BearFan PHX

the odds go waaaaay down after the top first round picks though. Youre pointing at some that have succeeded, but youre not factoring in all the ones that didnt. in the end, you gotta do your work and decide who you think the best QB is, and whether there are any others tied with them or not. And then you gotta pick on from that group, and none of them will be around in the 2nd round. If they are, you gotta fire your scouts.

To me that question has already been answered, but I admit they do have the remaining 7 games no matter what. I also think that the incoming new coach will be given the decision on Fields. No reason to cut him loose until you have your new coach and he tells you what he wants too? So there is a potential scenario where you keep Fields with a new coach. Like maybe Harbaugh says "are you kidding? this guy is a super Kaepernick and I know JUST how to use that?" But I don't really see that as likely either. I have been on record as saying that you cant keep Fields if you draft a Caleb Williams, its just too tough on the locker room. But then again, with a new coach coming in, he could certainly say that it'll be a competition starting from scratch. I guess I could see that now. But all of that is predicated on Fields balling out, or the new coach thinking Fields will ball out for him, and from my perspective I just dont see it. But sports is funny, and stuff happens. Id probably have said Kurt Warner was done when he was carrying boxes in a warehouse too. But I think your main point stands. Flus and Fields are both fighting for their jobs, and neither one can really succeed unless the other one does too.

yes, i think Sanborn is a really great player, but he cant really run with receivers or fast TEs. He's OK in zone, but in man he will be exposed, and that means no blitzing, unless it's him that blitzes. he reminds me of Hunter Hillenmeyer or Nick Kwiatkowsi - all tough nosed competitors, and all a step too slow. He can play SLB, but I definitely see him coming out in Nickel. The other question will be if or when Sewell is ready to challenge him?

the point isnt about the first pick vs the second pick, its about the top of the first round vs the rest. And it's about the percentage of excellence found in the top half of the first round, vs the bottom half vs the rest of the draft. It may only be 50/50 in the first 10 picks, but its MUCH worse than that after that. If you're gonna take a QB to ride with as a hopeful franchise player, you evaluate the top options. Teams have different grades, so one team may see their most highly rated player be the third guy taken at that position - but it'll still be high in the draft. So yeah, if our staff thinks its Penix or JJ McCarthy, as the best option, or as a tied option with the others, then taking him at pick #5 is GREAT. But youre not gonna get anyone in the 2nd or 3rd round. not reliably, not statistically. And certainly not the top (or tied for top) QB in that draft by your own measure. For example the Patriots didnt have Brady highly ranked either. So they got lucky, but they didnt strategize that. But if we have them all grouped similarly, then its ok to let them drop a bit. Another example: I cant understnad how the Bears had Trubisky far and away above Mahomes. I would think they were closely ranked to eachother. Maybe you have Trubisky by an edge because of the perceived weaknesses of Mahomes at the time. But if theyre at all close in your rankings, dont trade UP to get one. You fall back and let luck decide. Now if you have Trubisky WAY over Mahomes, then you do what you have to to get him, and they did. And the coin flip came up tails. So trading down for a QB isnt a bad thing at all if you have them in a closely ranked group. But you can only fall far enough to get the last guy in your top group, and that will be way before the 2nd round?

Who are the top 5 QBs in the NFL right now? And where were they picked?

yup. we have a good amount of cap room to spend in free agency. Id sure love to see MHJr on the Bears, but we need line help like you say, and we need a QB too in my opinion. Line help can come in lots of ways - free agency for sure, and you don't need a top 10 pick to get a center or interior lineman. I do agree that for a franchise left tackle yo do need one - unless we plan on moving Wright there next year? Id love to see MHJr and one of the top four QBs in the draft, and I agree entirely that those holes on the lines desperately need fixing. Hopefully we can do that in the 2nd and 3rd round and in free agency? Id love a top 10 pick at QB, WR, OT, DE, 3T, CB but of course we're not gonna get all of them. Still this offseason should leave our roster stocked. Now we need a coaching staff that knows how to use them.

me too. I still don't think it will be enough to beat the Lions, but it will be good to see what the plan was. Thats if they have the balls to actually open it up and show the plan instead of trying to micromanage a win from the sidelines.

it was great coaching. they had a limited QB, and didnt try to hide him, but instead they found ways to open him up. That's the exact opposite of what our coaching staff seems to do - they limit things to simplify for the QB, and that's never gonna be the path to greatness.

