Bears4Ever_34

Yeah, it would irk me if the Bears passed on a better deal for the sake of Justin. The Bears should only be concerned about what's in the best interest of what makes their team better. That said, I'd love to know the difference in compensation. You're right in that it could be a question of sending him to another conference for a slightly lower pick. If it's anything more than that, though, that's a problem.

Hard to believe we live in a world where Kenny Pickett can warrant a 3rd round pick, but Justin Fields only nets a conditional 6th. I get the contracts play a part in the matter, but a 3 round difference in compensation is wild to me. I don't think Justin Fields is good, but he's certainly better than Pickett. The reality of the situation is that Fields' lack of scheme versatility in combination with the contract and awful 4th quarter performances really cratered his value to teams. He played like a low-end starter this year and was in the bottom 3rd of the league in almost every major passing category. It sucks, but I'm glad it's over and we can move on to finally discussing the next soon-to-be quarterback in Chicago (Caleb Williams) with a clearer mind.

I wholeheartedly believe this sentiment explains 99% of the blowback against Caleb Williams. I think you can throw out the draft haul part of it. There is a subsection of "fans" who legitimately are losing their minds over the possibility of Justin Fields being traded. They've dug themselves into the idea that he's good—in my opinion, due to the insane amount of social media trolling that took place last year during that 5 or 6 game stretch where he actually played well. I think now there's been a massive over-correction on the other side of the argument with people who are now defending Fields out of spite. The Caleb hate is coming primarily from these same people sublimating their frustrations on to him. A perfect example of this would have been after the Notre Dame game. It was embarrassing to see how many Bears fans were celebrating it. Even if the Bears weren't going to take him at the time, you still should want to see him play well to make the pick more valuable, but they didn't care—which just goes to show how irrational and insecure they've become. It dilutes the entire conversation.

Williams is going to be great. I think he's virtually dispelled just about every myth that has come out over the past few months, ranging from his height, to his leadership, to his willingness to play in Chicago. This has been a pretty rough week for all his detractors. He seems like a good kid who handles himself well despite the absurdities of his father constantly trying to do dumb shit that his son gets blamed for. He'll be the most talented quarterback prospect the Bears have ever drafted. If you can't get excited about that, I think you're probably lying to yourself.

He'll stay because they'll use the defensive improvement and win total increase as justification to bring him back, even though they had one of the easiest schedules in football and had only one quality win against a good team all year. Saw a report from a supposedly credible guy who noted the Bears are pushing for Jim Harbaugh, but would pivot back to Eberflus if he goes somewhere else. https://www.sportskeeda.com/nfl/news-latest-jim-harbaugh-nfl-one-team-cold-michigan-hc-bides-time

100%. Bears have a much better roster than the Texans. They just don't have a quarterback nearly as good. Fields relies too heavily on his playmaking ability to make up for his pocket deficiencies. He's been a below average passer for 3 years and has lead the NFL in 4th quarter turnovers since coming in to the league. If he was special, you would almost certainly know it by now. We are repeating the same mistake we made with Cutler. If you have to keep telling yourself you need better playmakers and coaches around the quarterback to make him better, the quarterback is the problem.

Good to see Fields boosting that trade value back up after 2 consecutive bad performances throwing the ball. ATL might be desperate enough now to give us a 1st round pick. Not sure what the temperature of this board is, but my opinion on this discussion hasn't changed at all. The numbers over the last 3 years tell you Fields is still in the bottom half of the league as a starter. Each of the past 2 seasons he's been the worst 4th quarter quarterback in football. He only has 1 true game winning drive in his career, and he's below league average in every major passing category, still, even with minor improvements all 3 years. That should tell you a lot. For some reason, this has turned into a difficult conversation amongst the fanbase. The fans seem to be 80/20 in favor of Fields while virtually everyone outside of Chicago seems to be 20/80.

Btw, Caleb Williams just liked a tweet from some dumbass Fields fanboy telling him the city wants Fields and they should draft MHJ. Hard to tell if he's making some sort of preemptive statement about where he wants to play (or doesn't), or if he's doing it to keep receipts. Here's the tweet he liked:

One more CAR loss guarantees the Bears the #1 pick. I'm still nervous as hell, though, because JAC might not have Lawrence next week after leaving the game again because of a shoulder. He's been banged up this past month, and the Jaguars are going through their worst stretch of the entire season right now. TB could very well be playing for nothing week 18 and rest some or most of their starters. We need to root for N.O next week to beat them to ensure that game will mean something.

