BearFan PHX

Wow. Caleb gets totally kneecapped and comes back with that TD throw. Ii agree, we need 3 or 4 new players on the OL. And yes, everyone is demoralized. Id love to see players believing more, but it is hard to when you KNOW the ship is sinking? I also agree with you about Montgomery. I have always loved him. I think we need to get Roschon Johnson more involved too. I do love power backs.

I feel the same way. The roster is pretty good. We do need a little more. OL, a pass rusher etc - we all know. But it can be found in a single offseason. I also dont need a yeller per se, but it has to be someone who brings real accountability. You see how Dan Campbell is. He doesnt seem like a genius. He has amazing coordinators. But the one thing he excels at is just personal energy. He is the Daddy of that team, and that's what you need. Belichick did it quietly, Harbaugh yells. Either way getting the team motivated and disciplined is the name of the game. I love Ben Johnson's Xs and Os, but i wonder if he has that thing we are talking about.

For sure, a great OL makes everything else look so much better.

Definitely getting our asses kicked in every way. Rather than harping on the Bears, it seems to me like Detroit is really really good. They are what we should want to look like. Ben Johnson very impressive as OC. He'd insist on an actual OL. Dunno if he is the alpha Dan Campbell energy too though. He still might be the best option for us. But wow, it's nice to see such good football, even if it is our ass getting kicked.

me too! I wanna see Caleb continue making obvious strides against good defenses!

I suspect that if this is the muppet show, I may be one of the old men up the box seats heckling LOL

Poles was part of Getsy, Waldron, a fired DC, and Eberflus - twice. And of the entire universe, this is who you think is best to choose the next head coach? There is no one else available to us who is better? Poles shouldnt get so much credit for Caleb. He couldnt know that Carolina would get the first pick the next year. The trade he made was good, but it wasnt creative or out of the blue. Any competent lawyer could have made that trade. The question is: who is our next head coach. EVERYTHING depends on it. Get it wrong, and you waste all of this, the trade, Caleb, everything. Youre back to square one. It's a 20 year death sentence. But get it right, and we are finally a contender. Caleb becomes a star and we win superbowls. If Poles picks the right guy then great. But is he our BEST option for making that pick. Out of everyone? I dont care about giving a guy all the time he was promised. This isnt the Chicago befairtopoles - its the Chicago Bears. And if you need to be right for anyone, you need to be right for Caleb!

you cant just take any group of people and give them 3 or 4 or 5 years and expect the result to be a championship. Winners are rare. Every year 31 teams do not win the superbowl and only 1 does. When your group is showing that they are not great, you move on from them. I do not understand this "give em another chance" crap. I want to win, not be nice to the people who have failed to win.

ahahahahaha it needs a hipster haircut

Yeah man, I'm totally with you on Caleb. He is probably already the best Bears QB of the modern era. And it is the hardest thing to get right. Finding coaches is much easier. I dont give Poles as much credit. The deal with Carolina was incredible for sure, but that was mostly a function of being the worst team in the NFL two years ago, and not being ready to get rid of Justin Fields. Neither of those things is about Poles' brilliance. It's mosre about him holding on to Justin, and us sucking during the teardown year. I truly believe any lawyer could get the same deal from Carolina, if he was instructed to trade out. Was keeping Justin over CJ Stroud the right move there? Probably not. It only looks great because everything went right and we got Caleb. In many outcomes, we would have Maye or Daniels or something this year instead, if we hadnt gotten the first pick, and there is no way youd know youd have that the year before. So would you rather have Maye, Daniels or Stroud? Poles hasnt been terrible, maybe he doesnt particularly deserve to get fired, if you judge him in fairness. But I am more worried about Caleb's development than being fair to Poles, and he made the decision to hold on to Eberflus this year. He also signed off on Getsy and approved Waldron over better more proven options. Like he's good at picking DBs, but not as good picking OL. So he's not so great at picking coaches, and this upcoming coaching decision is going to make or break our franchise for a decade. I like our scouting department. I want someone other than Poles picking the next HC. I HATE that we are now counting on Kevin Warren to do this when he isnt qualified and it's not in his job description. What IS in Warren's job description is firing the GM and making the choice of his replacement. It may not be fair, or warranted, but the decision ahead is so important to get right, and he is not who we should have making it. That's why Id fire him.

he really is a muppet. I dont particularly want him fired mid season. I mean I'd love to on some emotional level, but it doesnt accomplish anything. If I were GM os the Bears starting today, I'd be looking forward to the offseason and a new coach, and not necessarily fire Flus right now. I also don't want to get over my skis about Thomas Brown. He may well turn out to be an excellent head coach someday, but for me he'd just be another candidate out there, and I wouldnt give him any extra credit points for currently being on the team, or for whatever he manages to get out of Caleb. We have to chase greatness with all options on the table, and not fall in love with our own guys.

I totally agree. In fact, the reason they've looked so good is due to the talent of the players. Like Caleb, they have done good things in spite of the coaching.

changing things when they are not good enough until they are is what it's all about. Keeping continuity with failure is a bad idea. Plus you dont lose the roster when you change GMs? It's not a start over, it's just a new and hopefully better captain.

keeping Eberflus in this past offseason was such a bad decision, and it's impacting everything else now and the timeline going forward. And if we whiff on the next coaching hire, Caleb's career, or at least his career in Chicago, is destroyed and none of this will have meant anything. It was such a colossal mistake. If we limp along with loyalty to Poles etc, then we get what we deserve - even if we fire Poles in 2 years it'll be another 20 years of futility before we could get another real QB and try to put a team around him. If you're not furious at Poles now, you havent thought through the implications of all of this.

Yeah I have a gut feeling about Cunningham, but no real evidence.

All of this is so true. Flus is a fraud. I had forgotten (repressed?) that Hard Knocks moment. What the hell. So here I am, hoping that a guy i don't really have any particular evidence based reason to believe in, who is not a football guy, who's actual job is to build a new stadium, can make the kids behave themselves and make the right decisions. I'm telling you, I can't prove it, and it may not be fair, but I don't trust Poles either. He kept Eberflus. He oversaw Waldron. If I hear that Ian Cunningham didn't want to keep Flus, I'd fire Poles tomorrow and promote Cunningham.

Caleb Williams IS the haul!

As if we needed more reasons... Sheesh

and all that with awful coaching except for the OC the last two weeks. We have our QB. Finally.

without a corresponding pass rush, soft zones are the worst. When we have them in 3rd and 12 you just KNOW theyre going to complete a pass in the middle of the field. We've been seeing it for YEARS. This team has no institutional memory. Each new coaching staff tries to make a living with bubble screens. They dont remember what happened with the previous staff. Same with soft zones. there are so many good reason to fire Eberflus, but youre right, even what he's supposedly good at sucks.

absolutely. The fact that we got a second kick blocked and THEN in game we made adjustments tells you that Eberflus didnt demand changes during the week. They keep giving everyone another chance,. Theyre all about loyalty. I guess the idea is that if you let them get away with mistakes, they love you for it. But it doesnt work that way. You LOSE games and the locker room that way. It's like being a parent. You dont make decisions designed to make your kids get away with stuff so they like you, you raise them to be better and accountable. In the long run they love you more for that, and they win in life. Also, I think we need to admit that Braxton Jones cannot stop a bull rush. We need a new LOT next year.

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.