jersey cubs fan

My multi year streak of forgetting there was a national championship game on tv remains intact

He might be highly qualified and has a history of working with quality teams, but you might have a hard time selling the fan base on a guy coming from this bears organization.

I’m not in favor of it, but that would be interesting. What would a QB needy team give up for fields? If they fall in love with the best qb in this class it wouldn’t be insane to take him. Use your free agent money on the roster and acquire more draft capital with Fields. That buys Poles another season, but if Fields wins big in 2023 the Bears will need to not only contend with a rookie QB, but be really good in 2024, or else he’s out and may not work in the nfl again.

Obviously it's been 10 years, but I'm trying to remember a case of a former HC coming back into that org in an assistant role. Wade Phillips in DEN; that was nearly 20 years after. Any others? It would be unique, but Lovie is a unique guy. Two names that came up when thinking about long term coaches that left an organization were Shanahan and Holmgren, both of whom moved on to establish themselves as major figures in their next stop. Lovie coached two years at Tampa then came back home* to coach in college, which not a lot of established NFL coaches have done. He’s in his mid 60s and his head coaching opportunities are probably behind him. Does he want to be a full blown defensive coordinator again? John Fox has become a defensive assistant in his late 60s, albeit not to an organization he had previous ties to, but that particular wrinkle doesn’t strike me as an obstacle. 2000s era bears coaches wouldn’t have wanted Ditka coming back as a voice in the room, but Lovie isn’t that type of coach.

I think Lovie would be a good hire as an asst head coach and defensive consultant. He’s been around forever. They are basically trying to emulate his defense. He’s legit the best coach this organization has had in my lifetime. His greatest ability was getting the most out of his guys. There are going to be a ton of new highly paid faces on this team and Eberflus’s staff has a credibility weakness. He’s not really a threat to take over Eberflus’s job, but it would address the fact that this coaching staff did not do a good job this year, without a bunch of heads rolling.

The secondary is going to be a lot better. Mack only played in 7 games last year and Hicks played in 9. That's a loss but is being overstated as it relates to last year's defense. Eberflus's defenses have shown to perform better than their talent would imply (yes, I know that's very scientific). The "everyone hustle to the ball" thing is going to matter. I don't really care to put much effort into arguing about it, but if you want to wager on a top 10 DVOA finish, gentleman's or otherwise, I'd be happy to oblige :dontknow: top 10? $100 The lesson in all of this is probably not to count on NFL coaching to scheme lesser players into something good. Talent wins out in the NFL. I’ll accept payment in the form of a donation to the Hoboken Public Education Foundation: http://www.hobokenpef.org/ https://hobokenpef.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/hobokenpef/donation.jsp You can acknowledge Ryan Poles in the donation form

Two year difference, on a more expensive rookie contract though, and you have to actually be prepared to you know USE that rookie contract. Now insert uncertainty of rookie QB verse evaluating what we know we have in Fields. This is one of those "too cute" moments. Maybe if it was a generational guy the arguement would be stronger, but that's not Young. Hell it might not even be Young. Plenty of chatter about his draft mates still. They'd have to nail the right one. That's the main reason I'm more idly musing than seriously arguing for it. I'm just not that sold on young or stroud. I'm just also not that sold on fields. Everything sucks forever Your trouble with women may lie in your inability to appreciate good things right in front of you

So dumb

Yes, but did something new happen on this front? he went from being okay last year to bad this year. it was bad regardless, but now we don't even get a decent player out of it hey now, he’s an all star

Jury is still out but man does Claypool look like a major fail right now. What was the point anyway since there wasn't going to be a real shot at developing this rapport between Fields and a WR without several other necessary pieces in the pass game? I would expect Poles as a good GM to realize that, especially since his whole plan was to tank, build draft picks, and spend them in the offseason. It sure looks to me like he shot his own plan in the foot. what? Come on. The point was not to make sure Fields and Claypool clicked immediately. The point was to get a receiver with talent using assets they could afford to lose. It hasn’t been a good start, and it may fail in the end. But the jury is still out until next season, after an offseason together and many more reps. The move was fine*. There’s a very good chance they won’t be able to acquire a better one. *But this goes back to failing to acquire or draft a receiver last year.

Justin Wun Three though

JERSEY soccer parents lol She’s from Long Island, I swear it’s different

Soccer parents are the worst

bedard is a minor, even if they get him it's going to be years before they have a chance

It’s a 5 man group that takes at least 7 to get through a season, so it’s in constant need of refreshment. But with an emerging qb I’d prefer better protection early in the career if I have a choice. Without getting to pedantic or creating mutually exclusive options, I'll take the Ja'Marr Chase side of the debate over the Penei Sewell side. I would take the unavailable superstar receiver as well

It’s a 5 man group that takes at least 7 to get through a season, so it’s in constant need of refreshment. But with an emerging qb I’d prefer better protection early in the career if I have a choice.

Remind me, is he the good blocking receiver? Or am I thinking of Pringle?

I’m a big believer in a vastly improved line helping the other groups, and that if you don’t have one you need elite playmakers. Easiest way is to improve line, and it’s probably the best option as well. A better line will help lesser receivers actually make impacts.

But I was told they had a top ten defense…

I'll go with 85-87 wins. Run prevention and overall depth will be enough to boost a slightly below average to average offense. Yeah I think this is about right. The team is not going to bottom out, there's just way too much depth to let that happen. But at the same time, that depth cuts the other way a bit. It's going to take some time to iterate through and find the best version of this team. If Ross and Jed mostly nail it coming out of ST, the team can win 90+ games, but realistically there's going to be missteps and the team is going to be in the mix for the latter two wildcard spots. I do think it's weird that there's this notion that the position player group will be boring? They're likely to be top 5 in steals and defense and top 10 in dongs. This isn't some group of slap hitters or vintage Oakland teams that walk to the point of being passive. The starting pitching group, even if effective, is likely to be pretty blasé, but the position player group is extremely watchable. 1B, C, CF, 3B are all completely bleh. The best players are fine, but not great. The middle infield gets their value from not being awful hitters at positions with a lot of awful hitters. Nico and Happ either can’t stay healthy or can’t avoid massive slumps. When things are going well this will be a fun lineup, but over the course of a full season there’s not a single intriguing player, let alone a lineup full of them.

Bedard plus 5 top 6 forwards and a couple D

Ancillary topic: what kind of coaching turnover are we looking at this year? I can’t think of anybody who looks like an up and comer that teams will poach with promotions. Presumably Eberflus is fine, despite his supposed area of expertise being absolutely awful. But does his DC take a fall for that? He was just a guy brought in for continuity for the head coach transitioning away from being DC. He wasn’t an in demand assistant. But can you blame him for a talentless defense playing poorly? Do you go down to a d line coach who hasn’t developed any dlineman, or a secondary coach? On the offensive side, Getsy leaves a lot to be desired, but by default you almost have to keep him around for Fields to get some consistency, unless there’s an underlying conflict. The O line coach has done an underwhelming job, as well as receivers. I think the tight ends coach is the only position coach you could say actually got more out of guys. But it all comes down to the front office refusing to put talented players at positions of need. You could make a case that nobody really earned a pink slip but also that they’d be justified canning anybody. At the end of the day this team is drafting in the top 5 and at the bottom of the barrel in nearly every category with the exception of QB rush yards. Somebody has to take the fall. And not just Ted.

At this point they aren’t going to be any good so why go over the luxury tax just to pick up mediocre dudes?

They’ve wasted his first two years and it won’t be hard to waste the 3rd.

Travischmockery of a season.