BearFan PHX

Harbaugh is a psycho. He is waaay overly competitive. He wants to win more than anyone on this planet. That's a good and bad thing. I can see arguments for having him here, and arguments for avoiding him too. Surely there must be a tough SOB who will push this team to be a winner without being a total psycho? i dont know enough about the other candidates to know who that might be tho. But I will also say that the Bears seem to be a PC HR driven corporate culture, and I wonder if any true personality who is a winner could succeed here?

I hate the HR-ification of football.

I love having Billings around - as a starter and eventually in the rotation. Also 2 years seems about right. Good deal for the Bears.

Amen. If your stats suck, if you run a 6 second 40, then youre not gonna make it in the NFL, but stats dont equal players. Football players are good at playing football, and sometimes their numbers are less than someone with super fast speed who doesnt have football talent. Velus Jones is fast, DJ Moore is a football player.

and Getsy LOL but point well taken, Bagent does seem like the kind of guy who is going to grow week to week in vision.

I was, and if Walker/Dexter works as a rotation at 3T, then you dont have to worry about resigning him, or anyone else, and that is another hidden benefit of the 2nd rounder we spent is all I was saying.

yeah, he needs to pass his physical first. I would expect the contract soon after.

a strongly substantiated rumor says that the NFL will punish Harbaugh with a suspension for his behavior at Michigan. If so, why not serve that suspension at the end of this season and start fresh next? That's a scenario if they bring him in here.

the value of the picks it takes to make the trade are affected by the deal the player is demanding. If Sweat is signing a decent deal thats team freindly he is worth a higher draft pick than a player who is demanding a huge bank breaking deal. If you want to figure the relative value paid for these players, youve got to wait until you know the deals they signed too?

Agree on Jaylon, but theres no way the Bears made this trade without a deal in place already with Sweat. it will be announced hours after he passes his physical. And I think the value of Sweat's deal vs what Young gets in SF will explain the disparity in picks traded, and why we made the choice we did.

I agree that the main value on the table here for the Bears wasn't the draft capital, it was the player youre getting and the money youre paying them for the next 4 or 5 years. If Young wants a sky high deal, and that decreased his value and that's why he only got a 3rd in trade that makes sense. It also makes sense then that we would want Sweat on more reasonable terms. Plus he isnt always injured. And as you say, theres the selfishness and what that might do to your locker room. Another hidden value in this trade is it frees up Demarcus Walker to go inside to join the rotation at 3T, and that lets you cut loose Jones at the end of the year. This may be a partial answer as to why we kept Walker over Gipson - anticipating adding another DE at some point and rather than losing any value for Gipson at that point, instead you pick up 3T value with walker. If, for example, Walker and Dexter make enough of a rotation that you dont need to spend any draft pick at 3T in 2024, that's more value from that second round pick you traded for Sweat. I also agree that allowing Poles to trade 2024 draft picks at this point is a strong indicator that Poles is not about to get fired. Of course that may change as new coaches may have their own demands, but I think youre right its a signal that Poles isnt already gone in Warren's mind. Last, I'll say this. I think we agree when a coach or GM is terrible, you fire them. And we agree that when they are great you keep them. But I think we may disagree on mediocrity or base competence. If someone is doing a decent but not spectacular job, that's a good reason to keep them in most businesses. But in a zero sum game like the NFL, where only one coach or GM wins the super bowl and 31 others dont, you dont just want good - you want great. So the idea of giving someone more chances and time etc, is the sort of thing I love to see in my personal life, and even in many jobs - in the NFL if youre Poles and even doing a GOOD job, but someone incredible wants your job, theyre gonna take it from you. And thats as it should be. So I'm less interested in fairness arguments, and more interested in "Poles is kicking ass" type arguments in his favor. I do think Poles is doing well. I would keep him based on hows hes been doing. But if a 55 year old Bill Belichick wanted to come here, and he wanted to be the GM too, or bring his own guy or whatever, I wouldnt let personal loyalty or fairness to Poles come into the decision.

Im not sure we should pay JJ the blockbuster deal. At the right price he's worth it, but not at ANY price, as the market just told JJ directly. If we can franchise him, while we have a couple years to replace him, thats the path to be a renewable good team. It will mean we move on from good players a year early, but it's how to build a sustainable winner.

Keep in mind that Jaylon isnt gone either. He wants more money than we want to pay him, so we told him to go test the market. If there is no onw willing to pay him that much, then we might sign him to a more cap friendly deal, or franchise him.