There are a lot of great players out there. Marvin Harrison Jr looks like the next coming of Randy Moss. Id LOVE to have him. but WE NEED A TOP PICK QB. Its not a want, its a NEED. If Poles can take MHJr with Carolinas pick (or trade to 2 to get him) and then pick up a QB with the second pick in the top of the first round, then fine. But we NEED TO DRAFT A TOP FIRST ROUND PICK QB. And there is no avoiding that. If the scouts and Poles determine that one of the QBs is head and shoulders over the rest, we need to take him first. If they rank some of them evenly, and you can still get one at #5 or something, then great. We also need new coaches.

The argument that you can more likely find NFL ready QBs further down in the draft is silly on the face of it. Dont mistake the hit or miss quality of drafting any QB with thinking that you find better ones later. It's ridiculous. You are definitely more likely to find a stud QB in the first 10 picks than you are to find them after that.

QBs that you pick later in the draft have a MUCH MUCH lower chance of being NFL pros. I get that everyone is seduced by all the players you could get by trading down the first pick, but I think Poles has to take a QB somewhere in the top 10 picks of the 2024 draft, depending on how they have them all graded out. This fantasy that youre gonna get a guy in the 3rd round who will be great if Fields stumbles is just not gonna happen. Like Ive said before, I appreciate everyone's loyalty to Fields, but he's not the guy, and the guy we need is found at the top of the first round of the draft. now which one of the top 4 QBs is it? that's the tough question.

I had thought it was based on last years finish, but I think youre right. Thanks for the info.

yes thats my understanding.

Yeah, that worries me too. This is what I think too. So the million dollar question is: which QB is the right one to pick? And I am SO glad that isn't my decision. Maybe as we see more tape and I do more homework I'll start to get a guy I want to hang my hat on, but right now, I'm damned if i know who it should be. We just need to draft a QB in 2024, and he needs to be great. No pressure.

of course. If a team has no pass rush its going nowhere too - for pretty much the same reason. And you need an OL to stand behind. Im just saying there must be that top notch QB also. And if you are a GM, and youre putting together a team, QB has to be the #1 thing you need. Pretty much the most important things to get right are, in order: QB, Edge, OL - the rest you can fill in and find. Those are the holy trinity of the NFL.

Id love to have MHJ, maybe you trade down the other pick and get a second tier QB in the second half of the first round? Someone like JJ Mccarthy? And you dont do it because you want MHJ, you do it because your staff thinks JJ is the man, and youve read the market well enough to know that you can still get him at #10 or whatever. Its such a gamble.

right. I have no idea. I expect the scouting staff to find answers to those questions, and take another chance on another highly rated QB and hope this guy develops within a couple years into the real deal, or we do it again until we do find that guy. By the time you KNOW a QB is a top 5 QB, he is no longer available to you. There are some interesting names out there, but I dont think I could do better than a coin flip on any of them since the pros cant either. But I dont think that stops you from buying those raffle tickets. 50% odds is still pretty good if you get a franchise QB out of the deal. We swung and missed on Fields and Trubisky, so maybe it goes our way this time. And as feeble as that sounds, it is literally the only path I think.

Cool, so now i understand the nature of our disagreement. 1) You think its less likely than 50% to find that great QB in the draft. I cant say youre wrong. i dunno how Poles is at picking QBs. I also worry that it'll just be the same thing over again. 2a) You think Fields is going to develop into a good player Here is where we really disagree. I see Fields' obvious skills. His legs, his arm, his size, all extremely impressive. But I hope we also agree that he hasnt really shown an ability to be a pocket passer. I think that's critical to NFL success in the modern age. Not to beating the bottom half of the league, but to be a contender, I think it's a necessity to have a QB who can read and exploit defenses. 2b) You think we can contend without a top 5 QB if we put a team around Fields. I also think this is a vestage of days gone by, in the 1990s and before, complementary football worked. Tony Dungy could wear you down with time of possession and a bend dont break defense. Bill Parcells could win a Super Bowl with Jeff Hostetler. You can still beat the lesser teams that way. But you're never going to beat KC, Miami, Philadelphia etc without being able to put up points, and lots of them. The rules have changed and defense no longer wins championships. And dont get me wrong defense is still extremely important, but the end of these contending playoff football games almost always comes down to who the last team to hold the ball is, as high scoring teams lead comebacks and trade leads back and forth in the 4th quarter. So you may still think that Fields will become that guy, or that if you build a team around him, he doesnt have to be that guy. I disagree with you about Fields, but I could be wrong. I hope I am, but I sure havent seen it yet and time is running out. But I know that you need a top QB to win a Super Bowl in the modern age, so I think you're definitely wrong about building around a lesser QB as a recipe for success?

