BearFan PHX

yes and yes!

so far. but of course we are both entitled to our opinions about it. the good news is that even with my negative opinion about Flus, i STILL think there is enough talent on the roster and with the other coaches to succeed!

agree. I assume that there are enough good voices around Eberflus now to moderate that stuff, and maybe Flus himself would be less conservative with an improved roster anyway. My beef with him is less the mistakes that he's already made, and hopefully won't repeat, but instead whether he gives an active edge in winning or is just a good caretaker and organizer of the team. Either way, we have a ton of great coaches and position coaches and a good roster and we should be able to win. I dont see Eberflus holding us back per se, but if the time comes that Waldron is getting HC offers because he was good here for us, Id rather promote him and lose Flus, than to keep Flus and lose Waldron, but in the real world, without a smoking gun like more close losses because of HC decisions, I dont see how you can realistically do that.

and Lovie got fired after a season with a good record too. It's a tough business!

That makes sense. I still think the way this new rule will evolve is unknown to everyone, and I hope it doesn't become a source of too many touchdowns and overtake the rest of the game, but what Wanny said makes a lot of sense based on my understanding of the play as it currently stands.

I understand the generalized comments about growing in experience etc, but the unforced errors that Eberflus made that lost us 3 games last year were not complicated decisions. They were things that even high school football coaches know better than to do. I do think that with the staff around Eberflus we will be fine, and Flus should not prevent us from winning, but at the same time we have lost the opportunity to put in a head coach that can give us an active edge in winning. At best Eberflus is neutral to the team. I also think that Poles didnt want to lose the locker room. Moving on from Fields was a big move, and he probably wanted to keep Flus so that he didnt lose the defense. I dont know that Flus can or will do anything so bad that he would get fired at this point. He's like Ringo in the Beatles - extremely lucky to be where he is, and he's going to get brought along for the ride. But if Waldron is offered head coaching jobs next year or the year after because he has done a stellar job with the offense, I think it would be fair to say that it would be better to keep Waldron as head coach than to keep Eberflus and lose Waldron. Unfortunately, there's no real way to do that without a smoking gun against Eberflus, which I dont expect. So we are where we are, and I think this team can go far in the next few years, even with Eberflus. But in a hypothetical purely logical world, where players dont have emotions, he would not still be head coach. But we live in the real world of human beings, and the situation has evolved as it has. Eberflus is going to possibly win multiple super bowls and all the coaching accolades that go along with that, but it wont be because of his skills. We can hope that it wont be in spite of them.

for sure, and if Waldron is good, he becomes head coach, which would be great.

awesome. It's not easy to get over that kind of stuff, you guys must be very proud.

totally agree. but it's hard to know whether Fields was being egotistical, or he knew the Nagy staff was crazy. Or both

it sounded like purposeful rejection of Dalton and Foles. I always thought Fields was somewhat Cutler-like in his press conferences. He always spoke softly and minimally, and kept his words inside his mouth. I wasnt sure if that was humility, or a lack of respect for the press. When I heard his interview a few months ago on a podcast with former players, his speech patterns were very different, and I felt like that was the real Justin, and he was more likeable then to me too. I think the looking at his phone thing wasn't a matter of him being distracted, but more disrespecting that Foles or Dalton had anything to teach him. I always thought he was somewhat sullen, but I chalked it up to me misreading him, and that just being his style. Once I heard him speak differently on the podcast, then i thought it wasn't his style, but keeping them at a distance. And that's not always bad either. Belichick was a master of that kind of sullen, low speak style in press conferences, and he was doing that purposefully and to good effect. So it's not always a social issue. I also think that Fields WAS focused on football. He apparently put in tons of work, watching film etc. I think at the end of it all, he just didnt see the field as a passer, and was probably defensive about that, since nothing was working. He seems like a nice kid, and I do wish him success. He's a hell of an open field runner. I've compared him to Hester many times before - another great open field runner who didn't really have a position (CB and WR both failed) on the football field other than as a returner. He may light it up as a returner for Pittsburgh, especially with the new rules, and his superior throwback ability that you dont usually see in returners. For whatever reason though, he didnt succeed as a passer, and didnt seem to want to take coaching. It might be that Nagy's staff's coaching was awful and was right to resist it too.

yes, if we are playing well, i do expect flex games later in the season for sure. I think Williams is going to be a media star in the league. Maybe not right away, but once he starts winning.

I read more that clarified, the Giants are the offseason version of Hard Knocks, the preseason version is yet to be decided. I would imagine the Bears would make a very attractive candidate, but we would like to avoid it if possible.

I dont know how much this goes on at the league headquarters, but all these things will make the Bears more likely to win the division. Not saying they will, just more likely. I also see where the Giants are this years Hard Knocks team, so theres that piece of good news too.

Well the Bears' schedule has been released, and we don't play ANY divisional games until the last 9 weeks of the season. That's kind of amazing, because it gives Williams time to grow before he fights for a playoff berth. I haven't looked at any other teams yet, but maybe the NFL is pushing divisional games later int he year on purpose so playoff hopes stay alive as long as possible for each team, or maybe the Bears just got lucky, or are being helped by the league (less likely!) Whatever it is, it's good news for us this year.

there is nothing better than having a QB who is worth that top salary. If that happens, we should be happy indeed! Also, maybe Williams will take a page from Tom Brady's plan and take less than he is worth so they can still afford a team around him, which results in more wins, and more SB wins means more $ in endorsements too?

