BearFan PHX

there are a few other places an upgrade would be good too; CB (for stevenson), S (for brisker), LB (for edmunds), WR (for allen), TE (for everett & lewis) but until the OL and DL are significantly upgraded (and we need at least 2 new guys on each) it's hard to want to use draft capital on those positions. Of course free agency will change all of this. We will add players at all of those positions before the draft. But still, i think we all agree the OL needs a major overhaul, and we need a couple more pieces on the DL before the defense will work.

hell yes

click the "watch it on youtube" button - its a short and it's worth it. Harbaugh is awesome. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CuTRqXn59Ew

Id like to see him resign and spill the secrets so no one holds them against him and the McCaskeys finally have to admit they need to change the way they do things or no one will work for them. Also Kevin Warren has no business meddling in football decisions. None.

I dont view everything as black and white. I think Caleb has growing to do, I always say that. I just dont understand why you keep wanting to keep people who have failed right up until they are SO bad that they are historically bad. Let's say you have a QB who is the 15th best in the league. I dont want to pay him like hes a top 5, and i dont want to keep him. My goal isnt to only fire people who are absolutely awful, my goal is to be the BEST, and that means 15th best isnt good enough. You on the other hand, say 15th is better than a lot of people, let's not rock the boat. I say you keep changing it until you get something at least top 5. Poles is not the worst, but he isnt the best, and his coaching choices have been terrible. I dont want him picking the next guy and ruining Caleb's window. As for the roster that Poles has built, a new GM still gewts to keep the players we have under contract, so Im not sure how having a new GM means starting over.

I see Vrabel the same way. I do wish he was an offensive coach, because I dont want Caleb to have to go through multiple offensive coordinators as we have success. But the most important job for a head coach is to be a head coach, and I think Vrabel is really good at it. I wouldnt want to hire a Ben Johnson type who has all the Xs and Os but doesnt seem like a real cultural leader as head coach. Add some players to the offensive line, and bring in someone that knows how to run the football AND open up the passing game and we might have something. I do believe that Vrabel knows how to run the ball.

seems right to me. Sadly.

I think you should read what i said again. It was about the defense, and whether Washington was worse, or whether Shanahan manipulated the same defensive scheme Flus ran. Why you want to keep these losers is beyond me. Also if you think Caleb is the problem, you're way off base. He has growing to do for sure, but he is already the best QB we've ever had.

I agree with all of this! Except for Mark Cuban - but you're exactly right about the structure and job descriptions.

Stability = keep losing the same way. Stability is only a good idea when what you're preserving is GOOD. More and more I'm setting my sights on Mike Vrabel. I'm not 100% yet. I wish he was an offensive guy, but I think he might be the man we need, and have the balls to tell Warren and the rest when they are over their heads. Vrabel knows football, he knows players, hes a proven commodity, hes young enough, hes tough and physical and has the rings to back it all up. We will need an excellent OC for Caleb, and someone in the pipeline behind him for stability IF THEY HAVE SUCCESS and lose the OC to be someones head coach for that reason in the future. But this team needs a real culture, and Vrabel is a proven commodity who can can do that.

we should get an offensive line then!

I dont know the names yet, but I like your ranking of positions.

I saw a lot of effort too - at least early. I saw body language that said they were ready to win and really wanted it. I also saw lack of focus and concentration too. So there's desire, and then there's discipline which is a habit, and not one we have no matter how much we might want it. We need a real coach who starts in training camp instilling the habits that show up on game day in December. This roster has talent, but this is not a team.

Well it's not like the DC tells each player where to stand on each play from the sideline. They have had their coverages etc all year. The way they play Cover 3 or man under etc. Certainly during the week they may make adjustments to how they want to play certain coverages, but like adam said, the LBs too close and the safeties dropped way deep is not a sound coverage. There is no way Williams put that in. What that was was Shanahan looking at tape of how we play our coverages, and designing formations and plays that cause our rules to result in those big holes. Williams didnt call that, Shanahan twisted our coverage into it. And it would have been the same if Eberflus was coach. Maybe you can say that Flus called better games, but as with all zone teams, the opponent moves the ball, and then we tighten up near the red zone. It's not like Flus didn't give up lots of yards too. And it's not like Flus didnt COST us games. So saying that we miss Flus is kind of BS. In fact Im really over all this rah rah for anyone we have. Whether it's Flus or Poles or even saying Brown is gonna be great. Being great is being great, it isn't sucking and then having us all root hard for just one more try. Come on guys! We can do it! Yuck. Get good coaches in here. Stop thinking our own farts smell like victory. They don't. They smell like accountability was left out in the sun for a month to rot. Good coaches will get the best out of the players. I cant really blame the LBers or Stevenson for how we got outcoached.

