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This all day. A head coach is a lot more than a coordinator or a scheme. We need a head coach desperately. I cant say that Ben Johnson doesnt have those skills, but I just dont know. I know Vrabel does, but then you have to find the right coordinator to develop Caleb and hope he sticks around. So either way there are unknowns. This is not an easy decision in my eyes.

I understand that logic, but there are some scenarios, like what if they really want a coach like Johnson, and he says he will only take the job if you bring in his guy? Then i think Poles could be let go. ANd since you dont know which coach you want yet, and which Gm they might want, they could be keeping Poles around until they know those things, and cut him loose after that. So while I agree if they were going to fire him for his performance in and of itself, they might have done it already, or in the next week, if they fire him to make room for a new guy, they might still hold on to him until the new guy is chosen and we hear who he wants?

No kidding. In a league I Ied for most of the year and ended up 3rd, I took Anthony Richardson who bombed and took Mayfield as my #2 QB, it worked out.

Poles carry responsibility for a lot of things that's happened but don't think his bosses are holding him responsible. I think if they were getting rid of him they would have already done it. So we have to hope he has learned from mistakes made. Ryan Pace totally screwed up here and went to work in ATL as president of football operations and seems to be helping them turn things around there. People learn from mistakes. The key is the coach choice.

I think they won't pay him the money he wants, with Rome and Kmet needing more targets that works out better . They will also draft a WR or bring in a Time Patrick type to be the 3rd WR.

That's the only way we can play it. Easy to say don't sign him but untill you replace with a high level rookie to eventually take his place,you make the OL worse. Another option is draft the LT of the future and move Kiran to LG in place of Jenkins and still draft a rookie. The Idea of 3 rookies starting may take time to learn the game and not be good. They need to sign a Trey Smith type and then figure what positions to draft. I don't see anyone giving Jenkins a big contact with his injury history but won't be here if you try to give 4-5 mil. I would say a per game incentive with a base 3 yr 18 mil to balloon to 36 if he plays 85% of snaps.

Having good coaching is huge as you make your adjustment in the league. Williams if he is elite should overcome it anyway but young QBs get ruined all the time. Look no further than what happened to Baker and Sam Darnold and how they were turned around. Two former elite talents who are playing at a very high level right now (Baker for a 2nd consecutive year).

At the end of the day I think what a lot of this comes down to is coaching. Williams easily had a better roster (aside from his oline) than did Nix or Daniels. Having experienced coaches like Payton in Denver and Quinn in Washington undoubtedly helped navigate each of their rookies’ seasons. Especially if you consider both have been to the Super Bowl (and Payton won one). The only true measure of whether Williams panning out will be if they find someone who can better ‘manage the chaos’. I would think that his ‘generational talent’ should be enough to rise above it but that apparently isn’t enough. If they get the right guy in place, things should look up next year.

So I overheard a conversation yesterday with someone with connections to Keenan Allen. He’s gone - going back to Rams or Chargers. Loves Caleb - hated being away from west coast.

It’s why I think Poles is a loser…he hasn’t gotten the little things right either. Bad usage of draft capital in later rounds and with trades and just wasted picks. Too many luxury picks like two punters, Velus, the trades of picks for guys who don’t produce (Bates, Claypool, some other olinemen, Taylor from Seattle). A bust like Davis I could get - but given coaches warned him and he ignored - he gets no pass for that. Poles only plus is he got good value for the number one pick. Any GM could have done that - that wasn’t hard and involved no skill. When it comes to real moves he has shit the bed on all the little things including putting bad oline around Fields (and a year plus with shitty skill position talent) and than doing same with Caleb (from oline). And even getting Keenan - Mooney was in-house and impacted by Fields but he is crushing it in Atlanta. Look at Poles quotes at what went wrong - he was watching the camp and couldn’t see it. It’s not like this year Flus got shittier with the small details - Poles doesn’t know what to recognize. He is just as much a part of the problem.

Yes! With 4 picks in the top 70, we should be able to get a LOT, DE, DT, and G that are better or as good as anything we currently have. I know there are other positiin needs, but you do not win games until you can protect your QB and crush the opposing QB. This has slipped the Bears minds for 40 years. Keenan Allen said he is either staying here or going to L.A. If he can do a one year extension, I am fine screaming at him for drops another year. I want Caleb to build on what he has and keeping his core weapons another year will help. They need to add a RB, WR, and TE to compliment, but the key is better protection and coaching.

Here's the part that resonates with me. I want other teams to know that they've Ben Johnsoned. Pun intended...💪🏈

Here's an interesting article that recounts some quotes from Kevin Byard's interview with Dan Weiderer about head coaches. Byard played for Vrabel in Tenessee, and Eberflus in Chicago. https://www.sportsmockery.com/chicago-bears/kevin-byard-went-all-in-on-why-matt-eberflus-was-a-terrible-head-coach/

Yup. There was a time we should have been 5-2 that caused an overreacting mindset. This is an old argument, but continuity, with execution, is the single most important aspect of any OL. It's realistic to think we keep five of our current guys, with adding two via draft and one via FA. With our cap space, I would absolutely sign the best guard available, while drafting the best LOT we can. Top need OL.