I feel like the draft order is going to determine whether or not Eberflus is fired and/or Fields is brought back. I think the drop off from Caleb Williams to Drake Maye or Jayden Daniels is wide enough that I'm not sure the Bears consider moving off Fields for that. And, if you're not moving off Fields, you're probably not going to change coaches unless you can find one who is really sold on Fields.

CAR beating the Falcons really leaves the door open for NE to steal that spot, like the Bears did at the end of last season. Also, SEA winning that damn game on Mon really hosed up the SOS advantage the Panthers were building on N.E. Now everything is tied up again. I don't think the Packers are bad enough to lose the Panthers this week, but I worry about JAC if Lawrence isn't healed yet from his concussion. I also reaaaaaaally worry about the last game of the season against TB, because that game could end up meaning nothing for the Bucs. If they go 0-2 or 2-0 over the next two games, they'll either be divisional champs or out of the playoffs all together. Either we really need to get lucky with the SOS, or we best hope the Patriots can beat the Jets in the last game. I suspect Bill Belichick will be doing everything he can to win what looks like his last game as a Patriots head coach. The Patriots have also beaten the Jets like 15 or 16 times in a row, so maybe a little room for optimism. Either way, this thing is going to come down to the wire. I'm nervous.

Roschon looks to me like a special teams guy or maybe a 3rd down RB, nothing more. He's NFL slow. He's not very explosive and has almost no wiggle to his game whatsoever, at least that I've seen at the NFL level. I don't see much of a burst to his game. Overall, these Bears RB's seem to fall down a lot on minimal contact. They need to add a 4.3 guy to this roster next year who can threaten a defense on the perimeter. I still think Velus Jones is worth the experiment at RB, but I don't know if you can trust his ball security.

Makes me nervous about his ability to scout offensive skill position players. Jones Jr is a certified bust, but Tyler Scott and Roschon Johnson have both had pretty underwhelming rookie seasons. The Claypool trade will go down as an all time bad decision, and Tonyan, while not a costly signing, has been a complete nonfactor.

Kind of crazy to think WR has gone from what we thought would be a position of strength this year, back to being an incredible weakness. Moore, Mooney, and Claypool, on paper, looked like a potential top 10 core heading into this season. Claypool is gone and can't play anymore, and I'm not sure Mooney is that far behind him after today. The guy looks like Allen Robinson his last year in Chicago. Quitting on plays, dropping passes, lackadaisical effort. DJ moore appears to be the only legit receiver on this roster. Mooney, Scott, Velus, and St. Brown are very close to not being NFL players. We need to take a WR in the 1st round.

This game really highlighted the problem with Fields. He has no quick game. Slow processors against teams that can generate consistent pressure is a recipe for disaster. When his legs are no longer the security blanket they used to be (unless he's playing DET), his weaknesses as a passer are magnified.

His longest run all season is 29 yards. Everyone but DET has figured out how to contain that part of his game. The pocket passing still lags too far behind the running ability, but now it's even more glaring when he can't run as effectively as he used to.

I'd be curious to know what those numbers looked like on last year's team. USC was not a very talented football team this year, outside of Williams. It's not surprising to me they'd look worse against better competition. That defense and OL have been bad since Reily got there. Losing Addison at WR probably hurt the passing game, too.

None of the scenarios involving Eberflus coming back are good: Scenario 1- Bring everybody back You'd be passing on Williams for the hope that this coach/qb/oc combination will magically work the 3rd time around. This is what we call insanity. Scenario 2- Bring everybody back but the OC You get rid of Getsy, but you've now severely limited the quality of OC's who'd be interested in coming to work for a lame duck head coach and a veteran QB about to learn his 3rd offense in 4 years. Scenario 3- Keep Eberflus, trade Fields, draft a quarterback Probably the worst of all the scenarios. You'd be pairing up a rookie quarterback with a defensive minded head coach on the hot seat, leaving yourself open to the (high) possibility of setting the kid down the path of learning 2 offenses in 2 years while being coached by someone who didn't draft him, aka the Chicago Bears specialty. None of these scenarios would make me feel good about the direction of the franchise, which is why Matt Eberflus has to go, and it's also a reminder why hiring defensive minded head coaches is an absolutely moronic decision for any team that doesn't have an established quarterback. It's time to start fresh. Get rid of the coach, draft a new quarterback, and bring in an offensive mind who's on the same timeline as everyone else.

