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See this is the problem. All I care about is the Bears. You seem to care about winning points with me. We will see how this all works out in time.

You keep making comments like( Poles could have drafted Stroud), you say Poles was lucky with the trade, you keep defering to giving him credit . I rated the draft a B and your first statement is calm down I only expect A+ grades for everybody. I gave him a B and listed his fails. I asked for your 2022 grade and look what you wrote. I just respond to some of your opinions just like you do to mine. But for some reason, mine are all ridiclous and yours comes from the FOOTBALL BIBLE. If I was on here hammering Caleb for not being good his first year, holding the ball to long, not seeing open players, rarely hitting his outlet throws instead of taking sacks. You would be all over me with your opinions but when I talk up Poles, Im overdoing it. This is a fan board giving opinions, no reason to get excited every time I disagree with you.

The stats are painting the wrong picture. You say he is wide open on 80% of his catches. You also say he has low targets. This means he doesnt get open often. It means when a defense fails, he is WIDE open and can catch. ANYONE who is wide open can catch. But he doesnt get open enough. Apparently we DO have a blue chip TE now. So why pay TE2 $11.6M a year when you have so many mouths to feed on offense anyway? You can get a cheaper inline TE2 and improve the team in other ways. The only reason you want to keep him is that once someone is on the team, you ALWAYS want to keep them. To you, someone on the team is family, and someone who isnt currently on the team is not. But maybe youd love a different player we could get with that money on the defensive line? Kmet doesnt suck, but we are paying him too much, and those resources could do more good for us somewhere else. Thats why I think we will trade him next year or this year at the deadline.

I posted tape 9 entries ago on this post. I dont think any team in the league has blue chip players at very position on their teams. I agree he is a good player and not great. Out of his 47 catches he had 8 contested catches. He is wide open on 80% of his catches. Had the highest catch rate with TEs in the league 2 yrs in a row. The bottom line is how long will the bears keep him? I say he plays out his contract. Which teams we played last yr played mostly man against us?

Dude calm down - its like you feel anything less than an A+ is an attack on family or something. You're obsessively overly positive about every member of the team. Ive already said that Poles has done a lot of good things. Im not trying to get rid of him now. I think he has done some things well and other things less well, and also received credit for things that he really didnt do - like Carolina winning in the last second so we could have CW. It's OK to have a nuanced opinion that includes positives and negatives. Maybe your psychological idea that people are entirely negative or positive applies to you, but for most of us, there is good and bad in everything. But Poles doesnt need you to defend him from me. Here are some partial lists off the top of my head THE GOOD disciplined cap management good picks in the secondary THE BAD Eberflus Getsy Waldron Morgan Claypool Velus Jones Nate Davis THE MIDDLE Extending Kmet DJ Moore THE QUESTIONABLE the OL over his tenure the DL over his tenure THE WAYS HE GOT LUCKY Caleb Williams

How do you grade his first draft? 2022 Blue player Kyler Gordon, starters Brisker, Jones. 3 yr starters Trent Gill, Jack Sandborn . quaility backups Elijah Hicks and Josh Blackwell. Roster players Robinson and Kramer.

agree with all of this. In not knocking what Poles DID do, just saying that he gets credit for being lucky too. If Carolina wins 2 more games, we end up with Drake Maye instead of Caleb Williams, and this all looks really different.

funny. you didnt post tape, you posted stats. Im saying YOU should look at the tape. Kmet is decent but not great. He doesnt get open vs man coverage, either by moves or west coast style body position. He is stiff, and in only open when there is a hole in the zone. Why do you think his targets are low? Because he isnt open. Yes, he can catch the ball when he is open and you throw it to him. A lot of guys can. But he isnt worth what we are paying him, especially now with Loveland on the roster. Time will tell.

