adam

Stinger said he heard it on the SCORE? I only listened to the Biggs part, and he is sold on the Bears drafting Williams. He basically said with all the info leading up to today, he has never been more confident in a Bears draft selection. So posters pointed out that is makes sense because the Bears never had the #1 pick before since Biggs has been on the beat.

If this is true, against what Albert Breer just put out this morning, then there is no way they will draft him. Poles can't wait that long to make a decision. They still may draft a QB, but it won't be Williams.

Then we have some conflicting reports. Here is Biggs saying that they are drafting Williams on the SCORE this morning: https://t.co/Fd88KKPafk

Here is a good chunk of info from the MMQB and Albert Breer (might need to expand the quote). Seems like there is a lot of media-driven narrative about Williams. Similar to what Fields went thru about his work ethic (which was completely false). The more info that comes out, the more I get excited about the prospect of picking Williams #1, and this has nothing to do with how I feel about Fields.

Apparently this visit is scheduled for tomorrow. Normally visits don't happen until late March and/or early April, so this is considered "early". From Breer, it seems like the Bears will make a decision this week, and definitely ahead of the start of free agency. If the Bears were planning to trade Fields, they believe his value will decrease once free agency opens. https://www.si.com/nfl/2024/03/04/combine-takeaways-bears-plan-williams-draft-quarterback-fields The bottom line is, we should know this week what the Bears intentions are going forward. This will be a relief because ever since the #1 pick was locked up, there has been this discourse between Fields v Williams. I will be glad when that is over, regardless the route they go.

Lol, yeah, I have seen an Atlanta one, Pittsburgh one, and that Giants one.

Trade on horizon?

It is still a possibility, but highly unlikely. I would say it was 40/60 that he may come back when the season ended and has slowly shifted towards probably 20/80 or more. What is super wild is, what if the Bears won 2 of the games they blew leads in, say Detroit and Cleveland, finished 9-8, but missed the playoffs. At that point, they would then have a late-teens pick with the #1 pick. Would they keep Justin, even if he had the same exact stats, but the defense held up for one drive in each of those games? The outlook on his performance might be considerably different if they finished with a winning record. The fact that he went 5-8 and Bagent somehow pulled 2-2 out of his butt is pretty hard evidence towards the QB not being a big factor in the outcome of games.

There are only so many outcomes. Free Agency is impacted by Poles' decision. He has to know what route he is going because guys like Christian Wilkins and some others are not expected to be tagged, which is going to make the first few days of free agency pretty wild. Either way, I just want to know so I can update my mock drafts.

Warren Sharp posted this today. That is not the group of QBs you want to be in.

It feels like if Nabers or Odunze are not there at #9, the Bears will look to trade back and could possibly double down on WR in the first 3 rounds. It is a very deep group.

Every QB has things they do good and bad. What I do like about Williams is, he really works on his craft as a QB. He was on PFT PM Podcast talking to Florio and Simms and he was going over his grip position, his base, and that he continually hones his craft as a QB. He said he is continually working at things to improve on which is nice to hear. He might end up a bust, but I have rarely heard that kind of discussion for the big 1st round busts like Manziel and Russell. At this point, the discussion should shift to what the Bears are going to do at #9 and what type of compensation they are going to get for Fields. I honestly think they tried to keep Fields value up as long as they could but once teams got to meet with Williams, the charade was over. I could be totally wrong and they announce that they are trading the pick, but I would be absolutely shocked if they didn't pick Williams at #1.

Oh no, nothing is set in stone. The speculation about Fields' value is interesting. Just a few weeks ago people were talking about a 1st, now magically, with what seems like overnight, his value has dropped to a 3rd? Darnold got a 2nd, 4th, and a 6th. The 2nd and 4th were for the following year, so the draft value was equivalent to the 1st pick in the 3rd round of the current year's draft. I So it would shock me if Fields got less than that. If they only get a 3rd, then it will have to come with a 4th or next year's 3rd as well. Otherwise, the total comp would be less than what NY got for Darnold. I would rather just have a 2nd and be done with it, if that is the route they are going to go. A 2nd rounder is super valuable in this year's draft. The depth at key positions for the Bears is wild. I actually expect Poles to use one of his 2x 2nds from 2025 to do some movement this year. They could pair this year's 3rd and next year's 2nd to move into this year's 2nd round. If they don't trade down, they are going to have to do some wiggling to get back into the 2nd.

and that was from 7 years ago lol.

This is Waldron with Williams from 2017:

Can you imagine the madness if something like that went all the way up until the Bears were on the clock during the draft, everyone is expecting them to announce Williams and then they announce a trade? Total bedlam!

Fields is clearly the more athletic QB, probably top 3 in the NFL. He is basically Daniels with 20 more lbs of muscle.

I forgot what podcast it was on, but they mentioned how Poles has been pretty quick on at least the first one or two signings every year. I would suspect the same thing again this year. JJ makes sense, hopefully that can come before free agency. After him, Samuel, Center, Edge, Safety or Move TE would make a lot of sense. If I had to guess, I would expect it to be on offense.

Fields an inch taller, Williams has a bigger hand 9.75>9.16. I didn't realize Fields hand was that small. Comparing NFL.com Combine and NextGen scores: Fields Total Score: 89, Williams: 96. Williams and Bowers tied for the highest NextGenStats score with a 96. Lawrence had a 91, Burrow had a 90. Mahomes had an 88 and Trubisky had an 84.

6'1 1/8th. Something I always found funny about the height argument is, why don't they measure to the center of their eye level? That is what really matters. Some dudes don't have foreheads, but fiveheads, and even though they are 6'3" they have the sightline of a guy an inch and a half shorter. The other part of this equation when passing is their knee bend and posture. Jalen Hurts makes himself smaller with his little squat thing. I remember Brees always had his head up to squeeze every inch out of his sight picture. I understand for all other positions, but QB seems like sight height is more relevant than actual height.

All the measureables in this thread. Williams over 6'1", hands over 9.6 (median hand size). So he checks all the boxes. McCarthy has Pickett's hands, which is somewhat concerning. Daniels and Nabers both skipped the measurements.

I can see McCarthy as a Matt Ryan/Philip Rivers type QB. This seems like a great draft class overall. If the Bears do go Williams at #1, and if McCarthy slides into the top 8, the Bears are going to get a stud at #9. I would not be opposed to trading Fields AND the #1 pick, moving down a few spots and drafting McCarthy.

Super cool Mongo. We have our new TalkBears insider!

Nope, but he did answer a question on his height, he said between 6'1" and 6'2".