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Yes if that grown man’s father is running around publishing books about what his son should be doing in his professional career. I’d ask that question if I were there. Is he the face of the franchise or a puppet with his father making the decisions behind the scenes This was actually the best question for Caleb because it gave him the opportunity to distance himself from his fathers opinions and tell everyone that he is in fact making the decisions. I think he answered it very well and came out looking like the owner of his decisions and his career. Plus he did it in a way without alienating or embarrassing his father and their relationship. now I think his teammates and coaches can trust him more that what he says is what he means and there won’t be some other backstory that comes out later.

I guess if I was part of Media,I would jump at anything to write about

This was such an odd topic because most fans could care less about the story, but the media kept telling each other that it was a big story. So odd. If anyone was in Caleb's shoes and not a previous Bears fan in late 2023, I would not expect anything different. KOC made Darnold look like the 2nd coming of Dan Marino, they play in a dome, have a great defense, and a decent WR in Justin Jefferson. Why would you not want to go there? Or you can go to the Bears where they were quick to cast off Trubisky and Fields, and had Matt Eberflus as the HC, and a revolving door at OC and DC. Depending on when the comments were given, the Bears started 2-7 and 3-8 in 2023 and if not for a late season surge, would've had a top 5 pick themselves. I am just glad this has been put to bed.

The vibe around this team really is different. Before, the optimism was based on hope, now it is legitimately backed up with the players and coaches. Still early but it is nice to see the change this soon. Every time there was a controversy before, Flus would downplay, deflect, or flat out not comment on it. When in reality there were like 10 huge elephants in the room. Now both Johnson and Williams have come out and addressed what could've morphed into something bigger. Players on both sides of the ball, especially ones that were here from last year are saying how things are more challenging. Sweat said DA's defense has a lot more complexity to it than he is used to. It makes sense because how complex could a Flus defense really get if Flus was the mastermind?

Besides that other media pundits praise Finley for asking the important questions. I would have just told Finley ,( you cant be serious with that question)

and Patrick Finley asking one of the most ridiculous questions of all-time "Caleb, does your dad speak for you?" Can you imagine asking a grown man this question and being serious about it? Our media has always been mixed, either super homer or super negative, but this is on an entirely new level of stupid. The media gets Caleb for only a few minutes to ask questions you can't get anywhere else and he felt it was necessary to get that answer?

I like everything the Bears are giving us right now. BJ expects the best of everyone and Caleb looks more definite in learning. It is all a good situation for the success of the team going forward. I think we have a Perfect Storm brewing and it will surprise most of the fanbase. I in turn, am all in.

I agree with you on the majority of the time it was one read. I think in most cases, if not open the run option was in order. I just dont think you base his future as quarterback on his first year in judging whether he can expand his QB skills on reading defenses. I think Kingsburg kept it simple for him in the first year on purpose. The results were , they were winning games. In the same light I think the Bears put to much on the plate for Caleb and part of the reason he struggled. Poor coaching doomed Caleb from looking better.

I agree, also I think the Burden pick was a surprise because they didnt expect him to be there. At that point I thought they planned at trading 39 or 41 before the draft to have another high pick. they traded 41 for 56 and 62. Poles mentioned whether to pick DL or OT first and ended up getting the two players they wanted Ozzy and Shemar. They seemed elated with all of their first 4 picks. (watch their body language). As you watch the rest of the picks, the body language was different.