I dont think its ever fair to look back after one year. You can go thru and take the best rookies and say we should have drafted them. Odunze has a high upside and shouldnt be judged on a team with Allen, DJ, and Kmet and have high expectations. Nabors and Bowers were the main target in their bad teams. Nabors had 170 targets, Bowers 153, Brian Thomas 133 Odunze 101. We had a bad offense with a rookie QB.

When Poles was hired he was handed the coach by the committee they had. He was new and wasnt going to rock the boat. Fields was there so any GM is going to give a first round pick a chance to prove himself. I think both V Jones and Claypool were reaches to try to give Fields a better WR corp. He was getting hammered in the press for not having weapons. I also think he wanted to interveiw Harbaugh but Warren nixxed that interview. I think he has did an excelllent job managing the Cap. I think he is learning on the job. Truthfully his first draft in 2022 is the only one you can measure logically. We didnt have a first round pick. We had 11 total up from 7 to begin with. 7 are still on the roster. Gill was our punter for 3 yrs, Sanborn and Blackwell were UDFAs with Blackwell still on the roster.. Gordon, Prisker, Braxton, Hicks , Sanborn, (now gone) and Blackwell would have be considered successful players. Kramer and Robinison will probably be gone this yr with a upgraded roster but are still here. V Jones was a bust, other later rounds picks lasted awhile but are gone. Looking back I would give this a B grade.

and he may only end up as a one year rental. Is he really going to play on the last year of his rookie deal without any future protection? If he sees himself as a WR1, I doubt he plays on a lame duck deal, especially knowing he won't be #1 in targets.

Its always strange the narritive media pushes with teams and players. One is a negative for a team and he goes somewhere else, SB contenders. Pickens is talented and the most respected coaches in the league didint want him. Some players are head cases. He handled Antonio Brown for many yrs but couldnt put up with Pickens.

Even with an improved OL, the most important adjustment to sacks will be the play callings. Ben has the QB get throws out quickly. Now if Caleb still holds the ball to long that will affect the total but I dont think Ben lets him do that. Last year the Lions gave up 31 sacks. They have the best line in the league but watch some tape, most of the pass game gets the ball out quick.

Williams had a 9-sack game, 2x 7's, and a 6. If there was improvement in just those 4 games to 2 sacks, that is a 21 sack reduction from 68 to 47 in just 4 games. Sacks make a whole bunch of other stats look horrible. EPA drops, QBR, and just about every other advanced passing metric really dock QBs hard for sacks, and in some cases, even more so than interceptions. So if Williams does cut his sack total in half, his advanced metric stats are going to look like they were shot out of a cannon. If you apply the updated projected sack totals to last year's QBR, he becomes a top 12 QBR QB without any other changes. He was 28th in QBR last year. That is how big sacks impact all the other stats.

He hasnt proved himself? 2023) 73 of 90 719 yds 6 TDs. He was ranked 9th in the league. He had the best catch rate among TEs in the league 81.2% In 2024 again had the best catch rate in the league for TEs. 85.5% . His downturn in performance was because he only got 55 targets. He had a better catch rate than all WRs. There was a handful of RBs that had better catch rates. I atways thought that catching the ball was important. I think you need to look at his tape again, I think you missed something.

I just find it funny that magically Dallas is now a Super Bowl contender, because they added a good WR2. Yet, if that is the case, then PIT should drop the same amount with the loss of that player, but they won't. Pickens is good, but not that good. Mooney has outperformed him over the last few years. For some reason the media makes him out to be some elite WR1 and yet he has never produced like one, even in college.

Yeah, it is definitely challenging to assess, but I think you have to break it down step by step at the time of execution. First, he made the trade assuming the 2024 QB Class would be better than the 2023 Class. He nailed that. Then there's getting Moore in the trade. Even with a terrible offense, Moore has been 6th in the NFL in receptions over the last two years and 8th in receiving yards. That's top-ten WR production. Adding Moore also ensured you had a solid eval of Fields. So I would say this was another feather for Poles. Then it's the Darnell Wright pick. Just exclusively evaluating Wright compared to other OL drafted around him (Paris Johnson, Skoronski, and Broderick Jones), Wright was the Wright pick. Then it comes up to the 2024 draft, I think we have to wait longer to assess if he got the picks correct, but at the time of the picks, I would've taken Williams and Odunze (or Bowers), so this is leaning towards being the right moves. Then he closed it out with the Burden pick. So he could've done things differently in hindsight, but at the time of the moves and state of the team, they seem to be as close to on point as you can get.

