BearFan PHX

adam, youre so right - this is the worst team in football for the second year running. But we have real reasons for optimism too, assuming you fire the coaches. Our roster isnt really that bad at all, and we have draft and salary cap capital galore.

Amen. Two top draft picks, and a decent roster plus a huge amount of cap money means we CAN turn this around - especially with a new QB.

Don't be an idiot. You think I don't like Fields or want him to fail? I love the Bears, and I wanted him to succeed as much as anyone. Im a lifelong fan. I'll be just as direct as you - you're drunk on kool aid and can't see bad quarterbacking right in front of your eyes. Even in these tapes Fields is LATE on most of his throws. But you need to use your brain to understand the difference between thinking a guy is trash, and WANTING them to fail. Hopefully your last brain cell has enough computing power to understand that distinction. Do you think Mitch Trubisky is a great QB? If not does that mean youre a hater? Dont freakin' question my heart or loyalty just because you have an enduring man crush on a proven turd.

yeah I mean 0-17 for this year. it's a disaster.

nah, if you draft Caleb Williams, you get JF the hell out of Halas Hall.

yeah youre totally right. its just that we wanted to evaluate Fields and we had nothing. We didnt want to wait for the 23 draft, hoping to know what we had in Fields before that. It's like paying $50 for a glass of water when youre dying of thirst in the desert. Its really dumb, and you way overpaid, but youre the idiot who walked into the desert with no water. And that was us digging out from Pace.

Here's an article with stats on the increased use of 2 high safeties in the last couple of years - but again, that doesnt always mean playing vanilla cover 2, or doing it predictably. Eberflus still sucks, even if cover 2 is back in vogue LOL https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nfl-offense-is-dead-but-its-unlikely-two-high-coverage-is-the-guilty-party/

we've certainly seen Edmunds moved out of the middle on 3rd down by opponents formation.

Well it's hard to say. Every team has Cover 2 in their playbook, and every team uses it. The question would be how often, and how predictably. When NFL offenses started lighting it up a couple years ago, the fashion was single high safety. Then Sean McVey showed the NFL that 2 deep safeties can stop the modern passing offenses. It wasnt always cover 2 per se - sometimes deep deep with man under, sometimes exotic and mixed coverages. But suddenly, like bellbottoms back in style, two deep safeties started appearing all over the league again. In the end it's like rock paper scissors. You cant say Rock is antiquated. It's JUST the thing when someone calls scissors. But if you call rock EVERY time, your opponent knows that paper will beat you. If your base defense is vanilla Cover 2, you better have a strong pass rush. If you do you'll get turnovers. if you don't... well we can all see. It's about game planning and matchups, and any defense is about getting to the quarterback too. I dont think we can blame the cover 2 for all of this - it's become more fashionable lately in the NFL again. But if you play it every down like its 1990, and you dont have a pass rush, it's gonna suck.

He had several games with terrible effort. He has a bad attitude, and he said to the press that his failure was the coaches doing. He never ascended as a WR. I havent seen it from him at all. He was a reach at a time we had nothing and Poles wanted to give Justin something to evaluate him with. i understood the move, and I forgive the reach and miss. Bye Chase, you sucked.

0-17. wtf. this is crazy.

I agree that player development hasn't been a strength of the Bears for a long long time. I would just add that it's hard to use statistics to measure that since it's a team game and our team sucks. For example, you could blame Fields, the coaches and the scheme for Mooney's low yardage total, even if Mooney knows the position better than last year. The whole boat rises and sinks together. But aside from my caveat about which evidence you use, your main point is right on. We do not develop anyone - QBs especially.

LOL

The problem with TEs is they arent WRs. You see the rare guy like Gronk or Kelce, and it makes you think that's what a TE should look like, and it's true, I'd take a TE room full of those guys. But mostly they don't exist. Top 5 but non-hall-of-fame TEs look like Kmet. They can block, and they can run seams and sits like MONGO says. To KILLAs point, they look tight, and not too fluid, because they are carrying so much meat around. That's a TE! So yeah, when you compare Kmet to Gronk and Kelce, he looks terrible. But comparing QBs to Brady and Manning is also an exercise in futility. Here in the real world, Kmet is actually a pretty good guy to have on the roster at TE. And yeah, he runs like a weight lifter! That said, I dont like him on QB sneaks. lol

Moore is a total stud. He gets open and he stays open, which is really rare. And he's a winner. The kind of guy that makes plays when they matter. Keep building the OL and DL is right DABEARS. We are on schedule. Especially with a rookie QB contract window just opening next year. And I totally agree GRIZZ, ESB is a class act who gives a real effort. Claypool sucks. He has all the physical tools, but he isn't a football player.

