adam

That is true, Young and Stroud are basically top 4 and Levis was around 6 or 7. My thought was envisioning Poles' draft board, which those QBs and Robinson (RB) likely wouldn't be on there are not nearly as high to be picked in the top 10. This list was basically the best available consensus players for the Bears to choose from at the top, and my list at the bottom replacing unlikely candidates with some others that made some of the lists.

I looked at 14 different 2023 Big Boards and recorded their top 10s. Using those slots, this is how the non-QB top 10 looks with the highest pick first, then number of times in the top 10: 1 Carter,DL,1-3, ranked 1st or 2nd, except 3rd once 2 Anderson,Edge,1-5 , ranked 1st or 2nd, except for one 3rd, 4th, and 5th 3 Murphy,Edge,3-10+, ranked in top 10 11 times 4 Johnston,WR,3-10+, ranked in top 10 5 times 5 Robinson,RB,4-10+ , ranked in top 10 10 times 6 Skoronski,OL,4-10+, ranked in top 10 8 times 7 Wilson,Edge,5-10+, ranked in top 10 8 times 8 Witherspoon,CB,5-10+, ranked in top 10 3 times 9 Bresee,DL,6-10+, ranked in top 10 2 times 10 Mayer,TE,6-10+, ranked in top 10 5 times Stroud and Young were in 13/14 top 10, Levis was in 7. Just using the consensus brain power, it looks like Carter is the pick for the Bears. If I had to redo this draft order for the Bears big board, it would look something like this: 1 Carter,DL 2 Anderson,Edge 3 Murphy,Edge 4 Skoronski,OL 5 Wilson,Edge 6 Johnston,WR 7 Johnson Jr., OL (new) 8 Bresee,DL 9 Addison, WR (new) 10 Smith-Njigba, WR (new) Thoughts?

Yep, a 2024 1st rounder has to be the top priority. That way if for some reason Fields does not improve, the Bears would have two (potentially top 10) 1st rounders in 2024.

I am seeing a lot like that, if the Bears can get an extra 1st, I like it. Also, if HOU is giving up the CLE 1st rounder, then the 5th from the Bears is the one from BAL. Then I am ok with it. So for one slot, that the Bears did nothing for (thanks Texans), they could get an extra 1st rounder in 2024 + a 3rd rounder (#65) for a 5th rounder (BAL-#157)? I think they can still trade down again and get that extra 2nd if they want it. They could also group picks and move back up if they want. As much as I don't like it, Claypool is the Bears original 2nd rounder. We can't forget about that, that we actually have a player and there is not necessarily a requirement to make moves to recoup that exact pick.

If for some reason the Bears missed on Anderson and Carter, I would seriously consider a trade back into the teens and drafting him as our 1st rounder.

ESPN with another article about trading Fields. You can't turn on any national media without hearing them discuss it. What is going on? Like I get that the Bears have the 1st pick, but has any QB ever been scrutinized this much? It started with his work ethic pre-draft, then reading defenses, then he can't throw, now is it better to go with an unproven QB over him.

Claypool has played in 46 games and only had 3x 100 yard games and he has never had 10 receptions in a game. In comparison, Mooney had 4x 120 yard games in 2021 with a 12 reception game. Claypool was targeted over 10 times 5 times, Mooney 4 times, so he had opportunities to do so. They need to unlock him. It doesn't seem like he was used properly in PIT. In his last game in college, a bowl game against Iowa St, Claypool had 7-146 and 1 TD, which was his 2nd best game of his career. So he has it in him to be a lot better than he has shown.

I am now seeing McGlinchey and D. Jones (DEN) as two primary targets for the Bears (assuming Payne gets tagged). I would be happy with those two.

Oh for sure, and the combine will shift a bunch of these players.

The Bears didn't have to use #32 on a WR.

Just revisiting this now months after the trade. Obviously the Bears pick got much better for the Steelers than it was projected to be when the trade occurred. I don't know if Poles does that trade today and gives up #32 for Claypool. That is always the risk of a future draft pick when you don't know where you are picking. This was literally the best possible outcome for the Steelers, making it the worst possible outcome for the Bears.

One of my favorites, and fairly realistic. One trade down with Indy, still get Anderson, then OT, C, CB, DL, WR, G, HB, and LB. I stopped at the 5th round.

For Bieniemy, he has had Mahomes the entire time as OC with Reid calling the plays. That right there would make it a tough sell for any new team. Then if he interviews really bad, that makes it pretty easy to pass on him. Then once a few teams do that, it really makes the others hesitant to pull the trigger. Hackett in Denver didn't help him, one year removed from being Rodgers OC and Hackett looks completely incompetent. Also, I don't know why people are not just happy with dudes being coordinators. What is wrong with that? Not everyone is CEO material, but some people make great COOs, CFOs, and CTOs. This feels like a media driven issue to me. Just because ESPN's First Take thinks Bieniemy should be a Head Coach doesn't mean he should be one. In my opinion, every coordinator doesn't need to be a head coach some day.