I totally agree that he is brash and that doesnt fit well if your results are mediocre. The other side of the argument is that his floor is probably pretty high, so even if he doesn't end up great, he might still be pretty good. I dont want to see that though. Im here for a team that dominates, and it seems like the stars have aligned to give us a good shot at that. Go Bears!

they sure are. and people pay for what you might become too, because having that franchise QB is what the league is all about, and there arent really very many of them in the world. Certainly not enough for every team to have one. We sure got lucky with Lovie winning that last second TD, getting the first pick overall and the Poles masterfully turning that into a haul and lucking into the first pick this year and having Williams be there this year.

agree. no matter what happened with Justin, or what was his fault, it's on the coaches and GM to create and maintain the culture they need. If you cant control your players it means you are kind of scared of them, and that speaks to a lack of leadership ability in the coaches and GM. It is possible that they decided to cut Justin loose years ago, and just rode with him while they built the roster. But then the hugs, and the effusive praise wouldnt fit that narrative. So I guess they didnt think they could control him but still wanted to keep and develop him. Strange, because those are contradictory ideas. In any case, Williams seems to be all in on succeeding, and at least at this point seems to be taking coaching well.

well, theres the answer then.

Yeah, and that's part coaching and part the ability of the QB to operate the offense. But we have looked VERY unprepared on opening day too many times. We can lose the first game with a rookie QB, but wed better not look like we dont know whats going on (again).

oops! thanks. I thought he meant the first preseason game. My bad. Then yes, Caleb should start right from the first game i think. We have to allow him some leeway I think to make mistakes during the first half of the season, but we should see a lot of greatness too, and consistency should come pretty fast and build. But yeah, with this roster, I'd start him right away. ANd give him all the QB1 snaps in preseason and practice as a result too.

I saw the same story. And the story said even after Nagy was gone, Fields didn't want to take coaching from the other QBs. It's understandable, because the NFL is competitive, and you want to be QB1, but at the same time, you hope guys are wanting to get better any possible way. I also heard Courtney Cronin saying today that only Waldron and QB coach Kerry Joseph will be coaching Williams (I think she may have forgotten Thomas Brown) so he isnt hearing it from all angles, and can be set in the chain of command so he gets one consistent message. From that point of view, maybe the whole idea of backup QBs as mentors is a bad one, and Nagy and Getsy put Justin in a bad position?

usually when teams play the HOF game, they either dont play their starters at all, and use it as an opportunity to look at the bottom half of the 80 guys to see who theyre gonna cut, or sometimes in the first preseason game (HOF or no) the starters may play 1 series, 2 at the most. So I dont expect Williams to be out there much if at all. If they put the starters out there for a series, then I guess Caleb will be out there too, but if they dont play any starters, then Williams stays off the field of course without his OL. I don't see him playing a quarter of football for example, and ditto for all the starters.

I agree, and I personally dont know what that is, so Ill leave that to Poles and Waldron, and trust them to make the right decision. There is "common wisdom" going both ways so... But if I had to guess, I say they put Caleb in right away if they play any starters at all.

Im saying why the group got the idea that I am arrogant and obnoxious. You all knew me for 15 years, but this never came up. Then I was the only fish swimming upstream for a while on the Justin thing. And boy did i take a lot of abuse. Most of it centering on "wait until the offseason and youll see" well i did. I took it and took it and waited. and in the end i was right. And now there is a concerted effort to try to find me wrong on something. I said Caleb was extra accurate on those throws. And why wouldnt he be? Hes been touted as freakishly accurate. And he is! That wasnt personal, it wasnt fighting. In fact, I was shocked you didnt all agree. But whatever, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but my disagreeing with them telling me Im wrong is definitely allowed. And when people get frustrated and go after me, I return serve. it's really not that big a deal. If you dont want to fight with me, then dont start crap. Easy. P.S. actually now that i remember, it began when I said Leno sucked and people got all mad about that. Thats where the legend of me being such a bully began. Because I saw things from watching film (not the game, but OL FILM) that people werent yet reading in articles. So I was the arrogant know it all saying things you werent hearing anywhere else - an outlier - obviously wrong. Except Leno sucked. And Fields is a horrible passer (but legendary status runner int he open field), and Adam Hoge said he saw the same thing in Caleb that first day - so I was just early. And I was right too. So thats gotta count for something? For a while I was a player hater, now Im a Caleb lover apparently. Couldnt it just be that Im early seeing and saying things? If I get a few more right in a row, will you stop assuming Im wrong and saying BS just because you heard it from me first? I also said Fields should return kicks for the Steelers about a week before anyone said it in the press. Doesnt make me a genius, it just seems kind of obvious. Most of this is/was. Im usually just surprised when I say this stuff that you dont all agree. I have no idea why you dont. To me its right there to be seen.