BearFan2000

Something else to consider when it comes to evaluating our current offensive players and potential FA adds. It’s possible we have more talent already here than we think. Bad schemes and play calling can hold players back. And we’ve had bad schemes and play calling in spades the last few years. Better coaches may get more out of what’s here and be better able to sift through FA and the draft. Like Adam said we’re pulling guys from winning programs. They are in roles that are new to them but they but they have been a part of winning football. If Getsy can craft an offensive scheme and playbook that actually puts our players in a position to succeed. We may have mower talent than we think.

Of the three the guy I wanted the least was Caldwell. Quinn might have been my favorite, but I do like Eberflus and I like that he can bring a disciplined approach to leadership and will expect a lot out of his players. What will be interesting is who Mat brings in as his coordinators. Bottom line, now we have our GM and Coach in place, now it's about filling out the rest of the staff, evaluating our current roster and then planning for the upcoming draft and FA. I'll throw it out there for DC what about Lovie Smith? He is a good DC, and would have the HC experience to help Eberflus as a first time HC. OC will be a critical hire, to get the right guy in here.

This 100% He has been a certified douche well before the whole vaccination/immunization thing. He’s given people plenty of reason to root against him.

A lot is made of Flores that he can have a bristly personality and didn't get along in Miami despite getting the most out of his players on a team built more to play for draft position than to win games. Ditka wasn't exactly easy to get along with either, sometimes the nice guy approach isn't the only road to winning football. You don't want to invite chaos but, sometimes having a guy who's not afraid to ruffle some feathers if it means winning football that's not a bad thing. The Bears could use a little edginess as long as it's properly focused.

Most of us wanted the reset to happen last season, but at the same time, had we done that is it possible a different GM goes a different route in the draft at QB or even stays put at 20 and targets a different position or player and Fields ends up somewhere else. It's really hard to know how things would have played out differently, could have even shaken out that a different GM stays at 20, NE takes Fields and we take Jones. If nothing else the non reset last offseason netted us Fields and he has the potential to be the answer at QB we've been looking for. Now just need to surround him with talent and find a coach that can properly develop and get the most out of him. It's an intriguing carrot to dangle out there for HC candidates. As hard as Nagy tried I don't think he broke Justin but getting the right coach will be critical to his development.

If he still doesn't want to come here that's off the table. Though if he came here under conditions that some changes be made in the FO then maybe that could be the catalyst to some long needed structural changes. But as Connor mentioned he is under contract so the Bears or anyone that tries to snag him will have to give something up for him. For us it would probably mean players as we don't exactly have a great deal in draft capitol (thank you Ryan Pace). Depending on what we'd need to give up and or change, it might be worth it. One thing to consider though is that Payton had his best success when he had a star studded roster lead by a future HOF QB. What would he do with our roster? My guess is it's not happening, if he has a sour opinion of the Bears organization its not likely we'll be able to lure him here. If we could I'd be down with that, I just don't see it happening.

I'm good with the Poles signing and glad that we did the GM first, it's possible that this could be a bang bang deal where we see a HC signing soon. With the simultaneous interview process I can see the GM candidates indicating some names on their list of choices for HC. It's possible the Bears interviewed coaching candidates based on various GM candidates lists which in turn helped narrow the GM search and helped them identify which GM/HC combos might work well with our current roster. I do respect Yate's opinion and can get behind this signing. If I'm not mistaken Poles has an OL background and has a good eye for OL, if true that's something that really intrigues me as that is one area of our offense that has been a mess. He is a first time GM so there will be a learning curve, but he's been around and part of a winning organization who's done well at talent evaluation. Now that we are down to the HC search, one question that pops into my mind is whether or not we stick with a 3-4 or switch back to a 4-3 defense? We've been constructing our D roster to be a 3-4 though we're not always in 3-4. I know that's more of a DC.

