Purely Optimistic Scenario

[BearFan PHX]

OK! Here's a purely optimistic scenario I probably don't believe in myself, but it COULD be true.

With a large grain of salt...

McCaskey sucks. That's why they hired Warren. Warren has been BIG 10 commissioner, and worked for the Vikings, knows a lot about football organizations, and has a lot of football contacts. People knew that McCaskey wasnt getting it done, so he got mostly fired and Warren was brought in to do a lot of what McCaskey used to do.

When Warren got here, he gave Poles leeway and let him make moves. And Poles made bad choices, while Warren gathered power and influence. Now Warren is ready to start making his first moves. He deosnt deserve blame for what's happened, firing Poles will be his first actual move.

And he knows coaches and knows exactly who the right coach should be. He agrees with you (whoever is reading this) and is going to bring in the exact coach you want. He's already working on putting an emphasis on the OL and the DL, and the next GM will too. The incoming coach knows this is a priority too.

Together they will acquire 4 new starters on the OL and a top Edge rusher no one saw coming.

As we shout "sell the team" the move was already made last year, and Warren is just about to make his first move - the first of many that he totally nails.

Hey, it could happen.

[Stinger226]

Im not saying he wont make the right choices but at Minny he built a stadium and had nothing to do with personel choices or football decisions. He is a lawyer by trade. He wants to get more involved in day to day operations but was brought in to build a stadium. (not done yet). he was hired after Poles so i think he was just a sounding board for Poles not the decision maker. He was head of the Big 10 and the reason Harbaugh did not come in here for an interview. Jim wanted to come here and he stopped it. 

I think he wants to be a politician and why he keeps playing games with Chicago to get a stadium downtown. I think he goal is to be Mayor of Chicago. Winning a SB would help that but he does not have ecperience running a football team. He has the power now and will control the future but not sure a rookie lawyer making decisions on the football side could be full of mistakes. 

[adam]

There is no way Warren can look at this team and say with a straight face that Poles is up to standard at his job. He had one job, the product on the field, and it is one of the worst products in the league, literally the bottom 2 over the last 3 seasons. He has to go. Bring in a GM with a vision that aligns with the new HC, get those guys in the building, then do some house cleaning with the 53-man roster in preparation for free agency and the draft. 

Looking at the best teams in the league, it comes down to having solid players in almost every starting spot, in some cases more, but it looks like you need at least 8 above-average players on both sides of the ball to compete. On offense, you need at least 4 on the OLine, the QB, and 3 skill position players. On defense, you need 3 on the DL, 1 LB, and 4 in the secondary (includes Slot CB). The more the merrier, but that seems like the lowest you can have to be a consistent playoff contender. 

So for the Bears, the offseason targets are no-brainers:

OLine - need 3 (Wright)
Skill - need 0 (Moore, Odunze, Swift/Kmet)

- Jones, Jenkins - injured

DLine - need 1 (Dexter, Sweat)
LB - need 1 (None)
CB/S - need 1 (Johnson, Gordon, Byard)

- Brisker, Billings - injured
- Edmunds - terrible, Edwards - terrible in coverage

So they need 2 OL before they should even consider another position group. Then once it is 1ea left, then you can go BPA. As much as we don't want to see it, LB is a need. They have been a huge problem all year, Sanborn has probably been the best one, but because of his contract/draft status, he is rotational at best. Edwards is fine if his partner is a coverage stud. Edmunds has been neither, he can't tackle, can't cover, but looks intimidating presnap. 

To put Edmunds into perspective, there are only 2 LBs with more snaps than him that have a lower PFF Grade (I know PFF, blah blah, but you can pretty much use any metric and he is near the bottom). Guess who is one ahead of him, Edwards, lol. Edmunds is a problem because he will have the 4th highest cap hit of any player on the team in 2025, there is just no way you can pay someone that much for literally being a huge liability on the field. He would be a cap casualty, saving $4.3M from his current 2025 cap hit. I would rather have $4.3M in free money and a roster spot than to pay him $17.4M to waste a roster spot.

