BearFan PHX

interesting from Jason Sigler. If Eberflus isn't stable, one ownders if Poles isn't thinking about promoting Waldron. It's so interesting he got so many ready-to-move-up guys from his own tree. I'm talking after this coming year, but if candidates really were turned off by Eberflus' job security, maybe Waldron saw the opportunity differently. I mean, we all like the staff thats been assembled on both sides of the ball. If they do well, it's hard to see how Eberflus can get singled out as a problem, because we'd be winning games. But it just makes me wonder what Poles might have up his sleeve. Anyway, I thought the article was interesting, and spoke to both sides. https://www.yardbarker.com/nfl/articles/report_chicago_bears_oc_candidates_were_turned_off_by_instability_of_matt_eberflus_staff/s1_17081_39900732

Green Bay has cracked the secret sauce, or has just been caught in the momentum of good QB play, that it has worked out that all their QBs sit for a while and learn from someone whos been in the system for a while. There's no substitute for being able to learn from a QB like Favre or Rodgers and see how they execute the same plays you're gonna run over the course of several years. Consistency is really important, but of course it needs to be consistency with something thats good, and not just continuity with some crap LOL I hope the "Waldron tree" takes root in Chicago and we go through several generations of coaches that come out of it, through our system. That would certainly help with QB development no matter who it is in the future. A freakin men. This sure does look like the start of something great. It's very exciting, and it looks logically built. Maybe this is how Poles builds a staff, and not say, by meeting a guy who is force fed to him 3 days earlier that he kinda has to accept to get the job? If Waldron does well with whoever the Bears QB is next year, who here would rather keep Eberflus and let Waldron go to be a HC somewhere else, rather than replacing Eberflus with Waldron? And Im gonna say - if that happens, then that will remove my only black mark on Poles' record, and I will consider him to be a cool customer indeed.

This is so true. It shouldn't necessarily matter, but it does. We are all human. And just logistically, if you keep Justin, and pass on Williams, and Williams burns up the league, and Justin doesnt, Poles is likely fired right then and there. He created the perfect situation with a 2022 tank year and a roster rebuild, and then he have blown the big moment he'd paid all that for. But, if you move on from Justin, and he balls out, and Williams has a slow start, you've got a couple more seasons to try to develop him into something, and you're not immediately on the chopping block. Those of us who want to move on from Justin weren't haters from the beginning. I was extremely excited for him, and we gave him three years to show something. I know they were tough years. I understand why everything couldnt go the way Fields wanted it to, but for me, I didnt really even see many flashes. But fair or not, we did give Fields three years of enthusiastic hope. And a rookie QB will get the same here. I won't be calling for a rookies head if he makes mistakes. Ill be complaining about them and saying he has to get them cleaned up. And looking and hoping for progress. All this to say that keeping Fields is much more dangerous to Poles' job short term than drafting a rookie would be. And like you say, it'd be "his guy" - you'd hope the GM makes the best decisions they can without thinking about those things, but i think anyone would.

You're right that does set the floor on his value. I keep forgetting about that compensatory pick. Cool Do you know if we get that 3rd rounder automatically, or can it be offset by us signing other teams' free agents? It will be interesting in the 2025 draft to have a 3rd for Fields (or better in trade) two more 3rds for losing Ian Cunningham and an extra 2nd from the Carolina trade. Poles certainly has milked the draft. He's gotten a lot of value for last years first. Quite a difference from Pace burning picks to move up and acquire free agents. We've sent a lot of first rounders away for Cutler, Mack, Trubisky etc. I want the one we traded for Rick Mirer back too. LOL And what team (that doesnt have a top 5 QB) wouldnt be thrilled to get Williams (or their top QB pick) AND the #9 pick for whatever. If we dont trade the #1 for a huge haul, we've still gotten a treasure trove in all of this.

