The end is nigh, Cardinals @ Bears

[Soul]

1 hour ago, gflore34 said:

Williams is more of extend the play, sounds like he's potentially better than Fields at processing, beat blitzes whereas, Maye is looked upon as less of a creator and more of a pocket passer.

 

 https://www.profootballnetwork.com/drake-maye-draft-scouting-2024/ -

 

Maye is a measured, precise, and instinctive passer who can test defenses in the intermediate and deep ranges. He’s better than Williams at maintaining pocket discipline, staying on rhythm, and taking what’s given in the short range, and he can carve defenses apart in the intermediate range with his anticipatory high-velocity javelins.

In fact, one of Maye’s most exciting traits is his actionable field vision and anticipation. He identifies leverage advantages in coverages instantly, and he can capitalize just as quickly.

Maye actively uses his eyes to freeze DBs, has an understanding of how to open the field at his will, and has the rocket arm to take advantage. And he can also multitask and manage space in the pocket while processing the field.

I don’t want Williams. I feel like there’s a good chance he will hold the ball too long.  Having a guy that extends the play is great but he’s got to also get the ball out quick when needed.

I’d rather they draft Maye.

Of course now that I posted this CW will be the next Stroud for another team.

[Old Style]

I’m probably the only one left that wants to run it back with Fields as long as Goatse isn’t calling plays. If we don’t have a new OC it won’t matter if they find a way to bring Tom Brady out of retirement.  I’m not sold on any of the QB’s in this draft so maybe that’s why I’m more willing to give Fields another shot after upgrading the OL, adding another true weapon at WR, and getting someone at least halfway competent to call plays. 

[minnesotacubsfan]

53 minutes ago, Old Style said:

I’m probably the only one left that wants to run it back with Fields as long as Goatse isn’t calling plays. If we don’t have a new OC it won’t matter if they find a way to bring Tom Brady out of retirement.  I’m not sold on any of the QB’s in this draft so maybe that’s why I’m more willing to give Fields another shot after upgrading the OL, adding another true weapon at WR, and getting someone at least halfway competent to call plays. 

Not the only one

[jersey cubs fan]

[Outshined_One]

Look on the bright side, Ginnie could kick the bucket and the team could get sold to a competent ownership group in the offseason as a result.

[UMFan83]

2 hours ago, Old Style said:

I’m probably the only one left that wants to run it back with Fields as long as Goatse isn’t calling plays. If we don’t have a new OC it won’t matter if they find a way to bring Tom Brady out of retirement.  I’m not sold on any of the QB’s in this draft so maybe that’s why I’m more willing to give Fields another shot after upgrading the OL, adding another true weapon at WR, and getting someone at least halfway competent to call plays. 

I'd prefer to go QB and start over, but I just like Fields and while I don't think he's the guy, there's a part of me that continues to want to believe.  I think he has improved this year, enough to be an average starting QB.  But I also think his ceiling is not much higher than that as there are fatal flaws that at this point can't be fixed and a number of risks to committing big money long term for him given his style of play.

Put it this way, if we weren't in a position where we were gifted a top 2 pick and only had our own pick, I wouldn't be calling to replace Fields by all means necessary.  I am not an expert football film watcher so I couldn't tell you whether I loved Caleb or Maye but if Caleb really is a clone of Fields skillset, I don't see the harm in resetting the rookie QB contract, putting the right staff and system in place and seeing if we can unlock a higher ceiling with him.  From what I've read, his skills are good enough that I don't think he'd be a Zach Wilson type flop.  Maybe he ends up a little worse than Fields, maybe he ends up better than Fields.  We don't know, but I'm convinced that what we are risking is giving up on a league average QB that is about to get much more expensive.

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by UMFan83

[Tryptamine]

I'm honestly kind of terrified to take Caleb Williams, perhaps irrationally so, seeing what a worse version of him in Bryce Young is doing.  I'd be ok with Maye, but Maye might be a guy who throws 25 TD and 20 INT in his first season and I can see Chicago going into mass panic with that.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

OCs are definitely more impactful than QBs, that's why the best ones get $50m a year and are remembered for decades while QBs fade into obscurity 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Williams is better at getting the ball out quickly than Maye is

[BigSlick]

53 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

I'd prefer to go QB and start over, but I just like Fields and while I don't think he's the guy, there's a part of me that continues to want to believe.  I think he has improved this year, enough to be an average starting QB.  But I also think his ceiling is not much higher than that as there are fatal flaws that at this point can't be fixed and a number of risks to committing big money long term for him given his style of play.

