adam

I wonder if the Waldron hire tips the scales a little bit towards keeping Fields? An established playcaller is going to be expected to come right in and excel whereas it feels like a new playcaller would get a couple of years. Also, looking back at Waldron's resume, he really has never worked with a rookie QB. At first, he worked with Goff, who had several years in the league by the time Waldron was involved with QBs, then Russell Wilson in Seattle, then Geno Smith, then even Drew Lock (27 yrs old). So Goff at 25 and 26 were his youngest QBs he worked with as a QB Coach or OC. Fields will be 25, Williams will be 23.

For the Bears to get back to .500 in this century, they would have to go 10-7 for the next 9 seasons, lol.

So I saw a thread on Twitter on how SB winning teams have never had a QB that took more than 15% of the cap in any year to date. Which is odd considering most of the SBs were won by Brady, Roethlisberger, Mahomes, and Flacco over the last 20 years. So I looked back to year 2000 to see what were the top 10 teams in terms of winning pct, how many HC's they had, how many different leading QBs they had, playoff appearances, SB appearances, and SB wins. The Bears were 21st over this span with a 181-206 record, which is sad. So what stands out below is the top of the top teams have had the same HC or only 1-2 over the last 20+ years. Secondly, over that same time, most of them had only 4-5 QBs over that same span, which is impressive. The best teams made it to the playoffs 2/3 of the time. Besides NE, even the next few teams had 3 SB appearances in that span (once every 8 years), and a few other teams won multiple. This is why hitting on the HC and QB are critical. Do we have the right HC for a long term to get the Bears back to the SB? Is Fields the QB that is going to spend the next decade plus with an extended playoff run? Looking at this, I think they made a mistake with Flus, but didn't want to fire him and have to pay two HCs. I think they are going to be doubly wrong if they think Fields is the guy to build around, but at the same time, if they draft a QB, then fire Flus, we are back at the clown cycle.

Joe Barry? Please not another GB coach.

Of the players listed here, who are you resigning, who exceeded expectations: Obviously JJ did, Mooney was terrible, Ngakoue underperformed, Tonyan was a joke, Patrick was bad, Jones was ok, Foreman had flashes but his inactives were odd. Scales if fine, really didn't get to see Feeney, so that ends up as sort of a wasted draft pick trade. Lewis was very solid for TE3, Green was terrible, Taylor was serviceable at best. Did Cole play? ESB underperformed this year and seemed hurt or inactive more than anything. Blackwell was decent from what I remember. Reed did nothing. So there are a lot of roster spots to fill, and most could use upgrades.

I found that very interesting. There are a couple of ways you can take that. No offense to anyone or sports players in general, but they are not always well spoken. With that said, I can think of a few scenarios: 1. The most popular one, they disliked all the attention Williams got, and with him gone, it's not all about him anymore. They can play as a team and not hero ball. 2. They were finally winning and dominating like they thought they should be. So they are a team now to watch out for. No one was respecting them. They now a team.

Kerry Joseph hired as QB Coach, he is coaching at the Senior Bowl too.

If you can get MHJ, Latu, and JPJ, it is already a huge draft, but to get Kinchens and Morgan too. That would be impressive.

10 wins has to be the target next year. I would say anything less than 9 and he is probably gone because you can fall backwards into an extra win per year just on per luck. Normally 3 wins is true progress. 11 would be exceeding that for me. If he does that, let's keep it up, but chances are Waldron is gone.

Rarely do you see players say bad things about other players, unless they are the diva types that say it about everyone. Most of the time, they know it's a business, and they are not going to get into other people's business by actually telling them the truth. They will say the generic things like he is a good leader, good teammate, etc. Unless they come out and say a player is top 5 of their position or some high level compliment, more times than not they are just being polite.

I am not saying that, but they should show something, anything. Even if the production is not there, show flashes. Scott showed that he can drop the ball on all routes, stop short and allow easy INTs, and fumble the ball when you do actually catch it. He may not be a bust, but he has a long way to go to even be a vet minimum bottom of the roster player. Not all 4th rounders work out, but man, he just looks lost out there.

NBC Sports Chicago has a new mock, it has the Bears drafting Williams, then trading #9+Fields+2025 6th for #3, and with #3 the Bears draft MHJ. Thoughts? https://www.nbcsportschicago.com/nfl/chicago-bears/bears-draft/mock-draft-has-fields-headed-to-patriots-in-blockbuster-bears-trade/535151/

I agree. With good coordinators and position coaches, Flus if fine. The playcallers have the biggest impact on the outcome of the games, not a head coaches usage of a challenge twice a game.

exactly, so Harbaugh was never an option unless Poles was gone.

