Chicago Bears Offseason Thread (the tank must payoff)

[jersey cubs fan]

post season - he's terrible, not the answer, Bears should trade him.

Aside from the occasional hot take artist, I’m not seeing this at all. The general sentiment is that they have their quarterback and need to find a way to surround him with better weapons and a line all while restocking a pathetic defense.

[raw]

I wonder if we'd hear more in the media about the lack of support around Justin Fields if he wasn't black. Preseason - Poles gave Justin Fields no help, being set up for failure, season is played, despite an incompetent offensive line, he improves on his numbers from last season, post season - he's terrible, not the answer, Bears should trade him. Is it because, out of necessity and, to keep him from sustaining a career ending injury, Fields used his running ability? I think Getsy knows that type of offense is not sustainable, and it'll go away once the Bears have an OL capable of pass blocking for more than a nano-second. Why isn't this ever mentioned?

 

It's funny, because I never feel like anyone talks about Lamar Jackson's lack of support either. Granted, he has a great OL and a strong defense. But so does Aaron Rodgers and all we heard was "Rodgers doesn't have enough weapons". Rodgers had Lazard, Sammy Watkins, his handpicked safety blanket in Cobb, and they drafted a pair of WRs, including 1 early. Lamar went into the season with Rashod Bateman, who granted was a 1st round pick in 2021, but then they had Demarcus Robinson and glorified Velus Jones, Devin Duvernay. They also traded their #1 WR in the offseason, and I didn't hear a bunch of "they had to trade him because they couldn't pay him and Lamar" like the talking heads say about Rodgers/Adams.

[raw]

post season - he's terrible, not the answer, Bears should trade him.

Aside from the occasional hot take artist, I’m not seeing this at all. The general sentiment is that they have their quarterback and need to find a way to surround him with better weapons and a line all while restocking a pathetic defense.

 

Agreed. I feel like it's a ratings thing in an industry (sports media) that makes money on hot takes. Everyone was saying all season when Fields was putting up highlight plays every week how he was great and the Bears needed to get him some help. Now the same people are saying the opposite for shock value.

 

I feel like if he had a 50 yard run or a beautiful deep ball completion against Detroit Week 17. Or even something as simple as if Houston had lost and the Bears had the #2 pick, nobody would be talking about replacing him with another QB. Even still, I feel like the ones saying that are being disingenuous.

[David]

post season - he's terrible, not the answer, Bears should trade him.

Aside from the occasional hot take artist, I’m not seeing this at all. The general sentiment is that they have their quarterback and need to find a way to surround him with better weapons and a line all while restocking a pathetic defense.

 

Agreed. I feel like it's a ratings thing in an industry (sports media) that makes money on hot takes. Everyone was saying all season when Fields was putting up highlight plays every week how he was great and the Bears needed to get him some help. Now the same people are saying the opposite for shock value.

 

I feel like if he had a 50 yard run or a beautiful deep ball completion against Detroit Week 17. Or even something as simple as if Houston had lost and the Bears had the #2 pick, nobody would be talking about replacing him with another QB. Even still, I feel like the ones saying that are being disingenuous.

 

yeah... at least, other than lesean mccoy lol

[minnesotacubsfan]

post season - he's terrible, not the answer, Bears should trade him.

Aside from the occasional hot take artist, I’m not seeing this at all. The general sentiment is that they have their quarterback and need to find a way to surround him with better weapons and a line all while restocking a pathetic defense.

 

 

I have seen articles about how the Bears should draft Young and trade Fields. I think most of it is just sports writer bs and being overwhelmed with the idea of having the top pick; like the exuberance makes people stupid.

[CubinNY]

post season - he's terrible, not the answer, Bears should trade him.

Aside from the occasional hot take artist, I’m not seeing this at all. The general sentiment is that they have their quarterback and need to find a way to surround him with better weapons and a line all while restocking a pathetic defense.

 

 

I have seen articles about how the Bears should draft Young and trade Fields. I think most of it is just sports writer bs and being overwhelmed with the idea of having the top pick; like the exuberance makes people stupid.

I don't think anyone seriously thinks the Bears are going to move on from Fields. However, Young is a pretty special college QB. I am not 100% convinced that he's a pro QB. He'll have to have Drew Breese-like talent to make it. I don't think the risk of trading Fields is worth the reward. There are too many questions about all of the top QBs in the draft to take a chance that they'd be better.

[minnesotacubsfan]

Aside from the occasional hot take artist, I’m not seeing this at all. The general sentiment is that they have their quarterback and need to find a way to surround him with better weapons and a line all while restocking a pathetic defense.

 

 

I have seen articles about how the Bears should draft Young and trade Fields. I think most of it is just sports writer bs and being overwhelmed with the idea of having the top pick; like the exuberance makes people stupid.