There is actually a realistic chance that all 4 of these teams could win, which would be wild. That would drop the Bears to the 5th pick. Tua is out, MIA is going to be miserable on the road in the cold with nothing to play for. Indy got lit up by Drew Lock and the Giants. LAC should resting starters, and CAR has looked solid over the last month. I would take any better pick, but 7 or better gives a very high chance at getting Graham, Carter, or Campbell.

Will be watching as background noise this week unless they come out playing inspired football. If it looks like a blowout by halftime, I'll find something else to do. Not going to let this team ruin another Sunday.

I'm with you. Shelton has met expectations as our C and can be our starter next year. Jenkins has done enough to stay if the contract is middle of the road... a 2 yr deal seems reasonable for both sides. Draft two Oline players early to add competition and sign one more in FA to be a starter at RG. Then get an OC who can make our QB throw the ball on time.

I think we all expected a different season as a whole. I think he has improved, but that is really hard to see considering the chaos around him. The way the schedule played out also makes it challenging to compare early vs late. However, go back and just watch the Week 1 game against TEN and then any recent game. You can clearly tell he has improved. For the other QBs, I am not so sure any growth is visible. Daniels still has 1x 300-yd game (against Bears), and his signature win is a game against PHI where Kenny Pickett was at QB. Daniels only had 2 INTs in his first 10 starts and has 7 INTs in his last his last 6 games. Maye has been consistently mediocre all year. Outside of his scrambling, that is the only thing keeping him viable. Otherwise he is good for an INT per game. Nix? How about 6 INTs in his last 4 games. It is much easier when you are bum punching. People are too wrapped up with W-Ls. Nix won a game where he threw for 130 yards and 3 INTs. Daniels gets credit for a win where he had 2 passing attempts and 6 yards. Penix? Every stat is worse than the QB he replaced. Yards per game down, TDs down, INTs up, Rating down. He got to sit most of the year to average 212 passing yards, 0.5 TD and 1 INT a game. If you watched the last game, he did not look good at all. Daniels has received all the praise, even when he was doing nothing more than Williams or Nix, except that the Commanders were winning. It is so bad that he made the Pro Bowl over other QBs and was one of the highest vote getters, while Mayfield had over 700+ passing yards and 14+ Passing TDs. You would think that Daniels would be dominating, yet he has averaged only 8 yards per game passing more than Williams, and 6 of those came this last week when he had over 100 yards passing more than Williams. Daniels will easily win the ROY, but if you swapped records with Williams, he would be no more in the discussion than Williams is right now. It is record first, everything else second. Williams last 7 games have been an absolute gauntlet: SEA, DET, MIN, SF, DET, MIN, GB. No team has played a tougher schedule over this period, and it is not even close. I would love to see what Daniels and the Commanders would've done against that schedule.

It was a very competitive league, 8 teams had a chance to make the playoffs going into the last week of the regular season. I was very lucky this year. It almost always comes down to injuries and the waiver wire. I lost both of my QBs Prescott and Tua but was lucky enough to pick up Mayfield who ended up as a top 5 QB. That saved my season. Not having players on super late byes helps too. I only had 1 player with a bye after week 12. That helped a lot too.

it's because i worry that it will be more than a few games, and whoever we have to fill in, being not starter caliber, will get Caleb killed. We totally agree that Jenkins is a good player when he's healthy. The question is what do you really have when he isn't playing, and what future cohesion can you really create? And what players do you pass over because you have Jenkins penciled in there? It's not a big disagreement, more one of strategy than analysis of how he is as a player. I think we agree on that. I just think we are better off getting a replacement for him that we can count on, and moving forward. Like I said, if you can get a rookie behind him that's an eventual starter level talent, then I am a lot less nervous about it. But I would be OK playing rookies if they are good enough too. They'll make mistakes, but they'll learn too. Like Wright his first year. Also, if we get a better OL coach, that will hopefully make all of this look better no matter who is in there (within reason of course!)

And you are willing to sacrifice the best we have over a few games a year. I don't get it...

Ok, so a reporter asked our OC about that play, and he confirmed that Odunze should not have throttled down, and it wasn't Caleb's fault. Also on the all 22, you can see Odunze stop running at the exact moment Caleb releases the ball, so no way Caleb could have seen he was going to do that ahead of time. Our OC confirms that Odunze should have worked up to the second window, and Caleb read it the way he was supposed to. And you can see that had Odunze kept running full speed, he would have been deeper and the ball would have been lower (since it has a ballistic path) and not as far out in front of Odunze - it would have been a dime. Now Im not mad at Odunze either - this is advanced stuff, and he and Caleb need to build rhythm together, but the fault was on Odunze, not Caleb as per our OC himself. But the way I saw it at the time is confirmed here.

we have so many holes that salary cap space is gonna get eaten up pretty fast - I see some thoughts we might sign Chase Young for example. And we need 4 players on the OL (in my opinion) or at least 3?

Same. The thing is, we have the money and we definitely can afford to overspend to ensure it gets better.

yes to both.