Chisoxfn

I thought you were implying how anxious you were that there wasn't a game until tomorrow. Feels like forever since they last played!

My crazy idea - trade Mack for some picks (I think you can get 2 2nd's). Franchise and Trade Arob (maybe you get a 2nd rounder - maybe). Than you have some capital - not enough for a Mack - but you have enough to where you give up this years 1st, one or 2 of those 2nds, plus next years 1st and maybe that is enough. I just don't like any scenario where we trade the next 3 years worth of 1st round picks. I also would probably be just as fine doing the 2 trades I reference above and just taking a swing at any of the QB's on the board and just stock up the line and wideouts and essentially build assets. If it works - great, you got your QB and you've gotten a lot younger and while your cap looks bad this year - it will start looking pretty good a year from now. If the QB you took doesn't look the part - go right back at QB again (at that point - you should have an even higher pick) + cap space and with those moves whether Pace is still calling the shots or not - if you pivoted away from Nagy you should be a pretty attractive destination.

Ragone reportedly likely to be the next OC of Falcons. That said - Bears have a pretty solid supporting staff with Lazor and Defillipo. I truly believe both are quality coaches and guys who make QB's get better. Trubisky isn't good enough - but he was certainly a better player in 2021 than he was in 2020. Evidently Nagy is all in on Watson.

I keep saying J&J is the one that can be the game changer. Was really bummed to see their manufacturing efforts were quite behind. If we get good news from them - not only is it another shot out there, ramping up distribution - but the one and done is a huge deal. Can get double the coverage with the same # of shots...and immunity a few weeks faster. Like - literally - it could cut the window to get everyone who wants to be vaccinated down by month(s). My fingers are crossed for good news - I still have my own personal goal - I want to have gotten at least an initial dose of the vaccine by March...which would mean my own personal objective of immunity by end of April.

I feel they have barely played last two weeks. But I've been really enjoying this season. Helps that I freaking LOVE basketball. I am pretty worried about my ability to still play pick-up ball. I don't know how me and my regular pick-up crew's bodies are going to react from a 1YR hiatus. We would rent an indoor court at one of those big gyms once a week (after all of our kids went to sleep). Was always one of my favorite outlets - get some good exercise, healthy smack talk, and than shoot the sh*t on what is going on in the NBA / etc. Than weekends we'd all bring our kids (all of us have kids somewhere in that 4-10 year old outlet) and they'd run around the park and we'd all shoot too (better yet - we were all giving our significant others a break too). It was the ultimate win win Sorry for the random sidebar - I just love basketball. Good thing is I've been teaching my kids during COVID and got my 5 year old hitting buckets on a 10 foot basket (not from far though). He's on the small side so show him highlights of Bogues and found a book on Steph Curry as a kid I've read a ton of times to him :). Next step 40 foot jumpers and my own retirement. I can be a less extreme Lavar Ball.

Yeah - I have zero interest in Singletary as a DC. Bears D staff is about to get raided. That said - the former Arizona DC is at least intriguing.

I'm really bummed that Philly seems to be failing forward. I was kind of excited with the thought of taking a chance on a guy like Carson Wentz.

This really surprises me - this move just made so much sense to me. Hopefully Sox really are thinking bigger and bigger will work out and be the right move in the long run!

