AZ54

I've been saying that Dalton can't get us a Superbowl this year so based on what I saw out of Fields in the preseason there really isn't a scenario, other than injury, where I didn't see Fields becoming our starter mid-season. We have $48mil to spend next year and a few years afterward to maximize the talent around Fields before his big contract. If you want a shot at the Superbowl in 2022 while Mack is still an effective player you need Fields to get experience this year. Of course Dalton is on a 1yr deal and Foles won't be around so there isn't much of an option behind Fields in 2022. Knowing that, the last thing anyone in the organization needs is to go into 2022 not knowing a thing about how Fields can play. If Fields fell apart sure bring back Dalton and let Fields learn again on the sidelines but Fields would be back out there the last couple games at least. For those same reasons if I'm Ryan "hot seat" Pace I'm demanding it at some point because I want to evaluate what Nagy can do with Fields to know if he's the right coach. There are no more QB excuses for Nagy and if he can't get this much QB talent, who played on the biggest stages in college, ready to perform at a basic level then we know where the problem is. Maybe Pace goes down at the end of the year too but he can't think like that. He still has to think long term in case he gets another year and if he does, will he need a new HC to ensure success with Fields? Knowing or at least believing he has his QB now, that would be Pace's likely path to a long career in Chicago. With those future considerations and your limited options of course I'm taking Field's and the 5 win scenario. FWIW I really don't care about Nagy stating Dalton is still our starter. If you listened closely to past press conferences he's already indicated, albeit subtly, if Fields is successful he'll stay out there. I wouldn't expect him to burn any bridges with Dalton until it is necessary. Nor do I want him telling opponents not to prepare for both QBs. They aren't stupid either. They saw the last game so nobody on the planet is expecting Dalton this week but there is no need to hand it to them on a silver platter.

um, not all men over 60.

Andy Reid had to let go of play calling too in order to save his career. Nagy would do well to learn from his mentor.

I'm watching some highlights of Fields' big throws. One thing jumps out.... our WRs are loving his ability to throw the deep ball. Watch Goodwin celebrate Arob's deep-out catch on the third highlight. Forget where receivers go to die, long term this is the stuff FA WRs are willing to sign up to be part of. Goodwin knows his turn is coming soon as long as Fields is out there. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. To ARob's credit that was a great catch too! FWIW that first highlight pass to Mooney was about 50 yards in the air perfectly in stride. For most QBs when you start getting around 50+ yards the accuracy drops because they are putting so much effort into the pass and typically you see the receiver making the adjustments to the ball. Maybe Fields can throw 60+ yards I don't know but this is getting into elite passing ability. Yes I know we all saw this on his highlights from OSU but I'm seeing it in a Bears uniform so let me enjoy the moment. https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2021/10/03/bears-justin-fields-deep-ball-darnell-mooney-lions-week-4/

More than anything Nagy said about the play calling it was Fields in the post game presser complimenting how he likes when Lazor calls the plays. Fields said Nagy is too busy running the team and that (paraphrasing here) the chaos or energy of all that comes across the headset in the play calls. Lazor is just calmly reciting the play call from the booth which helped Fields. I was surprised Fields said that but he managed to do it in a way that didn't throw the head coach under the bus. Really curious to see where this goes from here.

I like the fact he didn't seem to care about that, at least I didn't hear anything in the post game press conference about it. Just win.

This is the game I expect to see from Fields, slow and steady with some splash plays sprinkled in. Except to be honest, seeing a QB who can hit WRs in-stride deep down the field in tiny windows like he did with ARob and Mooney is not something I should say I ever expected to see from a Bears QB. Cutler had a great arm but he was still more of a line-of-sight passer. Fields can alter trajectory to be line-of-sight or to rain a pass down right into the cradle as he did with Mooney. Arm talent aside he's still got a lot to learn as he was slow getting through the reads at times. However, we saw in the preseason where he can learn game-to-game, and even within a game. This week just adds to my confidence that he's going to be even better next week. I'm pretty sure Andy Dalton's half-hearted congratulations to Fields on the sideline at the end of the game indicates he knows what we all know...he just got Wally Pipp'd. That said there is even more to the offense they can add in as Field's gains experience but I'm good if they go on the road with this same run game and play-action style. A few more shoutouts: Oline. Still not perfect but 188yds on the ground in any NFL game is a very good day. They earned it after the debacle last week and we all know the boo-birds were just waiting for the first big mistake to happen. Those yards weren't because of Fields scrambling either because he only had 9yd. Shelley: looked really poor in preseason and week 1. He getting better each week. Ogletree: leads team in 10 tackles. For a late FA add he's playing really well and he's being more physical at the point of attack than I expected. Trevis Gipson: He shows up in every game and as he gains experience we might have a solid 3-man rotation off the edge by mid-season. Montgomery: He had a really good game and I'm going to miss watching him. I'm hoping for the best but it seems likely his season is over. He made our Oline look better than they are and we'll miss that. Mooney: He wasn't dropping that first deep pass near the left sideline. Great game overall with 125yds on just 5 receptions.

