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I'd love to make Caleb happy and bring back Keenan, but he's a double digit million AAV contract, easy. Get younger, faster, and cheaper. Put the money into the trenches. You can get a top FA center probably for less money than Allen. Or a Kevin Zeitler.

Ben Johnson's options: Raiders Pros- Clean slate. Not a completely terrible roster, but allows him to pick his own QB, RB, and build the team the way he wants. Helping with that, potentially will have a hand-picked GM to ensure he has, at worst, a lot of say. