BearFan PHX

yup

this is how I see it too. people think that a GM should have a 100% success rate. It's just not realistic. World championship poker players win year after year by winning more than they lose, but they lose PLENTY of hands. I see this kind of thinking in the corporate world. It goes something like this: The best investment is to kidnap a stock broker and his family, tie them up in a warehouse in NJ, and then shoot one of the kids to make sure everyone knows we are serious. Then you put the gun to the brokers head and DEMAND the price of Google stock 2 months from now. That's what suffices for "you failed fire him!" logic. Pace is doing well. He won't win every battle. I am confident he didnt promise anyone that Trubisky WOULD be a hall of fame QB. What Pace did was simply to evaluate the risks and outcomes and try to make a winning play. If Pace for example thought Trubisky has a 70% chance of becoming a real franchise QB on the level of Drew Brees, then he pulls the trigger. It doesnt mean he KNOWS he is right, it means it's the right move to make. ANything beyond that, while common in sports debates, relies on superstition and reactive thinking.

This is what the Pace signing is all about. After two decades without a GM (it still baffles me, the ONLY team in sports) and a few tries at yes men GMs, the Bears ownership finally gave up and asked the league for help. They sent Ernie Accorsi, the architect of the Parcells Giants, to oversee the next move. He was like our GM for a couple months. He went and found Pace, a Parcells tree guy. Now dont get me wrong, Im not saying Bill Parcells is such an amazing coach that GMs three generations removed still feel his personal influence. But instead, I am talking about a specific football culture. Some teams, like the Packers, have run the same basic formations and approaches for YEARS. When that happens, you get a lot of benefits. Take as a given that you can't have perfect players at every position. You are going to build a team, a system, out of imperfect parts. Maybe you dientify certain skills you need each position to have, and other skills that would be nice to have, but if they are missing in a player, wont be emphasized as much based on the role you ask that player to play in your system. This is the essence of football culture. The Parcells tree is a group of coaches and talent evaluators that all subscribe to a specific system. When your coaches and scouts all know what it takes to play outside linebacker in your system, they can agree on selecting players who's strengths and weaknesses that fit into the overall picture. And when you get that rookie, they play under players who have similar skill sets. The older players can show them how to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. And they can go watch film of players with similar attributes make the same plays they are being asked to make. This is what Pace is bringing us. Also, when you have a stocked established team with a franchise QB, you can play the draft game the way the Patriots do. But when you are the Bears, you gotta take risks. There is no sure fire stud QB out there waiting. You have to take chances. You have to reach for players sometimes too if you believe they can be the player you need. But when you do it int he context of an overall football culture, you stand a better chance of getting it right. The best poker player int he world does not win every hand, and his or her strategy never contemplated winning every hand. It's about taking good risks, and winning more than you lose. Pace is all that and more. Fox has been a good caretaker. He was probably the highest caliber of coach we could have gotten to babysit this team while we built the past few years. I am thankful for him. I would not be the least bit surprised if Pace gets a new coach after this year. If he does, it will be another Parcells tree guy. And it might be a promotion from within (Fangio?) or at the least some coaches may stay. Even if they dont, if Pace is making the call, the new staff will see things in such a similar way to the old one that you will have the stability you and the Bears both want. I also wont be surprised if Shaheen eventually grows into a stud. But I am also not surprised that we took a guy who needs a year at QB or TE either. It was the best shot of having a great player NEXT YEAR. We're on the right road, and it will take a couple more years to really get there. But by the end of this season we should be seeing sparks of whats to come. When we get receivers and a few more pieces on D, we will be a contender. Im not sure people understood how far away fromt hat we were a few years ago, or how you get from here to there in the real world. Accorsi hiring Pace was the best thing that could have happened.

Where are you able to see the all 22? Id sure love to see that!

well said.

The Bears never would have signed Glennon if they weren't drafting a QB. There is a plan here, and it's working. Glennon was supposed to be better, but Trubisky is ahead of schedule, and will sit for a while longer. This is going to end well.

sounds good!