I don't think I want to bench Ogletree.

+100%

Did you ever think John Fox's 17pts per game would look so good?

In week 1 I saw this. Perhaps everyone runs out of a Bear hug by Aaron Donald? So yes, I respect a man who runs hard every play, breaks tackles, and gains yards when his Oline gives him nothing. And he doesn't quit until the final whistle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEKrVoxLcrI

Sorry but I have a lot of respect for David Montgomery and how he's running the ball this year.

I actually think it's defenses he doesn't understand. IMO play calling is about knowing your team's weaknesses and utilizing your team's strengths while staying away from the other team's strength and exploiting their weaknesses. I get adding in the occasional element of surprise, not being one dimensional and so forth but there should be some signs you are seeing that make you think it will work before you handoff to Patterson on 4th and short while Montgomery is sitting on the bench. 3-step drops and quick reads, or quick reads out of the shotgun are not Field's strength right now. OTOH pass rushing a fixed target is Cleveland's strength. Forget even the read-option I'd have been happy with some actual delayed running plays with Fields. Just snap it to him and let the pass rushers into designed lanes and open a hole for him to run. Just doing that a couple times will make them hesitate a bit as they take their first step. I've seen that done a bunch of times with Lamar Jackson and it seems to me that would have been super easy to do as hard as they were coming off the edge.

Among the owners I think that's George these days. At least he puts forth effort to stay in tune with the fans and I think he sits in on the end of year reviews of Pace.

LMAO.

What exactly is the cap the crisis next year? Admittedly I'm just now looking into it at Overthecap.com but it appears we have $45mil in cap space, and cutting Foles and Cohen frees up an additional $5.2mil. We already have Cohen's replacement on the roster (pick any from among the RB / WR depth - finding someone good at running out of bounds isn't hard to do). I see one player we should re-sign in Roquan and that's big money. Other than that I'd like ARob back but not at $20mil/yr. I'd like Akiem Hicks back too but not at $10mil/yr. He's aging but I think in a rotational role he can still contribute meaningful snaps. Neither of Hicks or ARob are must haves but there is a bigger need at WR. If Tonga improves and Goldman returns to form I can see them letting Hicks go unless he's willing to do a team friendly deal. We can slide Goldman out to DE and keep Tonga at NT next year on run downs. Below them we have Pat O'Donnell, Nichols, James Daniels, and Ifedi. Depending on what they see out of Borom and Jenkins it's likely they may only choose to sign one of the oline. Nichols is a good player but his injury history hurts his market value, we'll close a deal with him. Going forward we'll be sitting without a heavy QB contract in 2022/23/24 which should give room to fix other positions. https://overthecap.com/free-agency/chicago-bears/ Are there players on the roster paid too much like Eddie Jackson? At the time of his deal he earned it IMO but this year not in the least. Quinn based on last year's performance? This year it's early but he's earning it. Around the league every roster has a few of these contracts to live with but I don't see it impacting 2022. There are 18 teams with less cap space than we have in 2022 including every team in the NFC North. Packers and Vikings are among the league worst and are negative.

I don't think Ted runs the team operations. He is more focused on the business side of things these days and I don't think he's that bad in that role. After getting agreement on the new property in Arlington there's no way he's going anywhere. He got this far in that deal and this is absolutely critical the future of the team. They will let him close the business deal and begin working with architects on designing the new complex. Plus he's been dealing with Chicago politicians for a long time too and he's likely in the best space to get out of the existing Soldier Field deal better than bringing in some outsider.

Awesome news. New stadium, better venue (I love the history of Soldier Field), better turf and footing for players, and more revenue to help the team compete. I hope they find a way to keep the ties to the past alive in the new stadium. This will bring a Superbowl to Chicago.

