BearFan2000

We knew Cunningham would likely leave at some point, it'd be nice if we could keep him another year but it's not really a surprise that he's getting offers.

Williams gives me a bit of a Manzel vibe.

Rivera is a name that popped in my mind as well for DC. Letting him go after the Super Bowl season was a mistake but I think it was an ego thing with Lovie. Ron knows this D and he was aggressive as well as creative in how he called it and tailored it to the talent we had. OC I like the idea of Reich, his experience would do well. I don't want another first time OC. I want someone who's done it before and understands how to setup plays and won't call plays like they think they are the smartest man in the room and think they can outsmart people rather than do what's smart. Someone who knows what it means to adjust as the game dictates rather than just be stubborn and keep calling what's not working.

I am hoping this is the case, and that the Bears open to what ever is best for the team and not already decided one way or another and thus only looking at OC's that are willing to accept conditions like that. We're in a unique situation where draft wise we can go either direction so keeping or moving on from Justin are equally possible outcomes. The smart thing is to look for the best candidates and find out what their plan or preference would be. Use that to inform your decision on which OC has the best plan and once hired it becomes about executing that plan. We are in year 2 of what was stated as possibly being a 3-4 year rebuild, and here after year 2 there's a lot of desire in the fan base to blow it up. Year 1 this roster was gutted and it showed. I don't think trading and Justin and drafting Williams is giving up on the rebuild necessarily. Rebuilding involves retooling and finding the best players you can at each position to keep improving the roster. If they do draft Williams that becomes part of the rebuild process in trying to improve the QB position.

I'm holding judgment on the offseason moves till it all plays out. I'm not going to assume the worst yet, not to say when the dust settles I'll like how this offseason shakes out I'll ultimately like what we did. On the surface here we know Getsy and offensive position coaches are gone. What was one of our biggest flaws overall this season? Offensive play calling and production. So I'm all for the move to get rid of Getsy, and I'm not sure we shouldn't have done that in season. So far this and that Flus most likely staying are the only moves we know for sure. As for Justin's future I'd say that now hinges on who the OC we bring in. This comes with some questions. Does the new OC come in with the premise that Justin is staying? Does the next OC determine whether you keep Fields or trade and draft a QB. Is Flus, Poles, and Warren already inclined to move on from Justin unless they are convinced a candidate can get the most out of Justin. Thing is we don't know any of these answers unless a statement is made which may not come till after the new OC is here. Random thought I've had concerning Justin and the draft. How much does this affect the value of the #1 pick. If we trade Justin prior to the draft the writing is on the wall and teams know we are inclined to stay put and take Williams at #1. And it could in theory increase the value as teams know they aren't just competing with each other for the pick but that they also have to offer enough compensation to convince us to move from the pick. If we are in fact planning on sticking with Fields is there benefit in letting other teams sweat it out not knowing while internally we let Justin know he's safe?

I think you're right that Flus probably does stay. Personally I'm not sure where I lean as far as what the right decision is. As a fan I'm tired of losing (especially to the insufferable cheeseheads). I'm also tired of this cycle we've been in where we hit the reset button every few years and wonder why we aren't building anything. Every time we hit reset we push back the expectation of this team having sustainable success. Part of our problem is when we have hit reset we generally haven't made the right decisions and simply replaced bad with bad. What Poles has to evaluate Flus on is if he feels the foundation he's built here is one he can build a winner on, or if a new foundation needs to be put in place. Again I feel like I'm not sure 100% where I lean on the whole thing, I've gone back and forth in my own mind what I think is the right way to go. At the end of the day I have to trust Warren and Poles to make the right choices and root for my Bears to become a consistent winner again. The GB loss has ended the season with a bad taste in our mouths. Right now it can be hard to look past that.

Yes there are way more options than I listed. I just picked 3. If you keep Flus, fire Getsy, keep Fields and draft a prospect, the OC becomes the most critical move. You can't bring in another OC who wants to turn Fields into a pure pocket passer. It has to be a guy who can tailor the offense to Fields' strengths rather than square peg in a round hole. Getsy has proven to be stubborn, and suffers from smartest guy in the room syndrome. He tends to try and get cute rather than do the smart thing and it fools no one. He's had games where he has done a better job with his play calling but, if he stays do you get the that guy or the guy who thinks a screen pass on 3rd and long is a high percentage play?

Karma has definitely swung our way draft wise. We have been in an unprecedented position to have the #1 overall pick two years in a row, and the possibility to get a haul for that pick two straight years (including potential high #1's in 2025 and 2026). We have a roster full of talented young players and vets that can be added to with an abundance of draft capital to add to it. Much better than where we were when Pace was constantly mortgaging the future on a bogus bag of magic beans. And we had very few draft picks, and gaping holes in the roster. Then having to overspend in FA to fix bad drafting. Just typing this reminds me of how ugly those days were lol

Reality is as I mentioned in a different post is that whatever we do has risk/reward. I'll support whatever Poles decides, I know he's got a lot of tough decisions to make, and I'm glad I'm not in his shoes. As a fan it's hard because we all want the same bottom line, we want the Bears to become a consistent winner. If that happens we know the right choices were made regardless of a QB being drafted by other teams being successful, or trading our QB and he becomes successful elsewhere, or coaching changes or non changes, and so on. At the end of the day you can't let all the "what if's" dictated your decision, because they don't really matter, all that matters is what you do, and the things you can control. We all want the same thing, we're never going to 100% agree on how to get there. For us the offseason has begun and so the speculation part of the offseason has begun as we end another season on the outside looking in at the playoffs.

