BearFan PHX

no. it showed what this ONE 7th round pick can do. 99% of 7th round picks cant ever do that.

thats my point. but you missed it. I just want to win. But Justin isnt gonna get us there. So I really hope we dont keep him. Then we can win, and i cant prove that i was "right" that we wouldnt have won with him, because he wasnt here to prove it.

thank you! I appreciate that more than you might imagine.

all that needs to be said is that if we all just treat each other with respect going forward, we wont have any issues. That should be easy enough to do. We dont have to hash this one out, we can just move past it. I am happy to shake your hand, or anyone here with the one obvious exception, and it aint Grizz I'll add this, ever since my fight to end years of crap from one individual, I've been on the receiving end of a lot of negative stuff on here. I knew that would happen of course, but it was preferable to being submissive and taking it, no matter how polite I had tried to be. Im not trying to bring it up again, but to talk about the pushback on me since then. I get it pretty much daily from a lot of different sides, and it's no fun. In finally smacking my bully in the mouth, I got a reputation as a jerk. And Ive had to live with the reaction, and be tough. So if i am on the defense, that's why. I freely criticize peoples logic, stats and facts. I could call an argument dumb. But i dont call peoples opinions dumb, we are all entitled to them, and thats what sports debate is all about. I'd like to get back to debating the Bears, and Id VERY much like for people not to have such a negative view of me. But there inst much i can do about it. I will just say, that i am a very nice guy in real life. Anyone that knows me would say it. And Im a natural leader in most social groups Im in. On occasion (in the real world not here) someone will be jealous, and if they attack me by whatever means, I generally defeat them. Usually thats some kind of social attack, or lies or whatever. Im very nice, but Im no ones b*tch. Since this is a football board, I suspect there are a lot of people like that here. Former players, men who are leaders and alpha types. I dont think any of you would have accepted what I finally stopped being polite about and set straight a couple months ago. But I hope we would each respect eachother for standing up for ourselves too. I dont consider myself better than anyone here, or above anyone. Like a team full of alphas, everyone is legit. So hopefully, we can ALL drop the hostility, and judgement, and I can stop feeling defensive, and we can all just have a good time here. I hope that helps explain where Im at, and how its been for me since I smacked my bully back. Thanks for reading this far to anyone that did.

dont be a dick. if you want to man up on me, win an argument on the merits not this playground childish crap. If you cant beat me that way, dont be a baby. The comment you described as him "teabagging" was said to me, so if youre a real man, stand behind what you say and dont go dodging like a little kid. I have had it from all sides here because I dont want to keep Justin. Youre gonna have to deal with people disagreeing with you. And also because of the years that one member spent saying things that were really out of line to me. Im sorry you dont think I am worthy to defend myself, but I am. Youd expect a certain amount of personal respect as a man, so me too. All we have to do is debate with mutual respect for each others opinions, and we can criticize each others facts, logic and statistics. Believe me, Im not interested in teabagging you back. Sorry. was that antagonistic? Is it allowed from me or only people criticizing me? Thought so. P.S. Grizz and I seem to be getting along fine. So can we if you just act with regular personal respect. That's all Im asking for / insisting on.

agree, you dont need to wait until the last minute of the last year of someones contract to know if you got it right or not. two years is a lot of time to see stuff and evaluate.

Wow, GREAT playcalling on the Lions' opening drive, and David Montgomery is still a stud.

Look, if your point is that we troll each other here, then dont get butt hurt if I say someone is trolling. I'm trying to take everything at face value to be polite, not because I'm stupid. Pretending to be stupid to troll someone is hardly a mic drop for intelligence is it? But ask yourself, if someone tried to "teabag" you, how would you react? What if someone implied that someone else teabagged you? And if I react that way now since youve made it clear, are you gonna act like I'm all out of line? I bet if someone put their testicles on your chin youd knock the shit out of them, right? So please dont imply thats what he did to me. Or if you do, then dont be surprised if someone gets punched ("rhetorically" of course). You cant have it both ways. I think it'd be best if we just act like adults here. Whadda ya say?

lol but adam was saying (with some tongue in cheek Im sure) that the decision on Justin is affected by this game today. I will say this - we see how Lamar's heroball doesnt beat a great professional football team. Even though we are just climbing the ladder and only on the cusp of the playoffs, we should still be building a team that is set up to eventually take on the great teams, or theres no point. we should not be putting our eggs into the hero ball basket - even if the hero is Caleb Williams!

I agree with your first point. The second one is hilarious to me - your analysis of Jackson's performance today makes sense too. What has me laughing, and I suspect you wrote it with a grin, is the idea that we are still waiting for one more game to see if Fields can make it, and he isnt even playing in them anymore LOL I agree though, that Jackson is unable to use the broken plays to beat a quality team as easily as Mahomes can beat a quality team in structure, does tell you something about how freelancing works when you get to the higher levels. You need to be able to do it and do it well, but you cant base your offense on it. Otherwise, why even have plays? Oh and the only big plays Jackson has made today were actually made from the pocket in structure, even if not in tempo.