I watched this one before. She talks about the 3 players that they were interested in . Goes on to say( I just think). I get that is what she thought but I cant find anywhere where Jeff King says it. Being interested in players and drafting them are two different convesations. I have watched many of her interviews and she brings up (what she thinks they should do) or her impression of what they want to do. She brings up about she thought RB and LT were their priorities, no where can I find where the Bears mentioned that at pick 10. Why did they not move up two spots to take Banks, if he was the target? That would have been a cheap move one or two spots. Poles as shown before he has no problem moving around the draft to get players he wants. They clearly were going to draft a RB and a LT prospect somewhere in the draft, my point in the way the draft fell, they were targeting Loveland. As AZ said, he showed the war room tape of Colston before the draft started. If I was in the room and didnt know who they were targeting , that could be a clue they wanted him and wasnt getting him in the second round. Now if Jeanty was there, I think they may have taken him but I think they had planned (guessing the draft board) of taking a prospect in the second round. They ended up with 3 picks in the second. None of this matters anyways , no matter who we thought they were taking, they didnt take one player I thought they were interested in. I think they targeted Loveland at 10. I think they liked Tripilo in the second and thought they could get him. They dont set their draft board according to what the general public thinks the best players are.

yeah its obvious that BJ was thrilled with Loveland. On that day I said i suspected he knew he ought to get a LT, but wanted the TE instead, when Loveland was the guy, he was overjoyed, not having to do the boring conservative thing, but to add firepower. But mostly, despite the only quotes i had happened to find, i was more talking about about whether we traded back too far and missed HBs we wanted with those tradebacks, and that it happened more than once. Probably Kaleb Johnson and Cam Skatebo. Now I cant say Im unhappy with Kyle Monangai either. And if Trapilo ends up starting, and Monangai ends up a big contributor, then im gonna say our board was pretty smart and deep. But none of that says that Poles didnt miscalculate the trade downs either?

He owned it well - I also liked some of the quotes from Johnson on how he watched film with Caleb on how he reacted on field in terms of showing emotions and is working with him on that too…going back to all the little things matter. Caleb handled this little issue well and I think he has learned from it too.

The only thing I've seen is how happy Ben Johnson was when they drafted Colston Loveland. When he met Loveland at Halas Hall he said "I turned on your tape yesterday and little did they (the scouts and coaches in the room) know it was just a little insight into where we were headed." That didn't look or sound at all like a consolation prize. Contrast that with some of the later round picks all the way to Monangai where he's just making matter of fact welcome to the team statements. Link is marked to start on the quote:

Yeah I am not finding it at all - which is weird. I know it happened on April 26th, the last day of the draft, after it was all over, and I know it was CC at Halas Hall with Jeff King. I remember they were standing. I remember first seeing it in a vertical clip on youtube. I remember being surprised that Jeff King was so forthcoming about getting played on the trade downs. He used softer terms, but he admitted targeting several HBs and seeing them go before they picked after tradebacks. I think it might have been a remote for ESPN? Ive used google filters to limit to the day, and with those names, it should come right up. Possibly the Bears asked to have that removed because of what it said? i remember at the time I thought "holy crap thats a headline!" but it was just in the conversation and didnt get focus at the time. Just kind of "oh ok, thats what happened" Later, in the TTNL clip I posted above, a few days later, she spoke authoritatively about it. If you look at her twitter from the 24th to the 26th you see she gets a lot of quotes from underlings - scouts, asst directors of scouting etc. So she was in the building at Halas Hall talking to people on those days. Both covering press conferences, and getting quotes from people like Jeff King. She also still has tweets up with other quotes from Jeff King, so we know she interviewed him then too. Crazy that it's missing, unless the bears requested it to come down?

I havent found it yet - it was from Halas Hall, with Jeff King, who was standing to the left of CC from our perspective (CC's right) I remember the setup very clearly. Ill keep looking. In the meanwhile, here is CC saying it without attributing it. She says it in a definite way, so shes not expressing a guess. She had already said these were facts in the video Im not finding, but at least you can hear her say it with some authority. Go to 50:30

LOL you do get credit for watching TTNL videos! Ill look and see what i can find, cant promise ill find it, but Ill try.