This is a very unique situation we are in where none of us really know what Warren and Poles are planning, or thinking of doing with the staff, with Fields, the draft etc. There are so many scenarios that could play out this offseason, and all of which have their own risks and potential rewards. Run it all back, keep Flus, Getsy, Fields, et al. Possibly add a DC (Riviera?) that knows the cover 2 scheme. Trade the #1 overall pick and either target MHJ or see what hall you can get for the pick to build around Fields, and upgrade both lines. Maintain continuity and see if next year with added talent and another year in the system puts us where we want to be. The risk being the potential to miss out on better coaches to get more out of the talent we have, and possibly watching a QB or two we pass on becoming the next big thing. Keep Flus, fire Getsy, trade fields, draft QB #1 overall or even trade down a spot or two but still take QB with our top pick. This would be a soft reset on the offensive side of the ball. We use our remaining draft capitol and FA to build around the young QB. OC choice would be critical, and would need to be someone who can develop an offensive system around the new QB. Also targeting a solid vet QB in FA would be key as well to help mentor the rookie. We enter next season knowing the offense will likely struggle early. Clean house. Flus gone, Getsy gone, etc. Hire new HC, who brings in his own DC, and based on whether he thinks can get the full potential out of Fields or wants to draft a new QB means we either trade the #1 pick or use it on a QB. This would likely either be decided based on who the new HC has in mind for the OC or who he brings in as the OC. As deflating as yesterday's loss was, there has been growth this season as a team. Is it enough to run it all back next year and give this group one last chance to either prove they can take the next steps and get us over the hump? Three things were obvious to my eyes watching that game. One was on defense, there was no aggressiveness in the play calling or scheme, we didn't attack the line of scrimmage and we played soft in the back end. We made Jordan Love's job easy and made him look like an All Star QB (which of course the broadcasters spared now time in gushing over him). There were WR's and TE's running free all over for easy pitch and catch all day. Two Getsy reverted to bad play calling, trying to be cute (example 4th and 1 starting in shotgun then running to the line to nearly botch a QB sneak that we probably made by the thickness of a credit card). He has been too inconsistent all season long. The majority of the season he's been playing checkers against DC's playing 3D Chess. The players themselves didn't show up. Defensively we didn't cover well, we didn't tackle, we didn't get after Love, we didn't stop the run. Offensively.... what offense? The effort wasn't there. We coached and played like a team whose head was already in the offseason and didn't really care if we won or lost. Contrast to GB who played like a team whose post season was on the line. They came to play, and we didn't. Where do we go from here who the hell knows. The positive is we have options, we have the #1 and I believe the #9 in the first round. So we have two top 10 picks that we can either use or trade to increase our draft capital to put us in a position to really shape this team for the foreseeable future. We have a roster that has a lot of good talent on it young and old. This would be a coveted landing spot for a HC to come into. With this roster, draft position, and cap space, this is a team that could see a sustainable jump to become a perennial playoff caliber team if done right.

Thing is whether we hit the aready worn out reset button and blow it up again will this franchise ever get it right. We are eternally cursed.

I sure hope so, but gotta say I don’t have much optimism right now

Welp the silver lining is I don’t have waste another Sunday watching this $&@“ show till next season.

3 and out loading….

No one can tackle

Good job Stevenson !

We’ll probably give up a TD before halftime

Red zone sack on 3rd down. Setting for FGs…

Defense giving GB little resistance. Looks a lot like week 1. So far.

This is an opportunity for a statement game. We have a chance to eliminate the Packers from the playoffs like the Lions did last year. We have nothing to play for except for pride, and ending the season on a high and demonstrate consistent improvement. We haven't beaten the Packers since 2018. The Bears are definitely trending upwards. Fields played his best game as a Bear vs the Falcons. Here is a chance for him to prove that it wasn't a fluke, that his upward progress since coming back from injury isn't a fluke. And he can do it vs the Packers who have had our number for far too long. The Bears season has been a lot like my work fantasy league. I started out 0-6 but ended the season 7-2 and just missing the playoffs. If the Bears (and my Fantasy team) had performed the first part of the season like they did the last part of the year we'd be in the playoffs, and one could argue we could make some noise in the playoffs. As far as this games impact on Fields, Flus, Getsy, et all? I don't feel like this game in a vacuum should determine coaches and players fates. It can help their cases, but win or lose it's how this game goes. This isn't the same Bears that embarrassed themselves on opening day. And this is their chance to prove that, and go into the offseason with their heads held high. I feel like we have a good chance of doing just that. Packers can be scored on and we've seen our offense and play calling (particularly in recent weeks) improve, and our D had really stepped it up.

Getsy will call a couple screen passes

And that’s the ball game

Or TD… Those two calls forgo fg attempts are coming back to bite us

Sweat has been earning his money. Dude has made a huge impact.

It speaks to poor discipline, poor technique, and in some cases lack of talent. Where you’re in bad position where you resort to things that draw flags. The JJ interception followed by the unsportsmanlike, then penalties and miscues by the offense result in a punt when we should have at least netted 3 points. This team has been its own worst enemy from coaches down to the players on the field. Fields has been a mixed bag, he shows flashes of what were hoping he’d be, we’ve also seen problematic signs. The problem is with the current play calling it’s hard to get a true evaluation. Maybe we never will and he just becomes another in the long line of “incomplete” grades. One could argue that with better play calling and play design he wouldn’t be as inclined to try to play hero ball. As much as we speculate that the coaches don’t trust Fields, it’s quite possible that the opposite is also true and he doesn’t trust them to put I’m in position to succeed.