I agree entirely.

Id rather spend the money on a Pass Rusher than a Corner who isn't an absolute ball hawk. A good pass rush makes your secondary look much better - whoever they are. But as we have seen, a soild secondary gets lit up if you have no pass rush.

or he will find out no one else will trade for him at the number he wants, and agree to our lesser deal when you dont offer a guy a top 5 $ deal, and they think theyre worth it, sometimes you tell them to go find a trade (and of course a deal they like) and when they cant, sometimes they come back, and sometimes they go to detroit and run well LOL

hes good but he isnt THAT good. someone will pay him top dollar. weve got young guys, and will find more. especially with extra picks. I wonder what hes worth?

I think this is right where his ceiling is right now. I have read that it is possible to increase arm strength, but I have no info about that or how likely it is.

for sure. i want the #1 pick, but I dont know which QB Id take. its not sexy, but if we believe we need the #1 pick for a QB, the #3 and the #6 would do it for example. Of course id way rather have the #1 pick naturally, and not have to use the other one too - but the reason we have them both was insurance against Fields not convincingly taking the job this year, and to be able to package them to get the next QB... I wonder if we might not be just as happy taking a JJ McCarthy at #11 or something after a trade down.

we definitely need Edge, that's 100%. Center is also something you can address very well in the late 2nd or early 3rd round. we do need a dominant 3T, but we spent two high picks at DT already, and Im not even sure were gonna be a "cover 2" team next year. but we also need another stud WR, G and safety too. Oh, and a QB! LOL that's job #1. we have some good draft capital and lots of cap room to get this all done. But to the original point that Poles will draft his long term impact players I tend to agree, and two high first rounders will bring two studs. We may also trade down, but it'd be hard to look away from Marvin Harrison Jr and a dominant Edge rusher too. Oh, and a QB

truth. there is no defense that cannot put pressure on a QB rushing only four that can succeed against good QBs. And there is no defense that blitzes all the time predictably that can succeed against a good QB either. You need to be able to get there with four. We all knew this in August. A team without a four man pass rush can't beat good teams. We knew this would be our achilles heel this year. And we looked to the offense to grow this year, and we mostly predicted that they would start scoring 24+ points a game which would be good enough to beat half the league but not the good QBs, ending 8-9 or something. We knew where we were in the rebuild. So yes, defense is part of why we are losing games, but it wasnt the goal for this year. The goal was to see if Fields could take the job with authority, or whether we'd need another QB. We have found out less about Fields than we like, but he hasnt clearly taken the job for sure. We also found that our coaches make a lot of unforced errors. Bad clock management, questionable 4th and 1 calls in situations, bad play calling, poor public communication, and their part in failing to prepare Fields to take the job by force. Next year this defense will be better. We need pass rushers, and we will get them. The questions at hand are QB and coaching. And I expect them to fire the coaches and trade Fields. If we hit on the next QB, we will be in good position to grow next year. The new QB will come into a situation that is markedly better in terms of protection and weapons than Fields or Trubisky ever did. And that QB will be tied to the contract of the head coach. It'll be a better position than we've been in in as long as I can remember. But the choice of the new QB and head coach will have to be made correctly. They are both HUGE decisions and those choice, more than any other, will define our next 5 years. This is better than being tied down to a coach or player that you know sucks and you cant move on from. 1 The worst thing in football is to be cap-tied to a turd long term 2 The next best thing is to have cap room to sign players that you hope will be good 3 The next best thing is to have cap room and draft capital to sign players that you hope will be good. 4 And the best thing is to have players that you know are good signed to long term manageable deals. We are at #3, which is quite an improvement. But its all about the decisions we make from there. Get it right, and we are ascending. Wrong, and we will be miserable again for another era.

Velus Jones is a constant mistake waiting to happen, Kmet needs to know where he is on the field and the situation, and Patrick ugh. Nice to see Bagent open with a good long ball.

because if you can get him you get him. there are 30 other teams that might make a bid for him too. also, the coaching staff is fighting for their jobs to win now.

Well you DO have space in your salary cap projections for a stud pass rusher. Every team wants one. Jason's point about overpaying in draft capital is a good on though. It would depend on what they're asking. But as for cap space, that should be OK if we are managing the rest of it correctly, and I think we are.

Even as the rookies ascend, you always need a rotation, and for that kind of money you keep Billings as long as you can.