Justin is great off script no doubt, but unlike Mahomes and Jackson, he cant play within the script. You can say that coaching would fix it, but of course weve seen tons of QBs fail in the NFL, and coaching didnt save them. In fact Fields had regressed this year, and was winless when he said he thought he was getting too much coaching, or at least that it was in his head too much. even the best college QBs are not ready for the NFL. They have to grow. The biggest issue with scouting rookie QBs is how much they will improve and how fast. And one of the biggest issues is how well they take coaching. For example, this is my biggest concern with Caleb Williams. Some resist it out of ego or whatever. Fields seems to be a hard worker with a genuinely open attitude. It doesnt look like he's consciously fighting the coaching or anything like that. But for whatever reason, the light hasnt come on for him. For people in Fields' position, with Field's obvious physical talent, they dont fall out of the league. They always get one more offense, with one more new coach, and almost always at a new team. Most do not succeed there either, but some do. Someone will make a trade offer for Fields, but it wont be for multiple first round picks, and only Mel Kiper thinks it will be even a single first round pick. So that will show us what the league thinks about Fields right now too.

no doubt. And all punters are important, but if youre going to play a possession complementary type of football where you only score 20 points but eat a lot of clock doing it and play field position over multiple possessions, for example Tony Dungy style, then the punter becomes that much more important for sure! I mean, when your nickname is "Punt God" how bad can you be? LOL

and credit it as well LOL

they didnt play as hard as either of the two teams that are playing today did, during our regular season is what I said, followed by a disclaimer that of course this is the playoffs. You need to read the whole sentences to understand what I mean. It's as if i said "I don't like spaghetti when it falls on the floor and stains the rug, but it is a good low cost easy to make weekday meal" and all you hear is "I dont like spaghetti" so if you want to understand me, or debate what Im saying, you kind of have to read what Im saying and all the context too before you cherry pick sentences out of context to create the illusion of something I never meant. Are you saying they players on most other NFL teams this year didnt play as hard as our defense did? Cuz if youre not saying that, then Flus didnt accomplish anything in that realm. And I think players on a lot of teams played hard for their coaches. What did Eberflus do that was special? Not good, but special? Like top 5 coach special? Because if he isnt that, we should keep looking for someone who is. Think Harbaugh is gonna be a better coach than Eberflus? I do.

not because of who I am a fan of. Just because we are ALL gonna be pissed at the end of next season if they do that. And getting to say "I told you so" is not going to be anywhere near worth the chance and time we squandered and the team we could have become. Im not for or against people on the team. Thats what you keep misunderstanding. I dont hate Justin Fields. I WANTED him to be awesome. But I am a fan of the team, not individual players, and I want the TEAM to win. So when players or coaches show me they are not great, even if theyre OK, I want them to be replaced by new players and coaches who are great. I'm not willing to sacrifice the team and season(s) just to be fair to a player or coach. They are employees, not customers.

LOL rhetorical arguments are just opinions and are welcome here! you're thinking of anecdotal evidence. I agree that we arent in the locker room too. I can say I dont see any innovative schemes from our defense, just hard working players who have talent. Some say that he kept the team together during a storm, but if we hadnt lost those 3 games (and others!) we'd be at least 10 - 7, and its not hard to get players to play hard when you arent IN a storm. So its kind of like saving someones life with CPR after youre the one that stabbed them? I truly dont see anything Eberflus does that's special. But as I've said, I dont think he will continue to be an active impediment to winning. I hope the new DC will push back on prevents too early and argue to let the players play a little tighter int heir coverages. If you're watching the game today, you see what really playing hard looks like, and I never saw anything like that kind of intensity from our team, admittedly in the regular season, but this is supposed to be Eberflus' strength. Also, you see how much tighter the coverages are today than we ever see in Chicago. Oh and to your point about Lovie, we did see high intensity from that D, and innovation in how deep they had Urlacher in that Tampa 2. Plus the team culture preached takeaways in a way that you could see the players were always working for them. So those are some outward things you could see on the field. But we didnt go into early prevents and give games away on Lovie's teams, and he handled the clock, situational football and 4th downs much better. And he never kept the best players off the field when they were rested just to give the rotations "fair" minutes.