Isn't this approach just going to magnify the have's and the havenots? I get what you are saying - but just making everything the parents responsibility probably isn't fair (at least not to the child who doesn't get to pick his parents). This is an area of passion for me - one that I have and can do more on than I have, but for the past 10 years I have done various financial advocacy volunteer work at schools as well as basic financial education (none enough as I selfishly prioritize myself, my family and my career more and wish I put more time into this). So much so that when I think about life after retirement (yes - totally delusional since I got at least 25 more years of being a working stiff) - I think about what % of my time I want to carve out to this dedicated of an initiative (whether my own start-up or joining an existing function). I also talk about potentially going into teaching late in my career as well (as an alternative) - not ready to do today - still too much to give in the private sector and what I do today (and I'm greedy - and prefer my paycheck in private sector vs. what I'd get teaching). But at some point - as simple as it is - want to make sure not only am I filling my kids bucket - better yet I want to ensure I'm instilling values in other and in something i'm passionate and educated about. For me - Financial wellness and basic financial seems as good as anything - including potentially just generic counseling and mentoring advice - especially for people who don't know what to do and may have interest in getting into the Corporate world. I feel like I have a playbook that can be rinsed and repeated. To what success - depends on the individual - but in general - I'd put a pretty high degree of probability on someone following said playbook into a middle class life (with some upside). But this playbook is a bit more narrow - and industry siloed and does assume some basic construct of understanding key concepts needed to baseline succeed in that profession. Sorry - long rant.

Another stellar performance by Lavine - including some nice passes and key buckets in final few minutes. White on the other hand - another weak performance. Trying to be patient but have not liked what I have seen of him at pg. Forget trading Lavine- id dangle white and others to get a better player if one becomes available.

This seems to be a safe lead. Nice bounce back win. That said they had a couple useless turnovers again late.

I don’t think Bears have the assets - but I bet they at least try. Not sure Watson would want to go - given Pace passed up on him previously.

I would be trading Mack for draft picks. I think Pagano probably didn't use him as well as he should be, but I think the Bears need more assets to solve QB and Line and Mack could be a way to accelerate that. I was thinking it is unlikely you get a 1st rounder this year - but if you could get a 2nd rounder this year and a 1st next year - I am on board. As much as I would like to get Watson from the Texans (and this is coming from someone who thinks Watson is probably a bit over-rated...but obviously still is a franchise QB - no doubt about that)....I don't see how you do it for Mack - cause I don't think Texans have much use for Mack. So unless it is Bears dealing Mack...getting picks and than flipping them. However - I think cap wise that becomes a disaster (at least for 21).

Yeah - he has been extremely efficient this year and while he isn’t a pg - he is doing best he ever has at making plays for other guys. This is where a real point guard would come in handy though. Enable Lavine to be a bit off the ball with another person with good handles - reduces so much pressure on the whole squad. This wouldn’t hurt so bad if it wasn’t coming off the last 3 well played heart breakers on the west coast. Now you got Dallas next. Schedule wise this was one the team needed. Thaddeus Young though had a stretch in the 3rd quarter collapse that was some of the worst ball I’ve ever seen. Between like 3 turnovers (with no pressure) and just stagnant offense it was ugly. Amazing the efficient scorer Lavine is becoming though. And I’m glad they have Donovan - confident he will teach be able to use this as a teaching moment.

If you watched the thunder broadcast - all they could comment on was how non existent everyone not named Lavine was and beyond that how when it mattered late they didn’t get the ball in his hands. Lavine was not even close to who to blame for the final 2 minutes. If anyone else wanted to join him in playing it would have been another story. The whole rest of the team looked scared.

Except Lavine was playing so efficient all night. They can learn a lot from that close out but more importantly the turnovers have got to get cleaned up. So many unforced mistakes by the squad. Lavine was one of only guys trying and you could see his frustration (and pain he was in from rolling that ankle).

On the hero ball part - the whole offense looked so stagnant. Zero players wanted to move or do anything. They just wanted to watch Lavine. Still - the bulls turnover issue is bad, but this might be the sloppiest game I’ve ever seen in terms of turnovers. Just awful

The turnovers were horrendous. Feels like they are going to lose this for sure.

Gotcha - confirms I was thinking of it your way. I here you on the last part. I specifically chose the school I did with finances in mind and it allowed me to graduate debt free (helps that I lived at home too). If I could have gotten a bunch of debt written off, maybe I would have opted for that out of state school and borrowed some living expenses, etc. I think I prefer easing some of the bankruptcy guidelines and just focusing on the current facts at hands. If we are going to get rid of debt - it doesn't have to be for all - but make sure we are getting the right economic stimulus out of it and not just raising debt for sake of raising debt. I don't know answer - but it would be a costly use of resources. But I think your concept is probably one of the best approaches I've seen.