Put it this way, if we weren't in a position where we were gifted a top 2 pick and only had our own pick, I wouldn't be calling to replace Fields by all means necessary.  I am not an expert football film watcher so I couldn't tell you whether I loved Caleb or Maye but if Caleb really is a clone of Fields skillset, I don't see the harm in resetting the rookie QB contract, putting the right staff and system in place and seeing if we can unlock a higher ceiling with him.  From what I've read, his skills are good enough that I don't think he'd be a Zach Wilson type flop.  Maybe he ends up a little worse than Fields, maybe he ends up better than Fields.  We don't know, but I'm convinced that what we are risking is giving up on a league average QB that is about to get much more expensive.

 

I’m with your mindset pretty much entirely. I like Fields a lot. I root for him every game. It’s only because of the exceptional situation we’re in with the Panthers pick that I think you have to move on from Fields. If we didn’t have it, I think you pick up his option and try to build the offense around him. And he has fatal flaws, flaws he may never be able to overcome to be elite (lol), but with another couple weapons and a bad ass OLine, he’s a dude you can win with.

 

but you have a top 1 or 2 pick in a class stacked with QB prospects. And I think you just gotta move on. 

[PosterToBeNamedLater]

2 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

I'd prefer to go QB and start over, but I just like Fields and while I don't think he's the guy, there's a part of me that continues to want to believe.  I think he has improved this year, enough to be an average starting QB.  But I also think his ceiling is not much higher than that as there are fatal flaws that at this point can't be fixed and a number of risks to committing big money long term for him given his style of play.

Put it this way, if we weren't in a position where we were gifted a top 2 pick and only had our own pick, I wouldn't be calling to replace Fields by all means necessary.  I am not an expert football film watcher so I couldn't tell you whether I loved Caleb or Maye but if Caleb really is a clone of Fields skillset, I don't see the harm in resetting the rookie QB contract, putting the right staff and system in place and seeing if we can unlock a higher ceiling with him.  From what I've read, his skills are good enough that I don't think he'd be a Zach Wilson type flop.  Maybe he ends up a little worse than Fields, maybe he ends up better than Fields.  We don't know, but I'm convinced that what we are risking is giving up on a league average QB that is about to get much more expensive.

 

I agree with this.  I want to go QB with the Panthers pick because I want to shoot for having one of the best QB's in the league and not just pretty good, but if poles traded it and went with Fields again, I still like him so much and still hold out some hope for him that I wouldn't be devastated and will talk myself into having multiple firsts for the next few years.  The one thing I never want to do again is go for the boring average veteran (like signing Dalton, or the saints getting Carr).  I would just be fully out on that season before it started.  I never want to be in the "we have a good defense, we just need an average veteran" situation. I'm done with that.  I want a great offense, so I want to take a shot on Williams or Maye.  But at least Fields still sometimes makes you think he might be able to do it (no matter how much evidence to the contrary).   And he is like-able and fun enough where I still root for him to do it.  When Trubisky left the Bears, I didn't care about him at all.  With Fields, I will hope he does well wherever he goes.  

[Soul]

I’ll add that watching Trubisky fail miserably in Pittsburgh has been especially enjoyable since all Steelers pain is enjoyable.  But also it’s validating that the pick was terrible.  It felt bad at the time, and that’s because it was bad.

All Poles has to do is just NOT MISS on this pick.  Easier said than done but if we do go QB it’s exactly what a GM hopes to have.  His pick of a brand new shiny QB.  Don’t blow it bruh.

[BigbadB]

I'm pretty amazed at how many Chicago Couch GM's on social media are so convinced that these top two QB's in the draft aren't any better than Fields before they ever get drafted. 

Here we are thinking we can get 3 or 4 first round picks for the top pick in the draft, yet our fans don't value the pick any better than a worse version of Justin Fields, who barely averages 200 yards passing a game, if he even does that.

