Da Dos

Author: ButchDeadLift

  • Simms’ Top 5 DTs

    Simms’ Top 5 DTs

    I like Chris Simms’ NFL breakdowns. They’re a nice blend of meathead and draftbabble [“Oily hips”]. It may help that he’s the son of a good NFL QB, and he himself was a starting QB in the NFL, so he’s steeped in football. He’s literally lived it since childhood, through pop warner, HS, college, then NFL.

    Simms also talks about perhaps the more unsavory details – bubble butts, guts and nuts! and isn’t afraid to go out on a limb. Is he 100% accurate? Of course not – none in the NFL draft biz are, but his top 5s are worth a listen.

    I also like his ‘tiers‘ as they put the players in perspective, and makes it easier to cross-check with his previous draft analysis. For example, just because a prospect is #2, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s in the same area code as #1. Ty Simpson might be #2, but he’s not getting drafted #2 overall behind Mendoza [may not even get drafted in the 1st RD].

    Since I posted on DTs before his actual survey, here it is again in its entirety.

    Tier 1
    1. Kayden McDonald 6’2, 326 (Ohio State)
    Tier 2
    2. Christen Miller 6’0, 310 (Georgia)
    3. Caleb Banks 6’6, 327(Florida)
    4. Domonique Orange 6’2, 325 (Iowa State)
    Tier 3
    5.Lee Hunter 6’3, 330 (Texas Tech)

    As one can see, they are BIG – not the traditional 3Ts Allen previously prefers. Will he change his MO? Dunno. He does like versality. Shemar Turner [6’3, 290] for instance may end up at DE despite being drafted as a DT. One thing these DTs have going for them is that they seem to be able to stop the run, and that’s Allen’s #1 priority. He wasn’t afraid to play Billings [albeit, they let him walk for a reason], so MAYBE these bubble-butts can replace that hole.

    “They are run-stoppers PLUS.” – Simms

    Also of note is that Simms doesn’t put Peter Woods in his top 5 [projects he’ll fall out of 1st. Mel Kiper mocked Woods going #19 to Chargers].

    He is CRAZY high on McDonald [who is frequently mocked to Bears at #25]. ‘He’s between Jaylen Carter and Kenneth Grant. A top 12-10 player who is more than simply run stuffer.’

    Carter went #9 and Grant #12, so either Simms is overrating McDonald, or the rest of the Draftniks are underrating him thinking he’ll fall to the 20s and beyond.


    2. On Miller, “Athletic enough to play 3T like McDonald…Plays hard.”
    3. On Banks, “If his feet were healthy, he”d be Chris Jones-esque”
    4. On Big Citrus, “Explosive. Quicks, twitch, power. Incredible balance.”
    5. On “the Fridge” Hunter, “Doesn’t pop, but disruptive and immovable vs double teams.”

    Dominique “Big Citrus” Orange seems like an intriguing option if Poles passes on DT at #25.

  • Draft ’26: DTs

    Draft ’26: DTs

    Tom Dahlin/Getty Images

    DT IMO is a bigger need than DE. One may argue that Sweat is good bordering on AP. Last season Hendrickson had 4 sacks in 4 games then was out. Crosby had 10 sacks in 15 games then was out. In the NFCN Hutchinson had 14.5 sacks; Parsons had 12.5 in 14 games.

    Sweat had 10 sacks in 17 games while holding up vs run.

    Now, he’s not in the S-tier, but 10 sacks ain’t shabby.

    Austin Booker looks great at times, though he definitely needs to clean up his run d.

    Neither are premium, but they’re not terrible.

    However, at DT, do the Bears roster anyone with the production of Sweat or the upside of Booker?

    Grady Jarrett looked old and INJed. Gervon Dexter is wildly inconsistent and may not even get a 2nd contract. Shemar Turner was the only DT who showed promise, but he seemed more effective at DE and is coming off an INJ. The rest are JAGs.