Other easy cuts, Bates - saves $4M, Everett - saves $5.5M. Byard would be the only other one I would consider as he would save $7M on the cap.

[Stinger226]

59 minutes ago, adam said:

There is no way Warren can look at this team and say with a straight face that Poles is up to standard at his job. He had one job, the product on the field, and it is one of the worst products in the league, literally the bottom 2 over the last 3 seasons. He has to go. Bring in a GM with a vision that aligns with the new HC, get those guys in the building, then do some house cleaning with the 53-man roster in preparation for free agency and the draft. 

Looking at the best teams in the league, it comes down to having solid players in almost every starting spot, in some cases more, but it looks like you need at least 8 above-average players on both sides of the ball to compete. On offense, you need at least 4 on the OLine, the QB, and 3 skill position players. On defense, you need 3 on the DL, 1 LB, and 4 in the secondary (includes Slot CB). The more the merrier, but that seems like the lowest you can have to be a consistent playoff contender. 

So for the Bears, the offseason targets are no-brainers:

OLine - need 3 (Wright)
Skill - need 0 (Moore, Odunze, Swift/Kmet)

- Jones, Jenkins - injured

DLine - need 1 (Dexter, Sweat)
LB - need 1 (None)
CB/S - need 1 (Johnson, Gordon, Byard)

- Brisker, Billings - injured
- Edmunds - terrible, Edwards - terrible in coverage

So they need 2 OL before they should even consider another position group. Then once it is 1ea left, then you can go BPA. As much as we don't want to see it, LB is a need. They have been a huge problem all year, Sanborn has probably been the best one, but because of his contract/draft status, he is rotational at best. Edwards is fine if his partner is a coverage stud. Edmunds has been neither, he can't tackle, can't cover, but looks intimidating presnap. 

To put Edmunds into perspective, there are only 2 LBs with more snaps than him that have a lower PFF Grade (I know PFF, blah blah, but you can pretty much use any metric and he is near the bottom). Guess who is one ahead of him, Edwards, lol. Edmunds is a problem because he will have the 4th highest cap hit of any player on the team in 2025, there is just no way you can pay someone that much for literally being a huge liability on the field. He would be a cap casualty, saving $4.3M from his current 2025 cap hit. I would rather have $4.3M in free money and a roster spot than to pay him $17.4M to waste a roster spot.

Other easy cuts, Bates - saves $4M, Everett - saves $5.5M. Byard would be the only other one I would consider as he would save $7M on the cap.

When Brisker was playing and the the DL didnt have injuries the defense was playing at a high level. I hate to say this but after Flus left this defense flat out was worse. Now injuries piled up but the defense is a couple of DL away but being good. I think we may have to draft another S because of the Brisker situation but Byard is more than sound right now. LBers are fine, Ednunds hasnt had a good year but if he wasnt making big money he would not be picked on as much. 

the defense needs 2 DL and maybe fraft a S later. 

Poles definitly failed but you keep blaming him for people getting injuries and every team has that and that isnt his fault. I heard the assiant GM in Detriot may be a package deal with Johnson which may be a sound deal. If we fire Poles then we have to go thru the process of a GM hire and then let him hire the coach. I think that may take to much time and miss out on a great coach hire. I would be okay if they hit the road running hire the coach and lets go forward. I think he deserves to be fired but all new would put us thru a couple of years of changing everything. 

On offense we need 3 OL and replace Allen if they dont bring him back. Adding another RB would not hurt anything either. IF we fix the OL the power RB (johnson) and Swift will do just fine. We also have Ian Wheeler as an option. 

We easliy have the assets to fix this to put us in the playoffs next year with the right coach. 