I'm not advocating for this, but if Kirk Cousins was QBing this team (pre-injury), I'm pretty sure he could have this team operating at a much higher level of production than Fields is doing on a weekly basis. I don't think Mooney's misconnections with Fields are all on Mooney. One deep play to Mooney was a couple seconds late to when he was wide open. Fields doesn't see those wide open guys soon enough. 

There is just no way I can be convinced all of this offensive struggle is on Getsy. I doubt that he's a good or great OC, and he very well could be a bigger part of the problem, but I've seen no evidence that he and Fields can combine to be a formidable NFL tandem that can win consistently.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

3 hours ago, BigbadB said:

I'm pretty amazed at how many Chicago Couch GM's on social media are so convinced that these top two QB's in the draft aren't any better than Fields before they ever get drafted. 

Here we are thinking we can get 3 or 4 first round picks for the top pick in the draft, yet our fans don't value the pick any better than a worse version of Justin Fields, who barely averages 200 yards passing a game, if he even does that.

I'm not advocating for this, but if Kirk Cousins was QBing this team (pre-injury), I'm pretty sure he could have this team operating at a much higher level of production than Fields is doing on a weekly basis. I don't think Mooney's misconnections with Fields are all on Mooney. One deep play to Mooney was a couple seconds late to when he was wide open. Fields doesn't see those wide open guys soon enough. 

There is just no way I can be convinced all of this offensive struggle is on Getsy. I doubt that he's a good or great OC, and he very well could be a bigger part of the problem, but I've seen no evidence that he and Fields can combine to be a formidable NFL tandem that can win consistently.

Someday, hopefully in the near future, this fanbase is going to have its "ive been dating an old woman!" moment with fields.

In what everyone swore would be his make-or-break, no-excuses season, fields is again averaging under 200 passing yards a game while his running production, the only thing he's actually good at, has declined dramatically.

And yet still a significant (but thankfully finally shrinking) chunk of the fanbase is constantly trying to theorycraft scenarios where we run him back for a fourth year instead of simply drafting the consensus best qb prospect in several years.

 

[jersey cubs fan]

23 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

Someday, hopefully in the near future, this fanbase is going to have its "ive been dating an old woman!" moment with fields.

In what everyone swore would be his make-or-break, no-excuses season, fields is again averaging under 200 passing yards a game while his running production, the only thing he's actually good at, has declined dramatically.

And yet still a significant (but thankfully finally shrinking) chunk of the fanbase is constantly trying to theorycraft scenarios where we run him back for a fourth year instead of simply drafting the consensus best qb prospect in several years.

 

The words consensus and several are doing a lot of work here. 
 

There is no point of moving on from Fields until after the season. The ideal scenario coming into the season was Fields taking a big step, if not a leap, forward and the Bears set up to draft whomever they wanted with Carolina’s pick. That hasn’t happened and isn’t going to happen. But there are still games to be played. 

[mul21]

I'm pretty much done with Fields with only a small bit of the nagging "Is Getsy really this bad?" question in my mind.  I'm no expert but just seeing some of the formations and concepts he tries to execute with guys who are on the margins of the roster because he seems to think he's smarter than everyone else is mind boggling.  Get the damn ball to the best guys on your roster.  Why was Tonyan running that route on the ball he dropped with Kmet blocking instead of the other way around?  Why is Taylor Scott running an end around on 3rd down?  I don't think that's enough to convince me Fields isn't the problem and the opportunity cost of not grabbing a guy at the top of the draft when the chance is there to do it when the likelihood of getting a guy who is the answer later is even smaller tells me they have to move on and reset everything from the head coach on down.

[raw]

5 hours ago, BigbadB said:

I'm pretty amazed at how many Chicago Couch GM's on social media are so convinced that these top two QB's in the draft aren't any better than Fields before they ever get drafted. 

Here we are thinking we can get 3 or 4 first round picks for the top pick in the draft, yet our fans don't value the pick any better than a worse version of Justin Fields, who barely averages 200 yards passing a game, if he even does that.

I'm not advocating for this, but if Kirk Cousins was QBing this team (pre-injury), I'm pretty sure he could have this team operating at a much higher level of production than Fields is doing on a weekly basis. I don't think Mooney's misconnections with Fields are all on Mooney. One deep play to Mooney was a couple seconds late to when he was wide open. Fields doesn't see those wide open guys soon enough. 

