AZ54

According to Victor, he signed here to be a slot WR. He definitely sounds like someone who was not happy playing on the outside last year. I would also say he's not happy ending up on a rebuilding team without a good QB situation, but it's a 1 year deal. He has his work cutout for him to get back to the receiving numbers he's used to. http://www.espn.com/espnradio/chicago/playPopup?id=19464031

I don't mind adding more competition but I have low expectations for Cruz. Then again I have low expectations for Kendall Wright so maybe one or the other works out for us.

I too would like to see quite a bit of this given the talent we now have at TE. That includes Brown should we decide to trade Miller, although I lean towards keeping 4 TEs on the roster. http://bearswire.usatoday.com/2017/05/25/b...end-formations/ The mix of TE talent we have, along with Howard on the field behind a good run blocking Oline (you know it's true), puts a defense in a quandary. Now if we only had a QB talented enough to roll out and throw on the run, or just run.

Sadly this is about the only thing reporters could talk about coming out of the OTAs. With over 90 players out there you might think someone saw something or someone else catch their eye besides Glennon throwing a football and knocking over garbage cans. Unfortunately I don't see the mindless media types moving off their QB controversy story anytime soon. Is Eddie Goldman moving around well? Is Bullard bigger and stronger? Where does Grasu fit in? If he's only taking snaps at OC that's a problem for his future here. I agree that I'd rather hear Glennon say he just wants to compete for the job. He has a huge advantage over Trubisky with his years in the league and the 2 or 3 months head start on the playbook. I don't think Glennon will turn into anything beyond just a decent QB. If he lights it up and is a top 10 QB this year then I'm not worried about Trubisky at all. He can sit on the bench in 2018 and watch Glennon go through his "prove it" year. People will talk about the lost value but whenever or however you find a top 10 starting QB it just doesn't matter. Either of Trubisky or Glennon is likely leaving the team in 2019 (or in Trubisky's case 2020) and we'll get some change back from all we invested in QBs this year, which will lower the net cost.

Sitton has spent most of his career at RG so we'd be putting him where's he at his best. In the article they said that with Long being more athletic he's better able to help Leno. Leno often oversteps in his drop and gets beat inside. Long is also better at pulling than Sitton plus the team prefers to run behind Massie who is better at run blocking than Leno.

Early reports are that this move is possible.. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/colum...521-column.html

If Trubisky is our #2 and Glennon is injured I fully expect to see Trubisky on the field. He needs game experience to get better. David Carr is the poster child for a "ruined QB" but Troy Aikman's and Peyton Manning's rookie seasons didn't ruin them. David Carr didn't lose "it" because of his poor oline play. He just never had "it" or he'd have resurfaced as a viable starter later in his career as guys like Kurt Warner did after getting kicked to the curb. There have been many other late bloomers at QB who had a much better 2nd half to their career than first half. If Trubisky is not ready to play because he's lost in the playbook then just keep him as the #3. That's better than setting false expectations by listing him as the #2 and then benching him when the time comes. Do that and everyone knows the organization was lying about his performance and a huge media circus opens up at Halas Hall.

Yes I was just pointing out that some of the so-called franchise QBs often had average performance. There's a wide variation to the performance level people consider as a franchise QB. I think some of that is media driven where some players bad games are accepted as just a bad day and when Cutler would throw two INT's in a game the comments were always "here he goes again". You just don't hear that with Andrew Luck's multiple INT games. Or how the fact Cam Newton's career completion percentage is just 58%, with last season an impressive 53% and it is completely overlooked in the discussion. Yes, Cam can rush and so he ran for 359 yards last year. If Trubisky puts up a year like that in his 6th season everyone will call him a bust. http://www.nfl.com/player/camnewton/2495455/careerstats

Eli Superbowls with a great defense Newton Superbowl with a great defense IMO it just validates that you don't need an elite franchise QB, just a good one and then build around them. Cam greatly benefitted from all the turnovers and short fields his defense gave him in his MVP year. He failed miserably in the biggest game of his career and pouted about it afterwards and ran off the stage league MVP style. Hard to see how that's not worse behavior that what Cutler had done on many occasions. That's not the first time Cam was pouting like that, nor was it his last. When that defense couldn't support him the same way in 2016 he was average. http://www.footballdb.com/stats/qb-records.html?type=post Jay Cutler had 1 playoff win, 1 playoff loss. Romo had 2 playoff wins, 4 playoff losses. Matt Ryan has 2 playoff wins, 5 playoff losses including the biggest collapse in Superbowl history. Cam Newton is 3 win/3 loss. Mitch Trubisky has everything needed to become a good QB.

