Chisoxfn

Me too.

I would love Sunday to mean something - even if it is a few percent chance. Would be fun.

Is it 100 percent bears have number 1 pick.

It isn’t what I would do but if they are staying with Fields and Flus and trying a new oc…I just ask they don’t make a selection with their top pick and do another trade back to continue to stockpile and build a really good football team with lots of assets.

Maybe with the playoffs expanding they should just have a couple post season bowl games or make the bowl games the first game of the following season - so bowl games kick off the season.

I have no clue if any of these qbs will be really good or not - but I do know that in 3 years Fields has shown he isn’t a good passer. And I’m not about to sign him for 40M. The past few weeks have not been very good to him - he has just not played very well in my mind. Missing a lot of easy throws and just too slow to make reads. I hope I’m wrong cause nothing would make me happier than him being the guy for the Bears…I just don’t see it.

I mean if Denver moves in from Wilson and Payton in the same offseason - how much coin did they lose. I can’t see an owner paying that much for those two to not be associated with their franchise.

Yeah - I’ll take Sean Payton, even if he is overly harsh - he has a track record and sets a standard. I am fine with Payton, Harbaugh or Belicheck.

So I get people questioning the rookie class - but I don’t get the Fields defense: Meanwhile - in 3 NFL seasons - Justin Fields consistently makes routine throws look difficult. We talk about his downfield passing attack - yet the Bears rank 27th in downfield passing advanced stats (despite having Moore). And we can knock Mooney but Fields has consistently missed Mooney down the field. Point blank - Fields has shown one thing - he is a mediocre to poor NFL passer, a hard working dude, and a stellar physical athlete at the position. Unfortunately the poor NFL passer hinders everything else and you really can't win consistently without making massive strides. Oh and by the way - this is the same knock he had coming out of college and why he fell in the draft (as teams worried how Fields couldn't show the progression progress in his final season at OSU). Why we as Bears fans like to make excuses for Fields and not hold him accountable is beyond me. But reality is - this is a guy who outside of a few games has consistently looked like a poor passing NFL QB with elite athleticism. If it weren't for the elite athleticism he would have been benched a year ago and been talked about like Zach Wilson (who is a historic bust). Him and Lance are why I would never go early on a small school QB. If you listened to Mark Sanchez the last 2 weeks - you could hear it in his announcing. He toes the line and I get it, its Mark Sanchez, but lets not forget that he knows a heck of a lot more than us. Sanchez was consistently showing Fields being off rhythm and off timing. And no - I don't think Getsy is a very good OC - but I think a really good QB can make a mediocre OC look good more so than a really bad OC can make a top notch QB look bad. Read that a few times - I think a good OC can absolutely help - but Fields has flat out looked BAD as a passer for 3 years. I think at best a good OC could make him look decent - is decent really what we are striving for. And I get it - if I were the Falcons or someone else - I might take a shot and see what could happen and design an entire offense around him, but with the Bears being where they are - they don't have to take a Hail Mary at Fields, they have a ton of options.

So my ideal season would have had Fields stepping up and being a top 7 QB. I am on record as saying he isn’t that and he hasn’t shown anything to me to say there is 50 percent chance he becomes it. Quite frankly he is so poor in the middle of the field and on regular timing plays that I suspect he won’t be more than a 12-20 ranked qb but I admit there might be a 5 percent chance he puts it together and maximizes his physical tools which are top 7. But with what he has shown this year, or what he hasn’t shown, I am squarely in the draft a qb camp. I probably say screw it and draft the guy at 1 but I also get that these assessments are total crapshoots so I am kind of intrigued by the Commanders. Commanders are at 3 - hungry owner - does he want Williams so badly Bears could get an absolute haul, move down 2 spots and basically take the 2nd qb while getting a ton of extra draft capital and a player. Part of me says don’t get cute, but so many drafts in last decade has the best qb not been the first one. Odds are at 3 - if Washington stays there - you are getting 2nd best qb with Arizona grabbing MHJ at 2.

This - I think Flus could be one of those good lockeroom coaches who may not be the X’s and O’s Expert but does a lot else right as the actual manager. With that said I have no hurt feelings if they hit reset but I give him some credit for the youth on defense developing and for the team trending up. Players too and Poles as well. If they stick with Fields - than I am pretty square in the stick with Flus for another year camp. If they take a qb - than as much as I think Flus has earned the next year I just don’t like the idea of not resetting the coaching clock either the qb. But I hate the idea of starting back from square one too.

Love it - so we are officially locked in at top 2 than?

What about Cardinals? They are still in a great spot for #1 or is there a for sure scenario where the Cards don’t have the tie breaker?