I haven't seen this type of a proposal - but directionally I like it. When you say deductability - are you saying like a tax-write off for you college expenses?

If the Bears had a QB - none of us are having this conversation. We would be talking about a perennial contender. Maybe the D would be getting long in the tooth - but we would be pointing to Jaylon Johnson type of pick, the Bilal Nichols stuff, RRH moves all as being reasons why we are comfortable with Pace. This is not to say we wouldn't still be talking about the giant miss in Quinn - we would, but with a better QB - none of this conversation is happening (at least not with Pace - maybe Nagy - where you would be talking about are you getting enough out of him). But for those that want Pace out (which was almost everyone) - you would say he had years to fix QB and has failed on every occasion there. Period. Any GM looks smarter with Aaron Rodgers. I mean you want to look at stink - just look at the Patriots draft record the past decade. IT is GOD AWFUL - they have whiffed a TON (and that is with them having massive amount of picks) - but Brady covered so many warts and Beli is a stellar coach who minimizes mistakes (that team is so well disciplined it isn't even funny - which is huge given the parody that exists in the game). The hard part is - there are usually only a handful of truly elite QB's - so either you can spend the next 30 years hoping you get lucky on the top 3 guy or you just build the best damn football team you can while always looking at upgrading your QB. That means you need to take swings at QB and need to hit and have good QB play. Ability to get QB play goes up when you take multiple shots via draft and when you surround said QB with good coaching, sound oline, and people who take pressure off said QB (i.e., good ground game to enable play-action, solid TE (safety valve)). I am purposefully silent on wideout because I don't think you need to pay top dollar to wideout. Rarely do elite wideouts win superbowls. There has to be something to that amount of money spent on the position and the relative value of said use of resources (vs. oline / QB / passushers) - all of whom I think have more of a "multiplier" effect in their ability to make everyone else around them better. A great oline - makes RB, QB, and all your receivers better by creating bigger holes and more time. A great pass rusher (and in general dline)- makes all of your DB's and safeties better and increases ability to generate turnovers by shortening ability to cover things up A great QB - obvious - there ability to make plays out of nothing and dissect the defense can make every skill position player look better. Point blank - the above are the 3 areas you need to invest - because they flat out make collective unit better.

I will always eat my dogs (or sausage for that matter) - with peppers, onions (if they got mushrooms even better) + spicy mustard and some ketchup. Call me criminal - but its damn delicious. If I don't have all the fix-ins - than just a dog with onions, mustard (spicier the better) and ketchup. But eating a dog without Ketchup - that is criminal - I can't even imagine it (unless of course it is a chili dog - than acceptable).