Ok i watched some of Stinger's highlights, and I should amend my point, and maybe this brings me more into harmony with what Mongo is saying. When the play breaks, and Daniels scrambles, he does look around. I should have included that caveat. I guess Im saying on regular downs when the play is still in rhythm, i dont see a lot of reading. maybe hes only being given 2 reads, and told to get the ball out fast? Across the season i did see a lot of that. It looked like 1 read or run and create. Sometimes it looked like a scripted look off. I think I said 90% of the time hes a one read guy, so yes there are plays where he looks to a second read. In fact the first play of the tape, you can see his head move ever so much when he comes off the primary read, and on to Ertz. I might also say thats evidence of him turning his head to make a read too - but I admit he did get to his second read on that one. Maybe the truth is more like 70%, and you guys are saying 60% and Im saying 90% or something, meaning maybe a difference in how often it feels like it happens - I surely havent counted, I assume no one has. So my impression was that hes a one read guy, and you guys are saying maybe he does read more than I think? Either way, i dont think he is a fully functional pocket QB. Maybe we agree on that too.

Daniels was the best rookie QB last year measured by stats and winning. Most of his throws are one reads or runs. Im sure Kingbury did not try to overload him his first year. I watched the Chicago-Washington highlights. He throw to his 2nd or 3rd reads 4 times. He can become a better QB with good coaching. Protection was spotty for him so as for Caleb, better protection can give him more time for progressions. Another reason to watch the game is seeing what Swift is capable of . He looked good in that game. Also we were 4-2 and minus a brainfart from Stevenson, we could have been 5-2 and a totally different direction for the season. Now the coaching was still a problem and the team quit on Flus, but we could still have salvaged a winning season. NFL wont let me post it but if you click on Watch on Youtube it will open up.

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I dunno man I think were just gonna have to disagree on this one

It's actually opposite. They talk about QB's manipulating with their eyes, not their head. If you watch video of "quiet headed" QB's like Brady, Burrow, Rodgers and Stafford, they don't move their heads much. The main time you do see them move their heads are when their initial read is outside in and they have jump to the opposite side of the field. That's usually determined pre snap. I'm normal situations, they wait until they pull the trigger to flip hips and head to the target.

I goggled it and could not find it. I have watched 6 CC interviews, can you link it to me? Its not on her X account and Im not on TikTok or Snapchat Im not calling you a liar, I just cant find it. I spend an hour looking for it. I even suffered thru 2 TTNLs videos looking for it. She mentioned talking to him on two videos but never mentioned ( they were going to draft Banks on it).

CC absolutely interviewed Jeff King on camera, and he said half of this, and the other half she attributed to him later in her own interview. I saw it with my own eyes, i feel like I even pasted to it on this board. You can say it didnt happen. Whatever. You win because things that happened never happened. Cool. As far as trading down, Poles took a gamble a certain player would be there later and they werent multiple times. Thats not a win for Poles. it IS OK for the Bears to not be perfect you know? Its Ok to criticize the bad stuff and praise the good stuff. Nothing is going to happen if we think the Bears had some stumbles in the draft. I dunno, maybe you're superstitious, but our comments cant hurt the bears, and it is OK to look at the good and the bad both. It's even ok to cut, trade or fire people who might be replaced by people who would be better. That's good for the team.

yeah its cool if we disagree. i think Daniels is a fantastic athlete, but I think 90%+ of the time, he was making a single read. And a lot of the time, his head was aiming right at that WR even before the snap. I agree NFL defenders should be all over that, but somehow they got open anyway. Im impressed with Kingsbury's ability to make that happen. it is kind of amazing, because you're right about defenders keying. As for scanning with eyes, I think the idea is that you move your head to influence defenders too. I dont see other QBs in the league going thru progressions without moving their head? As for your last sentence here, it's a good argument. Whatever they did obviously worked. I am surprised that it did, and I do predict the league catches up with it, but until they do, success is the best predictor of success, so you may well be right about not seeing a letdown. Well first off, a HUGE % of the time his firest read was open, which is why Im singing Kingsbury's praises. I don't know how he did that. I hope we can do that! And to be fair, when the first read is open, theres no reason to turn your head. But I didnt see more than a small handful of plays where Daniel's head moved. I didnt see him read to second and third options very much at all. It was mostly first read, or run when I watched him.