BearFan PHX

If you are playing draw poker, and your hand sucks, you draw cards. You dont KNOW the new cards are gonna be good, but you know what you have isn't good enough. I dont need to prove that any of the rookies WILL be good, I just need to know that what i have right now isnt enough. Yes, it's a gamble, but sticking with Fields is the wrong answer. That much I know. And it's all I need to know to move on and try again.

.

But you have to PAY Fields coming up, so if you're a build around a middle talent QB kind of guy, then you want a rookie deal so you have cap room to do that?

I think any coach that has the win loss record that Eberflus has can expect to get fired by any team. That's the NFL, not just the Bears. I think Chicago is a great media market, we have draft picks, cap room - it's a dream job. Also, unless you're keeping Getsy, I'll flip your question - what good OC would come here for Eberflus' last year? And why would you draft a new QB into that? I would bet a LOT of good HC would love to come here. And if I'm wrong about this, the answer would be to extend Poles to remove that issue?

I dont know why we are all afraid to just say it: Fields is a bust. I know he has eye popping intangibles, but where are the points?

Im just talking about the difference between being a hero and a winner

yeah, and EJax is gone after this year too.

This is how I see it too. Flus isnt out scheming anyone on defense, the players are just playing very well.

that is a winning attitude. we need to demand winners. well I mean, no one cares what we think, but we need coaches that demand excellence! we need accountability, not just loyalty. as Ive said before, I'm a fan of the team more than I'm a fan of the players. When the players are good for the team, I like them. But i dont want to make excuses for them. I want them to be great, if they arent great, then I want to see someone else get a chance to be great. None of this to mean that I dont like Fields or Eberflus as men. They both seem really cool. Id love to be friends or neighbors with either of them. A lot more than I want Ditka as a next door neighbor! I imagine him yelling about the garbage can being an inch on his property LOL But when it comes to leading the team, friendly isnt the top of my list. its ok if they are likeable or friendly, but its not a core part of the job. We have a pretty good roster, and an amazing media market. this should be a very attractive job with the draft picks and cap room we have. theres no reason we cant get an excellent candidate, not some goofy also ran. Eberflus is a golly gee kind of guy. Jim Harbaugh would destroy him in an argument. Eberflus would go for the sympathetic moral victory "I cant believe that guy is such a jerk, i just chose to walk away" but you know whod be there standing at the end, arms crossed - the jerk that won. I got my first fix in 1985. Our team didnt just win games, we scared people. We won the game before it started. The defensive line barked like dogs and it wasnt funny or cheesy - it was terrifying. We were dominant. I want that again. I dont want to win a Super Bowl because the other team missed a field goal at the end. I wanna win by 30 points. I dont want to hope we can get a fumble at the end of games, I want the other team to just want to go home, KNOWING with 8 minutes left that the game is OVER and they lost. Honestly, our defense has the bones to make that happen. We have some pieces on offense like Wright and Moore that can walk that walk. This isnt impossible. It's real if you get this offseason right. Im so mad right now, and so inspired. Lets go.

LOL - lemme buy you a beer Ashkum, welcome to the dark side LOL truth though? with a new QB and head coach Im gonna be insane again with hope hahaha

Oh Im for cutting the whole coaching staff loose, I just meant even if they do something i really disagree with, one thing you KNOW is Getsy is gone. But no, I want Eberflus gone too.

they were getting tired, and momentum is a real thing. When your offense sucks its hard to keep taking it all on your shoulders. If the offense was lighting it up, the defense would roll even more. and also, you know Eberlose gets all weird with the play calls in the second half of the 4th quarter.

thats the problem with trying to do things a whole new way - once the league figures it out, youre done. sitting in the pocket and making reads on time still works

i think this is wrong. You showed me one cap tracker that looks like youre right, I saw the other one that says otherwise. To my understanding guaranteed money is always recoupable against the cap when you cut or trade a player. The site you showed seems to indicate that a cut would be different from a trade. That would be the only time under the CBA that that distinction applied to any money of any kind. So I still think it would count against the cap.

glad to see youve reached a decision point.

exactly. I am admitting I dont have a crystal ball and Fields has a lot of talent. But Fields is not a bet I would make.

good point.

true. and i will even concede that Ive seen him make more throws from the pocket, closer to on time the past few weeks than id ever seen from him before. But i dont think it's enough. JF may well eventually turn into a superstar somewhere else. As long as we get our QB and are able to become the winner we are set up to be, and contend with them, it doesnt matter what JF becomes - because we dont know it now, and we cant go all in on him now. That's just NFL reality.

or maybe it was the wake up call we needed not to get stuck in the trap of drinking our own kool aid? Im of the belief that until we have a contender, I dont want any lucky breaks. I want to earn our victories. That way market or evolutionary forces shape us until we are good. I dont want to win because a double doink went the right way - I want to win because we are up 17 and something like that doesnt determine the outcome. I keep retelling a joke in here, it goes like this: When Justin Fields was a little boy, he dreamed of heroically evading the pass rush and throwing a last minute 70 yard touchdown pass to win the Super Bowl as time expires. When Tom Brady was a little boy, he dreamed of being up 35 points in the 3rd quarter.

exactly - and he actually has sped up his reads - even in this game he did better at that than he had before a couple weeks ago. And even still your point is true. Patting the ball, waiting. And against the good defenses, youre not gonna be able to run and make miracles. Not deep in the playoffs.

amen - I think the standard answer has been that the McCaskeys dont want any big personalities as head coach after Ditka. Of course the best coaches often have big personalities. I think this, maybe more than anywhere else, is where Kevin Warren may change the Halas Hall curse. *IF* he can be a buffer and tell ownership to stay out of it, and hire the best, regardless of temperament and corporate ass kissing, regardless of HR suitability, then we may be able to have a better chance of getting the right guy in here. Now I don't really know Warren, so i dunno if this is how he is or if he will value the same good boy coaches that the McCaskeys have? Lovie was probably the closest thing we've had to an alpha coach since Ditka. But he was almost Belichick style mute at press conferences, and so he didnt make a lot of waves either. I dont recall him calling out the team in press conferences either. And Im not saying that a good coach has to be a jerk either. Im just saying when you limit the pool for some (any) reason, you get fewer good choices as a result. I want a tough SOB tho. I admit it. The defense and OL are ready for it.

can you imagine any OC, even just a decent one, wanting to come here on the last year of Eberflus' contract? And are we really going to draft a rookie QB and then align his first year of NFL learning with the last year of the coaching staff's contract? You pretty much have to reset them all together or it's the same old Bears schedule over and over again with overlapping windows that never work out. We need to stop trying to salvage something from the fire, and just start over with everything new together.

I thought we were done mathematically if we lost today, but I havent really followed it that closely. Thats a very sad fact indeed. NFL is built on hopium. Bears need a solid dose of reality to wake up and take the opportunity before them! If we get new coaches and draft a rookie QB in the first round, I remain very optimistic about our future as early as next year. There is a lot to complain about here, but there is a lot to build on too - Poles has been a total bright spot.

this also sounds like good coaching!

I like it.