Bears are virtually locked in to a top 2 pick, which is just fine by me. I didn't want to come out of this draft without one of Caleb Williams or MHJ. If they have the 1st pick, I'm taking Williams. I've kind of made up my mind on Fields. I'd keep him over any other quarterback not named Caleb Williams, but I also think if he were going to be a special quarterback, we'd know it by now. Williams has a chance to be special. I have questions about his emotional maturity, but the arm talent is undeniable. If you can pair him up with an offensive minded head coach that can reel in some of the hero ball stuff, this franchise could get turned around in a hurry.

Yeah, Love has had the benefit of leaning on a really good defense and head coach. Not to mention, they have an insanely good pass protecting OL. Everytime I watch a Packers game, Love is never touched. The last two games, especially, he's had all day to throw. It's a wonder how his numbers were so bad before this recent hot streak with all that time. It's not a coincidence that on the rare occasions he was almost sacked in that KC game, he almost threw a couple of interceptions. He kind of reminds me of Jared Goff, in that sense. Give him enough time, he can put up numbers, but under pressure, he folds like a tent. Favre had one of the strongest arms in NFL history and had the innate ability to play out of structure at a legendary level. Rodgers was deadly accurate and almost never turned the ball over. Love doesn't have a special trait, as far as I can tell. His accuracy is all over the place, and he's not particularly great at ball security, either. That said, the guy is on pace for over 30 TD's and 4,000 yards throwing in his first year as a starter. Two things no Bears quarterback has ever done in the history of the franchise, lol. He's definitely not awful. He might even be good. But I'm not crowning him just yet.

Taking the quarterback out of the equation, offensively, their biggest need right now is at center. Defensively, it's hard to say until I know who the coach is going to be. Right now, they need a 3T, but if they hire somebody else and switch to a 3-4 scheme, now you don't need a 3T anymore and maybe you start scouting OLB's or 5T DE's. Some other areas I'd like to see them address are a move TE and an eventual replacement to Eddie Jackson at FS.

It's crazy to think if the Bears defense didn't choke away the DET and DEN games, they'd be 6-6 and sitting in good position for that wildcard spot. Obviously it's not going to happen, but all 5 of their remaining games are reasonably winnable. DET is floundering and a team you nearly beat a weak ago on the road, CLE is down to their 4th quarterback option, Desmond Ridder sucks, Arizona is clearly aiming for the #1 pick, and Jordan Love isn't very good, either. If they had a better coach, one could argue they should win at least 4 out of 5. However, I still think they'll end up only beating AZ and maybe ATL to finish 5-12/6-11. Hard to see Goff turning the ball over 3 times next week, CLE's defense will run circles around Luke Getsy, and the Bears never beat the Packers no matter who's playing quarterback, so that's always a loss until further notice..

I would love to see a total house cleaning by Kevin Warren, if for no other reason than to keep a QB/HC/GM all on the same timeline for the first time since the 90's, but I wouldn't bet on it happening. As things stand today, I think Eberflus is fired. The Bears would probably take Caleb Williams with the #1 pick and trade Fields while extending Poles to match him up with the new head coach. The worst possible thing they could do is keep Eberflus AND draft a new quarterback, which is what they've done each of the last two times they spent a high first round pick on a quarterback. Don't draft quarterbacks to lame duck head coaches unless your goal is to ruin them.

I've gone back and forth on the Williams/Fields talk. I'm honestly 50/50 right now. I'm not sold on Fields as a true franchise quarterback yet, but I have serious questions about Caleb Williams, both as a player and as a leader. If the Bears had the #1 pick, I still like the idea of keeping Fields and drafting Williams anyway and letting the two battle it out in training camp with a new head coach as a way of hedging your bets in case Fields were to go elsewhere and ball out, but I suspect that scenario would be a very difficult, if not impossible, distraction to deal with for any coach. Outside of (maybe) Williams, though, there is no other quarterback in this class that I'd rather have than Fields. If the Bears have the 2nd or 3rd pick in this draft, I'm taking MHJ, and I don't even think twice.

Yep. GB winning a couple meaningless games at the end of the year to ruin their draft position bodes well for the Bears. Jordan Love is meh, which is kind of where you'd want him to be if you're a Bears fan, because it'll keep the Packers from bottoming out and drafting a better quarterback. I also don't think he's good enough to win playoff games every year, like his predecessors. As long as the CAR pick stays within the top 2, I'm not overly concerned with the Bears W/L record. I just don't want to fall out of the MHJ range. I'm not as enamored with Williams as some, but I'd be shocked if there was a team who didn't take him with the first pick, including the Bears.