adam

Watching some more of Fields' play. Even when he is throwing on time, over the middle, or in his progressions, he still has this hitch. He doesn't hit his back foot and just throw it. He either does a little hop, almost does a subconscious little pump fake, or a double clutch. I am seeing this even on what most would deem the good throws. Not all the throws, but a lot of them. He seems way more comfortable throwing on the move, it is so weird. He also drifts in the pocket, a few times towards an Edge Defender who is going wide. If he stayed center, he could step up, but because he drifted, the Edge is on his back shoulder a step faster than it should be. At the end of the day, he seems like a super athletic dude trying to play QB. He has done it long enough to make some nice plays but it is not natural for him. Watching this again makes me so pissed at Getsy. What the hell are some of these route combinations? They literally draw defenders in. In some cases, it allows them to cover 3 receivers with 2 defenders, terrible play designs. There is also not may receivers open. Even with Moore, he has to make a lot of contested catches, or is hit right away. Here is a good video with a whole bunch of clips put together:

Also, sometimes guys are better in a 2nd gig, and in this case Kliff would not immediately go from Boys2Men as the HC like he did with the Cards. Being an OC when you already have a HC would allow him to solely focus 100% of his attention on the offense.

Everything looks solid outside of the player trades beyond Fields. All the trades incur some dead money. For Whitehair and Jackson, the dead money is the same for a cut or a trade. No one is trading for Whitehair. For Jackson, the trading team would have a $12.5M cap hit. My assumption is Jackson is restructured or cut before free agency. Whitehair is almost a 100% guarantee cut candidate. Mooney is a FA, so he can't be traded.

I know there is a lot of concern about the Bears not having a 2nd round pick, but technically their #9 pick is their 2nd pick, just 23+ picks early (like a free trade up). If they go QB at #1, they have to go WR if Nabers or Odunze are on the board at #9. If not, I think you trade down with that pick. If they keep Fields and trade down from #1, then I would still apply the same theory. Get one WR, then consider trading down from #9 as well. So something like 1 to 3, then select MHJ, gain a 2nd, move from 9 to the teens and gain another 2nd rounder. That would be sweet. 4 picks in the top 60.

Here is the consensus Big Board where they take all the popular big boards and compile them into a consensus list: https://www.nflmockdraftdatabase.com/big-boards/2024/consensus-big-board-2024?pos=ALL Interesting that #1 is Williams and #9 is Odunze. This is not mock draft positions, but BPA rankings.

He flip flops like a salmon running. Kingsbury is not my top pick, but would definitely be higher with his knowledge of Williams' game. It is good to at least see the Bears not being cheap with this hire.

The good thing is this group is light years ahead of the one where they picked Getsy from. They learned their lesson.

Yes, they hit that with Thomas Brown and Marcus Brady.

Getsy wouldn't even be in the top 10 on this list lol.

My updated preference list: 1. Shane Waldron 2. Klint Kubiak — Tier Break — 3. Zac Robinson (McVay experience, former QB) 4. Kliff Kingsbury (move him to top tier if drafting Caleb) 5. Thomas Brown (OC experience, former RB) — Tier Break — 6. Marcus Brady (OC experience, former QB) 7. Liam Coen (former QB) 8. Greg Roman (move him to 2nd tier if keeping Fields) 9. Greg Olson

It could also be to get intel on Caleb. Now they are making teams really hedge their bets as you really don't know which way Poles is going to go.

And Kliff, now things are getting interesting: There would be negative zero chance that they hire him and NOT draft Caleb.

CTE candidate. Dude was a nobody, he had like 1 ok season playing his entire career with Brett Favre. That says a lot.

Also interviewing Zac Robinson, Passing Game Coordinator/QBs Coach for the Rams and Marcus Brady, he is currently on the Eagles staff and was the OC in Indy under Reich, worked with Flus.

Pretty much lol, recency bias at its finest.

It's a business. Very rarely do you have teammates that are together for more than 4-5 years anyway. I would say it is extremely rare to have teammates longer than that unless you join the team relatively at the same time, and both sign long term extensions.

They could be waiting on Kubiak, who has a game on Saturday night. If they beat GB, he is hired. If they lose to GB, the Bears go in a different direction, lol.

So Ryan Leaf reincarnated?

Here is a list of the OC candidates who have had interviews: 1. Shane Waldron - SEA OC (SEA beat DET this season) 2. Klint Kubiak - SF Passing Game Coordinator (SF lost to MIN and plays GB this weekend) 3. Thomas Brown - CAR OC (CAR basically lost to everone) ------------------------------------------------ 4. Liam Coen - Kentucky OC (Kentucky scored a lot of pts against good SEC teams) 5. Greg Roman - Ex-BAL OC (castoff, might be better for a lower position, like Run Game Coordinator) 6. Greg Olson - SEA QB Coach (SEA beat DET this season) I prefer one of the top 3.

Another one: McVay assistant before going to Carolina. Well regarded around the league, made Thielen into a 1K receiver at 33 yrs old, something he hadn't done since 2018.

Is it cockiness, arrogance, or selfishness?

The weirdest thing for me to see is the lack of touch. It seems like all he has is a fastball, which can work 60% of the time, but there are times where there needs to be some air underneath the ball, especially on some screen passes, and I have rarely seen him do that. That also makes for a much more catchable ball. He does have a changeup, but that is when he changes his arm angle, but that is still not really a touch pass.

This also can be a huge smoke screen. Obviously, if there is a trade announced before the draft, they are trading the pick. However, we won't know for sure if he is actually selecting a QB at #1 until the pick is in. So even if there are no pre-draft trades, there is nothing stopping a team on draft day from pulling the trigger on a trade. The suspense is going to crazy. Today is exactly 100 days until the NFL draft, they have a timer here: https://visitdetroit.com/2024nfldraft/ So yes, we may have to wait 100 days until we find out.

I am not a scout, so all I can do is go off what others are saying. When I read stuff like this, from analysts I believe are fairly consistent, it sort of makes it a no brainer: “I just think he’s a rare, rare talent and I can’t see the Chicago Bears bypassing that,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said about Williams. "I don’t know what he’ll do, but I can tell you what other NFL teams believe he’ll do: trade Justin Fields and draft a quarterback at No. 1. This is as much a financial decision as it is a football decision". - Dane Brugler, The Athletic from last year's final mock: "I don’t know what the Panthers are going to do, but I can tell you what other teams believe the Panthers are going to do: draft Young." That to me seems very interesting. I know it means nothing, but the parallels are pretty crazy from this perspective. Brugler predicted the top 4 picks, including Richardson to Indy at #4. He also had Levis going to TEN at #11, but talked about the need to build their OLine. They actually picked Skoronski at #11 and Levis fell to them in the 2nd round. He had Joey Porter going to PIT at 17, he went there at 32. He had JSN going to SEA at 20, he did. Zay Flowers to BAL at 22, he did.

I need to look into how many teams selected a QB #1 when they were not the worst team in the league (either via trade like the Bears, or they traded up for the pick). CAR was 7-10 the year before they traded up for Bryce Young! ? LAR was 7-9 the year before trading up for Goff. ATL was 4-12 the year before trading up for Vick in 2001 draft. Those are the only 3 instances since 2000 where a team other than the worst team in the league was picking a QB at #1. The Bears would be the first team to gain the pick without having to trade up for it. Does anyone ever remember another case where a team acquired the #1 overall pick and didn't trade up for it?