I see there is a lot more tolerance for bad or inconsistent QB play among QBs not named Cutler than I would expect. If there is any doubt that Cutler is the standard bearer for bad QB play look at how many job offers he received this year. https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/51y66...ng_was_695_the/ If the standard is 4000 yard seasons, how many has Newton had? One. http://www.nfl.com/player/camnewton/2495455/careerstats Newton's career passer rating: 86.1 Jay Cutler 85.7 Eli Manning 83.7 ...and Mannings INT rate 3.2% vs. Cutler's "horrible" 3.3% both are really bad Rivers has had some great seasons. He's had some Cutler-esque seasons as well. Last year he threw 21 INTs at a 3.6% rate. Franchise? In his career he's had 5 seasons with an INT rate of 3.2% or higher.

I saw that and immediately went to Draftbreakdown to see if they have any of his games from 2016. They don't. Regardless, I think an OT is more likely to be our 1st Rd pick next year.

Don't forget all the big money deals Philly handed out in the offseason to Bradford and Daniels before they gave up the farm to get Wentz. I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point down the road, we learn that what Philly did in 2016 sort of set-the-table for what Pace did this offseason.

Out of curiosity, for those who are engaged in this thread, what do you consider a franchise QB? I think my definition of a franchise QB is different than others. IMO a franchise guy is one who makes anyone around them better. They are QBs who consistently perform among the best in the league despite the roster changes all teams deal with. Below that level are good starters who, because of the rules in today's game, are needed to win but you will have to give them some elite pieces to make it happen. When all the pieces fall into place they can have a great season (ala Ryan last year or Stafford some years) or you might find yourself drafting in the top 10. I'll list the 2016 passing leaders (top to bottom in yards) and comment who I think are "franchise" guys. Brees - Franchise Ryan - good QB Cousins - good QB Rodgers - Franchise Rivers - good QB Stafford - good QB Flacco - good QB Luck - good QB should and could be franchise just hasn't played like it the last 2yrs Palmer - good average QB most of the time but has his Cutler-esque moments Wilson - Franchise Dalton - good QB Winston - good QB E. Manning - good QB Carr - good QB Bortles - meh Bradford - meh, maybe good QB Roethlisberger - Franchise Wentz - pending Prescott - pending Brady - Franchise Newton - good QB Smith - good QB (lower tier) Mariota - good QB I see 5 franchise types, and 14 good QBs of varying levels several of which have already caused their teams (current or previous) to go after other QBs such as Palmer, Bradford, and Smith. -------- Part 2 of this: How long does it take for a QB to reach franchise level? Brees certainly wasn't there early in his career. Nor was Roethlisberger, Wilson (I think he showed it last year), Rodgers warmed a bench for a few years. Very few make it through from being a good QB to being a great QB. Is Matt Ryan finally a franchise QB?

Manziel was an idiot in college and there were tons of red flags on him before the draft. The physical talent to play is there in a simple college system where he can freelance. The willingness to put the time into film study and practice were never part of his work ethic in college. Locker was horribly inaccurate throughout his college career. I watched quite a few of his college games and he's a great athlete, but was never a great (or even good) passer. Add in the mental side of the NFL game and you could see the very high risk with picking him. Bridgewater had limitations based on his lack of arm strength. Playing indoors in Minnesota makes him viable. Playing outdoors in places like Chicago, Cleveland, Green Bay, Buffalo less viable. I watched Luck in college a lot and there's no way I'd put Trubisky ahead of him as a prospect. ------- I was curious about Goff's performance in mini-camp last year and his reviews were glowing. Now maybe that's because it was a high school offense they were running as per Gurley. We can't get ahead of ourselves on Trubisky based on mini-camp. What we know from reporters is that he has the arm strength needed to play in Chicago. Whatever small piece of the playbook they had him learn beforehand he was able to pick it up, call the play in the huddle, and then throw to the right read. Other than that minicamp is a lot of nothing. The second part of the OTAs will give us a better indication if he's on the path to being a viable #2 QB this year.