    In addition, Allen’s philo is to stop the run by setting the edges while having 3Ts disrupt the inside. Once the O can’t run and needs to throw, then he gets exotic with his blitzes and packages.

    But if Allen has DEs who can’t set the edge, nor 3Ts to disrupt the QB – well – we get the ’25 D which would’ve been almost Dallas awful if not for the TOs [never forget the 9ers just dicing them up at will].

    The problem is that great DTs are even harder to come by than great DEs since teams know their value.

    Poles understandably couldn’t get one in FA. Some speculate that Giant’s Dexter Lawrence could still be target – but one must wonder if his down year is an anomaly or a trend. It’s not as if the Gmen are broke – why aren’t they extending him if he’s so good?

    Philly may unload Jalen Carter as well, but if Poles passed on him the 1st time around, hard to imagine he’s going to trade for PLUS pay him now.

    It gets worse for Bears as this draft class is filled with iffy DTs, none more controversial than Peter Woods. Then other DTs like Kayden McDonald [6’2, 326], Christen Miller [6’4, 321] and Caleb Banks [6’6, 327] aren’t exactly pass rushers, nor fit the Allen 3T mold. Would Allen change his MO for the biggens?

    All of which leaves the Bears in a somewhat tricky DT situation which will take some skill and luck to solve.

    Here’s a good take on the DT class.


    Chris Simms will anaylyze his Top 5 DTs Monday morning.

  • Film Friday

    Film Friday

    It’s Friday! Getting mocked da fuq out. Don’t want to get burned out on the draft before it even takes place.

    So, here’s Butch’s recent good film recs.

    “Weapons” It’s EXTREMELY difficult to find good NEW horror/suspense flicks. I don’t know how many times I’ve rewatched “Exorcist III” or “Silence of the Lambs” because I just didn’t feel like watching another new dud.

    So, I was pleasantly surprised to find a pretty good in “Weapons.” I’m not going to write essays on these films, just watch the trailer, but it’s good.

    If you’re simply in a Butch “Roadhouse” type of mood – “Man of Tai Chi” is for you.
    Starring Keenu Reeves – it’s not exactly The Matrix. Honestly, I’ve found some video games with better plots, but it’s fun! What I like most is they actually show the different styles which mixed-martial arts will make extinct inside 50 years.

  • Safety:Emmanuel McNeil-Warren

    Safety:Emmanuel McNeil-Warren

    Emmanuel McNeil-Warren is gaining a lot of buzz. Some even grade him ahead of Oregon Duck [S] Dillon Thieneman.

    “EMW” is yuge. Nearly 6’4. 200+ Forced 9 fumbles [Peanut Punch!]. Plays deep. In the box. Ran a 4.52. Rangy. Can cover TEs. The obvious comp is Kam Chancellor. 

    Naturally, I’d prefer Dline.

    This class is deep at Corner and Edge, but a Cover Corner only eliminates ONE WR; a pass rush eliminates ALL of them – Trey Wingo

    Once more this comes down to the forever debate of need-v-BPA.

    Who improves the Bears more? an Alex Brown DE or a Kam at S?

    Some talk about the Bears trading back esp if a prospect like DE Zion Young falls. Young is graded by many in the the 40s, so drafting him at #25 may not be maximizing value. As such, a trade down could be viable.

    In the ’25 draft, The Texans traded back, and this is what it looked like:

    In exchange for No. 25 overall, Houston will receive No. 34 in the second round, No. 99 in the third round, and a 2026 third-round pick.

    I don’t know if QB Ty Simpson will tempt a team to move up, but needless to say, I’d be for it. If picks 25-45 are roughly equal, may as well get more picks.

  • Da Dos 1 YR Bearaversery!

    Da Dos 1 YR Bearaversery!

    Well, it was around this time last year that Jeff turned off the lights at DBB, and we had to scramble to salvage the peanut gallery.

