BearFan PHX

I hear ya, but its just another inexplicable Matt Eberflus move. I also agree they should have kicked the field goal instead of going for it on 4th down. Caleb is obviously going to be a real star - lets give him a real coach, and lets let that coach pick his staff without the Bears forcing him to retain anyone. If he chooses to retain people, great, but thats gotta be his decision 100%.

YES

THIS. If we had simply kicked the extra point, and everything else had been the same, we win in regulation. Our coaching is the worst.

getting the right coach is much more important. Getting even the #2 guy so Caleb doesnt have to learn another language is mis-valuing things in the decision, in my opinion. RIght now, I'm liking Kliff Kingsbury, and he worked with Caleb a couple years ago, so he probably already speaks a language Caleb knows too? But if a 50 year old Bill Belichick was available, I wouldnt hesitate for a second, no matter if Caleb needed to learn a new system or not. It's not like Caleb is throwing for 400 yard a game in the current system... Continuity makes the most sense when youre having wild success. We have only gone from dysfunctional to competent. Now is not the time to take our chips off the table.

If they interview everyone and Brown is the pick, so be it. I dont expect that, but OK. But theyd better not give him any extra points for continuity, because we are looking for change, not continuity. I like Kilff Kingsbury. Ben Johnson is intriguing, but Im not sold on his leadership skills. There is a possibility that the Niners will fire Kyle Shanahan too. Id take a look at him if hes available. Brown may be a great head coach some day, but I dont think he's ready yet to be hired in that capacity.

why the hell would we want to keep continuity? Just because something was a 3 out of 10 and now is a 5 isnt good enough. We need an 8 or a 9. I dont know why youre so reluctant to move on and try for greatness.

I agree, but if we get an edge with #1 and a DT with our first 2nd, unless we scored big in free agency, we waited too long to take OL. We really need at least 3 new starters on the OL. And a real edge threat. Free Agency isnt usually great for OL, so we are looking a tad short?

In a way thats good. If we had, say a #3 pick, it would be hard to pass up a top pass rusher there. #5 to #7 is a good place to pick up a stud OL if there is one? Then again, we could go edge rusher with pick #1, and then spend both of our 2nds on OL too. Probably get a safety in round 3. Im speaking in terms of usual allotment of talent, I havent looked at the actual list yet. I cant do that this early! lol All of this assuming those positions arent already addressed in free agency too.

I assume that even having a top 5 pick would mean a good shot at an impact Offensive Lineman? I dont know what the crop looks like this year. Is there a QB that someone would trade the haul for if we had #1? Deja Vu.

Yeah I wasnt saying that about you, I was debating against the idea of him coming back, in this case because you thought Poles might, so I was saying why Poles would be wrong to. But I want to pick our next head coach from the full pool of talent, the best of which is currently coaching on other teams, and not pick from the best of whats out there right now. So Id wait for the offseason for that.

it's clear the roster has talent and Caleb is a star in the making, but the coaching has been really screwing us. Youre right about his stats. The only thing Id add is my constant refrain "thats because PFF is random"

lol - sorry I just had to do it.

Swift's 635 yards currently is only 16,101 behind Payton's Bear's career yardage, which I think is probably the Bears franchise record.

I think the great teams always have a TE that really contributes to the passing game.

I dont want Flus fired now either. Do it at the end of the season. Im just saying I dont trust Poles to make the next choice. If Poles is retained, I hope Warren is a huge part of the decision. ANd having said that, I think that means you gotta fire Poles, and with Cunningham in the wings, it makes it that much easier to do. I doubt we hire another Trace Armstrong guy.

no doubt Bowers is great, and your point about them being different in style and complementary is a good one too. I just think they couldnt sink that much value into the TE position, And maybe thats a mistake, too,

Im not rooting for the Bears to lose. Now that we have Caleb, Im not in tankathon mode. What Im rooting for is for Caleb to develop, and to win as many games as possible this year. All Im saying is even if we win more games I want the coaching staff gone in the offseason, and probably Poles too. ANd that is because I am rooting for us to win as many games as possible in the future. This isnt about me being right, its about Eberflus being terrible.

Bowers is a hell of an athlete and slot receiver even as a TE. i think that because we had just spent money extending Kmet, we went with a more traditional receiver. But I would trade Kmet for Bowers straight up any day of the week for sure.