I don't think anyone seriously thinks the Bears are going to move on from Fields. However, Young is a pretty special college QB. I am not 100% convinced that he's a pro QB. He'll have to have Drew Breese-like talent to make it. I don't think the risk of trading Fields is worth the reward. There are too many questions about all of the top QBs in the draft to take a chance that they'd be better.

 

idk, I feel like there are people serious about the Bears drafting young. that being said, I dont think he's anything better prospect-wise then Fields is or was

 

[David]

it's worth mentioning that tannenbaum is a noted moron, but, yes, some are probably serious

[WrigleyField 22]

Some people are just draft fiends too and can't help themselves. Basically the Peter Griffen mystery box people in live form.

[Soul]

Hot take, IMO. Bears will either trade out or take someone like Jalen Carter.

[raw]

Aside from the occasional hot take artist, I’m not seeing this at all. The general sentiment is that they have their quarterback and need to find a way to surround him with better weapons and a line all while restocking a pathetic defense.

 

Agreed. I feel like it's a ratings thing in an industry (sports media) that makes money on hot takes. Everyone was saying all season when Fields was putting up highlight plays every week how he was great and the Bears needed to get him some help. Now the same people are saying the opposite for shock value.

 

I feel like if he had a 50 yard run or a beautiful deep ball completion against Detroit Week 17. Or even something as simple as if Houston had lost and the Bears had the #2 pick, nobody would be talking about replacing him with another QB. Even still, I feel like the ones saying that are being disingenuous.

 

yeah... at least, other than lesean mccoy lol

 

McCoy went to high school near me. Aliquippa. Let's just say, that school doesn't focus on academics much.

[gflore34]

Saw today, according to PFF, the Bears had the 14th rated OL in the NFL?! Didn't see the break downs but, a large part of that rating must have been run blocking. No way does Justin get sacked as often with even an average pass blocking line granted, some of the sacks were on him holding on to the ball too long. However, on obvious passing downs how often was Justin given time? In those cases, the rush was on him almost with the snap of the ball.

[David]

Saw today, according to PFF, the Bears had the 14th rated OL in the NFL?! Didn't see the break downs but, a large part of that rating must have been run blocking. No way does Justin get sacked as often with even an average pass blocking line granted, some of the sacks were on him holding on to the ball too long. However, on obvious passing downs how often was Justin given time? In those cases, the rush was on him almost with the snap of the ball.

 

i have a feeling that if the bears had attempted to pass more often in obvious passing situations, their PFF grades would look a lot different.

 

like kyle said, PFF can often basically be a RNG anyway, but with play-calling as unorthodox as the Bears had, it's probably even less meaningful.

[WrigleyField 22]

I had a rambling research/rant I posted about that on another forum...

 

Detailed breakdown of that rank:

 

Pass block: 68.2 (16 of 32)

Run block: 73.1 (6 of 32)

 

I can't find team wide true pass set grades, but let's just run a few comps:

 

Bears ran a true pass set on 38% of pass plays. All their OL who saw significant snaps were graded 37.6-54.1 on true pass sets, except Reiff at 63.0. Pretty big drop when forced to drop back.

 

Let's just look at 1, 8, 24, and 32 ranked pass teams true pass set since I can't easily run all teams.

 

Eagles 83.2 overall pass block grade

Ran true pass set on 44% of passes and top players graded b/t 65.3-89.5, only one in 60s

 

Falcons 73.2 pblck grade

Ran true pass set on 29% of passes and top players graded b/t 55.6-78.7, only one in 50s

 

Giants 62.6 pblck grade

Ran true pass set on 39% of passes and top players graded b/t 31.5-59.6, except for Thomas at 83.1

 

Titans 52.5 pblck grade

Ran true pass set on 43% of passes and top players graded b/t 34.6-44.3, except for Ben Jones at 76.7

 

Take away from this sampling of the quartile tiers? Bears may have been median ranked pass team, but at least in true pass sets, look a heck of a lot more like the two sample from the bottom tiers than the top tiers. But at same time their overall ranking indicates they were aided by pass plays in which they helped (PA, moving pockets, whatever).

 

Do I find the PFF grade entirely satisfactory? No, but I do think its likely true that most of us are hyper focused on Beads weaknesses and don't get thr chance to watch near as many games of other teams to actually gauge a straight ranking.

 

Another interesting factor is the QB play. Some QBs, usually vets, improve their line play with their deep understanding of coverages and general smarts/knowledge. However it's been theorized and analysis run to suggest running QBs help some of these pass rush metrics. We've seen with out own eyes watching JF1 that Ds at times didn't seem to all out rush because of the threat of JF1 beating a pass rush with his legs.