Also this: "It's time to have that uncomfortable Ryan Poles conversation" "the Bears may have to accept that Poles is the worst kind of GM: okay, but not good enough. Those guys tend to keep their jobs way longer than they should. Despite what Warren said, they need to seriously discuss wiping the entire slate clean next month." https://www.sportsmockery.com/chicago-bears/its-time-to-have-that-uncomfortable-ryan-poles-conversation/

I was a major "no we wouldnt, we dont know what they know" guy, and I have to admit it. Youre right. It SHOULDN'T be that way. They SHOULD have more info than we do, and they should outpick us. But they don't. Maybe we are smart. Maybe they are dumb. Maybe the McCaskeys hire morons because they look for beta guys that don't threaten them. I don't know what it is. But on the good teams in this league, the GMs should know more than we do, and do better than we do. But I gotta admit you're right. We have absolutely sucked at picking players, and I believe there are several people on this board who could have done better. And probably some who would have done worse too LOL But this has been a long simmering debate, and I'm going to call it, and say it clearly - you were right.

Well since it was buried int he middle of a 3 hour podcast, and not in the headline, it's not clickbait. And since the guy asked his partner "should we say this?" and seemed nervous about divulging it, and since people like Courtney Cronin and Adam Rank go on the show and have him on their show, and since former players go on his show, I think MAYBE he heard something? How do you know what they would pay? i thought you just argued that no one knows anything from Halas hall. At least mine was a report, you're just guessing? I think you're just guessing, and I don't think you have any particular insight into what Poles or the team would do.

assuming someone wants to come up to 9 (or wherever we land) and there is no obvious stud LT sitting there at 9, this makes a lot of sense. we need bodies on both lines.

Bears: wow, we have a guy doing a decent job with the offense for three weeks Also Bears: Quick make him head coach so he can't sustain it. It is SO frustrating.

I think the players were absolutely rallying. i think they just couldn't make it work. We need more talent on the OL and DL, and our coaches didn't give us an active edge in winning. So do the players like Brown? I think they do. Does he have their respect, at least right now? I think again yes. But Brown didnt find any easy weaknesses against the Niners today. We got completely out-coached by a real coach. Our DC Williams and his defense were chasing shadows all day too. They pinned their ears back and got screened, they blitzed and got in too late. Everything they did, Shanahan was waiting for it and used it against us with coaching jujitsu. We need to stop being silly and falling love with the smell of our own farts. There are good coaches out there. Proven winners. They might clash with Warren though, and McCaskey needs to be the big dog in the room. And he's a very small dog. So we hire these losers like Nagy, Getsy, Waldron and Eberflus.

it IS - it's Chris Morgan making everyone look terrible. And then again, some really are just terrible LOL ALso did you see that extra point just now int he 4th qtr? It was almost blocked from the SAME gap. We dont learn.

Mike Vrabel, Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, Jim Harbaugh have all been available, or are available now. Perhaps there are other names we could trade for too. Right now we are totally outclassed. Also, it's painfully obvious we need a new OL, and more on the DL. This is nowhere near acceptable right now. Trying to salvage a coaching staff out of what we already have is complete malpractice. All the puff articles in the world are instantly contradicted by seeing what we look like on the field next to a real coaching staff. This isnt just about the players trying harder. Until the coaching is right, it's fighting uphill in a way that makes something that's already hard close to impossible.

could be. I'd like to see a couple more weeks of Williams calling the D to be sure this isn't just Shanahan making our guys look like newbs.

Yeah, i really thought he was gonna be an Urlacher for us; tall, fast, rangey, play the deep middle. I liked him better than Roquan that year in the draft too. But just like I said about coaches - all the tools int he world don't matter if you don't have instincts. You're right. Prospects and football players are not always the same thing. Grrrr

This (the 49ers) is what great coaching look like. It's like being a great rock paper scissors player. You dont need to reinvent rock, or fool the whole league with a new twist on paper, you have to look the other guy in the eye and just get ahead of him with rhythm. It's not something most people can do. it's not easy, and being fooled by people who overcomplicate things, and maybe even fool the league for 12 weeks with some new wrinkle is not the same thing. It never lasts. In the end it's about being a great poker player. You gotta know when to call that screen. You gotta read the other guy. Ben Johnson types, when they work out, get an edge for one year. But Kyle Shanahan is gonna be good every year. He's not fooling people, he's out guessing them. He anticipates and takes advantage, he isn't only trying to confuse the other guy with new BS that'll be seen on film and dissected within weeks. (Matt Nagy comes to mind) I'll bet Dan Campbell can sniff out when a fake punt is coming, or when to call that draw on 3rd down. Even if he can't innovate new route trees and misdirections. And we have had such trash at head coach, that we are STARVING for coaching, and we're seriously saying a guy who was a passing assistant 6 weeks ago is a serious contender to be the head coach with our once on 50 years new QB. If we can trade for a coach like Shanahan we should. As I'm typing this, we've got Sandborn on deep man coverage against their HB. I'm sure Thomas Brown is a good guy. He's certainly more competent than anything we've seen in years. MAYBE If a Kyle Shanahan comes here and chooses to keep him as OC, he could stay int hat capacity. If Shanahan is calling the plays. But he is NOT as a good a HC prospect as Caleb is at QB. Let's get a real coach.