why would you roll your eyes at that? the only way to find a great QB is to keep trying people out until one develops. You cant really buy them already cooked. So you draft and develop them, until one of them actually blossoms. The success rate on top pick QBs is around 50%, so any time you draft a guy you dont know what he will be in the NFL. But buying a lottery ticket on a guy is better than staying with a previous pick who youve already looked at in depth and who you now know wont ever be a top 10 QB. You seem to be saying youd rather have a guy that you know cant do it than to take a risk on a guy that might be able to do it because he might not be able to do it too? If you think Im saying that any of the rookie QBs are cant miss, I'm not. They are as likely to flame out as not - we all agree on this. But why keep Fields when you now have three years of film to see that he hasnt progressed in the basic parts of being a QB - reading defenses, and making quick throws with anticipation to the right guy? How is that a better path than continuing to search for someone who can, just because they aren't guaranteed either? I think you give guys a few years, and then try again until you get it right. I really dont understand what is eye rolling about that.

only against substandard teams though. That formula won't bet the good teams in the modern age. If you execute the Tony Dungy plan perfectly in 2024, you end up flirting with a wild card playoff loss - that's the ceiling.

this is no doubt true. If Fields comes out as a completely different QB than we have ever seen, one who is dominant and looks like a top 10 QB, he will keep his job. But to think that's a likely outcome is another thing, in my opinion. Incremental progress will not be enough, and the extra skills he has, like his incredible running ability, will not be enough. he has to show he is a top 10 QB as a passer from the pocket. He needs read the defense quickly, make fast decisions, and get the ball out in tempo to the right guy. And he needs to do that consistently. Flashes won't be enough. We've tried the go with a substandard QB and build around him thing. It doesn't work. Not in today's game with the pass friendly rules. You could increase the execution of our current scheme with Fields until you regularly beat the bottom half of the league - but then what? Is it incremental from there, or do you reach a ceiling where you find the top 12 teams are playing a different game - one that requires points and the ability to pass the ball well, for 4th quarter comebacks against other good passing teams etc. So just like your pass coverage breaks down no matter how good it is if you dont have a pass rush, playing complementary football and Tony Dungy style running, scoring 17 points and strangling the opponent with a cover 2 breaks down when you meet teams that can put up 30+ points regularly, and in context of more receiver friendly rules. We need to join the modern age. We need a real QB. If Justin Fields suddenly becomes that, great. Heck if Nate Peterman suddenly starts killing it in practice, gets his shot and puts up 50 points on a good NFL defense, then that's great too. But its not going to happen, so you have to start planning for it now. We've got the high picks for exactly this scenario - it's here. Who are we going to take?

Then again if Houston hadnt won a meaningless game at the end of last season, we wouldnt have had the first overall pick to trade last year in the first place to get Carolina's pick this year LOL call it even?

ha! excellent.

Harbaugh has plusses and minuses, and its OK to want him or not want him, but he has said that the bears is his "dream job" Im not even sure i want him, but there is reason to believe hed be interested in the job.

One interesting tidbit - there was some speculation that Harbaugh would be suspended into next years season, and that the NFL would abide by that so he couldnt escape his punishment into the NFL. But now they announced his punishment will be for this year only, so he is free to come to any NFL team he wants next year without penalty, but he is also free to stay at Michigan with no penalty next year either. Some had guessed a 2024 penalty could help usher him out the door. So neither is happening, he can stay and he is available both without punishment.