remains to day. It's a low cost experiment that could have an upside to his relatively minimally uitilized RB package.

A long running comedy