I will say Getsy did not do Flus any favors. Either did Williams lol. If you had to place a percentage of blame on each coach and player for the losses, more blame would be on Getsy and Williams than anyone. The next person is probably Fields, but it's not because he didn't try or give it 110%. Getsy had terrible play calls, and when they were better calls, Fields missed the open guy. My assumption is Fields is gone, and Waldron + [Insert QB Name] will look light years better than Getsy+Fields did in 2023. The team will have 10+ wins and Flus may even get some votes for CotY even though not much has changed. For Fields, can you imagine if the team/offense starts our slow next season? There would be boos and calls for Bagent after the first INT or 3 and out. I just don't think that is good for Fields long term career. I think his camp is happy to move on and reset somewhere else where expectations won't be so high. That is why you are seeing social media posts of him working out already. I thought that was odd considering we know he is an athletic beast, I would've rather seen him throwing quick slants right when his backfoot hits in his dropback without a hitch.

Based on what draft analysts are saying, the Oregon Center will probably go in the mid to late 2nd round. The Bears really need a 2nd round pick if they want a chance to get him.

Scott was 7th in his conference in receiving yards, behind guys who got drafted after him. It was his speed. He was a junior Olympic sprinter, but that clearly did not translate to the field as he outran no one. College is weird because if you have a specific trait that is just better than your opponent, you can look very solid. Dudes that are older dominate 18 yr olds when they are 24. Dudes with speed outrun 90% of the players they face, bigger dudes dominate smaller players like they are playing middle schoolers. Once you make the leap to the NFL, 99% of the time, that edge is gone and you need more than just that to be a solid player. That is all that Scott had and it was normalized in the NFL. He was not a good route runner, he was not strong, so all he had was his speed. This was one of his weaknesses: Limited catch radius and lacking hand size/strength.

Also remember, Harbaugh wanted more control over the roster, so Poles would've needed to be fired as well. The GM coming into LAC is just a dude by name and title only.

This is clearly a Kevin Warren thing now. Him and Harbaugh obviously didn't get along due to the COVID year in the B10. There is no other way around it, you can't tell me Harbaugh is not jumping at the opportunity if it was presented to him to coach the team that drafted him. At least he is in the AFC and West no less. Good luck Vegas and Denver, you might as well fold your franchises as you ain't doing nothing for at least the next decade with Mahomes and Harbaugh in your conference.

Yes, like Puka and Tank Dell. Both were highly praised at the Senior Bowl, yet the Bears drafted Tyler Scott. Here were all the players from the Senior Bowl last year that were drafted: https://www.nflmockdraftdatabase.com/senior-bowl-roster-2023 We got Wright, Tyrique, Roschon, and Pickens from there. The Bears got up close and personal with Puka, Wicks, Trey Palmer, and Michael Wilson and selected Tyler Scott instead.

I heard he was connected to Philly a year or two ago and it didn't line up. Now with them needing a DC, it looks like he may go there.

This is hard for me to believe, but on a Podcast, I heard that Williams has never taken a snap under center. Is that correct? So he never even did a QB sneak from that formation? Seem almost impossible. I can understand him being in shotgun a lot, but NEVER under center seems crazy to me.

He is the top Center, and if he performs well at the combine, he is probably going to be a 2nd round pick, which the Bears do not have.

Interesting that Flus had to "defend" Fields. That implies something negative was stated about Fields. Why else would you have to "defend" a player in an interview? To me that sounds like pure narrative building on the Bears side. In a way, that also sounds like finger pointing towards Getsy, which would be an odd thing to do when you are hiring the new guy for the same position. If they want Waldron, they are going to basically say whatever he wants to hear. Remember they drafted Wright over Carter, and at the time, that was strictly culture. At the same time, can the Bears keep losing when they don't have a QB that steps up in the 4th quarter? I have no clue what they are going to do. My gut says they draft a QB because Poles has yet to pick his guy. If he doesn't go QB, and this whole plan flops in 2024, he might be the first GM that stayed with a franchise for 3+ years that got fired before ever drafting his own QB.

Dallas has #24, #56, and #88, and no 4th rounder this year. To move from #24 to #1 is massive. Even if you consider Dak as a first round pick equivalent, it would take #24, #56, Dak, a 2025 1st, and a 2026 1st at a minimum. Probably another mid round pick in a future year too. That might be too rich for a team that is already close.