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I really liked Desai, I don't think anyone could have done much more than him with that defense other than Belicheck. But if you did get Caldwell, I would be pumped if he could get Patrick Graham from the Giants. But Desai and Graham are similar. Heres my baseline for Desai that's important to note: The bears had awful pass defense, but I'm pretty sure we are going to look back at our 2021 cornerbacks the way we did at the 2017 receiver corps. Such horrible depth. Good things he did: - Can't find it, but saw that he had either the most or second-most "disguised coverages", when you have kindle vildor, best you can do is disguise heavily - While this could lead to being burned a lot, I fully believe that led to more of the pressures. He bought just enough time to help his line get home, but if they didn't it was probably a touchdown unfortunately. - Thomas Graham Jr looked awful in preseason then looked like a real cornerback at the end of the year. Trevis Gipson leaped this year. I think he may be good at developing talent. I still wouldn't do Caldwell though. I came here actually to post this, because I was excited by it: The concern I bought into with Leftwich is the guy will have the same issue Nagy did - he has only worked under Arians. He won't have a staff. That's where I wonder if he and Poles hit it off if they can leverage the Trace Armstrong network of coaches, work on getting a vet DC and strong veteran offensive coach like a Bevell to help. Nagy when supported by an amazing D coach damn near worked. Staff is a big part of this, and Quinn and Caldwell would bring it. It's tough man, not a great set of coaching candidates.

man. If you would have told me 10 years ago I'd enjoy Mully and Haugh (I'm aware they didn't exist yet as a tandem) much, much more than Dan Bernstein I'd have laughed in your face but man he has become such a miserable listen. It doesn't even feel like he has any actual expertise anymore, he always seems to just be poking around his guests asking "how should I be mad about this, clearly its bad, tell me how its bad" and then railing against it.

I think you could probably do something with DVOA rankings and expected wins. I know the 2020 Falcons (which he was fired mid season) had one of the best DVOA rankings of a 4-12 team behind only a Jim Schwartz lions team. Performance wise it was hard to want quinn, this is more offloading my preferences to this hive NFL mind that all seem to really like Dan Quinn as a head coach. His defensive talent really was atrocious, and was only held together when Keanu Neal, Jones and Jarrett were healthy. They regressed to 30th this year, so it wasn't that group underperforming. But ...everyone in the league just talks about how players love to play for him and coaches love to coach for him. Is this just Jack Del Rio pt. deux? I don't know, you have to give Quinn horses, clearly. But it was a good sign that he immediately got back and formed a top defense.

I like that Poles has representation (repp'd by Athletes First, which is where Trace Armstrong leads the coaching side). That should lead to some additional contacts or should mean he had some pretty good info coming his way. I wish there was a place that rostered all of the reps for these guys. Flores is with Select and Daboll is with PSR (who also reps Schoen). I guess it's not common for GMs to have representation (Pace didn't), so maybe that adds a layer of research for him.

Did the Angels have a better decade than the Astros?

Um, no. We both feel like George is a bad owner of a football team but want a great football team. I think your solution of having George try to implement a much more complex structure where he decentralizes power across the organization and hires multiple people is going to be less likely to be successful than just hiring one person and getting out of the way. Pair a young GM with a veteran football mind they can lean off of? Congratulations, you have created Ryan Pace and John Fox. The Ravens set-up is possible because they had the best executive of his era. The Bears can't recreate having Ozzie newsome (though rumor is they tried)! I'm sure if the Bears installed a long-time, experienced GM with unquestioned credentials as president on top of this hire we would have all applauded George for installing Bill Polian as President. Your own scenario concludes that people have trouble disagreeing with the ultimate decisionmaker, but want a GM that can relay ideas off of a President who controls his employment. That just makes the President the new GM and the GM the assistant GM. It's just a people problem. If you get an amazing coach like Payton, he can be given personnel power and your structure of a young GM with someone to relay ideas off of works. But if you force a coach on him like John Fox, the structure is a problem. But bringing in experienced people isn't a bad thing, it's just the idea of putting a position over the GM I dislike. You could add in Scott Pioli or Bill Polian as a senior consultant and it gets you what you want. Put him above Poles and it's bad. Poles should have structural decisionmaking power over those people. Ultimately it's George's fault that he sicced Fox on Pace to start, but it's Pace's fault his inner circle was a mediocre inner circle. By accounts of those whove talked to him, Poles wants to know everything and talk to everyone. Pace thought he knew everything because he knew Drew Brees. Hopefully that works with Poles, or it leads to analysis paralysis and weak decisionmaking. We'll see.