    Special shout out to GP who pointed me the right way to set it up, and fast, while that lurker, forgot his handle, who actually created a ready-made blog as an emergency backup.

    I’m definitely going to be posting more draft stuff. I think the biggest hits were on Draft Day and GB Wild Card Game.

    So on that note…

    @noneyourbidness7926
    2 months ago
    Inject this into my veins!!!


  • Zion Young, Edge

    Zion Young, Edge

    I’ll try to relay the prospects most mocked to the Bears. Zion Young is definitely #1. Makes sense. Bears need Dline, specifically Edge ’cause Motivated or not, Dayo ain’t it while Austin frequently gets washed out on run plays [the 9ers abused him].

    Enter a 6’6 262 Edge Setter in Young.

    Gotta be honest – his tape didn’t wow me. He looks like a less explosive Leonard Floyd. Appears a lil light in the pants. Plays too high. Doesn’t exactly bend like Von Miller. Hands aren’t violent. Arm length decent. His RAS accurately reflects him. Functional. All this would be fine if Young punched like Mike Tyson or was Colossus-strong like Jared Verse, but he seems like an above avg DE known more for setting the edge than attacking the QB. Don’t we already have two of those? I do like that he plays with an attitude. Here’s a quick 2min run down:

    Here’s Eric Edholm, lead Draft writer at NFL.com, breaking down Young. He compares him to Sweat, but Sweat was a RAS monster, so if this is Sweat-lite…

    Albeit, I do agree with Edholm. I doubt the Bears could draft him in the 2nd, so if BJ/Poles want to get more turns at the roulette table, I’d rather trade down to draft Young. He’s a high-floor prospect, but Big Balls BJ doesn’t exactly “settle” while Poles is obsessed with 34″+ Arms and 9.5+ RAS. I could see Bears’ brass taking a swing at a higher upside prospects like OT Kadyn Proctor, S Dillon Thieneman, DT Kayden McDonald, DT Peter Woods, or even a chad like LB Jacob Rodriquez.

    Joe Klatt ranks Zion Young as his 42nd overall player on his top 50 board which is more or less where I would take him; obviously need may drive his value higher.

  • Owner’s Meeting

    Owner’s Meeting

    I don’t know what really goes on at the owner’s meetings. Sometimes it feels like the NFL just likes filler; however, Cronin and other beat reporters did get some nuggets.

    Courtney Cronin@CourtneyRCronin
    Ā·Mar 30

    Some takeaways from Ben Johnson’s 30-minute session at the NFC coaches breakfast
    -Said he found out about Drew Dalman’s decision to retire in mid-February. Team quickly pivoted to Garrett Bradbury, who they believe “will fit us like a glove”
    -Johnson on left tackle: “There’s a lot of uncertainty there.” Said he’s not sure the Bears will have Ozzy Trapilo during the 2026 season after Trapilo suffered a “pretty serious injury” with his ruptured patellar tendon.” Johnson said it’s hard to say what the Bears left tackle position will look like this year or in five years.
    -Braxton Jones is up to 310 pounds and looked “yolked” when Johnson saw him come in to sign his contract during free agency. Said Jones is eager to get his career trajectory back on track.
    -Johnson isn’t happy with the offensive staff for how they didn’t coach WRs to get open enough. Emphasized getting back to fundamentals in OTAs on catching the ball to address drop issues.

    [This makes me wonder about Rome sticking. I feel like BJ covets quick-twitch athletes like Burden and Loveland – players who can separate with short area burst. That’s not Rome. Johnson also brought up how Rome and others must do better on scramble drills. Bears were 3rd worst in drops, and 1st worst in dropped yardage.]