My instinct makes me want to see us hire the GM then let him pick his coach rather than hire a coach and then find a GM that will accept the coach we hired. I've more and more been asking myself am I open to us doing things differently. It's possible the hires could be near simultaneous where both candidates are giving their list of who they would like to work with. Whether it's the GM giving input on which HC candidates top his list, or whether it's the HC candidate and the GM candidates that top his list. I hate to use the word but it could be a collaborative effort. We do know that outside some rare cases, the GM to HC working relationship needs to mesh well, doesn't mean they need to see eye to eye but they need to be able to work together. I'm still not on board with hiring a coach without having one or more GM candidates in mind that have stated they like the coach we hired. It's also possible that hiring a specific coach may help land the GM we want too. Bottom line if by hook or crook we finally get it right and the Bears return to being the proud franchise they once were all this will be forgotten. Here's hoping this is finally that turning point. It would be even sweeter if things turn around here as things turn south for the Packers as they likely are going to be in rebuild mode possibly without Rodgers and Adams.

Some of the negativity is earned by the Bears FO who has had a pattern of botching things and displaying a lot of ignorance when it comes to running an NFL team, fostering a winning culture, and putting a quality product on the field. I think a lot of us have grown weary of the coaching/gm turnover we've seen only to regularly hit the reset button, start a rebuild and realize we don't have the right GM/coaching staff combo for the Bears to be a winner. Yet it's the same incompetent people making the gm/coaching decisions. You have George saying the final decision is his. That doesn't inspire confidence. By bringing in Polian in to consult on the process is showing they are aware that they are deficient in football knowledge. But at the same time we've seen this movie before as well as last time we cleaned house we had Ernie in there helping with the process, and here we are again. I think we all ultimately want to see the Bears finally get this right and give the fans the winning team that we deserve to root for. Experience has taught us to be cautiously optimistic, or in some cases completely pessimistic and sure that George and Ted will screw this up again. Bottom line is we all want this ship to get righted and hope this time around we find the combination of GM/Coaches/players that can return this team to the proud franchise it once was. Whether it's a case of the blind squirrel finding a nut or with Polian's help we get this right through good consulting. We've seen it go wrong for so long that it's hard to fully look at this with a glass half full outlook. The other thing that plays in is we don't have all the info, we only see what's reported. We don't know what's going on behind the scenes, how these interviews are going, etc. So it's easy to speculate and think the worst given the team's history of making poor decisions like this. I for one am trying to stay cautiously optimistic and hoping that we finally break that cycle of cleaning house, the excitement of a fresh start and the optimism that comes from change when things were bad, then watching it play out and ending up looking forward to the next house cleaning. One positive that this restart has going for us vs the previous restart that removed Trestman and Emery is that when that change was made the locker room was downright toxic. This team is much different, there is a good core of hungry players on the team that have been held back by poor coaching. If we get the right GM and HC in place we could see things turn around sooner than some think.

Anyone else concerned that we are running simultaneous GM and HC searches? Are we doing HC interviews (assuming with George, Ted, and Polian) more so as a preliminary interview to have something to present whoever we hire as GM for when he does his own HC interviews. Are we doing these simultaneously with the idea of hiring them as a package deal GM/HC and it's George making the call with the input from Polian? I've always preferred the approach of getting your GM in place then letting him head up the HC interview process. We really need to get this right for Justin's sake. I just worry that we're putting the cart before the horse. I haven't followed every article or bit of news other than names we've interviewed for either spot and those we know are scheduled to interview. Just trying to get a handle on what seems to be our strategy in the GM/HC search.