I agree with all of this, but we need a new coaching staff. Just because the O wasnt horrible doesnt mean you extend this when Kingsbury, Johnson, Kubiak or whoever is waiting in the wings. You dont just need to get better than awful - you need to chase greatness and that means upgrading people. In other words, dont compare Flus/Brown to Flus/Waldron, compare it to the Lions or the Redskins offense. Compare it to the top 5 teams in the league. Going from 29th to 15th isnt the goal. Going to #1 and bullying the f*ck out of the league is the goal. We need coaches who are winners.

Nah. Winning a game despite mistakes isnt the same as not making mistakes. Flus makes a ton of them. Winning 1 or even 5 games doesn't change the fact that he is terrible with situational football. I am learning to understand you. I see you are always loyal and always an optimist. You always root for the guys on the team to succeed. I'm rooting for the what's best for the team too. And once I see a player or a coach isn't good or has some problem I want it fixed or replaced for the good of the team, whereas you want them to win some games so we can say they are no longer broken. For example, if injury had forced Nate Davis back out on the field, and he'd had a good game that wouldnt make me think the problem was solved. Id still know we need to move on from him. If Jenkins plays the rest of the season without injury, I still cant sign him as my starter and depend on him next year. Sometimes once someone shows you who or what they are, a few contrary performances wont change the underlying truth. You say the team bought into Eberflus this week. I say they rallied because Waldron was gone and bought into each other. And it worked. The team beat the Packers. Then Flus got scared and didnt run another play to get the FG closer, the kick was necessarily low as a result of that overly cautious decision, and the Packers were able to block it because of that. So Flus lost the game that the team won. Again. He's not a plus for Poles. I said in the offseason that Flus was not the guy. It was already obvious, and not just to me of course. We saw him blow those 3 games last year with over cautious play at the end. Same with the hail mary. Same with the 50 yard TD run at the end of the half last week. Keeping Flus was a mistake, and it was easy to see that back in January. This isn't a case of 20/20 hindsight. So no, Poles doesn't avoid criticism of that insane decision. Apparently Warren was arguing with him about it. And Poles was too loyal to Flus. So now Poles' butt is on the line too. And I don't want him choosing the next head coach. Get that wrong and you lose everything. I dont want the friendliest guy in the room, or the tamest. I want someone to bring discipline and accountability to this team. You cant win without it. So I dont just want to fire Flus, I want to fire Poles too. Not that he necessarily deserves it, or was that bad, but his decision to keep Flus was a big mistake, and now you need someone to make the call on the next guy, and you cant give that to a guy who just screwed it up so monumentally. Poles bears some responsibility for Getsy and Waldron too by the way. I'd roll with a promoted Ian Cunningham, and keep the scouting staff together, and start over with the coaches. Find the right head coach, and let HIM bring in his OWN coaches.

Totally agree, but when he kept him last year, then it became his decision.

He'd better not pussy out and get another polite coach. If he does that, then Calebs entire career as a Bear is wasted. Without any knowledge of the other GM candidates out there, and not based on enough info to make a truly informed choice, my gut is to fire Poles, and promote Cunningham and keep the scouting departments the same as they are.

right. plus they knew there was a decent chance that they'd get Odunze, and so Allen would teach him route running. So it was a win under each scenario.

I think that had a couple small things changed, we would have beaten the Packers this week. I don't think we will lose the rest of our games. I think we will be underdogs in them, but I think our team is chaotic. And that's probably right given the amount of talent on the roster - and again it just points to poor coaching. We have a lot of the ingredients we would need to win these games, but the chef doesnt know the recipe. We could win more games than you expect, but it had better not be a reason to keep the staff. Grrrrr

It's a mixed bag. On one hand, a more matured QB comes in hotter, but i have heard a lot of GMs say that the common wisdom (which can be wrong of course) is that QBs develop a lot between age 20 and 25, and then their ability to continue growing slows down. They say that getting a guy at age 22 gives you 3 years to build him in the NFL, whereas a 27 year old comes in more mature, but probably doesnt grow much after his first year. Of course there are the Kurt Warners of the world to disprove that theory too. But this is one of the big supposed knocks on Nix that I heard a lot from different sources pre draft. The upside is that he's playing well already. So to your main point Grizz, I think youre right. Next years' Caleb should be better than this year's model. But also on Nix, he may be ahead of the pack right now, but he may also be closer to his ceiling too?