    -Johnson and the Bears staff recently turned on the tape from Family Fest at Soldier Field in early August 2025 (the really sloppy practice that featured a bunch of delay of game penalties) to see where they were starting camp last year and how much further ahead they want to be in OTAs with the offense.
    -New OC Press Taylor (formerly the passing game coordinator) is “the most organized coach I’ve ever been around” per Johnson. Noted his “library of plays” for how to beat different defenses and how he organizes information as a benefit to Johnson in Taylor’s new role.
    -Johnson said coaches will be “hyper vigilant” to any complacency and entitlement after the success of last season. While he was happy to hear from fans/supporters “for about a week” about how exciting the 2025 season was, he said he doesn’t want to hear anymore about how good the Bears were as they have moved on to 2026.
    -New safety Coby Bryant wowed Johnson with a ‘holy cow, it-factor’ in terms of his leadership. Will be a critical piece to replace the leadership void created by Kevin Byard’s departure.
    -Johnson noted how “challenging” it was to form relationships with Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon last year given how both missed significant time with injuries. “We’re starting over completely this spring” with their relationships so he has a better chance to get to know these players.

    Don’t be shocked if Ben Johnson wants a LT at #25. Ryan Poles was front and center for the Bama proday and apparently met with Kadyn Proctor ā€” a 6-foot-7, 352-pound offensive tackle

    Bearsszn@bearszn
    Ā·
    Bears GM Ryan Poles says the team will stay disciplined with their ā€œbest player availableā€ draft philosophy even if that means drafting offense over defense:

    ā€œYou look at the draft, when Iā€™ve been here, weā€™ve taken the right mentality and taken the best available. Thatā€™s been very offensive centric and I think thatā€™s paid off for us. We got an All-Pro tackle (Darnell Wright) and Colstonā€™s going to be All-Pro tight end. So, weā€™ve done some really good things there. It just hasnā€™t lined up to be defensive lineā€¦..I think the biggest mistake you can make is forcing something just because thatā€™s what you need.ā€

    via@HogeAndJahns

  • Zen #17

    Zen #17

    Standing on the bare ground…a mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate though me; I am part or particle of God.

    – Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Drafting ’26

    Drafting ’26

    March Madness, Spring-Break Marauding, and Mocking – tis that time of year.

    I don’t know if I’ll write up my own mock. I feel almost obligated to do so, but I may not be the most “qualified” since I don’t really watch college football because it’s basically just super-teams like in MLB and NBA; despite that, I have been an avid fan of combines, tape and the whole draft process for decades, and my takes -for better or worse – don’t totally buck the industry godfathers like Kiper, McShay, Prisco, Davis, etc…

    Neither Lincoln nor FDR were soldiers in a war, but that didn’t make them awful wartime leaders. IKE wasn’t a military genius like Grant or Patton, but he didn’t have to be.

    All those men simply listened to the ‘experts,’ interpreted facts and delegated correctly; now they’re heroes.

    On the flip side, Hitler very much served as a runner in WW1 [In one of the biggest ironies in history, Hugo Gutmann, a Jewish lieutenant in the List Regiment, recommended Adolf Hitler for the Iron Cross, First Class, in August 1918]. Yet, Hitler made COLOSSAL mistakes [ahem, invading Russia whilst still at war with England. Immediately declaring war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor. Slow-walking Dunkirk. Heading south to the Caucus Oil instead of beelining Moscow. Switching to carpet bombing instead of destroying RAF. Not investing more in Uboats… Bad moves, Mein Duh-rer].

    Being an “expert” guarantees nothing and sometimes it can come down to blind luck [See, Bradshaw coinflip].

    Or as Rev refrains, “The draft is a crapshoot”.

    I view it more like running an FF team or a portfolio. Yes, unforeseen circumstances CAN fuck you [Black Monday, Covid, your HB1 and WR1 going down in the same game]; nevertheless a person can master a field to minimize risk.

    Minimizing risk and taking tactical chances is essentially life. It’s possible to knock out Mike Tyson with a lucky shot, but uhm, probably prudent to take some boxing lessons beforehand.