It is sad that as a Bears fan we're relegated to rooting against the Packers in the playoffs since our team isn't in it. That said... Loved watching the Packers and their overhyped "MVP" Rodgers get knocked out in their first game of the playoffs, and even better that it was former Bear Robbie Gould hammering the nail in the coffin. This was by far the most entertaining NFL playoff weekends in some time. This game was such a defensive battle for both teams. These are the games where ST play a huge role and that is what ultimately sealed the Packer's fate. A blocked FG (cost GB 3 points) and later a blocked punt recovered for a TD (gave SF 7 points) ultimately sealed this game. GB's offense mustered only 10 points in this game, and I've heard the counter argument that "well neither offense did anything. But as hyped up as the GB offense was this year, and their MVP QB who's a future HOF, and all the praise that gets heaped on their offense there's really no other way to put it than it was a choke job. Of the two offenses in this game one was clearly more highly touted. No one was hyping up the Gimmy G lead offense. Credit to SF for bringing it defensively. Outside of the opening drive, GB mustered only 3 points for more than quarters of play. Even if you give them the FG that was blocked, that's still only 6 points for nearly an entire game. For an offense that is supposedly unstoppable. Something that jumped out to me is that Rodgers seemed to only throw to Adams I only remember a few passes that went elsewhere one of which was caught and promptly fumbled. Dillon getting injured definitely didn't help but their struggles didn't start with his exit. GB went away from the run game which was working. The passing game was meh, so they should have leaned more heavily on Jones and Dillon. Special teams for the Packers ST let them down big time, and it had been an issue all season but got masked. One of the irony's of the GB-SF game is that Gould turned out to the hero and till we got Santos we'd been searching for a dependable kicker since we cut Gould. All in all our special teams has been fairly solid especially once we put Grant back there returning kicks. It just comes to show you you need all three phases of the game playing at a high level or at least capable of stepping up to pick up the slack. If GB's ST were solid in this game, it's still a close game but they likely win it 16-3. Packer's tears are only a poor substitute for Bears cheers, here's hoping in the coming years the new GM and coaching staff can put a product on the field worth rooting for, we've been long starved for a consistent winner. I'd much rather be cheering on my team in the playoffs than taking pleasure in my teams rival choking in the playoffs.

I'd be down with this, this combo would likely mean a renewed focus on building up the OL. Till the line is fixed it will limit how good any scheme will be or at least limit the potential. Didn't really watch much playoff football this weekend. Haven't trained the new baby yet to allow me 3-6 hours on a Saturday and Sunday to watch football yet. Was surprised to see that Belichick kinda got beat at his own game. Sounds like the Bills came in prepared and were always a step ahead of NE. How refreshing would it be to have a coaching staff that actually had their team prepared and even being able to outsmart and out scheme the great Belichick. With Nagy we looked unprepared week after week, to go with the running joke of "we had a good week of practice". Whoever we get in here I want a GM who can build a winning roster, and a coaching staff that can create a game plan that is specific to his opponent week after week. Of all the rookie QB's Jones had the easiest situation to walk into. He got drafted into a playoff ready team that only asked him to play it safe. He didn't have the pressure of having to win games or be the most talented player on a crappy team with a high draft pick.

Grant definitely makes Cohen seem more expendable. What's working against Cohen is he plays at a very replaceable position. He gave us a lot of optimism early in his career, but definitely took steps backwards before his injury. I would love to see Grant stick around, he has provided a spark. I love his energy, enthusiasm, and what he brings to the return game. We haven't had someone that adds a dangerous quality to our return game for some time. It's the hidden yards and field position that make him worth keeping. As for Fields, I'm ok with him sitting out. At this point it's one game, I don't know that he would gain that much more playing. I love that he really wants to be out there and playing. He has the desire to be out there and be the best he can be. Sitting out this last game will also expose him to less hits. Let the ribs, and the ankle heal fully and go into next offseason program 100% healthy and with something to prove. We've seen flashes and we've seen him look like a rookie QB, with his work ethic and pride and desire to be great I have little concern he will put all he has learned this year and film study into next season. Hopefully under a new coach, new GM and possibly a new president of football operations. This offseason will be interesting to see what the staff and FO looks like going into 2022. What system of offense we run, what players will still be here, who will be gone, and who will be added. There's always a sense of hope/optimism surrounding a shakeup that we'll likely see this offseason, here's hoping this time we get it right.