This is what I think too, and if our scouts make a good choice, I'm OK if it isn't Williams, and if it isn't with the #1 pick, as long as it's a true likely franchise QB. So not some guy in the 4th round. If they love Williams so much the better. I don't really think Fields will ever be a consistently successful pocket passer, and the incredible improvisational plays he makes don't end up making 4th quarter comebacks that win the game. they just make really amazing highlight reels. He's like a pile of parts to make a Ferrari - the potential is there, all the rare pieces are right in that pile, but if you cant get them all connected as they need to be to actually be a Ferrari, you cant drive it anywhere.

Good point. This board being a perfect example too of how much support Fields still has. Lemme ask you Grizz, since you're probably in that camp? If Poles had fired Eberflus and gotten, say Shane Waldron as head coach to replace him, would that have been OK with you? And if not, would it make moving on from Fields tougher to take? Im seriously asking, because it's a feelings question, and there is no wrong answer, and since i dont see it from that perspective in the first place, Im interested to hear your thoughts on it? Does keeping Eberflus make you feel better, or less bad about moving on from Fields? (if that hypothetically happens?)

I cant imagine theyre coming here to risk it all on Justin Fields, so this is a strong indication that we are drafting a rookie QB. Now which one? It does look like they're loading up for promotion (or for Waldron to get a HC job) If Eberflus is just the face of the organization, and he lets his coaches do their jobs, and doesnt try to constrain them into being too safe, he could be a successful executive coach. I still worry about his situational errors, like when to go on 4th down and when to take a FG, but i do think they could be successful around Eberflus. Some of these guys look like they might be difference makers. I dont think Eberflus gives you any particular positive edge in winning, but i think we can be successful around him. But if Waldron unlocks the rookie QB, and gets HC offers, Id rather make him our HC than to keep Eberflus.

competition definitely makes players reach down deep. and if we take a rookie, we wont want to throw him out there on day one anyway. so there is an argument for having Fields play the role of the veteran who is keeping the seat warm with the rookie waiting to eventually take over. And youd get the added benefit of giving Fields one more chance to blow us all away, so I see the argument for it. Ive been trying to word a lot of my conclusions to say "Poles better draft a hi pick franchise QB type" rather than "Poles better dump Fields" to allow for this exact scenario. The down side is though that you want your rookie to be learning good habits, and learn from the mentoring of the placeholder vet ahead of him, and with Justin, it could get messy. Also, there is the issue of the offensive scheme. If you want to throw Justin into a regular offensive scheme, it's fine with me. The fans will be chanting for the rookie by week 5. But if you really wanted to give Justin the best chance to be successful, youd have to design a running, improvising friendly offense, and then you'd be putting your rookie into that too. If it's Caleb, it might work with him too, but I think it would go against the coaching Caleb is gonna need to dial into a more structured NFL typeoffense. And if it's Maye or McCarthy or something, then you just cant have two totally different offenses being installed at once. I hope we get a 2nd rounder for Justin just so we dont have to weigh that kind of thing out. I wouldnt mind Bagent being that guy for 4 or 5 games until the rookie was ready. Gives him a shot to show what he can do in the new offense too. Hopefully he will have increased his arm strength in the gym too.

Here's a thought. Maybe Poles felt he needed to keep Eberflus so he doesn't lose the locker room when he moves on from Fields. Maybe he needs Flus to sell it to the players. Maybe making both the right moves (in my opinion); firing Eberflus and moving on from Fields, would each be dangerous from a morale point of view and doing both at once was too dangerous. If he knew he had to move on from Fields, and didnt want to blow everything up, then maybe he felt it wise to keep Eberflus. Maybe Eberflus will work out with all these assistants around him. It does seem like a hell of a staff. If everyone finds a niche. But if Flus is forcing everyone else to be too safe, and making dumb situational errors as HC, Poles could fire him next year, and move Waldron to HC and everyone up a rung on offense. That'd be one way to handle the change without losing momentum with a rookie QB going into his second year? Layers on layers of intrigue and options.