Darnold is the one I'd be most interested in. I haven't liked much of what I've seen out of the UCLA QB, Rosen, but he has most of the physical tools needed to be a good pocket passer. The Wyoming QB is not consistently accurate but he has a strong arm. Someone will fall in love with the "prototype" traits and take him early.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap300000080...bs-in-next-wave

I only voted to put Grasu at C, Whitehair slides to RG, and Long to RT. That's only IF we have to make a change which is likely due to injury but after his lengthy recovery from the ankle surgery I would rather not put him back outside. My preference is that we have our absolute best interior group which should be Sitton/Whitehair/Long. If we really need max protection just keep Shaheen and/or Sims next to the OTs. Both are good enough to adjust on the fly and run routes depending on what the defense does (i.e. rush 3).

He's apparently very optimistic about Leonard Floyd this year. http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/bigger-...n-be-in-year-2/ ‘‘I feel good about him,’’ Fangio said. That's about as positive as you can get from Vic but with Floyd weighing 250lbs he should be a much different player around the LOS.

Always like listening to Fangio's press conferences. This time around we know there are a couple players he's really looking forward to getting back on the field: Goldman and Trevathan.

That would be awful. Harbaugh has become an arrogant selfish individual and I want nothing to do with him. I was the first one on this board to talk about the Bears grabbing him to become the HC way back when he was in his 2nd and 3rd years at Stanford. He knows football but his act wears thin quickly. I keep seeing the same things about Fox being a bad HC then in the next sentence people praise his former OCs (Gase, McCoy) and both were his promotions into the OC role, or praise the elite Defense he built in Denver. On the other hand they'll ignore that he ran the best offense in the NFL for a couple years with Peyton, or praise his current DC Fangio (I'm on board). Harbaugh gets praise for the D he built with Fangio but Fox can't get credit if he does the same here? At some point people gotta look back and say he has a really good record building coaching staffs and a winning program. We'll get to see how successful the 49ers are with Matt Barkley and Brian Hoyer as their starting QBs because they have a great offensive coach and that changes everything.

With his first practice out of the way we can now settle down for the long haul with Trubisky. Of note from Moon Mullin are these comments from some scouts around the league: ---------------------------- http://www.csnchicago.com/chicago-bears/ju...-mitch-trubisky Two AFC scouts revealed that they had the highest grade on Trubisky that they’d had on any quarterback over the past six years. That means: higher than Jameis Winston; higher than Marcus Mariota; higher than Cam Newton; higher than Russell Wilson; higher than Andrew Luck; higher than Derek Carr; higher than Carson Wentz. The evaluation of one NFC regional scouting team was that “Trubisky is an almost perfect quarterback prospect” and that 'the Bears should count their lucky stars he only started 13 games because if he was a two-year starter, he goes 1/1 [overall No. 1] without hesitation.” ---------------------------- Other than that we only know that Trubisky was able to at least handle getting rookies in/out of the huddle reasonably well for his first day. That ain't much but it's far better than Goff last year.

Add in that franchise QBs aren't always playing elite football (see Andrew Luck). You do need a decent/good QB to win but the elite franchise QB is not necessary and spending a ton of effort (picks) year after year in search of one can kill the team (see NYJ, Cleveland). That's really where your GM has to hit it right: Just find a good starting QB and there is usually one in every draft. If we have our good QB in the fold then from here on out it's about building the winning defense while giving Trubisky enough weapons to be productive on offense.

Glad to see these cuts. I don't know what Victor Cruz can offer any team these days.

Tarik Cohen makes the list of rookies he thinks will have an impact this year. http://www.nfl.com/photoessays/0ap30000008...timpact-rookies

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