Thing about stats is they don't always tell the full story. A QB can throw for 400+ yards in a game they lost because they had to throw to try and catch up, or chase points for example, they tell part of a story, but not the whole story. That same QB throwing for 400+ yards because they are kicking the crap out of their opponent means less garbage time stats, but then you also need to take into account the opponent. Having a career game against a bad team can inflate your stats when the stats are looked at in a vacuum. The NFC North this season has been one of the weakest divisions. Greenbay didn't hardly have to try to win the division they were going to be a 4 seed almost by default. My grandpa used always say "figures lie and liars figure" meaning stats, or numbers can be manipulated or cherry picked to prove whatever point you want them to. My main point of my post was that there are guys who definitely deserve to be in the MVP conversation. But will get overshadowed by the Marquee guys who get the name recognition. You can't argue that Rodgers isn't a generational talent and a sure first ballot HOF QB. He has made nobody's somebody's for much of his career. To the point where GB minus Rodgers is likely a 500 or below team (though maybe over 500 and in the running for the division due to the subpar competition this season). A Rodgers-less Packers team would likely be a more run heavy team. Aaron Jones, and AJ Dillan are no slouches in that department and would be Love's or whoever's best friend. I admit I hate Aaron Rodgers with a passion and will root against him in any game he plays regardless of the foe. But I'm not shortsighted enough to not recognize his talent. As a Bears fan it's hard not to be jealous at least on some level as we've struggled forever to find a franchise caliber QB while we've watched GB go from HOF QB to HOF QB. I for one am looking forward to the day when the tables are turned and I truly hope Fields can be that guy to finally become the franchise QB we've been hoping for all these years. And I hope once Rodgers leaves or retires that GB has nothing but crap at QB for at leas one to two decades and we dominate the cheese heads for a change.

Props to Quinn the dude has balled out all year and brings it every week. On top of that he’s done it without Mack and Hicks for much of the season on a team where the offense rarely does the D any favors. I like how honest and transparent he was about why he didn’t live up to expectations last year and then backed it up on the field. He has been one of the few bright spots on a dumpster fire of a season.

Sometimes it seems more about the story or narrative than the on field value. All the drama in the off-season, then he returns to the team and they go 13-3. Look how he overcame adversity (insert eyeroll) to lead his team to the number one seed in the NFC and “earned” back to back MVP awards. Take Adams away and their record is vastly more down to earth. Still a playoff team but not a #1 seed. Sure you can also make the argument that GB without Rodgers is a sub 500 team. But a lot has to be the narratives and the stories that can be written. Chris Collinsworthless makes the broadcast unwatchable unless your name is Aaron Rodgers (in which case you are a diva and loves that it’s all about you) or your a spoiled Packer fan. For the rest of us we’re more likely to injure ourselves rolling our eyes than share his man crush. It’s worse than Maddens man crush on Favre. At least Madden talked about other aspects of the game and other players. Cris won’t shut up about Rodgers this and Rodgers that. Rodgers is more capable of losing in the NFC championship game than reaching the SB. Candidates I think are more deserving include Jonathan Taylor, Burrow, Justin Herbert., And maybe Brady. Problem with the MVP is it’s not always about the best or most valuable player in the league. Record, playoff position, marquee status, ratings, and potential storylines sadly often rob guys more potentially deserving.

Tuesday at 5:35 pm est this week we welcomed the newest Bears fan to our family. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and measured 19” long. Mother and Baby are doing well, she did really well on the ride home this evening.

Plus it's putting a lot on a rookie to start at center vs a rookie starting at guard. The center QB exchange takes time to gel and isn't as plug and play.

