Banedon

I don't know if it's so much "do it the way the Cubs did it" as much as it is "do it without Cutler and Marshall because I don't like them". It's kind of hilarious that he wants to do away with two positions that the Bears actually have talent at. No, it's definitely the Cubs thing. Bernstein is a walking doom boner; he should not be listened to. I don't know about that. He's been a huge, huge supporter of the Cubs rebuild process. But when he turns on something, there's no swaying him back.

@seankjensen Last year, the #Saints blocked Ryan Pace from interviewing for #Dolphins GM opening.

Yeah, I get his line of thought, but he's going too far with it.

Same. I was resigned to Ballard...but not excited.

Press conference at 11am tomorrow.

Zaidman is suggesting that they may have passed on Ballard to go in an "whole new direction".

Bernstein asks a good question...did Ballard turn them down?

Reports are that the Saints really didn't want to lose him.

Bowles is interviewing all over the place. I don't think there's any guarantee he wants the Bears.

Wtf

PFF ranks the Bears O-line 15th... https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2015/01/08/2014-pff-offensive-line-rankings/3/

San Francisco also did that with Kaepernick. On a lesser level, Bengals with Dalton. I'm not saying it's a good position to be in to by trying to draft a cheap QB that's decent. It's not. That's where the comparison to the NBA comes in. But if you sign one of these non-elite QB's just to be safe, you are tying your hands completely. There have been two QB's in the last 20 years to win a Super Bowl while taking up 10% of a team's cap, and Cutler might eclipse that every single year of his deal despite not being one of the top 10 QB's in the league. It doesn't take away from your point, but per this link, there have been at least 3 over that since 2000. (4 if you count Rodgers at 9.85%) http://overthecap.com/super-bowl-rings-and-the-overpricing-of-the-quarterback/ EDIT: Difference from your results might be that this is using APY.

No, I'm saying if you're in QB hell like many teams are currently in like STL (likely expected to be medicore most years) and you're exploring the option of inking Bradford to a long-term contract, drafting one in the 10-15 range, or taking a shot on one later in the draft.... Would that money be better off allocated somewhere else than Bradford (even healthy)? Would that pick be better off on a 1st rounder that often has a much higher success ratio of panning out than QB? Drafting several QBs with several picks later (2 thru 4 as typically west coast offenses require accuracy 1st which tend to drop some QBs) and the one that fits. Teams like GB, NE, etc don't have to worry about that. I guess this also falls into the inability to draft QBs given the high amount of bust ratios. Obviously if you're Indy and you have Manning and Luck at #1, this theory goes out the window. Teams have more positions to fill than just QB. Money means so little to NFL teams...they can cut guys and eat that money. As long as they can finagle the numbers to fit under the cap. But draft picks are limited. Spending several picks on QB's when they other positions to address on the off chance that maybe you can get a Wilson isn't a great strategy.

@JasonLaCanfora Hearing Todd Bowles making very strong impression in head coaching interviews. I expect him to be a factor in this game of musical chairs.

Too much Cubs talk in the Bulls thread.

Yeah, I heard him say that this morning. He could've easily been on conference call though. We have the technology.

Cutler has become pretty media saavy.

Right...I didn't realize that was what was going on here...what happened with Wilson isn't some real world draft strategy. It was getting really [expletive] lucky.

Whoa...hold on...we're saying "if only teams would draft guys in the 3rd round that become amazing!" as an argument against the NFL QB system? Come on...that's clearly the huge exception.

There's a few elite QB's that maybe someone could say justify their contracts. Then there's a whole middle tier of "meh" QB's that get paid too much because nobody wants to be stuck with the really crappy ones. The "meh" QB's get paid too much and can never live up to the money they get. It's just how the NFL works. The question becomes if that is the way the NFL should work. With the new rookie wage scale, there is a new class of QB's: the relatively cheap ones. And the playoffs have been dominated by the elite QB's and the cheap ones the last couple of years. About 1/3 of the league is non-elite QB's on big deals, and they've had 3 total representatives in the division round the last couple of years: Rivers last year (who lost) and Flacco and Romo this year who are underdogs. The odds of winning a Super Bowl with one of those guys is significantly lower than it was 5-10 years ago. It's pretty low even if you have the best non-elite guy, and Cutler isn't that. The Bears definitely were following a trend, but the question is if it was a trend worth following. It hasn't worked out for many teams lately, and there's a potential of an NBA like treadmill team trend developing. It's a trend you have to follow if there's no alternatives. The cheap rookie QB's you're talking about are cheap because they were drafted...but at positions higher than where the Bears have drafted. I'm making this argument blind, because I haven't looked it up to be sure...but I don't believe there's any successful draftable QB's that the Bears have had available on the draft board but have passed on because they had Cutler. So you're talking about an option that wasn't really an option for the Bears. The Bears haven't had a draft pick higher than 14 since 2005 until this year.

Ok, yeah...there were Cutler haters that ranted and raved "omg 7 years $126 million!!!1!1!", but yes...there was a lot of praise for the deal by those that have at least a moderate understanding of how the NFL salary cap works.

Ok, but that was mostly a question of "can the offense be good enough to overcome the defense/special teams". I really don't recall anyone thinking that the offense would be worse.

And they get paid the most of all!

You aren't wrong for saying he had a bad year, many Cutler supporters have made that very same point. You are wrong by characterizing him as an anchor. It's dumb. And even "looking at it more carefully", without knowledge of how this year was gonna go, it was still the right move. Nobody at all thought the Bears were gonna win only 5 games this year. Nobody thought Cutler would play like he did. Even Cutler haters didn't expect this kind of year out of the Bears offense. This season was an entirely unpredictable scenario, and it's unfair to go back and say "why didn't they account for this?" Emery probably got fired because of the Cutler deal...which isn't really fair, as he was mostly praised for it at the time, but he had plenty of other flaws in addition to it, so I'm not upset about it.

There's a few elite QB's that maybe someone could say justify their contracts. Then there's a whole middle tier of "meh" QB's that get paid too much because nobody wants to be stuck with the really crappy ones. The "meh" QB's get paid too much and can never live up to the money they get. It's just how the NFL works. Too much by what standard? Simplistic reactionary standards. People can look at Brady/Rodgers/Manning and say "man, they are worth every penny". People can look at the bottom of the league QB's and say "man, they don't deserve to get paid any more than the little they're getting paid". But that whole middle tier of QB's are where fans can point and say "OMG why do they get so much?" And it's because NFL teams would rather pay to have an middle tier QB and pray that it's enough, or that they turn into someone special, than not pay and have a bottom of the barrel QB.