DABEARSDABOMB

Holmgren has been successful everywhere but Cleveland and in Cleveland he had to go through ownership hell. I think he would be a fantastic hire.

Completely agree with you.

I have zero problem with Winston the QB. I think he's handsdown the best QB to come out since Luck from a pure skills perspective is worthy of being the top pick. The real question is how does he grade out from an intangible perspective, has he matured, what is the real story behind some of the issues, etc. Dude is the anti-Cutler when you look at his ability to win, make plays late, etc. Played in a pro offense and has handled absurd pressure. I still don't think the writing is on the wall yet with Cutler. If the next coach thinks Jay can work in the short-term while the team builds up other areas, than I could see us drafting a QB in the 2nd / 3rd round territory and being a little patient. If we plan to move Jay, than I don't see any scenario where you don't take a QB very early. It isn't like we have some great in-house option. Fales probably isn't that guy either. He was drafted to play in Trestman's system so unless the next guy likes him, he's probably gone.

Late round draft picks have very high failure rates. A lot of them get picked and very few turn into Brady / Russell. Flacco was a very high pick. To me, I'm looking at guys that play in pro-systems if I am drafting them early. I just can't use an early pick on a spread offense guy.

Completely agree. He has come out of this looking like a rose and a much more mature person than he was 3 or 4 years ago. His time has come to an end but he has been very professional during this saga.

Totally agree.

If this really was Trestman's call, it would appear to be the first time he's ever disciplined anyone. I wonder if he's finally snapped and said, fine, I'm doing this and maybe everyone will realize it.

Sounds like Trestman & Company think Cutler has been a total mess and since they know they are going down, they are going to at least show that they can do it with far lesser QB's. I just think they made this decision too late. Had they done it 4 weeks ago, maybe it makes a difference.

These tweets are telling: @MikeSilver What I just said on @nflnetwork : Bears offensive players believe Clausen will 'light it up,' simply because he'll run offense as prescribed @MikeSilver I'm told Trestman felt he could no longer play Cutler 'simply to justify a contract' when his performance was so poor... @MikeSilver Also: Cutler has been looking great in practice but 'seeing ghosts' once he steps over the white lines... @MikeSilver I'm told it was a 'coaching decision' to bench Cutler for Clausen--meaning Trestman, not Emery, made this call. Silver later said he had 15 sources on this. 15!!! What does that say about the feelings for Cutler within the organization??

Makes sense. Awful.

Re: 09 - 11, how does that compare with the league?

I'm guessing this is probably Trestman saying, I'm not that bad, look at what I can do with Claussen, he isn't that bad. Or on the flip side, maybe Bears brass things Claussen will stink and it will be more evidence as to how bad the coaching was and thus give other teams looking at Cutler more hope that they can fix him? Otherwise it really doesn't make a lot of sense. One alternative theory I have is, Bears think Cutler is going to stick around, but they want to at least send a message to him to really shake him up and let him know his schtick can't continue so that he's more ready to accept a new coach? I don't know, might be grasping at straws here.

Dilfer?

This is surprising. I wonder who is pushing this. I wonder if someone is saying...before you dump Trestman, at least give him a shot with another QB to prove himself or if Trestman has finally spoke up? Would be very interesting to be a fly in the wall at halas hall.

I absolutely agree 1000% with what you are saying. I think it is hard for that coach to make that decision purely based on film and without having worked with the QB, though. I think the only real decision a coach could make is say look, I like his tools but he needs to work on x,y, and z. I can talk to him up front and get a gauge but until we go through an off-season and a season together, I won't know for certain. After this year I will know and in the meantime I don't buy into any of the QB's in this draft anyway blah blah blah.

It seems to be that if anything, we should have taken more of a hard line stance and done the same to Briggs / Tillman / Peppers and basically cleaned house so the new coaching scheme had their chance to put a stamp on things without veterans already placing blame. That seems to be what a lot of experts would think would be the right approach. To me I think there is a fine line between that and you need to know the character of those leaders and how they respond to change / handle change and also the personality of the coaches and track records of winning players over, etc, to better make that decision.

I believe if you trade him, you benefit from the cap perspective (12M in savings) but also I think we get a legitimate cash savings, which would be huge in the eyes of the McCaskey's and might help influence them to spend some more money on a coach / front office tandem, etc.

You really couldn't make this stuff up.

Rumor out of Washington that Snyder is interested in Cutler and is considering swapping picks and sending us Kirk Cousins for Jay Cutler. I presume he is tired of drafting QB's and figures that would give the Skins a bit more stability. For us, Cousins is someone we could at least utilize a bit while we use the Redskins pick to draft a franchise QB (if think he is in this draft). Obviously no deal is going to be made now, but man that would be awesome!

Honestly...I don't know that I can give the Bears that much grief over Urlacher. I think in hindsight we should have done the same thing with our other veterans too. I think having Urlacher around might have only been worse (unless of course he was entirely bought in to the new scheme, etc). I also will still point out that no other team in the league thought he was worth it as well. Love the dude and he was clearly a great leader and controlled our lockeroom and did amazing things but when it is near the end, not much to be done. We probably could have handled the seperation with more class though.

Personally if that is the case, I really don't see why they don't do it. I think the problem is, you fire him and than turn the show over to Kromer (can't do that). You turn it to Tucker? Can't do that. You turn it to Joey D? Can't do that. Only thing you could do is turn it to someone like Hoke as a reward for his loyalty (but is that really a reward). When everything is on fire, you probably just stick it out till the bitter end of the season. But I certainly have no problem doing it now...at least than we don't have to worry about the Bears coming out and shocking the world and winning two consecutive games and the McCaskey's getting cold feet.

This is not a good sign for Emery.

I think our coaching dysfunction will actually help us in that category as I think other teams will be convinced it is a Bear issue and that they can win with him. Plus, if you are a team with a good defense and solid offensive playmakers, picking in the middle of the 1st round, you really don't have great odds at hitting so have to look at the FA market. Jay will most certainly be a guy that can be moved. Not saying we will get some great picks for him but I would be stunned if there wasn't a taker for him, not in this league.

I agree with you on all points and I certainly wasn't saying Tucker is good. He isn't but out of all of our coaches, I will at least give him some credit for actually getting some effort out of our players. It really says something that the guy who has headed up our franchise worst defense is the best of our primary coaches. Pathetic.

Agree on Emery but I don't think anyone would complain if Emery was let go.