BearFan PHX

I agree on all the responses. That was what I expected and thought myself. But I was asking in case he is better than I think he is. I was wondering if anyone was going to argue that he's a stud. Seems no, and I got my answer.

Thanks Stinger good points

WR Jeremy Maclin was released by the Chiefs today. He's 29 and pretty darn good. Should we kick the tires?

the Bears' running scheme asks different things from the LG and the RG. The RG is more of a road grader, while the LG should be faster and more athletic. The LG pulls a lot more in our scheme, and Long is well suited to being the LG, while Sitton makes a better RG at this point in his career. That's the logic anyway.

The reason we signed Sitton in the first place was because of his range as a pulling guard. That's what he had that the previous LG didnt. A lot of teams like the left side of the line to be more about speed, and it makes sense as Sitton gets older that he might be slower now than Long. Makes sense.

Correct.

If an equivalence can be made between a QB and a defense, if we can discuss with arguments on both sides that they are similar in value, then the QB is the way to go. This QB cost us a first round pick, 2 x 3rd round picks and a 4th. YOu cannot build a championship defense with those four picks, so in terms of value, this was the right move. Also keep in mind that last year's first pick went to defense, and next year's can too. We spent a lot of money on free agency in defense as well. A Franchise QB is a bargain even if you pay 2 or 3 first rounders for him. Now we have a legit shot at one at a much lesser price. As he develops we can build the defense. Cool.

yup.

Yup. I can agree with that, thank you. I just think we will see it on the field, and if you buy into the need for a franchise QB then you know there is a lot of risk in finding one, and we pretty much had no choice but to go in on Trubisky if we thought he could be that guy. We missed on Wentz and Mariota already, and at some point you gotta get one even if you have to overpay. Sitting at #3 I think this was the year to do it. I sure hope he works out. No one can say for sure today that he will, including Pace. But he will have a year to develop and that's about as good a plan as you can make without being able to predict the future.

It depends on how you define success. If your only metric is whether the players make your roster or not you may be correct. If instead, you have a coefficient for quality, then you may not be correct. A safer pick has a higher floor and a lower ceiling, a riskier pick may have a higher potential outcome, but be less certain to be good at all. If you take only safe picks, you will be 8-8. You wont lose. If you want to be the best out of 32, you have to do something more than just the safe route. You gotta take risks on players that could be great. Players that are going to be great no matter what are extremely rare, and you cant find them in the 3rd round. At this point Pace is looking for his leaders, the guys that will be the core of the team, and he will take safe picks to put around them once he finds them. He believes, as do I, that you need a franchise QB to be successful in this league. They dont grow on trees, and there are no sure things. So he took a swing at one in the draft. As for calling Shaheen a big risk, even your common wisdom says he was likely pick at or around where we took him. For 20 years, the Bears office didnt have a General Manager, and for a while after, they had puppets at GM. They followed conventional wisdom. They took highly rated players at the slots they were supposed to go, and we got David Terrell, Curtis Enis, Alonzo Spellman, Stan Thomas etc etc Youre starting to come off like Steve Rosenbloom here. I know it feels good to act like you know more than the professionals, but the proof will be on the field, not in some draft guide. If Trubisky sucks, and Shaheen sucks etc then we will know it. Until then, you dont know anything but what the herd is saying.

Thats cool, I agree that Bears front offices of the past have been atrocious. Since Jim Finks left, we have been AWFUL. But Pace & Co come from Ernie Accorsi courtesy of the NFL competition committee. When I look at a team like the Packers, I see what a team culture looks like. They go through coaches, players etc, but they run the same scheme. The scouts all know exactly what attributes players need for each position - and which ones are superfluous. And when a player comes in with strengths and weaknesses, he can look at film of the people playing the same positions for the last 20 years and see that they too had similar abilities, and shortcomings, and watch how to plug into the system. It's not enough to have a good pass rusher and a goo linebacker behind him. They need to be complementary pieces in an overall scheme that is understood the same way by GM, coaches, position coaches and scouts alike. That's what Accorsi gave us. He gave us the newest branch of the Parcells tree, and this is why we went to a 3-4 too. It will take time, and we will see if these guys are good at their jobs or not. If not, with any luck they will be replaced by other people who speak Parcells tree language. THAT is how you build success for the long term. Hopefully Bears ownership just stays out of the way, and lets the machine work, and if they do step in, hopefully they replace people with people of similar philosophy. In this light, the idea to hire Tucker and tell him to run Lovie's defense was classic shortsighted Bears crap dressed up as continuity. HA. From one year to another, but not across decades and teams etc. So Im inclined to look at this staff as a new animal. I dont put the weight of the silliness that came before onto them. Onto the owners? Hell yes. But I dont think they are calling many shots right now. I truly hope that Pace develops a long term culture for the Bears, and is around for many years to tend it. God help us if this all falls flat.