I agree - teams go from zero to first overnight many times. If it was just tearing down and success, you wouldn't have the same disasterous organizations consistently miss the playoffs. Ravens never tore anything down and went from one superbowl winning QB (albeit overrated) to another elite (but unique) QB all while largley being a competive playoff team. The Chiefs went from a pretty good team to an elite team - never stinking under the Reid era and while switching QB's. Now the way you stay bad for years - that is when you mortgage the future and do a ton of stuff in a flurry of win now moves - which might be where Bmags is getting to. That is just where McCaskey and Phillips have to be able to step in and say no. The problem is - the people who are saying "yes" or "no" are absolutely not football people and to extent you have someone that you have decided to do the job (i.e,. Pace) - than you kind of need to trust that he is going to do the job to his best ability and none of us were in the room - but hopefully that was a conversation Pace had with ownership and he had a pretty articulate plan of how he was going to build for the now while investing in the future (vs. build for the now at the expense of the future). For all we know - Pace's bogie is more focused on turning the arrow around - right now the arrow on this squad is probably pretty even - they are what they are - maybe they get a win or 2 worse, maybe a 1 or 2 better - but it is what it is. You can't really project that they are on the rise and if anything - I'd probably project a slight fall - given the best talent is aging and while this past draft looks promising (Kmet, Johnson, Mooney all look like integral contributors at this point to a good squad) - it doesn't account for guys like Hicks, Mack, Fuller aging as well as the overall cap situation they are in hindering their ability to make rapid progress with in some key areas of need (i.e., oline & wideout, most notably) and beyond that there are obviously the QB questions at play. But if they go Foles and a draft pick or Foles, a Winston and a draft pick - the roster construction will have less cap space set aside to QB than most orgs with more established QB's (I assume if you got a Winston he isn't getting 10M+ - unless it is heavily incentive based) yet there is so much inefficient cap space tied to guys like Quinn and Eddie Jackson (maybe Eddie in an adjusted defensive scheme can figure things out - he is still young enough that he shouldn't have had this big of a drop-off...but this is 2 straight years of suspect play out of him). But the Bears shouldn't have a 4 or 5 year rebuilding timeframe. While they have cap issues - a year from now those problems get a lot better. Quinn's dead weight is gone, Foles the same. You can make choices to go younger on dline and other places (presuming you can find talent) and replace some of the more highly paid aging lineman with younger and hopefully better lineman. Same with Danny T. All of those can be cap friendly - moves. They also have draft capital - in sense they have a full stable of picks - but that is a delicate line and Pace could actually add to that stable by flipping some veterans (will hinder 2021 efforts - but create more opportunity for younger, more cap efficient solutions in 22 & beyond). The big thing Pace could do would be how he handles Mack. We could talk Hicks or Fuller - and both are very good players - but I don't know that you are getting a day 1 or day 2 pick for either of those guys. If Pace could get a day 1 pick for Mack (heck - even if it was a 2nd round pick this year and a 1st round pick a year from now (so equivalent of 2 2nd round picks - but Bears play a little "draft roulette") - that would be a huge move to increase the warchest to develop the offense. It obviously comes at a cost - Mack, while overrated, is still a good player and his void would be felt in terms of overall competitiveness - but that is probably okay given the team. If I were Pace - Mack is probably the guy I am using most to swing the warchest the other direction - and maybe I hold on Hicks and Fuller - while still building assets for the future. Obviously - the franchise could move Fuller or Hicks - I just don't know that I get that excited if you are talking about a 3rd round or 4th round type of picks for those guys (but maybe I'm under-valuing what the franchise could get) and it could still be the right move. I also assume there are negative cap impacts of these moves - but I figure take the bath this year. This is more to serve as an illustrative guide - that i think in 1 year - you can already dramatically turn the dynamic of the team. Obviously you need to hit on draft picks and than be smart with free agency moves, etc and finding a QB...now that is the ultimate cure because without an elite QB - you have to be really really perfect at everything else - but I also think you don't want to use QB as your excuse. Reality is - you need to be smart and ensure that you develop a team that a solid QB can come in and win with (because at that point - I think you have a set-up where if you found someone who could be elite - the circumstances would actually increase the likelihood they reached that ceiling. For example, I don't know that Dak Prescott ever becomes the QB he does if he doesn't got to Dallas - who at the time had a world class oline, a great back, and a solid receiving corps (+ vet TE).

I have no idea and he's just a name that comes to mind because he isn't a star and would fill a position of need (he is clearly better than Lauri or WCJ). Pure example and you can always use OPJ as a facilator (from a contract perspective). I don't think Lauri has a ton of value either - more of what is someone looking to do and you can probably find some creative ways to make things work. But I would probably trade WCJ, Lauri and a future 1st for Towns (for example). Whether in a 1:1 deal or a multi team deal. Where I could - I'd do a 2 for 1 where we get the better asset.

This I agree with - I would have jumped in on any deal where we can get a pick while not hampering LT flexibility