chw42

Dennis Allen hired as DC. Declan Doyle as OC.

Hopefully Ben Johnson is the reward for the 3 years of suffering under John Shoop. Weirdly enough, Gase was a good enough OC here to get hired as HC.

The problem is that Seattle is offering him play calling duties. He'd really only get a promotion in name if he came to the Bears as OC.

Johnson should be there in the 2nd round. Henderson and Judkins should be available in the 3rd. Unless the combine really changes perception on those backs, the Bears should be able to grab 1 of them.

I never thought I'd see the day that Illinois finishes ahead of Alabama in the final AP poll.

I don't get the feeling the Caleb liked losing or being sacked almost 70 times. I think the last staff was probably not hard enough on vets and maybe gave them special treatment. That probably includes Caleb since he was the #1 pick.

https://www.theringer.com/2023/08/14/nfl/how-detroit-lions-offensive-coordinator-ben-johnson-fixed-jared-goff Great article about how Johnson runs his offense. One of the Bears' biggest issues this past year was that they looked unprepared. A better way to put it was that they look like they don't even practice together. Everything spelled out in this article was the opposite of that. Hell, this isn't even some puff piece put out to make Johnson look good for this hiring cycle. It's from 2 seasons ago.

Nope. Johnson was eyeing the job last off-season, but they stubbornly retained Eberflus like the idiots they are. Now they wasted a year and they have to pay more for Johnson.

I'm glad to see that they didn't settle for McCarthy. Johnson is going to be the 5th highest paid coach in the NFL. They're not cheaping out or cutting corners. My one concern about this hire along with Allen is that neither are really the "leader of men" type of coach that the Bears have kept talking about throughout this whole search. I would rather not have a Mark Trestman type of situation again.

The Chiefs have insane plot armor.

He doesn't, but it's mostly an age thing.

TLR would be closer to Pete Carroll.

Greg will be happy with this one.

Darnold and Ben Johnson might actually work.

They also have no QB and might have to trade draft capital to draft one (good chance Ward and Sanders don't make it to 6).

There has definitely been a shift in tone from the fanbase when it comes to McCarthy. Last week, when news came out that the Bears wanted to interview him, I would say the general tone was extremely negative. Now it feels like the fanbase is bargaining that McCarthy might not be so bad. I don't think McCarthy is the worst you can do, but holy hell, we can definitely do better.

The problem is that they didn't try to ease him into the NFL at all. Seems like they just threw everything at him thinking he would just get it because he was viewed as this once in a generation prospect. It's fine to do that to him if you're going to let him play in the system for a few years. There's nothing wrong with learning from adversity. There is a problem with making him learn through adversity and then have him re-learn a brand new offense again in year 2. That part is on Poles and the problem in general with keeping a coach who was close to being on the hotseat while drafting a brand new QB.

Mike McCarthy now at +200 odds for becoming the next Bears HC. Johnson is still the favorite though.

I have a feeling they want to bring Rivera in to be a DC if they hire an offensive minded coach.

Remember that clip of Waldron making a joke and laughing after a 3 and out in the Pats game and Caleb just sat there and didn't acknowledge it? I'd like to think Waldron was making some gen Z joke that he thought Caleb would find funny, but it was actually incredibly cringe.

There's a few offensive tackles besides Banks and Campbell who have mid first round draft grades. I don't know about a disaster, but if they got 7, you can argue they could have gotten someone like Abdul Carter if the slides a little.

So the win today cost the Bears 3 spots. I guess it's really not a huge difference between 7 and 10.

FWIW, on the last play of the game, the Seahawks sent the entire right side of their defense and the Bears had no underneath route to throw to. Yes they needed 10 yards, but had they had Allen run a shallow cross or a drag route he easily gets 10 yards because there was absolutely nobody defending it. Seeing the Seahawks have 8 guys on the LOS and no check down option seems like a huge oversight. When you design a play there has to be a reasonable hot read to account for a situation like that. Instead the Bears ran Moore on a deep cross, Allen on a sit down route in the middle of the field and Odunze on what I think was a deep dig. Allen has to recognize that when half of the field is not being defended he needs to convert his sit route into a crosser. The receivers really haven't helped Caleb at all this year.

Over, just because it's actually very hard to win less than 50 games.

Caleb has actually gotten worse at getting rid of the ball quickly as the season has gone on. The inaccuracy on deep throws has been really disappointing. All his other struggles are pretty normal for a rookie in a badly coached offense. He really does need a reset and the Bears really need to hire an offensive head coach to get him in the right space. There's definitely times where he plays hero ball and doesn't get rid of the ball when he should, but there's also plays where he just has no chance because there's no actual checkdown for him to go to.