DABEARSDABOMB

That was Pace.

I would hope he missed no more than 4 weeks, ideally 2-3 weeks. That would allow you to ultimately get 13-14 games (*fingers crossed*) and ideally he is healthy in those games. I actually want to see - how does having 2 real good games, than the partial game, followed by 2-3 weeks off to just watch from the sideline, how do you than respond when you come back in and go through the final 7-8 games. Whatever they do - don't rush him back - get it to where you are confident in his ability to go out and showcase himself to the best extent he can. Worse case hopefully November 19th vs. the Lions is when he is back. That would have him missing 4 games - including the Thursday night game against the Panthers. You than have the long week to get back into it against the Lions.

If you go rookie contract - than I think paying Tee Higgins and an Edge (and potentially a Center) would be wise choices. Than you go QB, grab another TE (maybe even a generational type of talent in Brockers), Oline and more edge / safety help.

If we have a top 2 pick - they need to pick a QB (unless one of Bagent/Fields balls out). With that said - I don't want to just ship out our existing QB's. I think competition is good and I also think if they are going to move on from Eberflus, it would be the time to go get a big name coach. Whether Harbaugh or Riley or Day from college or going out and making a push for a very strong offensive mind to partner. I prefer someone with the credibility because I really want to see the Bears for once try to put more pressure and create a real competition for the QB's. I think Fields would benefit from it as would the young QB. And I think they have enough chips to make the rest of the team good. Than see what happens from there. But I really think the competition and all of those things would be very good and I don't mind having the top pick sit a bit and actually have to go out and earn it. Brady has talked a lot about how he didn't know if he would have been the same player had he not had to go earn and win the job.

I don't think you pick up the option. He plays next year without the option and than you either franchise him or extend him. Franchise and trade is the right way vs. locking yourself into the 5th year option out of the gate. Very few scenarios at this point (unfortunately) where I could see the Bears electing that 5th year option (given that you have to do it this off-season and it seems likely he won't have shown enough on tape this year, in particular due to injury for you to make that bet). Reality is Giants made massive mistake NOT electing franchise option with Daniel Jones just so they could get one more year of data before making a big guaranteed money decision.

Some rumblings Fields played his last game as a bear. Hoping this isn’t true cause he showed enough flashes that I wanted to see whether we saw real progress over remainder of season. I still say - if Fields missed year, draft a qb but make that guy win the job from Fields. Don’t just hand it to the new guy - let him sit, learn and compete for the job. See what Fields does and than see if you can turn it into a Brees / Rivers situation.

I think Riley is headed to nfl after this year. Harbaugh too. I think this is the year both of them make the jump.

I am hoping this is him missing 2-3 weeks at max and he can come back pretty healthy from there on out. Finish strong and make the Bears decision more interesting / give Poles more options.

I will state again - I know there was no Justin Jefferson, but the defense played well yesterday. The DB's were swarming, the tackling was clean. Pass rush was still meh, but that is a talent issue. Overall though that is 2 straight games where the defense has looked very different (to the good). Offensively - it was just too conservative of a game plan with Fields in there. Saw a lot more of what we saw first few weeks, a lot of kind of quick plays or intended quick plays, not a lot down the field, despite the fact that they are bringing heat. That said - against a team as aggressive of Flores, you got to beat them on the hot reads etc. Justin hasn't shown that he can do that enough. With that said - 2 out of 3 really good weeks is still momentum. I would NOT rush him back, let him miss 1-2 weeks, continue to work on film study, etc, and get him back closer to 100% for the final half of the season. Lets see what it looks like from there. I would rather that than we rush him back, he plays hurt, is less effective.

Stellar game.

Getsy play calling left a lot to be desired today.

I am hoping we put up another 30+. Could care less what the defense does and whether we win or lose - want to see the offense keep rolling and young players get better and guys stay healthy. If we win - great, if we lose - than that could be a huge loss relative to the draft position battle (since Vikings are clearly headed into tank mode so getting them a 2nd win could be huge as Vikings, Panthers, and Patriots look like the 3 worst teams in the league.

Young is small but if he stays healthy he is going to be quite good. Very good intangibles etc.

One thing is - Fields had such bad talent at wideout / skill positions for 2 years, did it really take him time to actually realize - now that I have weapons, I can actually throw them open, but he was so ingrained in his mind not to do it, because for 2 years it didn't really work, because his guys couldn't get open (I mean the wideout corps were horrific last year and the year before).

I won’t be surprised to see Claypool do wellin Miami and he probably can thank Bears for sending this message. If it doesn’t work than he is toast. Unfortunate cause this was a big miss, but I have zero issue dumping him.

Yep - big miss.

There is no way he stepped out. Why was there no replay shown by Amazon. But that was fun. Still not a complete game and I want to see more wideouts involved but Fields looks like he has so much more confidence and tempo. And he has Moore who can get open and Fields still missed on a few open throws - a couple to Darnell and one td to Moore. Crazy fun. They should be healthier coming out of bye week - with Eddie Jackson and Gordon set to come back and Jenkins should be healthier. I think Jaylon Johnson is back too and hopefully Roschon and Herbert are ok and ready to go next week.

I thought he looked great yesterday and there were a few throws that fields just missed an open Mooney and Mooney had a td ball he probably wishes he had back.

