Bear Bashing Hits New Heights in Fantasy Snubbings
It's often said the national media hates the Bears. At least Bears fans say it a lot but what often seemed like whining in the past carries along an awful lot of truth these days.
Of course they all hate Mitchell Trubisky.
For some reason, who doesn't?
The whole team has been receiving low grades, bad rankings and non-factor labels since early in the offseason.
Even Eddie Jackson got disrespected, an All-Pro player and two-time Pro Bowl safety.
From Pro Football Focus to Michael Lombardi to NFL.com, the Bears get the Rodney Dangerfield treatment: "No respect."
Latest in the list of disrespect is a fantasy football ranking from ESPN, more specifically Matthew Berryman. On his latest top 100 overall fantasy players from last week, nowhere on the list is Allen Robinson II.
Normally, such slights catch little attention here because fantasy football is not real football and I'm dealing in reality.
This is so negligent it almost has to be an intentional slight.
Breshad Perriman is ranked higher than Allen Robinson.
Yes, it's the same Breshad Perriman who has a career high of 36 receptions and 645 yards. It's the same one who's had more than 16 receptions only twice in his four-year career.
Robinson had 98 receptions last year. He's had 1,400 yards before.
So it all goes without saying the Bears as a team are slighted, as well.
Their highest rated player on this list was David Montgomery at No. 67, their only member of the top 100.
Fantasy Pros had Robinson rated 30th, just ahead of JuJu Smith-Schuster, and rated a WR12.
Yet Robinson can't crack the top 100 on this ESPN list.
Don't get any ideas about Fantasy Pros liking the Bears any more than anyone else, though.
They had Anthony Miller 111th and Tarik Cohen 135th. Jimmy Graham, the tight end everyone loves to hate, is 250th, the 32nd ranked tight end. Nick Foles was 254 overall, QB32. And Mitchell Trubisky? Of course he's No. 295, QB35.
Of course.
All the Bears' disrespect doesn't come in the form of fantasy football.
Well, which is it? Is it an outlier or not good. It can't be both.
Apparently because they decided Trubisky would no longer be around as fodder when he becomes a sub, so they've decided to pick on another Bears quarterback. They trashed Foles.
They called Foles' 2013 success in Philadelphia an outlier. To a large extent this is true, but not entirely.
How anyone could ever duplicate 119.2 for a passer rating, a 9.1 yards per attempt and 8.5% touchdown passes is beyond any expectation. He threw 27 touchdown passes with two interceptions for goodness sakes.
However, PFF then makes the statement, "Foles has never come close to duplicating his 2013 production."
I guess this means he has to take that Super Bowl MVP award back.
Here's an interesting item written in early 2019:
"Over the course of the 2017 postseason, which included games in the Divisional Round, the Conference Championship and the Super Bowl, Foles completed 77-of-109 attempts for 971 yards, six touchdowns and one interception, which generated a passer rating of 115.7–the fourth-best mark ever recorded by a quarterback in a postseason within the PFF era (2006-present)."
Yes that was written by Pro Football Focus.
Apparently their memories aren't as good as their focus.
In case you've forgotten, there are 32 teams.
"Here's an easy way to sum up the 31-year-old's career: When Foles has either been the starter or backup for the Eagles, he has delivered. When Foles has been either the starter or backup for the Rams, Chiefs and Jaguars, he hasn't. With his collarbone injury in Jacksonville, he gave no return on a sizable investment. Foles gets another shot in Matt Nagy's offense, for which he played during his sole season in Kansas City. Foles is savvy enough to be a more viable starter than fading Mitchell Trubisky in Chicago, but that doesn't mean the forecast will be anything close to as sunny as it was in Philadelphia."
It's well documented Foles struggled with the Rams.
The Jaguars? Well, that broken collarbone is no excuse, apparently. I guess their attitude at the Sporting News is "Give me two aspirin, tape it up and I'll go back in and play?"
Holy cats.
By the way, in Kansas City Foles had a passer rating of 105.9 in the three games he played for the Chiefs and won a start as well as another game when he replaced injured Alex Smith. The other action was mopping up a win. They were 3-0 in those games he played.
105.9 and 3-0. That's not exactly half bad.
Never let a fact stand in the way of throwing trash at someone is apparently the motto at the Sporting News, if it even still exists these days.
It might be more accurate to say Foles was not very good when he was in St. Louis, as everyone already knew. Or it might be accurate to say he hasn't been good when he's trying to play in the same season after he broke a collarbone–as if he should be.
To say he didn't play well for the Rams, Chiefs and Jaguars is fabrication.
The accurate statement is still he has played well when he's been in Philadelphia or in the Andy Reid offense. The only time this could be disputed was six paltry games as a rookie when the rest of the team had already collapsed. But he was a rookie.
And if you accept these facts as facts, the next team he plays for does run an Andy Reid offense.
That would be the Chicago Bears. But they're on the negative narrative list, that easy pile-on for critics with space to fill and blank brains.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