There is just no way I can be convinced all of this offensive struggle is on Getsy. I doubt that he's a good or great OC, and he very well could be a bigger part of the problem, but I've seen no evidence that he and Fields can combine to be a formidable NFL tandem that can win consistently.

Went under 200 per game Sunday. Granted, that 1/2 game vs Minnesota is a key to keeping it under 200, but it's not like we're talking about a huge jump in his numbers. 

It's definitely not all on Getsy. There's a reason why Fields doesn't or isn't able to check out of plays, had 20 screens called agains the Vikings, and why the playcalling is stale. Part of it is Getsy not knowing how to call a game (as far as we know, and the Bagent games help support this theory). But the most frustrating part of it is Fields doesn't do things consistently enough for Getsy to know what to call in key spots. For example, Fields should be deadly running RPOs, he ran them at Ohio St, but he sucks at them in the NFL. Getsy will run 1 concept early in the game, get the same look later in the game, and Fields will miss the same exact throw later in the game. It's gotta be tough to not have anything to be able to cling to as an OC. But yeah, Getsy does stink. 

[raw]

1 hour ago, mul21 said:

I'm pretty much done with Fields with only a small bit of the nagging "Is Getsy really this bad?" question in my mind.  I'm no expert but just seeing some of the formations and concepts he tries to execute with guys who are on the margins of the roster because he seems to think he's smarter than everyone else is mind boggling.  Get the damn ball to the best guys on your roster.  Why was Tonyan running that route on the ball he dropped with Kmet blocking instead of the other way around?  Why is Taylor Scott running an end around on 3rd down?  I don't think that's enough to convince me Fields isn't the problem and the opportunity cost of not grabbing a guy at the top of the draft when the chance is there to do it when the likelihood of getting a guy who is the answer later is even smaller tells me they have to move on and reset everything from the head coach on down.

I mean, it's kind of unfair to point out individual plays. Tonyan's probably a slightly better route runner and Kmet is a better blocker. It was 1 play Tonyan should have caught. You can't blame the OC that the guy didn't catch it. It's not like it was designed directly for him or that Tonyan is overly used. Scott on the endaround is the same. They used Velus on that a couple times to success. So you're giving the same look, but with a different guy with similar speed. The defense would have been looking for Velus there as that's all he can do. We've seen DJ attract too much attention for that play to succeed. And Mooney has never been the end-around guy. 

If there is 1 play that stands out it's Mooney blocking the edge on the 4th down Fields run. Part of the reason he's there is because DJ gets too much attention to be there (he draws defenders closer to the edge if he's blocking). Also, St. Brown being out hurt there as he's the blocker that makes that work. And it was a run/pass option and Fields thought he could break that tackle (which is on him, not Mooney for being wrong).

Not to absolve Getsy, but its only so much he can do with his personnel/talent. Those 1-off plays wouldn't stick out if the Bears had better talent and probably better QB play. Everything is magnified because the Bears aren't good enough to where a few mistakes don't matter. I see teams drop passes, miss blocks, call bad plays every week....yet they still win because those teams don't need 100% of everything to work to win games. The Bears margin for error is extremely low because of the talent level.

[BigSlick]

Getsy has been brutal, but there's stuff we don't know which really matters in evaluating where the problem lies between him and Fields. Let's talk about the 20 screen passes in the Vikings game - on the face of it that seems to be entirely Getsy's fault, what the hell is going on there? Then you listen to Tim Jenkins go over the tape and he says (and its impossible for me to verify this) that about half of those were optioned to by Fields. Do we know that for sure? No. But I'm reasonably confident that some of those were audibled into by Fields. Now, we can say: Getsy should have better options for Fields to option into when he doesn't like what the defense is showing him, sure. But we also know, from the eye-test, that Fields is pretty bad at hitting hot reads when facing a blitz, because we've seen him hold onto the ball to long and miss open guys in those scenarios. 

