AZ54

I'm old enough to remember similar conversations about a guy named Greg Olsen. I can even remember when fans weren't too happy with Charles Tillman in his early years. We have to give players time to grow and improve when the arrow is pointing up. Remember too that Kmet has had just one training camp. I agree with Michael Irvin... jugs machine doesn't help when it comes to catching while running. I hope he joins the Mooney/Fields workouts this offseason.

Absolutely agree.

We have a lot of high character players on this team to pull off that effort tonight. We need to fix some spots but this is not a complete overhaul. Loved the way Roquan was hitting Cook all night. Wanna play MLB/ILB for the Bears? That's what it should look like. We need to re-sign Ogletree. He is not necessarily what you want as a starter but I sure don't mind him coming off the bench when needed. Love his enthusiasm for the game. I'm giving all the DBs credit, even Bush, they played outstanding given the circumstances and their talent level. Early on the announcers were showering praise all over their WRs and QB. That didn't end well. I'd like a second helping of Tevin Jenkins too. I'll forgive him for defending his QB and then hitting back after a Viking player clearly reached out and hit him first. I know his night wasn't perfect but on just 1 week of mostly walk-through practices that was one heck of an improvement. Someone is going to be putting together a highlight reel of some of his blocks tonight, at least I hope they do because there are some blocks that will be fun to watch. There was one inside running play where Montgomery had nowhere to go so he ran off the RG into traffic. Jenkin's man tried to scrape down the line to make the tackle and Jenkins just rode him about 7 yards downfield. They took some others with them too and with the push from the other Oline Montgomery ended up with a 5 or 6yd gain. When he got it right and got his hands on someone that was it. Justin Fields was disappointing most of the night. I'll give him a bit of a pass since he had some WRs he hasn't worked with much (Newsome). Once we lost Grant it seemed the juice went out of the offense. Grant is another player we need next year. Horsted caught a TD. He made a good special teams tackle too on punt coverage. Why isn't he on the field more? Did y'all catch Louis Riddick making a pitch for the Bears GM job? No way to know if Pace is staying yet but I could live with some combination of him and Riddick running things. Give Riddick Football Operations, keep Pace in the GM/Player personnel scouting department where he does his best work. Let Riddick manage Pace and the new HC. If Pace goes I'd still be ok with Riddick. I think he has a good eye for both talent and performance/effort on the field as well as the play calling/strategy aspects of the game. I don't think he's afraid to say what he's thinking even if it hurts someone's feelings. We need that in the organization. If he came on board I'd be willing to be he'd want a say in the coaching staff (not just head coach). On that front, I think he'd even interview Desai after what he saw tonight. Riddick already has front office experience and I think he'd covet the Bears job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riddick "In December 2020, various sources reported Riddick was being interviewed for the GM vacancies for both the Houston Texans and Detroit Lions.[5]

Should have said Goldman. Sorry I've written off Jackson so he often drops out of sight out of mind like his coverage skills.

I'll give him credit for fielding a team tonight that had a lot of fight in it. Just getting a roster together well enough that guys knew basic plays wasn't easy. It will help him at the next bus stop but he still has to get on the bus.

Eddie is back. I'm not as down on him as you are but agree he hasn't been as dominate as he used to be. Still he's made some good plays here and there in the last few games. I still hope we might get one or two more back before the game.

Policy already changed but only for vaccinated even though it's so obvious they are the ones getting sick and spreading it. At the risk of getting banished into the ether I'm going to call out the elephant that is standing in the middle of the locker room: If the league is 94.3% vaccinated and staff nearly 100% https://www.nfl.com/playerhealthandsafety/resources/press-releases/nfl-covid-19-testing-results-and-vaccination-rates-oct-31-nov-13-2021 then we're talking about ~2 players on a team that are not vaccinated. Odds are one of the two players has already had COVID which means they have much better immunity than vaccinated people. The NFL continues to single out the unvaxxed players for this issue as seen in the rules disparity. If that unvaxxed player isn't sick or testing positive how is it his fault others got sick? Even if he did infect others how is it his fault their choice to get vaccinated didn't protect them? The player didn't produce, market, nor mandate ineffective vaccines. Booster shots don't help either against Omicron yet the NFL seemingly doesn't know that. Worse they don't know why that is despite mandating a very specifically targeted vaccine that was never designed to provide full immunity against all future variants. Nor do they know why some vaccinated people can carry a higher viral load even when asymptomatic (not sick but making it easier for them to spread the disease) vs. unvaccinated who are asymptomatic (including those who never had COVID). If they did, they wouldn't be allowing vaccinated players who test positive just once to come to work until such time as they get a second positive test. Everyone knows there is no way they allowed obviously sick people to be in meeting rooms or workout with others. Where is the investigation into how this was being spread? Are they blaming Cole Beasley and Aaron Rodgers who both played today? Simply put the data is out there and the NFL needs to do a better job taking care of the players and staff personnel. The union should be fighting for the players rights as other unions like the UAW have successfully done.

