Chisoxfn

How could he - they literally didn’t let him do much other than hand it off. Fields played excellent today.

This - I think another team can acquire him and use that exception? Maybe that helps? Maybe I’m wrong too.

Until this front office does something interesting - I am just so complacent. I shouldn't be, because sadly, the Bulls are the best of my 3 teams (Sox / Bears are hopeless). With that said - there is very little to actually look forward for the Bulls - since they are basically a .500 team, who is probably going to start a new rebuild at the end of this season.

Alright Bulls - give up the pick we have from Portland to get Jrue. I'm not saying it makes the Bulls great - but Jrue certainly makes them better.

I truly believe he is a good DC. Whether he is a good HC or not, probably not. One thing I do know - this is a scheme that requires a good dline (not dissimilar to other schemes). The Bears aren't remotely close to having a good d-line. Think about the Bears good D's in the Cover 2 era, whether it was Tommie Harris disrupting the middle or Julius Peppers on the edge - you needed to have one well above average dlinemen and other parts to do the job. Maybe the Bears 2nd and 3rd round picks evolve to that point - but they aren't there yet and they were raw to begin with (which isn't a huge surprise). We are also talking about 2nd & 3rd rounders (with the 2nd rounder being a later"ish" pick). Now Poles needs to hit on his picks, you will have misses, but he also has to have hits across his drafts. I actually think the Bears have players at other levels of the defense - but none of it works without a more disruptive line. Not saying the best line in football - but this is the worse dline in football (or at the very least bottom 3). That is a big problem and I do put some of that on Poles. Or Poles knew that would be an issue, hoped it wouldn't be this bad, but just realized that was all he could do from a team building perspective given all the holes to fill.

The problem is - is Fields so bad that no one around him can develop. Through 3 weeks my answer is yes. Now that doesn’t mean we should stop now, but at some point you need to do something else for the sake of everyone else on the football team if it is that bad. With that said - I really never expected this to be that bad.

There has been a lot of clips floating out there of guys running open, in fact multiple guys running open and Fields not making the plays/reads/throws.

For me it comes down to - should you completely overhaul your offense and completely customize it from anything anyone runs in the NFL. If so - they need to go hire Greg Roman, cause he's about the only guy who has shown any ability to do something that extreme. Because there are very few actual designed plays that Fields runs average (let alone good or above good). The only thing he does well is run. Sure, he can make the ocassional wow throw - the problem is, you have to be decent at the other stuff - he isn't decent, he isn't meh, he is AWFUL at everything else. Either you literally run like a pistol, completely new offense around him, or you move on. The next question is - can you even design an entire offense around him at this point in the season or do you actually think even if you did that, you would have a team capable of going places or would you be looking for a new player anyway? I go back to - the extreme changes that would be needed for Fields are so much greater than that of any good QB we are talking about. Every offense should adjust / tailor for the QB strength(s), but that is tailoring, there is still a ton of vanilla plays that they are expected to be able to execute with a high degree of success. The problem is - Fields doesn't have a lot of vanilla stuff he can do to any degree of success. I think the Bears were hopeful that he would show large improvements in this area - the problem is, he hasn't.

With all that being said - I do not think Poles (nor anyone else in the building), expected Fields to be this downright bad. I think they all expected improvement and the only question was whether they would see enough improvement to make him your franchise QB or not. I think in zero scenario did any of them seeing Fields being as bad of a passer this year (if not worse) than he was last year. The reality is, through 3 games - he has been as bad, if not worse, and that is despite having better wideouts than last year and being in the 2nd year of the system.

I really think if you read between the lines, he was always a bit more cautious. With that said - you can't go out there and state we are going to stink, etc, but he also had talked multiple times where they knew how many holes they had and that the reality was there was no way they could really fix it in one offseason and the reality is - this was really the first off-season where they had resources. His first actual year on the job - the cap situation was a disaster and they had zero draft capital due to the Fields session, so year one was almost like year 0 given how bad it is, so this is actually year 1. I truly believe the offensive side of the roster is materially upgraded, however, the QB is so bad you can't see it. This is why I legitimately wonder what they do because with a QB this bad (and with no real hope) - continuing to put him out there puts a serious limitation on your ability to evaluate others, whether coaches and/or skill position players (kind of key given that Mooney / Claypool are due for extension(s)). I'm guessing at this point - neither of them may get extensions, which than means, do you trade them and if you do, is there any value for them? The Bears also don't have any legitimate option to turn to at QB (other than throwing a DII player to the wolves and hoping he shocks us).