thats so odd. the whole point of statistics and likelihoods is that they take the exceptions into account, and express them as a percentage of likelihood too. So they are the opposite of dealing in absolutes. If I say there is an 80% chance of something happening, it also implies that I know there is a 20% chance it wont. Statistics are how you try to handle multiple possibilities, so you can see which ones are more likely and weight them accordingly. Specifically so you DON'T have to think in absolutes. You seem to think all possible outcomes are equally likely? That if there are 2 QBs, you never know which one could be better so there is no reason to prefer one over the other? But what if one has a 20% chance to be great and the other one has an 80% chance to be great? Is it possible that the 20%er will be great, and the 80%er will bust? Sure. But that's only gonna happen 16% of the time. 80% of the time the expected one WILL succeed. and 64% of the time the 80%er will succeed AND the 20%er will fail. So you should want to go with the 80% guy. Just because the 20%er is possible, doesnt mean it's likely. To support keeping Justin, you gotta say why it's LIKELY that he's gonna take a huge step next year. "It's possible" isn't enough. And showing a few anecdotal examples of other QBs who did it only proves it's POSSIBLE, but not that it's LIKELY. Justin doesnt just need to improve his play overall, he specifically needs to take a HUGE jump in a skill he has barely shown an ability in. The pocket passing in structure in tempo thing. We saw the tiniest glimpses of it, never a lot, never consistently. We didnt see it in 4th quarter comebacks, or lifting the team on his shoulders to win in the 4th? So what on earth do you see that tells you he is gonna make a huge jump next year at that? Dont tell me it's POSSIBLE, tell me why you'd EXPECT it enough to pass on a rookie QB who has a good chance to be good or great for us? What indication is there that we should trade that #1 pick QB away and keep Justin?

yeah its very true. its the McCaskey middle way. Cheap, safe, stuck in the vortex between 6-11 and 10-7, sells seats, and cicks on and on it goes. We are all so brainwashed to keep going around with it. It's been 30+ years of this nonsense. I'll say this though - if Kevin Warren sits around and lets it just happen ongoing into the future, then I dunno what he's even doing here. I know he probably cant shake everything up right now, has to let Poles play his vision out. Come on Poles. You gotta know we need that QB. Come on dude.

All options don't have the same chance of happening! When you flip a coin, there are three options; heads, tails and landing on the edge and standing there. But almost all the time it's heads or tails, even though the edge landing IS an option. But its not a likely option. You keep arguing whats possible. ANYTHING is possible. That's not the basis of a strategy! You gotta think one outcome is more LIKELY than another. Otherwise, why not trade Fields and sign Trubisky? It's because Fields has a much better chance to be great than Trubisky does. And I dont think Fields has much of a chance to be great. It's not equally likely that Caleb or Maye will be great as Fields. Fields has three years in the league. Hes had a chance. Hes not new and unknown like a rookie. He's already a lot more known. Yes there is a chance that Fields will play better somewhere else and our rookie will bust. But it isnt an equal chance. The smart bet is to take a rookie QB in the draft. And if he busts, you do it again until you have that guy. Poles will do what he THINKS is the best choice for the future, but he could be wrong. If he doesn't draft a top rookie QB that has a good chance to be a franchise QB, then I think that's a huge mistake that should cost him his job.