Pace isnt caretaking a solid roster, he's taking flyers on riskier prospects that have more upside. He would rather have one stud and one bust than two predictably serviceable players drafted at value, because hes still searching for the core players that will define this team, not filling holes at the edges. Also, at some point, you gotta trust your scouts, and if they say something different than the draft magazines, maybe, just maybe they know better. Given that these are riskier players, I think we should take a wait and see it on the field attitude.

I agree, there is a whole lot of BS on this board right now. Reading draft papers and then digging on the Bears for not following "conventional wisdom" is the kind of thinking that got us players like David Terrell. For many years, we took conventional wisdom picks. Now we have a staff that does their own homework and knows how to take risks. GOOD.

We are not a set team. We will and should continue to try everything and see what works. If you can find a good Left OT on the current squad, that's totally worth the lost cohesion at this point. This is the same logic that had us take a big risk on Trubisky. Some day, when we are a good team, we won't take as many chances,a nd we will honor cohesion and all that, but we arent there yet, so we should try everything.

Awesome. I agree. And yes we have reached for both Trubisky and Shaheen, but maybe that's the price of getting into the game with some players.

Yeah not saying Pace has info others dont, just that he is in a position to take riskier picks, and teams that are more complete take safer picks to plug fewer holes.

I think it's like how you tell a 22 year old to make higher risk investments for retirement plans. Where we are, we need playmakers, not just solid hole pluggers at this point. So it makes sense, to take some flyers on players.

double post deleted

I think the question is whether you want to try to make the difference between 6-10 this year and 9-7 at best OR whether you want to try to build a team that can be 12-4 on a repeating basis. The path to winning was clearly demonstrated to us by the Cubs, who endured 4 awful seasons to push value forward and corner the market on talent in a future window so that they now are World Series winners AND one of the youngest teams in the league. The Patriots and Packers have shown what stability in an organization looks like. When a scout looks at an OLB for the Packers, he knows exactly what that position has looked like in his team for 20 years. He knows which attributes are crucial, and which weaknesses hide well in that context. THAT is what Ernie Accorsi put us on the path to. We are going to need to build through the draft for a while, as we improve. We are building a base with depth, and it takes TIME and DISCIPLINE. No one can say if Trubisky will be the guy. I dont even think Pace is saying he KNOWS. But he's making the right moves to get from here to there, and one way or another we WILL have a franchise QB in the next few years. If Glennon and Trubisky suck, you can bet he's gonna go right back to that well and pay the going rate to take another swing. So yeah, if you wanted to maximize wins THIS YEAR, then you could have done different things in Free Agency, and draft solid ready contributors rather than higher risk reward players who have higher ceilings, even if they have lower floors. Safe is not the right strategy for us at this point, we need to be swinging for the fences, and Pace has the balls and apparent job security to do it. Booing Trubisky at the Bulls game was a joke.

NFL Network had him at 52, and we took him at 45. Not reaching, I agree.

on the NFL site, he pretty much got drafted right about where his grade was. He was the 53rd best player and we took him at 45.

Keep in mind it wasnt their WHOLE draft either, they had just taken Myles Garrett

Right on Jason.

Yup! and LOL @ Mongo for his comment too! GO BEARS.

So the failure of other GMs is a predictor of Pace? But the internet is smarter? A lot of people thought Leaf was good too. We'll see.