[adam]

2 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

When Brisker was playing and the the DL didnt have injuries the defense was playing at a high level. I hate to say this but after Flus left this defense flat out was worse. Now injuries piled up but the defense is a couple of DL away but being good. I think we may have to draft another S because of the Brisker situation but Byard is more than sound right now. LBers are fine, Ednunds hasnt had a good year but if he wasnt making big money he would not be picked on as much. 

the defense needs 2 DL and maybe fraft a S later. 

Poles definitly failed but you keep blaming him for people getting injuries and every team has that and that isnt his fault. I heard the assiant GM in Detriot may be a package deal with Johnson which may be a sound deal. If we fire Poles then we have to go thru the process of a GM hire and then let him hire the coach. I think that may take to much time and miss out on a great coach hire. I would be okay if they hit the road running hire the coach and lets go forward. I think he deserves to be fired but all new would put us thru a couple of years of changing everything. 

On offense we need 3 OL and replace Allen if they dont bring him back. Adding another RB would not hurt anything either. IF we fix the OL the power RB (johnson) and Swift will do just fine. We also have Ian Wheeler as an option. 

We easliy have the assets to fix this to put us in the playoffs next year with the right coach. 

The defense was playing better, but the level of talent of the opponent went up too when their production went down. Without looking, I had no clue which week Brisker or Billings went out. Brisker's last game was the Carolina game in Week 5. Billings last game was ARZ in Week 9. Dexter was way more recent. Also, one or two guys should not make the entire unit fall flat on its face. DET lost a potential DPOY Candidate and are doing fine. This looks even worse on Poles to be honest. Having quality depth is just as important a top tier starters, and the Bears have neither.

Since the Hail Mary before Flus was fired the defense was allowing 24.2 pts and 380 yds per game, and since he was fired 27.0 pts and 380 yds per game. So zero yardage difference and 2.8 pts. They also played 60% at home vs 50% at home, so the difference of 2.8 pts is easily within the margin of error for schedule and opponent. Meaning, the defense has been about the same with or without Flus over the course of multiple games. 

At the end of the day, the offense has been the deciding factor in most games. They were 2-0 when they scored 30, and 4-1 when they scored 24 or more and the one loss was to MIN in OT.

When the opponent scored 21 or less, they were 4-6. They should've been 8-2 in those games, but the offense is what failed. 

 

 

[jason]

11 hours ago, adam said:

 

Since the Hail Mary before Flus was fired the defense was allowing 24.2 pts and 380 yds per game, and since he was fired 27.0 pts and 380 yds per game. So zero yardage difference and 2.8 pts. They also played 60% at home vs 50% at home, so the difference of 2.8 pts is easily within the margin of error for schedule and opponent. Meaning, the defense has been about the same with or without Flus over the course of multiple games. 

 

Proof Flus made no difference. Hilarious.

[Stinger226]

14 hours ago, adam said:

The defense was playing better, but the level of talent of the opponent went up too when their production went down. Without looking, I had no clue which week Brisker or Billings went out. Brisker's last game was the Carolina game in Week 5. Billings last game was ARZ in Week 9. Dexter was way more recent. Also, one or two guys should not make the entire unit fall flat on its face. DET lost a potential DPOY Candidate and are doing fine. This looks even worse on Poles to be honest. Having quality depth is just as important a top tier starters, and the Bears have neither.

Since the Hail Mary before Flus was fired the defense was allowing 24.2 pts and 380 yds per game, and since he was fired 27.0 pts and 380 yds per game. So zero yardage difference and 2.8 pts. They also played 60% at home vs 50% at home, so the difference of 2.8 pts is easily within the margin of error for schedule and opponent. Meaning, the defense has been about the same with or without Flus over the course of multiple games. 

At the end of the day, the offense has been the deciding factor in most games. They were 2-0 when they scored 30, and 4-1 when they scored 24 or more and the one loss was to MIN in OT.

When the opponent scored 21 or less, they were 4-6. They should've been 8-2 in those games, but the offense is what failed. 