 

Of the top 6 QB scrambles (where a pretty obvious divide exists) their team pass block rated as 16, 22, 24, 1, 9, 20... Well certainly nothing definitive there. That's volume. By scramble efficiency (ignoring low volume guys) it's 16, 22, 20, 6, 7, 13, 2, 1, 17, 24. Perhaps a tad better, but not conclusive.

 

Last grade. PFF has a pass blocking efficiency score. On that metric they are 29/32. And by metric

Hits allowed: 7th best (3.14% rate)

Hurries allowed: 30/32 (21.34%)

Pressures allowed: 26/32 (29.80%)

Sacks allowed: 31/32 (5.29%)

 

Well now I found the metric that fits the narrative I want, lol. Seriously don't know why the discrepancy between the graded rank and the efficiency rank. Any guesses? Fwiw on the sack metric they credited 27 of the 58 sacks to the OL.

 

I also did a similar evaluation on Braxton Jones. Short story I think PFF is really just a grade on what you were asked to do and not necessarily to be read as "talent". The Bears OL was not asked to do a lot and were still median.

[Bertz]

Saw today, according to PFF, the Bears had the 14th rated OL in the NFL?! Didn't see the break downs but, a large part of that rating must have been run blocking. No way does Justin get sacked as often with even an average pass blocking line granted, some of the sacks were on him holding on to the ball too long. However, on obvious passing downs how often was Justin given time? In those cases, the rush was on him almost with the snap of the ball.

 

I don't have a PFF sub so I can't get super granular, but from what I have seen I think it's three things:

 

1. Like you said they graded much higher at run blocking than pass blocking (I know I saw numbers to this effect mid-season, doubt much changed)

2. PFF loved Jenkins and Jones, and thought everyone else was mediocre to bad. So even if we take their grades as gospel, the Bears line had glaring weaknesses that were exploitable

3. Justin does hold onto the ball too long at times. It was more consistently bad early in the year, but like there were multiple sacks in that last Detroit game that were totally on him. It never totally went away.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

PFF is awful and people should stop quoting it, stop linking it, and stop looking at it.

 

There's this whole industry that popped up in the post-sabermetric era where you make a name for yourself as a pundit putting out crappy data science, but you've got decimal points in your hot takes so people don't want to question it because it makes them feel anti-stats to do so. PFF is one of the worst offenders.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I strongly dislike the idea that Fields has shown enough that you can't possibly question him or consider replacing him with the absolutely golden opportunity that the No. 1 overall pick provides you.

 

But I'm fine with examining it and deciding that none of the QBs available have shown enough to make you want to move on from Fields.

 

God I hope we fix the rest of the offense, though. If this turns into "well, BPA was a defensive player in the first round, and we really went big on defensive front-7 in free agency, and we really like Mooney and Claypool and Kmet, and Jones/Jenkins have to be given room to grow" I'm gonna be annoying about it. I wasn't going to be annoying in any other scenario but that one, I swear.

[minnesotacubsfan]

I strongly dislike the idea that Fields has shown enough that you can't possibly question him or consider replacing him with the absolutely golden opportunity that the No. 1 overall pick provides you.

 

But I'm fine with examining it and deciding that none of the QBs available have shown enough to make you want to move on from Fields.

 

God I hope we fix the rest of the offense, though. If this turns into "well, BPA was a defensive player in the first round, and we really went big on defensive front-7 in free agency, and we really like Mooney and Claypool and Kmet, and Jones/Jenkins have to be given room to grow" I'm gonna be annoying about it. I wasn't going to be annoying in any other scenario but that one, I swear.

 

If Peyton Manning was there at #1, sure I'd consider trading Fields. But neither Young nor Stroud nor the UK guy strike me as better options/more promising then Fields was or is.

 

as for who to draft, I think the Bears will need to cast a very wide net in both FA and the draft, and I dont care if the first three picks are all D as long as they use FA to address the O, or vice versa. We got needs everywhere, my friend

[WrigleyField 22]

PFF is awful and people should stop quoting it, stop linking it, and stop looking at it.

 

There's this whole industry that popped up in the post-sabermetric era where you make a name for yourself as a pundit putting out crappy data science, but you've got decimal points in your hot takes so people don't want to question it because it makes them feel anti-stats to do so. PFF is one of the worst offenders.

Is there any particular way you arrived at this theory other than vibes? Genuinely curious.

 

I like a lot of their data and info personally, though I do think their grades at face value are a very small piece of what they do. They're a nice market facing thing. Digging past grades there's a lot there from a play tracking standpoint that literally no one else provides as a consumer product.

[David]

the nice thing about having horsefeathers players all over the place is being able to go BPA with zero remorse and also it's very easy to upgrade from a practice squad roster given all of the resources we are going into this with.