Also weird to me is this NYG search. Starting to feel like Daboll isn’t the shoe-in it seemed. And if Schoen doesn’t hire him that’s uh…interesting.

That’s just part of building a good team though. I’m sure Chris dodds doesn’t mind disagreeing with Ballard. Pretty much all GMs are first time GMs, and very few have this president role. You talk of this role like a mentor role, but I’d someone is above them as a soundboard that’s ultimately also the lead decision maker, which defangs the position. Pace just wasn’t a very good GM. Hopefully this guy is.

How many 1 year rebuilds have the eagles done? Pace's 3 year rebuild was unnecessary, but and a reason why it fell apart so quickly.

Definitely, we'll see.

Also I'd be shocked if this guys source wasn't Ted Phillips.

so what DaBearsBlog just mentioned on a podcast was that Omar Khan wasn't interviewed for GM role, but to replace Phillips next year, so if Colbert retires and Khan isn't slated with a role he likes, he could move to Chicago. That's pretty damn interesting.

I think a lot honestly. If they didn't draft mahomes, they would basically be the 2000s Eagles. Maybe didn't win the big one, but KC promoting out its FO talent prior to 2017 (sadly to bears once). Kelce, Hill, Berry are all some of the best players in their position of the decade. They brought in Tyronn Matheau to great effect. They have had a long run of great RBs before Edwards-Helair. They also have drafted some big pass rushers in Houston, (Houston, Ford), and last super bowl withstanding, they've had some really strong Oline forever, going back to Priest Holmes days to Jamaal Charles. Under Reid, their floor is just consistently good.

lol this reminds me so much of that video from the trubisky draft where all the scouts showed him #1 on their board.

MN

There is real dialogue and give and take now. What a breath of fresh air. Please keep it going.

True, but Arians took an actual year off. If he would have retired and then signed with the bucs I'm pretty sure they'd have demanded more since that's just sidestepping a contract.

You definitely look into it, and considering his service to the Saints maybe they do him a solid. But I think he probably is looking for a break.

The Bears would still need to send draft capital to the Saints, as the bucs still did with Arians since he was under contract.

Honestly I've been Dan Quinn-pilled. Wouldn't have guessed. He definitely needs horses for his defense, but his ATL defenses were a reverse bears, where nearly all of their cap was in offense. When it had keanu neal and deion jones, it was fine, without they were awful. But with Cowboys, obviously were great. Not since dave wannstedt have we targeted a coach so universally in demand. Everyone wants Quinn. The takeaway for me - people want to work for that guy. I think his staff will be as good as rumored. Otherwise, I like don't mind Eberflus, Leftwich, Daboll. I really don't know what to make of Caldwell. I'm not sure a coach got more screwed over than him in DET, but I kinda felt that about Fox. But Kubiak went on to take that team to a superbowl, the lions were awful after he left. The players loved him. Everyone loves him. But the lions still felt like such a sloppy team. The most unlikely, greatest thing would be Ryan Day being disillusioned with the NLI stuff in college and the bears throwing $30 million at their coaching staff for a Quinn/Day combo.

Remember how the bears were smitten with Flores and were going to make him GM and trade Fields? Good times.

Not surprised, it would have been very surprising given how he could choose between either job.

Poles is a bigger wild card than I would have targeted, as I said. I think Adofo-Mensah can do great in Minny which has a much better infrastructure left to him post Spielman. But, after weeks of constant sniping about stuff that didn't happen, they didn't hire a coach first, they didn't hire a "polian" connection or colts west. It's possible now that Caldwell will be forced on this guy. But considering he had the pick of two orgs I'd be surprised. That would be a bad sign, however.

Ah, I see we've moved on to the fresh new panic. "Some in league circles" has been kicking ass as a source, I'm expecting it to continue to kill it on accuracy.

Yeah, I mean cool but sox can you just send out an effing press release on your INTL class?