I just have to revisit this now. Caleb + Bowers + Irving alone would've been crazy.

Here's a good video, its short. Smart guy

no, but that is his role now. i agree hes not that good at it. But What i said was you can find an inline blocker cheaper to replace him. No matter what they said about him coming into the draft, he has gotten better at run blocking, and he has not been a gronkowski type at all. he deosnt get open against man, either with moves or body position. he isnt particularly well known for contested catches either. Hes just a big body that runs like Frankenstein, loping and stiff, and yes against zone, sometimes he is open. That is true for every TE. he doesnt even have particularly soft hands, but if hes open and you throw it to him, he can catch it. But he isnt a difference maker on 3rd down or anything like that. hes not been a QB safety blanket at all. He's just a decent average NFL TE. And you can get them cheaper or better yet, on a rookie deal. I think he is gone next year, or possibly at this years trading deadline. We will see. I DO think he has a chance to prove himself this year and change this, but i havent seen it from him on tape yet, so until he does, i think he isnt long for this team.

Overview Long bodied, early entry Y tight end prospect who is a better pass threat than run blocker at this stage. Kmet should continue to fill out his frame, but his run blocking is too scattered and needs better focus and efficiency as a pro. He can be jammed and slowed by early contact into his route, but once he's striding, he becomes a legitimate second-level threat with sneaky separation speed and intriguing ball skills. He's still developing and could be a slow starter headed into the league, but he has the talent to eventually become a solid starter as a pass-catching in-line tight end with the ability to mismatch from the slot with his size. Strengths Good size with long arms and more mass likely to be added. Will come across formation and land a blow on wham blocks. Adequate hand placement and runs feet through the block. Nice job of staying connected to base blocks with lateral slides. Gets defenders off of him downfield for catch space. Calm in the air to adjust and bring it in. Can go get the ball wherever it is thrown. Heavy inside his pads with ability to absorb contact. Rumbles after catch, treating tacklers like bumper cars. Weaknesses Body control and strength as a blocker need work. Below-average instincts and angles as move blocker. Inefficient and slow getting into block fits. Needs to play with earlier inside hands and rolled hips at point of attack. Too tall coming off the ball and into his routes. Has issues playing through contact within the first five yards. Upright into brakes, allowing defenders to read and jump routes. Questionable hand strength to secure contested catches. He was not drafted as a inline blocker. GRADE

We'll see. Like i said, I do agree he has value. But with so many mouths to feed, I suspect he will be gone next year, or maybe even at the trade deadline this year? I have heard rumors (so who knows whether they are true or not) that the Patriots and Chargers might be interested in Kmet. But I doubt we trade him now - gotta see the rookies do it on the field first. He just doesnt have any wiggle to get open, and he isnt known for tough contested catches. He gets open in gaps in zone defenses, and catches OK, but i think there are a lot of cheaper guys that can do that and block too? Thats why im saying this. but its not like Leno or Fields. Im not saying he sucks. I just dont think there is much room for him on our team soon.

We had some pretty bad players on the IL last year, but youre right coaching will help a LOT too. fair.

I can't wait for this sideline show to begin with Brian Schottenheimer as the band leader and Matt Eberflus playing second fiddle.

Kmet is a classic 3 down TE. It makes him a little more versatile than a pure inline TE. I agree that his value isn't in the eight figure range, but he's close. I also don't believe he's trade bait. He's not the type of player teams trade for. Teams will simply draft or sign one in free agency. His greatest value is with us.