[jersey cubs fan]

If Peyton Manning was there at #1, sure I'd consider trading Fields. But neither Young nor Stroud nor the UK guy strike me as better options/more promising then Fields was or is.

If a Peyton Manning was there at #1 it’s a no brainer that you take him and trade Fields. Justin was my favorite QB in his class and I was ecstatic they took him. I have very high hopes for Fields and expect great things if the Poles doesn’t horsefeathers up the 2nd consecutive offseason. But Peyton Manning was a different beast. The true generational draft talent. I don’t see how any of the guys in this draft are the same category though. But if you did, you should take them and trade Fields, who probably lost 2-3 years off his career this season.

[Sammy Sofa]

PFF is awful and people should stop quoting it, stop linking it, and stop looking at it.

 

There's this whole industry that popped up in the post-sabermetric era where you make a name for yourself as a pundit putting out crappy data science, but you've got decimal points in your hot takes so people don't want to question it because it makes them feel anti-stats to do so. PFF is one of the worst offenders.

 

Yeah, the only way the Bears somehow had the 14th ranked OL is if some other teams' QBs died on the field.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Sammy Sofa

[minnesotacubsfan]

PFF is awful and people should stop quoting it, stop linking it, and stop looking at it.

 

There's this whole industry that popped up in the post-sabermetric era where you make a name for yourself as a pundit putting out crappy data science, but you've got decimal points in your hot takes so people don't want to question it because it makes them feel anti-stats to do so. PFF is one of the worst offenders.

 

Yeah, the only way the Bears somehow had the 14th ranked OL is off some other teams' QBs died on the field.

 

i tend to think that although the Bears have some young, promising talent on the O-line (Jenkins and Jones, specifically), the massive hole that resides at the very middle position is what drags them down

[mul21]

I strongly dislike the idea that Fields has shown enough that you can't possibly question him or consider replacing him with the absolutely golden opportunity that the No. 1 overall pick provides you.

 

But I'm fine with examining it and deciding that none of the QBs available have shown enough to make you want to move on from Fields.

 

God I hope we fix the rest of the offense, though. If this turns into "well, BPA was a defensive player in the first round, and we really went big on defensive front-7 in free agency, and we really like Mooney and Claypool and Kmet, and Jones/Jenkins have to be given room to grow" I'm gonna be annoying about it. I wasn't going to be annoying in any other scenario but that one, I swear.

 

The only real problem I have with this is the fact that the rest of the roster is in shambles and even if you did feel moderately better about one of the QBs than you do Fields, you're in the same position all over again. You're not going to get the value by trading Fields that you will from trading the #1 pick and the roster desperately needs as many talented bodies in whatever position you can find them as they can get.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

PFF is awful and people should stop quoting it, stop linking it, and stop looking at it.

 

There's this whole industry that popped up in the post-sabermetric era where you make a name for yourself as a pundit putting out crappy data science, but you've got decimal points in your hot takes so people don't want to question it because it makes them feel anti-stats to do so. PFF is one of the worst offenders.

Is there any particular way you arrived at this theory other than vibes? Genuinely curious.

 

I like a lot of their data and info personally, though I do think their grades at face value are a very small piece of what they do. They're a nice market facing thing. Digging past grades there's a lot there from a play tracking standpoint that literally no one else provides as a consumer product.

 

For one thing, they're completely black box. There's no way to independently check anything, because their methodologies are always propietary. They haven't done anyrthing to earn credibility.

 

One of the most famous examples of PFF punditry among Bears fans is this

 

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-chicago-bears-justin-fields-most-accurate-quarteback-ohio-state-pff-college-era

 

Their premise of this article is two-fold: 1) college CPOE translates into pro success and 2) Justin Fields is the best they've ever recorded at it.

 

For the first point, their justification is a chart labeled "How College CPOE translates to NFL EPA/Play" It's a hall of fame example of taking a scatter plot and drawing a line through it to make it look like there's a serious correlation there. It's literally this: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1725:_Linear_Regression. It's Meph "Khalil Greene is going to be a superstar, Jake Peavy is worth two Championships Above Replacement" level analysis.

 

And I can't even tell if no. 2 is accurate or not, because a year later they posted this chart:

 

https://www.pff.com/news/college-football-what-college-completion-percentage-over-expected-cpoe-tells-us-about-the-2022-nfl-draft-qb-class

 

And in this chart purporting to show the exact same stat, Fields is behind dozens of NFL recent draftees and is in fact below average among the sample.

 

How do I square those two? Who knows, they don't give you enough data to check anything they post. But it had a decimal place in it, so it sure seemed scientific.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Hairyducked Idiot