BigbadB

Wasn't Kent Mercker one of them?

If watching my favorite football team horsefeathers the bed week after week isn't enough, I have the 2nd most points in my entire fantasy league (12 teams) by a significant amount, and my team will be sitting out the playoffs. We even have a 6 team playoff format, and my team still didn't make it. 6 wins and 8 losses. Meanwhile, the top team in my division is currently 11-2 with one more player going tonight that can make him 12-2. I currently have outscored his team by over 100 points. I split our head to head matchup with him, It was kinda like the Bears outscoring the opposition overall, but losing games. Good times.

I saw a blip about how Ben Johnson wouldn't even consider the Bears job unless there was some stability in upper management. In other words, a new GM or an extension for Poles. And this was obviously said before this game. There is no way that Poles can be brought back if this is the way this team performs after all of these moves. And I'm sure Johnson might prefer a new GM over a Poles extension. I'm not advocating for Ben Johnson at this point. Hell, I'm not advocating for anyone. I already think no matter who they bring in here, something bad will happen anyway, even if it's considered the greatest hire by any team in the history of football. I admit I was excited about Bears playoff football this year. I admit I set lofty expectations. Whether they made it or not, I was fully expecting fun football. How can it not be fun with so many explosive offensive play makers on the roster? Right?! I think back to all of the highlights of DJ Moore breaking away for td's in a Carolina uniform. All the over the shoulder catches and no one catching him as he runs into the end zone. And now he's just a 5 yard quick screen receiver where you hope he isn't tackled immediately. The offense hasn't had an identity all season long. It's boring and defenses are playing to the weaknesses and taking advantage. I don't think there was a 10+ yard throw in the entire first half. To be fair, there weren't a whole lot of plays in the entire first half, but if a team is playing you tight, you gotta punish them with downfield plays. Dink and dunk is exactly what they want you to do. This is just not fun to watch.

Has Bolles fixed his penaltyitis. I'd try to bring back Shelton on a placeholder/reserve contract. Maybe offer a couple of years since injuries..... That would be nice work on the line. I think all of Jenkins, Bates and Borom have to go.

You felt like this was something that needed to be shared in this forum?

I'm a bit perplexed on how they can achieve anything of significance on defense with all of those guys out. They did appear to scheme the blitz heavily on obvious passing downs while also trying to stuff the run heavily on 1st downs.

How many QB's can we anticipate grabbing some top spots this coming year? Raiders, Giants and Jets seem like locks for a QB if there are at least 3 top of the draft prospects. Browns and Panthers could be knocking on that same door.

While I don't think you can just make that a rule across the board, I definitely believe a dirty hit that ends a guy's season/lengthy stay on IR should have consequences as strong as ending the perpetrator's season just as well. 3 games is crap compared to losing your starting QB for umpteen games. Especially with a guy who has a history of this nonsense.

I got the antennas but haven't installed them everywhere yet. I get in bed to catch what's left of the game on TNT and it says it's blacked out. WTF? National televised blackouts now? Between that and the losses, they don't seem to be inspiring much goodwill these days.

This right here is why I'm not trading picks for a coach. This team still needs those picks to complete the rebuild. There is no guarantee that these teams are even willing to trade their coaches or what the actual cost might be. Trading for McVay and suffering whether another year of Teven Jenkins as your LG will get you 8 games is not acceptable. Between the popular names of Ben Johnson, Joe Brady and Kliff Kingsbury, they should be able to land someone who won't crap the bed the way Eberflus did. It probably should have been Dan Quinn if they had a redo from this past year. I definitely don't want it to be Vrabel or Gruden or Belichick.

I feel like they had 4 lefty guys in the rotation at the same time after some injuries in the late '00's. Felt like it might have been the Sean Marshall, Ted Lilly and Rich Hill era. Maybe I'm wrong.

He got suspended anyway.

This type of signing makes me feel like they might already have the parts in place for a trade, which could be getting held up until after the Sasaki sweepstakes.

I saw it in real time, and all of the different angles. No, it was not clean. There are ways to prevent full impact at the point you see Lawrence going into his slide. Might not be able to stop hitting him entirely, but the high impact at his chest, neck and head area could have been prevented. Dude didn't care to try to avoid it. As has already been said, he's a dirty player. His attitude after the play was over was even worse than the hit, IMO. Evan Ingram gave him a hard shove in the back that knocked his ass to the ground. After that, he acted like he was the only one on the field who was wronged. Will Anderson prevented him from doing any more stupid stuff, and it took several minutes of Anderson holding him back while medics were attending to Lawrence.

He had that game won. Chuba fumbled, almost as if on cue to keep their high draft pick status safe. I don't honestly believe that. I also thought the first Thielen catch was good.

That hit on Trevor Lawrence was ugly. He damn near got decapitated.

This is a really tough audition for Brown. Two promotions in 3 weeks and games against teams with a combined record of 40-17 with a team that hasn't had a direction most of the season. At least he gets an extra holiday weekend to prepare. How much of an improvement in overall team play will we see now that the players aren't sulking before the clock even starts each week?

Yeah, I pretty much hate the floor designs. I was actually under the impression they were some sort of AI generated graphic like the yellow first down line in the NFL. Even worse if the players and attending fans see it.

Has Brown been named interim? Maybe it was mentioned in some of those imbedded tweets, but I didn't click on them to read....more.