I stopped after a reporter mentioned Goldman is coming back from the COVID list and asked him are there any others expected back. Nagy replied with "what player would that be?" Being on the short leash right before the holidays (he's got family too) and then having all this COVID stuff take away the people he needs to help him win. I think he's done too. Omicron isn't going away next week, does he want to deal with this again? Nobody wants to be fired publicly as these coaches have to go through. At some point the classy move is to allow him his dignity and self-respect and make the move everyone knows is coming.

Saw that game. Announcers kept saying how Mahones won the game. I kept thinking how Brandon Stanley stole defeat from the jaws of victory. He had 9pts on easy FG. If you want to give them 2 out of 3 then he has +6 pots but still never goes into overtime. FWIW Mahones looked bad. He’s not thinking straight. Missing easy throws. Bypassing easy passes and holding the ball too long. Maybe he’s more focused on his next commercial because something has changed from how he’s played in the past.

1 UP: Wilkinson returns from COVID. this helps a depleted OT situation but isn't really enough. 2 down: Dalton and Shelley out. neither were expected to play FWIW

After seeing some here talk him up I decided to watch some of the Cowboys game a week ago. McCarthy was out. Dallas was up by one score and had the ball with 4 min left. Moore called 3 passes in row, one to the sideline out of bounds, 2 incomplete and they punted giving the ball back to the other team with all their timeouts and over 3min on the clock. I thought about all the Bears fans complaining about Nagy's game management. In those 3 plays and 20s he was off my list.

There's a lot of immunology science behind why the COVID stuff is happening in this manner but that's boring stuff. The positive here, if it's the Omicron variant, is that it's usually a mild 2 day course of sickness with an extremely low risk of serious issues. The negative is it spreads far easier and the team likely isn't done with it. While sickness might be mild for a couple days I don't know how long the viral load will remain in the sinus and can be detected via PCR tests. For those who got it early in the week some could be back before the game on Mon. That's a bit tight since I think the NFL requires they test negative twice within 48hrs. If that means Sun/Mon tests are negative then we might see a few people back in action but of course we could also lose others. This is going to be a brutally ugly game but, as long as we can field a team, I'll be watching because it's what I do. It'll also give me an excuse to drink some Scotch Whiskey with my son. Bear down!

Maybe this has some details from another board I check on sometimes (Bearsfansonline) but discourse is much better here. Without posting the text of the full Trib article, here's what it summarized: One Halas Hall source indicates that from the outside it's a nightmare, but inside, they are almost oblivious to how bad it is. Multiple sources indicate that Phillips will distance himself from football ops Another source indicated the Bears need to clean house from a systemic standpoint, well beyond just GM and coach Gary Fencik and Pat Mannelly both are frustrated the team doesn't reach out to former Bears greats to build the franchise culture and get their insight Fencik: "They don't even know how to go about being a good organization." Pace is considered an all-star when it comes to pro personnel and college scouting, but avoids conflict and "rocking the boat" at all costs ----- the second part of that statement, if true, is a big problem for a GM but I'm always very cautious during times like these because it's easy for anyone and everyone to jump on the bandwagon so they look good jumping off a sinking ship. If it's a Halas Hall source is that someone who is also part of the problem? I also think some people just like seeing their quotes in the news. I'll add that IMO if a manager is doing their job right nobody else knows others are in trouble. I've had people spread rumors about me thinking I wasn't holding their poorly performing coworkers accountable when in fact they were already on a final warning. Then one day I'm letting them know their coworker is gone. McCaskey is loathe to get rid of Pace due to his personal fondness for him. Pace may be the right guy to keep around if he's grown from his experience. He was very young when he started as GM. John Fox was forced upon him and so Nagy is really his only HC hiring experience. Raise your hand if you made a mistake the first time you did something. ============================================ There is some speculation that the Bears might be trying to figure out how to reduce Pace's role somewhat so he's still on talent scouting but bringing in a Head of Football Operations person (Trace Armstrong rumor) who would have control over coaching hires. Based on the rumors swirling I suspect that is what the Bears are trying to do. In that case Pace would quietly accept a reduced role but they'd likely let him keep the GM title and he'd still be the guy doing the press conferences while Ops mgr stays in the background. New Ops Mgr would have decision making over things like draft trades, FA strategies, cap management, etc. Or maybe it goes the other way around and Pace gets the new title with reduce football role but stays involved in player acquisition/talent scouting and someone else gets hired as GM. Semantics.

It's behind a paywall I can't access. Is it this article? https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/bears/ct-chicago-bears-fire-matt-nagy-ryan-pace-20211215-guyhqzffxzbi5juq5cgkfftv7m-story.html It's a weird URL name because the headline for the article is totally different and just lists a quote stating: What to do? "Clean house". There isn't much in this article (I can read it behind the popup) other than opinion and nothing that really much different from what's said here. Maybe it was another article?

I read somewhere he had to play without taking any practice snaps. If that's true who does that to a backup fresh off a long injury recovery, and when Jason Peters has nearly 2 decades of experience. Who does that is a coach who has one foot out the door and was desperate to get a win in GB. One for the road.

You can find what Vildor did in every NFL game every week and it's not flagged.