If we get to the halfway point of the season and the defense is still bottom 3rd - than yeah. I would be shocked the defense would be in the top 3rd, but they should be in the middle 3rd. If they don't get there, terrible indictment. But his defenses were good / very good in Indy and he was working for an offensive HC, so he was in charge of them and they developed a lot of players under his watch. Now as a HC - he clearly isn't good. Effort doesn't work. They are awful and he doesn't bring any unique skill to the table. It isn't like he's a brilliant offensive mind or a brilliant defensive tactician.

I'm going off his time with the Colts - they had good defenses and developed players there. That in no means is stating anything he has done with the Bears - but I also think last year he had absolute trash to work with and this year, the trash is a bit better, but not a lot. Now the hope is - the young players and LB's gel and improve, but when you have a Dline this bad - your D is going to struggle to get off the field.

I agree with you and I also don't believe Poles was ever all in on Fields. I just don't think he was all in on Bryce Love and he wasn't ready to rip the bandaid now and bring in another QB, I think he recognized the type of individual Fields was and that it was worth investing in him for one more year and building assets for the following year (and ideally positioning the roster so that it was in a healthier spot for the next QB - if Fields wasn't the guy (and he clearly isn't). Now I would state that if all of his draft picks look like garbage, than I think McCaskey and Warren would have a hard choice to make. But barring that (and god I hope that won't be the case) - than I am pretty committed to giving Poles the opportunity to go forward. I really don't see how you could do something different - unless they are planning to go give a blank check to Harbaugh.

The question is - did Poles actually believe that behind closed doors, or did he know his limitations. I recognize I got hyped up in the off-season, but once I saw the preseason lineups, I literally looked and took a step back and was telling all my friends - this is not going to be good. The dline is awful (signing Ngakakoue was not going to change anything - although it was the right move to make cause they need any help they could get...and if they are lucky, they can maybe trade him at the deadline if he actually is producing for like a 6th rounder). The secondary is young and your LB corps, while they made investments, is going to have a hard time making plays when your dline is this bad. Offensively - I think Poles said it but didn't say it with Fields. I don't think he had the ability to make any choice other than giving Fields one more year (given the draft capital that previous regimes invested and the flash plays that he showed - to see if a 2nd year in the system could bring out the best in him...but we all said - for Fields to be good, he had to take pretty significant steps forward as a passer - it is now clear that the sample size says he is the same guy he was as a rookie, maybe worse and by the way - it is the same thing that he put on college tape - where he never got better in this area). But I think Poles reacted in the off-season as someone who was measured and wasn't ALL in on Fields. Now he didn't throw Fields under the bus either - but that was absolutely the right thing to do. Now if by the end of the year - none of Poles draft picks look like they are worth a darn, than I suppose Warren and McCaskey need to ask themselves the question of whether Poles is gone too - but I'm hoping we will see enough flashes from young DB's and the oline looks solid enough that we aren't talking about that...cause that would really be a bad thing (albeit at least you'd have a pretty attractive gig if you wanted to hire someone - given you'd be talking about multiple high draft picks and tons of cap space).

I don't think Flus is a terrible manager as the head coach and I do think he is a good defensive coordinator. That clearly hasn't shown up here and a huge part of that is the Dline stinks. On the offensive side - I don't know if Getsy is good or bad....he clearly didn't design and entirely build a unique offense around Fields - instead took an offense he liked and tried to blend the edges around Fields. The problem is - Fields might be fine on those edge concepts, but there are only so many that you can run and that limits what you can do and Fields in anything more traditional is legitemently the worse QB in the NFL (yes - I think playing within standard plays - even Zach Wilson might be better - but not by a lot). And so I stand by my premise - if the Bears think you need to at least run a modern NFL offense to win in the long run - than YOU WILL NEVER go anywhere with Fields. In fact, you will be an adjunct disaster putting Fields in that system - which is exactly what we have witnessed going on the past 3 years (with literally ZERO improvement in this department). People should go see some of what Lombardi is saying - really coming to defense of Getsy and others and basically stating - if you were an OC, what could you call for Fields and stating that he literally can't make even the most basic of plays. The only highlights you will have is him doing something ridiculous running the football and/or the ocassional dime while everythign hits the fan. That is great - but if you can't do anything worth a damn the other 90% of the time - than you suck. Getting 200% on 10% of the plays while you get a 50% on the other 90% is an F. That is what Justin Fields is as a QB and the entire team is being made worse by having him on the field. Most notably the oline and skill position players.