The thought of draft position was in the back of my mind watching the game (and frankly has been on my mind for awhile now). When we won I did think about us winning a meaningless game that likely will hurt draft position, but, at the end of the day we'll draft where we draft. We want to see a culture of winning in Chicago, for the guys who will still be on the team next year under the new regime wins do help. There are guys out there still fighting despite all the negatives swirling around the team those guys are showing they have value to either stick around with the team or auditioning for their next stop in their careers. I don't want to get too caught up in draft position and at my core I don't like tanking for position as it's not the mentality you want to have. Doesn't mean I won't keep an eye our potential draft position but it's not going to make me root for a loss. One thing to keep in mind is wherever we do draft, it won't be Pace making the picks, I just hope that whoever is can turn our draft capitol situation around and draft better so we don't have to have so many bad contracts and overspend to fill holes created by bad drafting. That said I do think Pace has improved over the years in the draft and has done well finding some gems mid draft and later. But we need to get out of this cycle of giving away early draft capitol and constantly borrowing from the future to patch the present.

Seeing the way the Lion's players are still fighting hard even the way their season has gone win/loss wise tells me they may have found a coach who can turn that team around. They've been in nearly every game, but just have come up short. There have been some bad Detroit teams who at this point have given up. This team hasn't.

Let's face it Nagy has never been the most up front coach. But, at this point he knows he's gone, has to know, he looks, and sounds checked out. Can't say I blame him on some level, when you know your cooked and nothing will change that inevitable firing your heart and mind isn't in it any longer. His players know he's on the way out which is partly why the locker room is more and more dysfunctional. I'm sure there's guys in the locker room who support Nagy, and guys who would put him on a bus to nowhere. Some players are still fighting out there, while others have clearly mailed it in and are making business decisions. The writing's been on the wall most of the season if not sooner. We are dealing with what most of us knew we'd be dealing with when they failed to pull the plug last offseason and kept everyone around for one more year. All that did was set the team in a holding pattern of circling the drain. I do hope the rumblings of Teddy moving away from football operations, and we do see a restructure of the front office and finally get real football minds in place to turn this franchise around. A shake up is needed beyond HC/GM.

Fields is the key, and will also be a player that makes the Bears HC job attractive. There is much debate over which method is best hiring a HC who is just the CEO, and focusing on great OC and DC's to shape your offense and defense. Or getting a HC who has a large role in either the offense or the defense. There's reasons for and against each situation. If your offense or defense is hot mainly because of the coordinator, they will get plucked away, and the best ones often have HC aspirations anyway. Having an offensive or defensive specialized HC if successful does protect that side of the ball where his expertise lies, but can lead to the issue where HC is no longer just a head coach and focuses too much on one side or the other and in our case does neither fully well. Nagy would benefit more from just focusing on being the CEO/head coach rather than call plays on offense, he just can't help himself but to keep his hand in that cookie jar to the detriment of the team and himself he thinks too highly of himself as an offensive minded coach. That's where regardless of the approach you go to whether it's HC is head coach and Coordinators run their side, or HC is HC/OC or HC/DC. The success or failure always comes back to finding the right person to run the team. They were talking about this the other day on the radio, and you can look at Belichick in NE. He is a defensive minded coach who's heavily involved In the defense, but, he's doesn't ignore the offense even though he's had solid play calling from his OC's he has the ability to translate/reverse engineer his defensive knowledge to aid his offensive players to teach them how to attack defense, and what makes various defenses vulnerable. They also talked about (and agree) there are some coach who are just head and shoulders above the rest and they are special and rare. The easy thing to want to do is follow this coach or that coach's coaching tree, hoping one of the branches is as strong as the trunk. Sometimes these coaches from a respective tree show promise early and fizzle. Some of them pan out. What we need to look for first and foremost is a HC who can game plan, and adapt to the talent he has on his roster. You want a coach that is versatile in style not stubborn, thick headed, or smartest man in the room types. NFL defenses will always adapt to stop what's working, you need to be able to adjust with them, be able to add wrinkles, keep things fresh and stay a step ahead. Belichick has been a master at evolving his team's style as his roster evolves. In game management and adjustments are critical as well. Too often under Nagy we've entered a game looking completely unprepared, and rarely if ever do we adjust in game. Or we'll look good early but once the game goes off script the wheels fall off. I think it's also very important to have defined roles/boundaries within the staff. We have chaos on offense because Naggy want's to have control over play calling, gives it up to Laser, takes credit when Laser's offense has success, then will at times take over, to where you never know who's driving the car on offense, and I'm sure that has to be frustrating to the players not knowing who to listen to. Naggy lacks the self awareness to realize his plays don't work with any consistency and that he should have handed off play calling duties to a full time OC, whether that's Laser or someone else. You can still be heavily involved in the offensive meetings and such but when your play calling is not working be man enough to admit it and do what's best for the team rather than your ego. I do tend to prefer a HC have a specialization in one side or the other or even a former ST guy who's worked with both offensive and defensive players. Specializations do tend to protect a strong offense or strong defense, with Fields I'd tend to prefer an offensive minded coach, but I want one who will be involved in both sides of the ball, but at the same time will trust his coordinators and position coaches and not meddle and blur the lines of what the staffs roles are. Players need to have a leader, who's in charge, doesn't have to be a tyrant, but you know he's at the top of the command chain, but he trusts the coaches under him to do their jobs.