So taking a top pick QB is a mistake because Trubisky didn't work out? Can we have that conversation again about statistics and likelihoods again? You cant take a single example and assert that it stands for the most likely outcome. We've got to understand this basic stuff. We agree that Poles did a great job tearing down. We agree that Poles has done a great job in acquisition. I think Poles should have moved on from Eberflus, but he has done a great job of bringing in coordinators and assistants. I still think Poles needs to take a top QB in the draft. If he misses on this, we are going to be stuck in the same old cycle until we can have a 3 win season and can try again. And with this defense, that could be quite a while. This is an inflection moment for the Bears, and it will determine Poles' future and the next 5 or 10 years for our franchise. Otherwise we get caught in the endless 6-11, 9-8 loop that half the teams in the league cant escape. You say that Poles has a different vision than the past. But that doesnt rebut the dynamic of that whirlpool, it exists, and if Poles doesnt get that QB, he just takes us right back there - even if he found a different way to do it, we will still be stuck there. We have all lived through it. Havent we had enough? Are we really gonna step up for another chapter of McCaskey safe middle ball? "Oh if only a fumble goes our way we might..." I've been happily playing along with that for years. I posted on this board with excitement for Jerry Angelo, and Mark Trestman, and Matt Nagy and so many others. "If we can just build on the good stuff from last year..." I cant just walk down that path again. Some franchises insist on excellence. You can fired for a 9-8 season there. They dont care if you're "doing pretty good" or "keep the team together through a long losing streak" they insist on excellence, and they keep trying people until they find it. Why does ESPNs Courtney Cronin say she has personally spoken to a handful of NFL GMs and none say Fields is worth even a single first round pick? There's the sportswriters narrative "Justin stay of go?" that generates a lot of clicks. But it's a mirage. This isn't about hating on Justin. It's about hating on mediocrity - it's about having a commitment to excellence. It's about real accountability. It's about telling the truth about what's working and what isn't. Insist on excellence. It's hard to find. You try, and it doesnt work out, so you try again, and you keep trying until we have one of the baddest MFers throwing the ball and the story changes from "maybe if we can add some pieces and grow a little" to " The Bears are the clear favorites to win the Superbowl in August" Dont you want to be like the 49ers and Cowboys in the 80s and 90s? Or the Patriots with Brady? Or the Chiefs? Isnt that the goal? Is incremental progress and hope ever gonna get us there? We need to be looking for a dominant QB. There are several options in this years draft. Poles needs to identify one and get him.

I have no doubt Poles is doing what he thinks is right. What I said was that if he keeps FIelds and is wrong, then we will be stuck in that cycle because THIS is the year we have the #1 pick, not every year. Ask yourself this - why have the Bears been stuck in mediocrity for so long? What are the common factors about the cycle we have been trapped in? I think it's because we held on to mid level stuff that kept us JUST good enough to not be able to get a top pick to find a great QB. We tried and whiffed with Trubisky, but before that? We were trapped in the middle layer like a lot of teams. But then we paid the price to get out of the cycle - we tanked the 2022 season hard. It was miserable. But we bought ourselves a chance to swing for the fences and be GOOD. We had the #1 pick last year. And Poles thought that passing on Young and Stroud was the right move and giving Fields another year, and a Pro Bowl level WR, and help on the OL would give him the chance to prove himself. And that made sense. But that experiment ran last year already. And the results are in. Now we have the #1 pick again. And interestingly there are a bunch of intriguing QBs this year - more than most years, so we might even find our stud in a pick below the #1 pick, if we find a guy other than Williams to believe in. So Poles can play the draft and still get a top QB, so Im not dogged that it has to be Williams (yet?) or with the #1 pick. But if we walk away from this draft without a true candidate for franchise QB, and stick with Fields instead, and it doesnt work out, we wont be in a position to have a #1 pick again. If we end up there, were are doomed to sit in the middle again for several years unless we tank again, which pretty much would bring us then to 2026 or 2027 before we had a functional starting QB and all the players we all like would be going to free agency not to mention wed have to trade them to tank hard, we arent winning 3 games with this defense, we will win more *OR* we will have to mortgage a future draft to get up to get a guy if the teams who have those picks are even willing to let go of a #1 guy in trade, and they usually arent. That's what we usually do. Cutler, Mack, Trubisky. And it kills our future drafts for 2 or 3 years without any number one pick. Both tickets out of purgatory are awful. So this is the moment. Its not always going to be like this. The train is leaving the station, and if you keep Fields and it doesn't work out, Poles is possibly fired, and the whole roster is into their second deals. We simply HAVE to take a shot at a great QB right now. if you keep Fields you gotta think he is going to be great fast, better by far than hes ever been, or it all goes to hell for another several years. With the defense we have, even if Fields sucks we will NOT have the #1 pick again. And you've watched that movie with me for the past 30 years. I cant just McCaskey this again for another 30. Arent we all sick to death of that?! Playing it safe right now is the absolute wrong thing to do - and Fields is not a safe choice to be great anyway. When you think about the haul of players and picks wed get from trading the #1 pick, ask yourself - why would the team giving all that to us think it's a winning move for them to give all that for just a single pick? It's because it's WORTH it because they can take a swing at a franchise QB who might take you to the promised land. That should be us doing that.