    So, here we are, avg fans wading through the draftnik datumsphere. Well, if the turnover of NFL GMs tell us anything, it’s that no definitive empirical evidence or Newtonian equation can be applied to draft well. Eventually some Tech Bro will create some algo, but we’ll likely live on Mars before that. Perhaps this is what makes it so fascinating. It’s a mystery dropped in a riddle inside an enigma, wrapped in a dick-in-o-box.

    For every ‘self-evident’ draft truism, 10 exceptions exist. Great QBs only come in the first RD. [Brady]. WRs who don’t run at least 4.4 suck [Rice]. Winning a Heisman accurate predictor [Tebus]. Gotta play for big program. Nope. Gotta have long arms. Nope. Need to be a 3 year starter. Nope. Never draft a primadonna, a criminal, a white CB or RB! Nope – nope – nope!

    Still, that doesn’t mean one must blindly spin the roulette wheel and simply put $ on some random number “Jesus, take the wheel!”

    Bill Polian, a Pro Football Hall of Fame general manager and former analyst, once asserted, ‘don’t build your draft on outliers‘

    How many HOF LTs have arms shorter than 33″?
    How many HOF QBs [in modern era] are under 6’1?
    How many HOF CBs are slow?
    How many HOF LBs are dumb and soft?
    How many HOF DEs are weak and stiff?

    The draft industry constantly churns trying to discover the new all-predictive metrics like an alchemist attempting to turn lead into gold:

    DT – 10 yard split; WR – fast gauntlet; CBs – some combo of 40, cone, and broad jump; Edge, bend, pop, pressure rates + arm length.

    And this doesn’t even account fore the psychologically, medical or mental [Wonderlic, S2 Cognition Test]. A team once asked a prospect if his mom was a hooker just to test his response.

    QB? fogget about it. Could do a dissertation on all the data used to find franchise QBs, yet teams still draft Ken Obrien, Jeff George, or treat Brady and Purdy as afterthoughts. There’s a tortoise in the desert lying on its back…

    As such, dunno if I’m going to sit on my dragon throne dropping down draft dogma. Instead, I’ll relay and reflect on what the pundits are pushing.

    With that in mind, let’s start with a 1st RD Mock Draft from Kiper. Again, not arguing this is how it’s going down [it’s not without trades, of that we are certain], but mostly to survey the 1st round landscape.


    ESPN is obviously grooming Field Yates to be Kiper’s successor. Personally, others like Charles Davis or Joel Klatt are waaaay better at breaking down film, stats, metrics and framing them in context, but Yates is more ‘plugged in’, and often the most accurate mocks aren’t even from proper scouts, rather “insiders”, like Schefter, esp on the night before the draft.

    Since Bears have TWO picks in the 2nd, may be worth perusing to see who’ll be in our range. As to whom Poles should draft, need vs BPA, etc, well, that’s why the comments’ section exists!

  • Bukowski: cats 2

    Bukowski: cats 2

    Gift

    you know
    the man in the back moved out
    couldn’t get his rent
    so I inherited this
    huge old cat
    big as an average dog
    mean
    yellow eyes
    old and furiously strong
    when he strikes with one of those
    paws
    the walls shake
    his name is “Butch” and he
    doesn’t play around
    he’s cranky
    has his own set ideas
    learned from somewhere
    long ago.
    he gets on the trip
    which is his
    sometimes he gets
    gone
    I’ll be petting him
    and then he’ll have me
    my hand trapped in his
    gut
    the teeth will incise into
    the top part of my hand
    And holding me there
    like that
    he’ll rip the back of
    my wrists
    with his two rear paws
    with the claws
    fully extended…
    I leave my hand there
    Until he’s finished
    then I
    lift it away
    rivulets of blood
    seep…he just
    looks at me.

    I’ll send him to you
    in a whole natural almond
    crate
    I’ll cut holes so he can
    breathe

    but beware when you pry off
    the lid

    I’ll send him to you
    just in time
    via Air Express

    upon that crate on
    National Poetry Day