My wife bought me a 5 pack of 20 mg edibles. I normally do 10mg, so this was my first try with a 20. We went to a friend's house for beers. Probably a total of 5 or 6 of us, including my wife. I was a zombie. I think I drank a total of 3 beers over 3 hours besides the edible. I was completely unsociable, mind racing and sitting like a lump in a chair I apologized to everyone later on, but it wasn't even enjoyable. 10's are perfect for socializing for me. My wife ended up eating the other 20's. I was afraid to do another one after how out of sorts I was the first time. And that's weird to me. I could always hang with everyone else when passing around a joint.

Happy Ebeflus Gets Fired Day, even if I'm a bit early to the punch. It's going to happen. I can sense it. You cannot be torched this badly by the press and keep your job. And that's ignoring how the players clearly feel about him as their coach. We can all find things to point to as to the downfall of another game. The Bears were huddling up earlier in that late 4th quarter when I felt there should have been more urgency. I do understand the idea of making sure you don't leave time on the clock, but there were at least 2 plays that each took 45 seconds off the clock. That's a minute and 30 seconds when you only had a little over 3:00 left in the game from your own 1 yard line. Get in field goal range and then waste time rather than put yourself in the position of not having enough time to do so. Only a Matt Eberflus coached team can have 1st and 10 from the 50 yard line at the 2 minute warning and not be able to at the very least attempt a field goal. Eberflus won't even fight for his team. Keenan never should have thrown that ball in frustration, but officials can ignore a guy's helmet getting ripped off on one side of the field and not the other simply because Eberflus is okay with that. These players are fighting for themselves. And that's why the change needs to be made today. He's not even man enough to take some responsibility.

You are giving Eberflus way too much credit here. Not burning time outs when you have them late in that Green Bay game is inexcusable. We see teams burn them all the time once they see what the offense is planning on doing. Using a time out on both those last two plays was a no brainer. Maybe you put Odunze and Allen or anyone else that's tall into that Hail Mary pass play to help bat the ball away. That time out might have even allowed Stevenson to actually be where he was supposed to be, since he is the very one who said the guy who caught that ball was his responsibility. Instead, he was jawing with fans and came into the play late and in the wrong place, and ended up tipping the ball to the guy he was supposedly supposed to be covering. Using the time outs assures everyone knows their assignments. It assures the coach has thought about how to defend those plays to the best of his and his players abilities. We've also always known Santos is not a long range kicker. He's probably the only kicker in the league this year that missed a 54 yard field goal (short) without it being blocked. He's accurate from short range, so getting him as close as possible was the smart play. They had time to run more plays and chose not to. If he makes that field goal, no one questions this one. But he missed, which gives all of us every right to question standing around watching the clock run off. That's what losing coaches do. It's also likely the type of decisions that cost him the locker room. Those players all want to win. Eberflus isn't winning and his decisions are turning what appears to be wins into losses.

Exactly. Imagine yourself being a billionaire and treating your play toy as the Oakland A's/Pittsburgh Pirates of big market teams. What's the point? I don't expect him to blow the luxury tax line out of the water or to go over at all. Just stay within the confines of that extra expense, just spend what's within reason to field a winning team. If at the trade deadline, you have a playoff caliber team, do what's necessary to get to the playoffs.

Speculation has been that Thomas Brown could end up being a head coaching candidate this offseason. They feel his coaching style is reminiscent of Mike Tomlin's. But, you can't possibly interrupt the chemistry that Brown and Caleb seem to be having by promoting Brown to interim head coach, can you? I read somewhere that Brown was a Poles hire, not an Eberflus hire. There was more speculation that Poles wanted a guy who he felt comfortable replacing Eberflus with if he needed to, and Brown seems to be that guy. And if Caleb and Brown develop a tight rapport to end the season, how does that potentially impact the whole starting over with new coaches idea? If Brown took over as head coach and found success, a lot of questions would be answered. But, is he even a consideration to be the next head coach? What if this team lost out with him as the interim? I suppose the decisions of whether to go for it on 4th down, challenge a play, argue with a ref, etc...wouldn't be that much more of a burden on Brown's ability to continue having success with Caleb. Honestly, a no head coach approach might be better than Eberflus constantly getting in the way of himself (disagree with Kyle on the value of a coach), but as of now, the only REAL important thing for this team for the rest of this season is the further development of the star QB. I will say that I was very pleased to see the ball spread out much more against Minnesota. I was worried the game plan would be too similar to the GB game and Minnesota would shut down the short game, but Brown seemed to create plays that moved the ball down the field much better, despite success at moving the ball on the ground.

I just really don't understand the idea of trading Bellinger. Who replaces his production? Yes, he makes more than his production dictates, but I honestly don't believe they replace his production in trade. His versatility in the field adds to his value. Who is his likely replacement if they do trade him? 83 wins last year despite an awful, awful, awful bullpen for a better part of the season. Improve catcher, bench and pitching staff and see where it takes you. It's not an ideal offense, but the 50m in available cash can easily improve this roster enough to be playoff caliber if you work the phones trading prospects for SP and picking up more reliable bench and bullpen arms via free agency. This team died last year because of the bullpen, lack of production at 3b and bench in general. It also didn't help that Hendricks got as many starts as he did, as much as we all wanted him to find a new groove. I think there is reason to expect or even assume that some of these guys will be better in 2025 than they were in 2024. PCA and Busch with some major league time under their belts. Down years from Paredes, Swanson, Hoerner and Bellinger. You can't assume they will all flutter again in 2025. Overall, you have some very talented guys in the minors knocking on the door now, so improve in the most obvious ways necessary to improve this team where they are the weakest, and stop the nonsense about trading Bellinger. I sense that a Bellinger trade will only hamper their chances to being relevant in 2025, because I don't think Jed finds quality replacement production, and he'll likely still be either paying part of Bellinger's salary, or taking back another one that won't improve the team at all.