Peter King speculated mentioned he wouldn’t be shocked if Bears moved on from Flus if they lose this one. While I don’t believe it - King doesn’t just say stuff. I don’t know what they do in that scenario - but - if Flus has lost the lockeroom (and I don’t yet get that vibe but maybe he has), I still don’t know who and what you can do. If you lose Flus - you now have no DC and no HC - so you are going to be super short……… Unless McCaskey calls in a favor and hires Lovie Smith who brings his old friend Marinelli in. Getsy and everyone else stays in their roles - but lovie brings clout and respect to the situation and Marinelli can call the D. More than anything you get two highly respected leaders of men - not saying they are long term fits - but to be honest - we have had worse coaches than Lovie. But they both know this defense so from an adjustment perspective it might just work. I also can’t ever remember a team firing a coach and hiring an interim coach from outside so this would clearly be unprecedented.

I feel like zone has consistently killed recent Bears QB's. Trubisky always struggled with zone - Fields is the same. Cutler was never great against it either. Inverse was Trubisky was usually pretty solid when teams played more man defense. Made it easier for him to see and throw people open. The inverse is - I feel like Bears defense is awful when we play zone and good QB's torch us - because they know the soft spots in the zone and just torch you for it. But a lot of nuances in disguising it, etc. But Rodgers would just torch us in zone.

The Bears are not going to shut down Jones with half the season left. They need to see whether he is a transcending player or if he's just a meh LT. The only way he's shut down is if his injury is really serious. I thought the reports were it was more of a stinger type of injury, but was multiple weeks - but I thought expectation was he'd be back close to the 4 week IR window.

From a glass half full perspective - there are positive things on the horizon, if the team can hold it together: Oline: Jenkins, back following the Washington game -> Whitehair should be healed up and ready to slide to center -> Davis should have rust wore off. Downside is Carter was playing pretty well -> Wright will have chance post Washington to get a breath after first quarter of season - but overall oline should be better positioned going forward, especially the interior of the line. Should be a boost to running game, play action, and better allow Fields to step up in the pocket Defense: Kyler Gordon, Jaylon Johnson & Eddie Jackson should be back. Secondary is in dire need for help. Additionally Brisker is playing hurt - but I think Brisker will benefit from having Eddie Jackson back. Defense will also have had a bit more time for the players to have gelled and some of the young DB's and Dlinemen will now be 5 weeks into the season and have a long week to take a breathe. --------------------------------------------------------- Note: Lets hope no one new goes down / suffers significant injury against Washington. Would be nice for Fields to build on last week(s) effort and start stringing together some STRONG passing performances.

Poles is still being evaluated. Trading the #1 pick is probably one of the easier things he could decide as the GM. It was the right move in my mind - but getting value for that isn't the hard part - its how you actually use those assets going forward and do you actually get value out of them. Will he draft well, can he and his pro scouts help him find the right free agents, etc. The assessment on Poles is less W-L (don't get me wrong, those count) - but right now it is more about the individual W-L's. Did he make the right draft picks, are they progressing and developing, how did he do on the free agent front, etc. Those things are going on. Right now - the jury is clearly still out and if I said anything, my lean is a negative lean. His free agents haven't hit (not saying Edmunds or Edwards are busts - but they haven't HIT). Davis is a pass right now (that is an upgrade from where I had him throughout training camp, but he deserves that pass given what was going on). Nadakoue isn't very good - but I think everyone knew that and its a 1 year deal, so I don't lose much sleep on that. Walker has done absolutely nothing - so that seems like a miss (I don't see what he has done for 3yr 21M that Tevis Gibson couldn't have done). That may seem harsh - but Walker has literally done ZILCH. Now all of the above grades can clearly change - but free agent wise - NOT a good start. His trades - the Roquan Smith move was fine on paper. Respending that money on another off-ball linebacker, even though Edmunds is good, is probably a questionable allocation of resources (at best). Trading for Claypool - clearly a mistake, but I respect fact that they seem to be admitting that mistake quickly. Trading Mack was 100% the right thing to do - even did hurt the team in short run. On the draft - Wright, Braxton Jones, and Carter show promise. The two young DT's have really done nothing during the game's at this point (it's early though - so still a pass - but you need to see some flash out of them now that we are through 1st quarter of the season - especially post the long break coming after Washington game. In the secondary Brisker had a good rookie year, but has struggled in year 2. Stevenson and Smith have had some good and some bad - but got to hit. Gordon has been the same. But thus far - no one has emerged as a building block - Wright looks like the closest thing to that. Now its still early - especially for this most recent years draft - but that isn't exactly a good mark. Scott is TBD - but could emerge - he definitely has speed. Velus Jones also has speed, but clearly can't do much else. Hopefully Scott has more in him than Jones. If we finish the season and the above list looks the same - no one has really flashed and you haven't identified clear difference makers 2 years into this (hard assessment because there was so little to work with in terms of capital in year 1) - but that WOULD not be a very good start for Poles and in my mind would warrant Warren and McCaskey to have to make some hard choices. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are still 13 games left - I FULLY expect we should see growth in this year(s) draft class and there is LOTs of time for Brisker, Gordon, & Jones to get back to 100% and take strides forward you hope to see out of 2nd year players. Carter may also get a chance to show us something - in which case, getting what they got with as "bare" of a cupboard as Poles had in year 1 (no high end draft picks to work with, etc) - and I am saying there is enough there to warrant a longer term commitment to Poles.

Agree with this - he is a super easy guy to root for. Nothing would make me happier than to see him become an all time great for the Bears.

Not a bad idea. Best outcome is fields plays well - bears have two good picks, Panthers pick is one that is 1st overall - Bears pick is also good, but ok if not #2 because Fields has played well. To your point you have competition - you also have an asset in Fields. Not saying you get a bunch for him - but you still draft Caleb and than you let them push each other, eventually trade Fields but hey let’s see Fields do well - that gives more competition and more push. If Fields crushes it from here on out - even better.