He was run game coordinator under Carrol in Seattle, and worked with Waldron there. The staff is filling out really nicely! And unlike the first wave of hires, these people all had a specific connection to Waldron, so the chemistry is known already. Hopefully Morton has the juice to make Waldron run the ball more than he did previously. If Waldron can adapt, and there's no reason to doubt that, and get a fully dimensional and modern offense in Chicago, then we will be on our way up the ladder, with a whole Waldron tree waiting in the wings ready to move up if Waldron is hired away as a HC, or if he is promoted to our HC some time. That is one developing insurance policy scenario if Eberflus doesnt work out that wouldnt cost us any momentum. If Poles is hedging his bet that way, then good job! https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2024/1/30/24053144/chicago-bears-hire-chad-morton-running-back-coach-nfl-offseason-2024-seattle-seahawks-shane-waldron

yeah, thats the crux of it. Ive seen enough Fields, and Im done waiting for the light to come on for him. He had this year to show it and he just didnt. There are reasons or excuses why perhaps, but he hasnt done it. He had his chance. There is a reason that everyone except Mel Kiper (lol) says that he isnt worth more than a 2nd round pick. I dont think the league values him as a top 10 starter, or his future development to be that. To your point, who the non tier 1 QBs who won superbowls in the last 20 years, and then lets see if they are better than Fields? You gotta try for a Mahomes, but if you get a Josh Allen, you can work with that. But yes, in everything I say on here you can add something that says "I have made up my mind that Fields will never be the guy for us. I admit i cant predict the future, but this is my strong opinion and I believe there is more than enough evidence to make a strong case that it is extremely unlikely that Fields will be the guy in the admittedly unknowable future." That's just what i think. And I dont think it's close really, it seems blatantly obvious to me. And I think its obvious to the rest of the league too. If we get great trade offers for him, or hear teams talking about trying hard to get him, then that will be evidence that I was wrong about this.

all this is true. He does have some idea what hes gonna do. Of course our filters are different on that decision. I think keeping Fields is a mistake, so if thats where he's leaning, or already decided, and he makes that choice, Im gonna think its partially because he isnt maintaining professional emotional distance. I could be wrong about either of those things or both of course. But if we get to next year, and I was right, and Justin is the same as he was this past year, that's gonna really suck and the repercussions to the plan we bought with that awful 2022 season will be devastating, and we will be back to mediocrity for many years. We wont have a #1 pick, and we will oscillate as we have for decades between 6-11 seasons followed by 9-8 seasons as we get harder and easier schedules each year. We've been caught in that cycle for many many years. Decades. Surely you're sick of it too! We cant keep thinking like McCaskeys, buying the same narrative we've been sold forever. This has to be about winning Superbowls and not selling tickets and feeding the Chicago Sports Media machine. I know in New England they had a lot of years where they didnt say "Keep or trade Brady?!" The writers will find other things to write about if we get a great QB. I'm not sold on Williams. I have a lot more investigating to do, including seeing a bunch of videos that havent even been made yet! But I think keeping Fields will be a mistake, and if Poles does that, I'm gonna think that the reason he made the mistake was this possible problem I wonder about. And if he drafts a QB, he needs to get the right one. And that is a really complicated problem this year in particular with so many good names. The other way to see that is that there may be more than one great QB here for the taking, and that increases our odds of getting one, IF we take one early. I think we have to. I hope Poles thinks so too.

