BigSlick

I truly had no idea Emery and Pace were in Atlanta. Well, good luck to Falcons fans hoping they find a good QB anytime.

That’s exactly the type of team that will put 35 up on the Bears and blow us out next week

Fields's passer rating (and yes, passer rating is a junk stat) is now lower than his last years. His QBR (which factors in running and sacks) is 15 points lower than last season. Now - going by the eye test, I think he's playing significantly better than he did last season. But it's simply not good enough, for me, to sign him long term and pass on a top prospect at QB. Anecdotally, he also seems helpless when neither Kmet and Moore are on the field. Now, he's got a bunch of schlubs to throw to beyond them, but the vast majority of starting quality QBs can at least do something with schlub WRs. Fields hasn't shown that. It sucks because he's a good guy and he's still improving, but the circumstances are what they are. You got the 1st overall, you got a guy you have to make a decision on in the next few months. It's tragic, and there is of course the possibility it blows up in your face. There's no option where that isn't a possibility.

Of course, it really seems like the average Chicago Bear fan emphatically wants to stick with Fields - we're outliers here. Look at this poll of 25,000 people (now I'm sure a good chunk are out of Chicago, but I'm also sure a ton are from Chicago fans given its the Chicago account): Polls from Chicago football reporters asking similar questions on twitter return very similar results. Will that sway Poles? I sure hope the front office doesn't consider this stuff when they're making football decisions, no matter what direction they go in. But it probably factors in somewhat.

Getting a haul for the 1st overall pick is definitely a tempting proposition, and I would want my GM to make that the most desirable option IF and ONLY IF you felt absolutely secure in your QB. Unfortunately, we aren’t there. If you trade that 1st overall and you’re looking to draft a QB anyway, you’re accepting the fact you’re getting an inferior QB prospect. Now drafting QB is always a bit of a crapshoot - the 2023 draft being a prime example of that - but I don’t think you want to handicap yourself by limiting your options at who you draft. Now…you may think you’ve outsmarted the other 31 teams in the league and think you can steal a prospect who is undervalued by the rest of the league. Do I trust the Bears front office to have outsmarted the rest of the league in evaluating QB prospects? lol.

I don't think running back, tight end, corner back or linebacker are big needs at all. I mean - if there's some amazing dude on the board, go ahead and get him. But those positions are not as much a need as say, Offensive Tackle, in my mind. And honestly, I don't think HB or LB should ever be a need. Just get some guys. Those positions are firmly in "some guys" zone in the modern NFL.

I don't think the eye test or the stats show that Fields is a terrible QB, but an argument can be made that he's anywhere between Bad, Below Average, Average or slightly Above Average. And my opinion of that wavers with each game, lol. I expect any bridge QB would most likely be Bad. We can look around the league and see that... it's exceptionally hard to find even competent play from scrapheap quarterbacks. And I imagine that such a QB would cost as much or more than Fields would on his rookie contract in year 4. But you have to balance that with what you think you can get for him in a trade. A 2nd or higher? I probably take it. A 3rd or less? I don't know if it's worth it. I wouldn't keep Fields for any teaching reason for a new QB, but simply as an evaluation of what the heck's out there. And on top of that - we're almost certainly going to have a new head coach and a new offensive system, and I don't hate the idea of the rookie getting a year in that system before starting. I'm ambivalent on whether or not I'd start the rookie right away. With Fields I was all in on letting him start over Dalton. I'm less confident if thats the right approach or not these days, though its far more common in the NFL today.

I’m this scenario I see no reason to not keep Fields for a 4th year worth…what like 6 or 7 million? Even if he’s a disaster (and I think he’d be better than that), I’d find that preferable to picking up Andy Dalton 3.0. The rookie is hopefully gonna sit and learn anyway.

DJ Moore's numbers this year are truly astonishing when you factor in that he had 4 games with an undrafted rookie QB and several where Fields was completely ineffective: 80 catches, 1,123 yards and 7 TDs. With 3 games to go. That's top 10 in yardage and TDs (though he's tied with like, 10 other guys in TD receptions) and his catch % at 72.1% is right there with where most of the leading receivers are. (There are lots of folks with higher catch %, but they generally RBs and TEs with fewer opportunities) Barring injury, he will almost certainly surpass his career highs in yardage, TDs and has a good shot at beating his catch total (he's 13 away). Dude is such a stud. It's been a while since Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery, and their top years are still better than Moore's 2023, but he may already be the best WR ever in a Bears uniform.

Jones seems like a fantastic depth option. He's nothing special, but he has the capability to start when needed when injuries inevitably occur. Get some more special talent at Tackle here. Also a Center. And maybe a Guard too. Davis came back, they moved Jenkins, and immediately the Line played worse. So.

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.

I see no reason to not use a Day 1 (in my head thats rounds 1-3, I know its different these days) on offensive line literally every single draft. You almost never can have too many of those guys.

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.

Maybe I have a different definition of what an aggressive game plan looks like but I do remember the Bears coming out and taking deep shots on basically every early drive in the game. To me, a less aggressive and more passive gameplan would have involved more running the ball (and I'm actually glad they didn't, because they were awful at running the ball)

I mean, shouldn't we, who watched the game, feel the same way? Fields had <50% completion percentage and under 150 yards net passing. The running game was nonexistent, and whenever they tried to run the ball it got blown up in the backfield. It was a disaster. They punted on their first 4 possessions. We were 4 of 18 on 3rd down. None of this is acceptable for a pro team, even facing the best defense in the league.

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.

I'm done with Mooney but it has less to do with the Hail Mary drop (which is a bit of an insult to injury - that's just an insanely hard thing to do with all the bodies flying around) - and more the whole body of work this season. Lollygagging routes, not coming back to the ball, drops, weak blocking. I dunno what it is, but it's not working this year.

I think there's approximately a 0% chance Luke Getsy returns Higher chance that Eberflus does, but if he does, he won't be coaching the offense anyway

Yeah I'm pretty firmly in the "draft Williams/Maye" camp after yesterday, and I'm not sure there's much Fields can do in the last 3 games to change my mind. I had heard that scouts were somewhat alert to Fields's downsides before the draft, so I looked up some old scouting reports. This I found pretty interesting (via https://www.nfl.com/prospects/justin-fields/32004649-4576-9504-963d-c33127e80752) : Welp.

I don't know how many snaps DJ Moore played yesterday but he was clearly banged up, and it was very clear that whenever he wasn't on the field, Fields was much less productive. (Moore and Mooney were both targeted 8 times, Moore caught 4, Mooney 2). Now, Moore is a transcendent player, but also, your starting QB can't be that helpless when he's off the field.

This season has had 3 of the worst losses I've ever seen the Bears commit. It's superstitious but I truly hope they're "getting them out of their system" and when they're competitive again (god willing, like, next season) we don't see anything like this again.

They’re gonna have at worst the #2 overall… where are they gonna trade up to? Last years draft?

*bursts through the door, starts rubbing hands together* alright who's got tape for me to watch

I wonder how the front office feels if Mooney comes up with the TD there. You win...but Fields looks pretty blah and the coaching almost conspired to lose the game. Lol. I guess it's not a dilemma though, in this universe.

Whacky game aside, the Bears win this one going away if they do anything offensively and they really don't. The offensive coaching was horrific, and of course it's not easy if your offensive line is being chomped up, but it was very bad. And Fields was bad. Yes, his receivers dropped a few balls, but you can't sacrifice so many drives and get nothing. You can't have this much offensive dysfunction. Enough already.