I think we will be building through the draft more than free agency. Also, I can see the type of unrestricted free agents we look at being younger guys that might have an upside. That said, I expect Glennon will be trade bait next year, so anything is possible.

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/

Because the game is still too big for him. He drops easy passes. I think he will be good after he gets over being so green, but right now, he's not ready for the NFL, except on special teams. That could change in a month, but it's where he is right now.

I can tell you that WR will be a high pick for the Bears AND a priority in free agency. That's clear. And maybe better to know now and get a good look at who you have, than to limp along hoping White will emerge and find out that he won't. Im not saying he might not have, but now we know he won't and we know it early. Seriously, if we had a WR on the team, we might have won this game - 4 throws from 5 to the end zone, someone might have caught one.

Pace IS the GM we've been waiting for all these years.

I agree with you Stinger. I was just saying that the spread isn't really the insider view of the experts (in other words, you could be right!) but instead it's a VERY professional guage of what the betting public thinks the spread ought to be. Of course, the crowd is often right, but when it comes to new teams, and upsets, of course the crowd doesnt see those. More to your side of the argument. As one example, the crowd said that Trubisky was a bad pick and the trade was a bad one. Common wisdom is often correct, but not always. That said, I dunno if I predict a win against Atlanta, but I surely do think we will be competitive this year, especially in the running game and on the D line. The secondary is a question mark, could go either way, the WRs are thin, and Im not sold on the OL until I see it on the field. Lots of reason for optimism I agree, common wisdom not being a good guide for this.

no you really dont understand. ALL they want is equal money on both sides of the bet. They have zero interest in accurately predicting the game, except in however that truth affects the public perception of it. They built all those buildings by not losing bets. When you have equal money on both sides, you cant lose no matter what happens. If there comes a time where public opinion and the true predicted outcome of the game diverge, then they build buildings by following the crowd, again attracting equal money on both sides, even when the public is wrong. You can make $ over time taking the points against emotional favorites like the Patriots and the Packers for this reason.

wisdom

They knew Sanchez from film, didnt need the preseason reps. I think what they meant is that he's progressed in taking snaps from center and reading defenses to the point where they could trust him out there. Given that he's the #2 pick overall, it's not a question of talent or ability, he's really just competing against himself i.e. showing when he's ready.

LOL

Agree

Not if you can get even better i.e. Tre McBride etc the question isnt Gentry or Cruz, it's Gentry or door number three. Also we were correct and hes on the practice squad now. THe GM keeps making great moves, and we keep criticizing him and he keeps being right.

The oddsmakers dont attempt to predict the outcome successfully, they set the line to attract equal money on both sides so that no matter who wins, the bookies make their cut with no risk. Therefore they believe the public thinks that ATL is a 7 point favorite?

Let's say you're dying of a disease and you need $1,000 for the doctor to heal you. Let's say you have 10 days to live. Let's say you have a job that pays $1 a day. Would you keep it? What if you had found a new job that pays $2 an hour? The point I'm making is that Gentry may have been good among this group, and I certainly enjoyed rooting for him, but he's not enough, and making small incremental moves isn't going to get us anywhere. Instead, we have an ideal we're looking for. a WR with certain traits, and until we get those, it doesnt matter which wrong ones we keep I think. ANd I do think Gentry will clear waivers and we'll get him anyway, but if we don't this isn't going to really affect our chances at a Super Bowl in 3 years. I think other WRs will get released and we will pick someone up who has a better upside than Gentry. And the new guy probably wont stick either. We'll be drafting a WR within the first three rounds next year.

Agree 100% Pix. I was hoping to move Glennon next year too.

Of course thats a typo, you must have meant #1.

In the NFL no one carries a backup kicker on the roster. All the special teams coaches and GMs keep lists of who the next kicker up would be. They all know a few of the top free agents. Getting a chance to work with this guy, to have familiarity just adds him to our list of possibles at the very least. It's also training camp time and putting pressure on your kicker is always a good idea. I'm assuming we aren't paying this guy much, so it's hard to see the downside. And if he turns out to be amazing, then hey, that's a plus too. But my point is even if he doesnt this is STILL a smart move, even if not a very meaningful one.