R. Smith will be a good chunk of change when we extend him, and we should do so. I'd rather deal Mack, Jackson, and Trevathan, and use the money saved towards paying Roquan, and trying to keep Quinn (never thought I'd say that after last year's version of Quinn). Quinn has earned the chance to stick around. Mack gives flashes, and he's looked far more like himself this season when he was healthy which has been less and less often. I think our highest priority in the draft should be CB and WR. Having a true stud #1 WR is probably not a realistic hope for next year. But an offense can be as successful with multiple solid #2 types and in some ways it's better to have multiple solid #2's and some solid #3's than having a stud #1 and a collection of Meh behind him where defenses will shut him down and make you one dimensional. Having multiple quality weapons at the WR/TE position spreads the D out more and they can't just focus on one player. Let AROB go, draft one or two quality #2's with high end potential, add some vets and call it a day. Perhaps 2023 draft will give us a shot at a stud #1 to add to a solid WR group from 2022. The line does need addressed, I feel like our interior is where our line's strength is, so we need to figure out our LT & RT going forward. I feel like the group we have we can field a solid RG, C, LG. As always finding the bookends to the line is the biggest challenge. With the games remaining we need to see if Jenkins can develop at either tackle spot. Borom has shown some promise as well. Haven't done much looking at potential draft prospects at either LT or RT in the 2022 draft. Figuring this out though is going to be the key regardless of who's coaching next year. But whoever it is will impact which pieces get moved where. Looking ahead, I'm trying to remember if we have given up any 2023 draft capitol at this point yet. It would be nice to go into a draft for once with a full slate of picks. We keep borrowing from the future to try and patch the present, and we need to stop that. If Pace survives the offseason I hope that means sweaty teddy is gone and Pace moves into his role and we get a new GM, who'll bring in the next coach, etc. I think the Phillips role would better suit Pace, and I do think our scouting team has done a good job, and Pace has show an improved eye for talent, which would be a big upgrade over Phillips who's just a bean counter where as Pace could grow nicely into that position. It'd still allow him to provide input to the GM in a way that we don't have now.

If Jenkins is able to work his way into more reps and can become the player we hoped when we took him, and Borom pans out as well, this could be looked back at as a key draft for the future of the team. Whether or not Pace hangs on or gets chopped with Naggy, there are for sure some pieces to build on that should be enticing to a potential HC candidate and even coordinators. While Pace trades up more than I'd like, I can't deny his drafts especially the last couple years or so have had some nice finds. He'll never shake the move to give up a ton to move up 1 spot to take Mitch when in all likelihood he'd have been there at 3. That will probably be the move that defines him if he's indeed released this offseason. Whoever is making the moves beyond this season and whoever we get to coach has some good potential, just need to clean up the dead weight and fine tune the roster. It's an opportunity that should be very attractive since the team doesn't need a full ground up rebuild.

Very cool, always like Mitch as a person, wish him all the best. Shame things didn't work out for him in Chicago. Maybe he'll get another shot somewhere to start.