I think you're right. I don't think Poles saw all of this coming, but I absolutely think he left all his possibilities open. All the moves he made fit either scenario - in other words he gave Fields a year to show what he could do, but he also gave himself LOTS of insurance in case that didnt work out. Trading for the 2024 Carolina first rounder is a big signal in that. He could, for example, have traded that first rounder for a pass rusher. Now a big part of it is that it was always going to take more than one year to redo the roster, and pass rusher was a piece that just didnt work out in the draft or free agency for us. I think Poles always had a two year plan with contingencies for either Fields outcome. So thats not so much a crystal ball, or a strategy of losing, but instead a multidimensional plan with outs for either scenario on Fields AND Eberflus. One way to say it is that Poles didn't like the 2023 rookie QBs as much as he liked the combination of Fields' development OR the top rookie QBs in 2024. Leaving those options open is the mark of a good GM. Pole's biggest failures are Claypool and Eberflus. Claypool was a chance to try to get Justin some weapons for 2022. It was a reach, and that was OK at the time. The same reach this year would be a terrible idea. And Eberflus came from a short list that had already been compiled by the McCaskeys before Poles got there. Now, if you have someone you think is awesome as a candidate for GM, its OK to fire Poles - but not because he did such a bad job - hes actually doing pretty well - but just because you think the new guy will be better? My prediction is that Warren keeps Poles and the scouts, and together they fire the coaching staff.

Fields put up some good numbers but guys were running WIDE open with no defenders on them and Fields was STILL late getting them the ball. Several times Moore would catch the ball and then two or more defenders would crush him. Those were zone defenders (equidistant) and you will see Moore was open for a while. It took Fields time to find him and get the ball there, thats why there were no yards after the catch. The numbers today were good, but any NFL QB (including Tyler Bagent) would have had a first half just as good if they had that much time to throw and WRs so wide open. I dont think you saw good JF, i think you saw terrible Denver defense.

with this coaching staff, sure. but if we get coaches that are legit, no one wants to overlook the third largest media market. If you make the Bears a winner, you become a legend in Chicago.

It's all good - we all love the Bears, and I dont think you said anything personal anyway. Just a typical sports discussion you could have in any bar, and then Id buy you a beer And I dont care if they fire Flus now or later. It doesnt really matter. But I think he has to be gone after this season, and everyone under him. I hope they have made that decision already, but when to pull the trigger doesnt matter to me. I still like Poles, but if they get rid of him, Im pretty sure there are other candidates for GM too. Sounds weird, but Ian Cunningham might be a good one. Id be OK with keeping Poles too, and I suspect that's probably what the Bears are gonna do.

it SHOULD be, but it wont be. It's so bad.

lol nah, we really are this bad.

oh dude, I HATE it. I want us to win because we deserve to win. if that was Fields I'd be the happiest guy. I really wanted him to succeed, he has all the physical tools. The only difference is I got to where you are now last week. Other than that, we are in the same place. I wont go into a long rant of all the things Eberflus did wrong, but Im not talking about guessing zone and they play man etc. Thats football. Im talking about clock management and knowing when to take the field goal. Going for it on 4th and 1 was as bad as when he did it week one. And who are you? Are you the macho guy that goes for it on 4th and 1 or are you the safe play not to lose guy who goes into zone way too quick, and basically kneels on the ball at the end of the first half? It's not a real coaching staff. The roster has a lot of decent players now. We need a QB, a head coach, another WR and a pass rush. Those are big missing pieces, but at least now it wont be like Trubisky and Fields where they come in with nothing around them. The next guy will have advantages they didnt have.

Yes exactly. That's why its hard to project any college QB. That's why I said I'd like to see more tape of Williams under pressure. Of course neither of us has a crystal ball, but it's normal to have sports opinions like we both do. So you're saying Justin and I'm saying Caleb, and in a couple years we will know who was right. I'm extremely comfortable with that bet. You say Caleb's amazing tape doesn't prove anything. I can't argue that too much, but I can say Fields' pro tape speaks for itself.

to me, our WRs are open like its a college game, Denver is terrible, and Fields is still slow getting the ball out, but it's working because Denver is so bad. Those throws to Moore where he is hit right away would be big gains if Moore got the ball a half a second earlier. Every QB, when unmolested, looks great when WRs are running with no one around them. At that point it's just like playing Madden, and everyone's a superstar. Any QB in the league would have looked great today. I know we are all hungry for a win, and so this won't be popular today, but it's the truth.

I agree that if Fields starts lighting it up, then i was wrong about him, and we can reevaluate. I know he has at least most of this season to "prove himself" - what im saying is I dont see any way it works out. His fatal flaws havent improved at all. If they do, that'll be a whole new thing. As for his contract, if you think Williams is a once in 5 years kind of guy, you dont push off getting your new QB another year because of a rookie contract. Especially because Williams will also be on a rookie contract. Also, there is no guarantee youll be in a position to take a QB in 2025. We have the two picks now in 2024. Fields has this year, but not next year, to prove himself. If this comes down to the idea that you think Fields will still emerge as a top 5 type QB this year, then we disagree, but youre right he has the season to prove it. If on the other hand youre (also?) saying that Williams isnt gonna translate well to the NFL, again we disagree, and again I cant prove it - its just an opinion, but its one that is widely shared. Then again, we can make lists of QBs who were commonly thought to be sure things that failed in the NFL too. But I dont see Fields ever being that decisive quick processing QB, and I think Williams looks like a stud. To be fair, Williams has a ton of protection. Id like to see more film of him under pressure.