Flus called the same 6 or 8 vanilla plays that every team calls: cover 2, cover 3, quarters, cover 2 man under, a couple regular blitzes, prevent. Nothing inventive. His main contribution was to tell the DBs and LBs to cover soft and keep everything in front of them. Every defensive coordinator in the league and all their assistants could do that. The players were the ones who did it - to the point of Poles being responsible, not Eberflus. Flus was the one who: sat Sweat so all players had equal playing time (what?!) went for it on 4th and 1 when a FG would have won the game vs the Packers got the defense into a prevent way too early in three different games we have over a 95% chance of winning and lost them all. Had his coverages adjusted to super soft. He personally lost 1/4 of the games this season for us, games we would have won otherwise if he had just gone to the bathroom for the 4th quarter. Defensive players have definitely shown growth this year. I credit Poles for drafting them, and position coaches for their growth. Tell me specifically what Eberflus actually did that was innovative or gave us an edge in winning games? He wasnt a good head coach situationally. He wasnt a good DC for the reasons I already listed. Can you keep a guy as head coach because he was possibly good as defensive quality control assistant?!

sure. all those lies about him mean nothing. If Hightower thinks he can kick, and by all accounts he is special, then absolutely!

and no one knows, even scouts and Poles after they do all their investigations. What they can say is what hi possible ceiling might be, and assign some kind of percentage chance to his reaching it. Neither will be perfect, but together they can help decide whether trading the #1 pick for about 3 first rounders of value is a better or worse deal than taking the player and who they MIGHT become. We do know some things. We know exactly how Fields has been in the league to date. We know what a hypothetical generational QB is worth. We know historically what the likelihood of a QB drafted #1 is to become who they are projected to be. And all to say Im not 100% on Caleb either. Im still researching. But I want the Bears to identify the best QB prospect in this class, and take him in the draft where they think there is a high probability that he will still be available. I am certain that Fields is not the guy to win a superbowl. Some may say that anything is POSSIBLE, and under that logic, it is also POSSIBLE that Mitch Trubisky could lead us to a Superbowl, but since I dont think either are LIKELY, I doubt anyone is clamoring for us to sign Mitch. You gotta play the odds. Nothing is certain, but all outcomes are not even close to similarly likely.

I think Edmunds is a fantastic player, but Eberflus is using him wrong. We play a regular cover 2 and not the Tampa 2, which would allow Edmunds to use his freakish combination of size and speed just like Urlacher did for us, roaming the deep middle and shutting down most of the middle field passing. Instead, not only is he in a zone closer to the LOS, but Eberflus' coverage rules have these guys playing off of the WRs, so Edmunds cant make plays on the ball to break up passes. It's ridiculous, a waste of Edmunds talents, and one of the reasons I think Eberflous is not doing as well as some think. I think Sweat made Eberflus look better than he deserves in the second half of the season.

Williams (or whoever) isnt Manning OR Prescott. That's for after they get in the league and prove themselves. The valuation of the pick is a LOTTERY TICKET that MIGHT get you a Manning etc. That's why it is mathematically discounted. If you read what i said I said Manning is worth at least 8 first rounders in value, so a lottery ticket with a 66% chance to win Manning is worth 5+ first rounders. (8 x 0.66 = 5.28) But even if you value it lower, the #1 pick is worth about three first rounders in value.

That's because I dont think like you that someone is all good or all bad. I talk about the different aspects of them. That is, for example, why you never remember me saying all the good things I said about Justin. Im not an all or nothing kind of person. I praise the good stuff and condemn the bad stuff. i think for myself, and therefore i have opinions that arent always in sync with the narratives. I see that makes people angry. Cant help it. I can only say what i truly think and feel. You keep thinking this is a personal vendetta of mine against Justin - and that he somehow needs you to defend his feelings from me - but no, I LOVE DJ Moore as a player and I still dont want the GM hanging out trying to be part of the guys, its not who he hugs, it's just that he wants to be liked so bad by the players. If you win a big playoff game, then sure. But if its a regular season win in a losing season and youre hugging the guy youre supposed to be harshly critiquing to decide what to do with his future - it seems like a conflict, and frankly it seems weak and needy to me.

we'll see if Poles can cut or trade people. Its my opinion. Also I didnt call anyone here inane or their opinions inane, only the constant use of anecdotal evidence - that argument itself inane. I am not using anecdotal evidence here to predict anything. Im not say for example "look in 1983, some guy hugged his team and then something bad happened therefore it will again." This is just my opinion that Poles isnt maintaining the proper emotional distance that he should to make decisions about these guys, in my view. Youre free to disagree, but neither of our opinions are inane - that itself would be an opinion. Saying that you rolled some chicken bones and they predict an outcome would be inane for example. Not because the outcome itself isnt possible, but because the chicken bones cant predict the future?

I give Poles an A+ right up until the Eberflus decision, and one decision doesn't equal all the good he's done, so yes in general he's still doing OK. But I dont even look at Claypool or Velus, and I think hes done an outstanding job. At least until this Eberflus decision. We'll see where we go from here, but yes in terms of talent acquisition and gaming the draft, he's killing it.

when you win a big playoff game its one thing, when you win a regular season game in a season you went 7-10? Also he's not going into a season where the fate of the guy he is hugging is hanging by a thread? Justin was definitely a hero in my eyes for what he did about COVID