I still like Pace and I freely acknowledge his mistakes. I don't even mind the trade up for Trubisky because if he's your guy you go get him. I'd rather have that in a GM than the Angelo way when we were afraid to trade up a couple spots to ensure we got Aaron Donald. I think we did something similar a year prior to where we saw someone trade up ahead of us and draft our primary target. I can live with results of someone who at least believes in his scouting enough to go get them. That's the same approach that led to Fields. I believe Fields is the right choice. The more I've researched into the draft the more I've learned why Bill Belichick just wants to collect as many picks as possible. There are many ways to build a team including not using your first round picks as the Rams have done. I don't want to go into a back and forth on all his draft picks we all know the failures. I simply think Pace has learned and improved over the years. He seemed to be more about the athlete early on and now is better evalauting the football player. I think his first HC choice showed that same tendency to go to the shiny new object. I don't think his 2nd choice will follow that same path. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/why-the-rams-have-traded-away-so-many-first-round-picks-an-inside-look-at-los-angeles-unique-draft-strategy/ Nagy on the other hand. The Santa's Sleigh play was the pinnacle of his career. It doesn't matter if it's the inability to call running plays when he freely admits his QB is struggling, to calling a goal line dive play with Cordarrelle Patterson, he can't get out of his own way. More importantly I don't think he's learning, nobody does and he's making John Fox look like an offensive genius. I still think he has the traits to be a good HC if he just focused on that, but he's just not a good OC. If he can't see that and won't make that change then it's just further proof he's not acting as a head coach. In that case, we must make the decision for him and if it comes down to that he'll be on his couch watching games like the rest of us. Someone once asked Jerry Jones if he was the GM would Jerry (the owner) fire himself? Jones was at least honest enough to admit he would have.

Pace knows he has to do something ... now. The D is good. There is enough talent on offense to at least be productive and that includes the Oline. Even special teams is doing alright. All that is left is offensive scheme. In reality the things Nagy touches the least succeed.

We do way too much of this. I used to think it was because Mitch had no clue but nah it's just Nagy.

I agree on this which is why I never advocated for Fields to sit the bench the entire year. He still has to know enough to be out there. I don't think he's far off and he'll be helped quite a bit being at home next week.

Nagy needs to fire himself as OC. He's in over his head, he hasn't changed, and it's clear he will never learn. Hand the keys of the offense over to Lazor and sit back and be a head coach, or do us all a favor and just leave town. That said I like what Desai has been doing the last couple games. Despite the Oline struggles today I still like Juan Castillo. It was obvious Fields isn't ready and if there was ever a game where you needed a good 3 step drop passing game and play action this was it. Having a rookie QB sitting back in the shotgun having to keep his eyes off the rush while he catches the ball is not smart. To top it off Fields was then dropping back further which played perfectly into the pass rush. Get some more help to the Oline, do something wildly creative like a screen play behind Garrett's pass rush, perhaps sooner than the 4th quarter.

Why stunt the growth of the rest of the offensive players, many who are also new to the team, waiting on a rookie QB to learn it when you have a veteran who has quickly mastered it, can help everyone else get lined up, and call protections, etc.? Then we had the Oline disaster throughout training camp so it was a mystery how that would look in game 1. I'm good with them getting the rest of the offense ready as fast as possible. Get the car tuned up, cleaned up, and fueled up, and when the rookie is ready to drive hand him the keys. The last thing I wanted to see was Fields behind a confused Oline especially when Fields doesn't know enough to help set protections. They didn't totally abandon Fields, he was getting snaps in game 1 and then more snaps in game 2 before Dalton got injured. It was clear the path forward was to get Fields game experience with the 1's and ramp him up as quickly as possible. I'm sure that plan included more first team practice snaps as he earned it. He was shaky last week and mostly issues reading the defense (see the endzone passes/INT). His passing accuracy was good for the most part so I don't think that timing was much of an issue. By the way didn't running that scout D mean he was getting snaps against the first string defense? I see the case where they wanted to use that platform to help him learn how to read defenses. What takes longer to learn: Reading NFL defenses or getting in sync with ARob, Mooney, and the Oline? I don't know how NFL practices are run but if the 1st team D is doing their thing against the scout team at the same time the 1st team offense is doing their thing on another field he can't be in both places at once. Isn't this why traditionally the 3rd string QB runs the scout team offense so the starting QB and backup (10% snaps) are working on the game plan plays? I think his timing with the offense will come together quickly since he played with elite athletes at OSU he just needs to know where to go with the ball a little quicker.

JT Sullivan is correct on the details but this analysis gives more reason for hope as it focuses more on the play recognition and less on the fundamentals of the position. There were quite a few positives to his performance. I say the combination of these two analyses is a fair breakdown for where Fields is at as a QB right now. As he gains experience and the game slows down for him the fundamentals and pocket presence he displayed before should naturally return. Or you could just sum it up simply as he's thinking too much right now.