Mongo, this made me seriously lol.

Fields was 17th in QBR, and that was with some brutal games early on (5.6 QBR against GB and 16.2 vs HOU), so 13-15th is about right for him over the entire season. Fields 95.9 against MIA was the 2nd best QBR game of the season. He also had the 13th best game against GB with a 92.0. Only Mahomes had more games in the top 13 (3) than Fields (2). To put that into perspective, here were the top games of some other notable NFC QBs: Hurts 89.5 Brady 87.1 Dalton 83.6 Cousins 82.4 Rodgers 82.0 Goff 80.8 Fields now needs consistency and to raise his floor. He had 7 games with a QBR under 40 (bad) and 5 over 70 (great).

Yeah we do, because if you think about a team like the Texans, what is the point of drafting a QB now when you don't have anything around him? I doubt they even want to draft a QB. With their new coach Ryans as an ex-NFL LB, I could see them going D-Line first.

My guess is Payne stays with WAS, so Jones would be the next one, but won't cost as much. I would rather go RT than LT with Jones improving, so McGary would be "cheaper" than McGlinchey or Brown and he plays RT. Chark won't cost a lot and Long is an all-around good LB. So Dean would be the highest paid relative to others at his position than the others. Hypothetical defensive starters would be something like this: [ W. Anderson | D. Jones | mid-level FA + Justin Jones | M. Davenport ] - Gipson/Robinson rotational Edge [ Johnson - Gordon - Sanborn - Long or Okereke - Dean ] [ Brisker - Jackson ] In sub packages 75% of time with only 2 LBs and I have no issues with Okereke instead of Long. On offense, if they believe in Braxton Jones, then the offense could look like: [ Chark | Kmet | Jones | Whitehair or Rookie | Pocic | Jenkins | McGary | Mooney | Claypool] - Rookie WR + Hooper rotational [ Fields | Sanders ] - Herbert + Blasingame That team would look like the Jags, if not slightly better. Thoughts?

Based on cost for the position, need at position, and long term roster building, I think the Bears will target guys like this: Dre'Mont Jones, DT Jamel Dean, CB, TB Kaleb McGary, RT, ATL DJ Chark, WR, DET David Long, LB, TEN

I use both, some things are easier on one and some on the other. Nice to have something to compare with.

Nagy and Pederson both got HC jobs with limited play calling. Bienemy having to go to another team as an OC seems odd. I am thinking his interviews must be brutal. No way he keeps getting passed over solely because he is on Reid's coattails.

More cap space, I love it. Muhammad was an under achiever. A Flus guy though, red flag for Flus?

I like Jones as well. I think Payne ends back up in Washington anyway.

I will say that Fields may be the most athletic QB ever. Name a better one with his size and speed? He is just as fast as Lamar or Vick, but is a lot stronger. All he has to do is be an average passer and he would be in the mix for MVP and OPOY every year. There was an article about the routes that WRs ran with Fields his rookie year with Nagy vs Getsy. The biggest difference was Getsy ran barely any slants, digs, or curls, basically all the in cutting routes where the throws are between the hashes. This would automatically reduce the number of INTs because there is more chances of one with a bad throw. They need to open this back up this year.

Just for comparison, there are 10 QBs in their first two seasons to have less than 5000 passing yards, less than a 60% comp pct, and more than 20 INTs (20g min): Eli Manning, Christian Ponder, Vince Young, David Carr, Derek Anderson, Colt McCoy, Justin Fields, Kyle Boller, Alex Smith, and Chris Weinke. If you project Fields for about 3000 passing yards in 2023 and 9 INTs, he would be the 7th in this group of QBs to pass for less than 7500 yds, 60% comp, 30 INTs in their first 3 seasons (30g min): Derek Anderson (49s), Quincy Carter (34s), Geno Smith (51s), Kyle Boller (47s), Vince Young (50s), Alex Smith (167s). There is only one QB that lasted 4 years, to have under 10K passing yards, less than 60% comp%, more than 40 INTs in at least 40 games: Alex Smith. Extending it up to 12K yards, that brings in Eli Manning, David Carr, Sam Darnold, and Joey Harrington. Fields really needs to improve quickly to get out of these groups as a passer as they are not favorable projections at this point in his career.

NFL.com has him ranked 13th for last season: https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-qb-index-ranking-all-68-starting-quarterbacks-from-the-2022-nfl-season That sounds about right to me. He improved, but still has more to go. If team improves around him AND he improves, the team is going to be a lot better.