I horsefeathers hate to drag that little dude Bagent back into the conversation - but he did seem to have a better eye at this kind of stuff even as a rookie. The offense "worked" more consistently (with far fewer dynamic and explosive plays) in terms of having a better ratio of "successful" plays to unsuccessful ones. Again - you can argue that's a weakness of Getsy, in terms of not tailoring his playcalling to Fields's strengths. I agree! Unfortunately we don't have the ability to see what a 3rd year Justin Fields would look like under another OC. So we can only operate on what we see. 

Edited December 19, 2023 by BigSlick

[jersey cubs fan]

12 minutes ago, BigSlick said:

. 

I horsefeathers hate to drag that little dude Bagent back into the conversation - but he did seem to have a better eye at this kind of stuff even as a rookie. The offense "worked" more consistently (with far fewer dynamic and explosive plays) in terms of having a better ratio of "successful" plays to unsuccessful ones. 

I’m gonna need to see some receipts. That’s a very “seems like” claim.
 

They beat up on Vegas then the offense did nothing against the saints chargers or panthers. Three of those fours teams Bagent faced have fired their head coach this year. Both wins were against sub .500 teams, and in only one did the offense participate in a meaningful way. Fields still has the only win against a good team. They beat a .500 team, but the offense didn’t have anything to do with it. The offense was also much more impactful in a handful of other games. People like to say this offense worked better with Bagent and I don’t know why they think that’s true. The offense was not good in three of four games. 

[BigSlick]

4 minutes ago, jersey cubs fan said:

I’m gonna need to see some receipts. That’s a very “seems like” claim.
 

They beat up on Vegas then the offense did nothing against the saints chargers or panthers. Three of those fours teams Bagent faced have fired their head coach this year. Both wins were against sub .500 teams, and in only one did the offense participate in a meaningful way. Fields still has the only win against a good team. They beat a .500 team, but the offense didn’t have anything to do with it. The offense was also much more impactful in a handful of other games. People like to say this offense worked better with Bagent and I don’t know why they think that’s true. The offense was not good in three of four games. 

I posted some numbers in a previous thread, the short and sweet of it is this: 

Bagent's "success rate" (defined as getting 40% or more of what you need on 1st down, 60% on 2nd down, and 100% on 3rd and 4th down) is 14% higher than Fields's. 

Edited December 19, 2023 by BigSlick

[CubinNY]

Goony,

Are you saying that the jury is still out on Fields? I'm not understanding your position. 

[jersey cubs fan]

19 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Goony,

Are you saying that the jury is still out on Fields? I'm not understanding your position. 

What?
 

im saying people have a weird narrative about bagent and his supposed success against 4 bad teams, which also coincided with the offensive line being fully intact for the first time. The offense sucked under his watch, and it’s sucked for most of fields time.
I’m not sure what a jury would need to see, but the defendant does have a right to a closing argument. 
And by rule, the games still have to be played

 

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Re: Getsy

I think 90% of coaches are Just A Guy and he's one of them. You might as well fire him and hope you can find one of the 10% who are running innovative offenses that happen to attack the NFL meta in a useful way.  But it probably won't change anything, just like firing Nagy didn't.

If you wanna ding him or eberflus for the missed assignments and general confusion operating the offense, we did have too many of those (although they did go down noticeably when claypool was cut.)

But most of the complaints about him are just generic fan chatter with a touch of fields cope.

I could go to 25 different teams' forums right now and find the same complaints that are either so vague that it's impossible to avoid (you're either "too predictable" or "calling plays that don't make sense for the situation" but it's impossible to dodge both at the same time) or just straight up asking for things that won't work consistently in the NFL or their personnel can't execute.  And every time a short yardage call fails anywhere in the NFL, a fan complains about how stupid it was to run inside/run outside/pass and obviously they just needed to run inside/run outside/pass instead.

We've absolutely run different game plans and schemes this season at different times to try to adjust for the defenses we were facing.  The Denver, Minnesota and Cleveland game plans were noticeably different from each other.  The Bagent game plans were visibly different from the fields.game plans.

Offensive coaches will keep being run out of town as idiots until we get an actually good QB.

 

[Tryptamine]

Has anyone from the Dolphins been talked about as a potential for the Bears inevitable open OC slot? I know they have Tyreek and Waddle, but whoever was in charge of Tua made some miracles happen.