You have seen Detroit play?

I've already said I like Frazier and feel he should be on our short list. I agree on Brady and Daboll. To be honest I never heard of Joe Brady but I'm guessing it's this guy: Panthers fire offensive coordinator Joe Brady with offense in tatters. So ah, that's gonna be a no to Joe. You put some good names out there and the one I haven't thought about was Greg Roman and what he's done in Baltimore. Lamar Jackson is just an insanely gifted athlete but he's still not the best passing QB. What Roman has done to completely fit the offense around what Jackson can do, and then as he's improved to add more pieces to it is impressive. I don't want Fields running around like Jackson does because he'll get injured, like Jackson is each season. However, I'd want to interview Roman to see what his plan would be for Fields and how he would have utilized the talent we have on the roster this year. I agree with you on the college coaches. It rarely works but if I felt the team was a complete rebuild I might be more inclined to take that risk. IMO we are ready to compete with just a few more pieces. In this case I prefer someone who knows the NFL scene. I also prefer the experienced NFL coach because I think it helps bring in a talented staff. Don't care about the guy in GB. All I needed was to see what he did with Love at QB, not what he did with Rogers. By that standard look at what Roman has done with a UDFA QB after Jackson was sidelined in Baltimore and his offense is still productive even if it hasn't been pretty. Bienemy I'm not too interested until I see more. Again coaching with elite talent isn't that hard to do. Not sure there's enough on his resume as an OC yet to make me think he's got 'it". Josh Daniels... hard no. No reason to take the risk with other quality candidates who are more trustworthy. Leftwich...same, pass. Todd Bowles. I liked him as our HC years ago and we didn't get him. Still like him, loved what he did as DC in AZ. I actually thought he did well to start off with the Jets but eventually you can only do so much. Others have gone on to fame and fortune after working for the Jets (hello Pete Carroll). I'd really like to see him on the interview list too. Sean Payton is kind of a no-brainer but also seems more like a request to Santa than anything grounded in reality. ---- That gives me a small list with just two defensive guys and one offense.

I'm with you on both OTs. I'm also watching Trevis Gipson he is still learning his new position but he continues to make good plays every game. Physically he's not up to the task for fulltime OLB so with Mack out the snap count has hindered him. I got to watch Bruce Irvin stand around on lots of snaps last night so Gipson could get a break. It's a lost season so while I hate watching poor defense I'd rather the coaches keep Gipson fresh. He got the sack after sitting out a bit. Herbert: After a few big games he's been a little bit quiet but still contributing. Unfortunately the Bears quit running the ball in the 2nd half last night. I want to see Horsted on the field.

We can't give up on Mooney. He's a player you want on your team but I agree he's a WR2/3. Get him some help.

Adams was on the field last week and dropped a pass. Dazz I'd definitely like to see but if he's not fully ready not in the GB game. Byrd isn't doing much but he likely knows what routes to run and can add a small bit of production. After this week bring on Dazz and if he's not ready for a few reps at this point we probably need to talk about replacing him as a future slot WR.

True.

I agree we need the starters but odds are not good getting 3 day 1 starters in any draft much less a draft with as few picks as we have. We have to find a way to address some of these needs in FA.

If McDaniels didn't agree to the Colts deal why did his assistants sign contracts with them? Don't you think they were talking with McDaniels before they signed those contracts? He agreed to terms and then went out hiring/recruiting his staff but couldn't officially sign the deal until the Patriots season ended. https://www.nfl.com/news/josh-mcdaniels-withdraws-from-colts-coaching-job-0ap3000000915131 Rapoport added that McDaniels was offering Colts jobs to prospective assistants as late as Tuesday before changing his mind about the job. https://coltswire.usatoday.com/2018/02/07/indianapolis-colts-news-keep-assistant-coaches-hired-by-josh-mcdaniels/

I came across this while doing some draft research. https://thedraftnetwork.com/articles/david-montgomery-contract-chicago-bears I've already said I'm in favor or re-signing him and keeping him around while Fields' develops. However, as in that article, there is a good argument to be made about how difficult it can be to get value out of a RB on an expensive 2nd contract. With that in mind IF your decision as GM is to... 1) Let him ride out his existing deal (play next year) and then let him go seeking a potential comp pick in exchange 2) Herbert is good enough to your starter .... should we trade Montgomery this offseason? A good RB averaging over 4ypc who can catch with a cap hit of just $1.2mil should be attractive to teams in need of a RB. I think we could get as high as a 2nd Rd pick in exchange. If you are a playoff caliber team in need of a good RB do you prefer the 2nd Rd rookie or Montgomery to help you achieve your Superbowl aspirations? I don't think I do the deal for a 3rd Rd pick because we have the same benefit of his $1.2mil cap hit next year. Again, I lean toward building as strong a running game as possible to help Fields' next year. For me that's the 1-2 combo of Monty/Herbert. OTOH if someone offered me a 2nd Rd pick for Montgomery I'd have to take it because I think it makes the overall team better. Having two 2nd Rd picks makes things look dramatically better in terms of filling needs this offseason.