yeah I truly hope so! I dont think he is consciously thinking "Im gonna make a bad decision because i love Fields" youre 100% right about that. I'm more saying that his vision is possibly clouded because he is such a fan. And I have also repeatedly praised pretty much every move hes made except for Eberflus. And Ive said that he is excellent at playing the draft, making trades and acquiring talent. My concern is simply whether he will be able to fire, cut or trade "his guys" when thats the right move to make. I have NO doubt every move he makes he thinks is the best for the Bears, we agree on that for sure. I'm just saying, if you're the judge of a murder case, and youre gonna have to decide whether a guy goes free or gets the death penalty, it's weird to be hugging him and paling around with him a couple months before you lower the boom? But all that really matters is that he gets the decisions right. I think he got Eberflus wrong, and if he keeps Fields I will think he got that one wrong too, and then Im gonna be suspicious of him. Im sure we disagree on our predictions of how that would work out, but I'll bet you agree that if he keeps Fields, and we dont win more than 8 games next year, and the defense is balling out and Fields' performance is similar to this years with no growth that THEN Poles might even get fired. So the safest route would be to draft a rookie QB and that gives poles a few years of leeway to see how that guy develops. but Im sure we also agree that we hope Poles has the guts to make the right decision for the Bears, rather than what's safest for him?

I'm gonna add this too. I am NOT sure that Poles is too cozy with the players. ALL I've said is that I have an eye on it and i am concerned about it. If he keeps Fields, I'm gonna think it more. I also predict (again just my opinion!) that keeping Fields is a mistake and we will all see the truth of that by this time next year if it happens. These are my opinions! If that doesnt meet some kind of purity test, maybe it's time to examine who exactly has been radicalized here and who is intolerant of who's opinion. But the post above was just a chuckle, that Stingers argument was a poor one, because it didnt actually prove his point, but it did prove mine (if what Stinger said is true). And if instead it's true as you say, that Poles has an open mind, and isnt too chummy with the team, then Stinger's argument was at odds with that idea. So I thought that was funny. Don't be so sure when the villagers get the torches to kill the monster that they are morally right. A lot of times it's the self righteous crowd thats wrong, and the monster was just a scientist saying the earth wasnt flat or something that just happened to be at odds with the prevailing narrative that the villagers were so indoctrinated with.

that doesnt make sense. It's not just who believes what about Fields, Pix. of course that's opinion, but the thing Stinger just said would have to NOT be true for me to be wrong? If Poles is as you think, not affected by his loyalty, and still capable of making tough decisions, then he cant know during the regular season what hes going to do about Fields. He would still have an open mind. The good argument against my side would be "Poles loves Fields on a personal level, but it ISNT affecting his decisions" And if that were true, then the hug WOULDNT be "all you need to know about the future of the Bears" would it? There would be more to know, because he'd still be evaluating options. So the hug doesnt "prove" my point at all, but if he is thinking what Stinger said, THEN it does. You cant just take everything and turn it backwards and call it symmetrical.

It's funny Stinger, you're actually proving my point. If Poles hugging Fields means that he is behind him no matter what, the "future" - before evaluating all his options, before the combine, before all the interviews, then he absolutely is compromised and allowing his emotions to make decisions, and then I'm right about my concerns. The smart argument would be "he loves Fields and supports his guys, but when he makes hard decisions he doesnt let that into it" But... yeah.

No doubt Poles has a long game, and he's setting himself up for a long run strategically, which is very smart, but we will see if his decisions with Eberflus and Fields will allow that to come to fruition? Honestly, if it wasn't for the Eberflus decision, Id be really unable to criticize him at all. He's doing a lot right. But he still has the defining decision of his career ahead of him.

he's probably being groomed to take over for Waldron if/when he gets a head coaching gig. Smart to have an heir apparent in the pipeline.

right, and they have a QB in place.

Ha! I have thought that many times here! Whenever anyone thinks that though, do we always imagine ourselves to be Sharpe, and the other guy to be Bayless? lol