 

 

I didnt go thru and check when injuries occured but thru week 11, we had 1 team score 29, 1 team 21 and 1 team 20. Thru 10 games we gave up 187 points. We played Washigton, Rams, Texans and Packers in that time, they all have winning records. The Cardinals were acually 4-4 when we played them. Billings got injured in the AZ game and Sweat was inactive for that game.  After the Hail Mary , the culture turned to crap and everything went down hill from there. The AZ game had our 2 top DLs out and the Stevenson hangover when we gave up the 29 point game. Clearly the defense was playing better the first part of the season except the AZ game with players missing. 

I  dont see how  me saying the defense was better the first half of the season when Flus was still around was out of line. We were 4-2 when the team blew up and everything started falling apart.  Hard to blame that on the defense. 187 points in 10 games is not bad defense. 

[adam]

3 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

I didnt go thru and check when injuries occured but thru week 11, we had 1 team score 29, 1 team 21 and 1 team 20. Thru 10 games we gave up 187 points. We played Washigton, Rams, Texans and Packers in that time, they all have winning records. The Cardinals were acually 4-4 when we played them. Billings got injured in the AZ game and Sweat was inactive for that game.  After the Hail Mary , the culture turned to crap and everything went down hill from there. The AZ game had our 2 top DLs out and the Stevenson hangover when we gave up the 29 point game. Clearly the defense was playing better the first part of the season except the AZ game with players missing. 

I  dont see how  me saying the defense was better the first half of the season when Flus was still around was out of line. We were 4-2 when the team blew up and everything started falling apart.  Hard to blame that on the defense. 187 points in 10 games is not bad defense. 

You are not wrong, but I am just saying that implies it was because of Flus and not the players. The problem has been other teams just started throwing at Stevenson every game. Then when Brisker went down, they had another spot to attack, Owens. Both have been below replacement level in coverage. Easy pickens. Then you add LBs that are bad in coverage and you have 4 out of the back 7 that are liabilities in coverage all the while the front 4 can't get pressure or stop the run.

Next year's schedule is already more difficult than this year in terms of gimme wins. The Bears have to get stronger on the DLine with at least a 3rd "starter" at DT to rotate with Billings and Dexter, and get a real threat at Edge across from Sweat. Walker can play Edge on running plays and DT on pass plays. They have to address the hole at CB across from JJ and can't go another season with such huge liabilities in coverage at Safety. 

[Stinger226]

3 hours ago, adam said:

You are not wrong, but I am just saying that implies it was because of Flus and not the players. The problem has been other teams just started throwing at Stevenson every game. Then when Brisker went down, they had another spot to attack, Owens. Both have been below replacement level in coverage. Easy pickens. Then you add LBs that are bad in coverage and you have 4 out of the back 7 that are liabilities in coverage all the while the front 4 can't get pressure or stop the run.

Next year's schedule is already more difficult than this year in terms of gimme wins. The Bears have to get stronger on the DLine with at least a 3rd "starter" at DT to rotate with Billings and Dexter, and get a real threat at Edge across from Sweat. Walker can play Edge on running plays and DT on pass plays. They have to address the hole at CB across from JJ and can't go another season with such huge liabilities in coverage at Safety. 

I dont  disagree with all of that but I think the main assets will be used in the OL and DL. A S would be smart but you have only so many assets to fill spots. Eligha Hicks had played well for Brisker and then he got hurt. Terrell Davis filled in for snaps Stevenson missed and as a whole the DB room is not a priorty. It would be nice to add to any group for an upgrade but we could live another year with the back 7 if we upgrade the D front. 

 JJ, Stevenson , Byard, T Smith, Hicks, Owens, and Gordon are under contract for next yr. I think they bring back Blackwell and Jaaylon Jones as both have shown some good moments. Later in the draft I expect a S and CB to be added but our first 4 picks will be the trenches.