I need Pats and Cardinals to win one more game to make me feel better. Thank goodness Packers just got a td.

Panthers and Bears will win out and the whole qb question will be a moot point lol. So Bears.

How is Fedde more than Cease. A guy one year removed from a cy young type season vs a guy who is a reclamation project albeit with some promise.

I assume he tactically brings something - the problem is as a HC whatever it was didn't work at all. But I don't know. NBA has a lot of assistants in general given the overall small size of roster.

He will still be restricted though, right? I guess it depends on how much he explodes for the rest of the year. Otherwise what makes him that much different than White? Is it just the size - both were picked high - both had long stints where they looked like mediocre players? I know Williams was supposedly asking for max money - but in a world where Coby got 3/36 coming off of 3 mediocre seasons and a 4th year where he started to show he could be on a winning team...where Williams has basically had that exact same trajectory....yet he'll get double what Williams got? And you may be right by the way - just trying to understand what drives such a stark difference in valuation (is it just positional versality)?

Gotcha - fair enough and I do agree - the previous regime having Jim Boylen for as long as they did (i.e more than the short lived interim state) was just a sheer disaster.

Yeah - that was under AK. It was done after we got Lonzo and S&T for Derozan. We than moved on from Lauri via trade (when we could have just signed him to a restricted deal - his market wasn't huge). Bulls had bird rights to him still and moving him had no bearing on Ball/Derozan. Bulls traded Lauri in end of August 28th, 2021 - Bulls S&T for Demar on August 11th, 2021. All moves made by the CURRENT front office. The Portland pick we keep waiting for (that might just turn into a 2nd) came out of that deal (plus Jones JR or someone). Clearly Bulls would have

Wendell still stinks in my book LOL. But you are right - it can take longer and development isn't always linear - that seems to be clear. I don't think I saw Coby taking it to this level and sure didn't see this sort of growth out of Patrick Williams. We talked about how for this team to really improve the needle - it would be on those 2 individuals really ascending and wow. I am not saying Williams is a building block yet - I still say I have seen way too much stink out of him to change my mind just yet - but he's actually now had his first month of his professional career where I can at least see the potential talked about when he was drafted. White clearly has benefited from the new shooting coach and the dude just keeps working - so kudos to him. I didn't see him becoming the playmaker he has. Either way - the future of the team looks better if those two are solid (especially since White is signed to a very affordable deal) because they at least could be compotent building blocks who if you than find other players to put around you makes you better (cause I have no idea what the plan is around Derozan / Vuc / Lavine). What will they get for Lavine and how will that pair up with those younger players and than what do you do with Vuc / Derozan longer term....cause they can't be the LT future (although I do understand keeping Derozan around as your veteran glue guy).

Wasn't Lauri let go under the current front office (when they could have retained him after getting Demar and Lonzo???).

And if I were him - I would take those blocked prospects and potentially trade my guys in those spots and let the blocked prospects get a chance so that I can continue and extend my run so you can hopefully have more chances to fluke into a series. Or - I would take those blocked prospects and package them up for a blue chip prospect in a prospect for prospect deal (maybe with a 3rd team involved as these deals can be hard). I don't know that I would be leveraging surplus assets for 2 years of Cease - if I were in the Oriole's position. If I'm the Yankees, Dodgers, Braves - sure.

I think the salary parity gets into sustainable winning organizations. If you look at sustainable winning organizations - I presume you will see a common thread with few outliers. The organizations who have had sustainable runs, have financial resources that the rest don't have. So yeah - you will have a Royals team pop up because they were so bad for so long, that they get lucky and put together a run - but that team will also quickly crash back to normal and go back to a decade long run of mediocrity. I will caveat - there are exceptions to this - as Guardians, Rays, Twins, Brewers have largely been competitive with more middling payrolls. Rays payroll not even middling, dirt cheap and they have recognized it and basically operate in that lens constantly churning players before they get paid to keep their roster clean (a well executed strategy with really good scouting and development that pairs the strategy up with reality).

I do think one distinct difference is - in NFL - you do see a lot more parity in teams, agnostic of market. In NFL - Tom Brady is the outlier - but besides that - good franchises, regardless of market can succeed. In baseball - it takes threading the needle because the competitive balance is totally different. NFL is clearly a more fair and levelized playing field in terms of the cap structure. MLB is not. No way around that. Rays don't have the same opportunities the Yankees do...period. In NFL - you really don't see that game. Cincy & Pittsburgh have same opportunities as say Giants/Jets. I do recognize in football - owners who have more cash - may still have an advantage in sense that how you structure deals and bonuses can still drive a slight advantage, but it is nowhere the same as in the NFL.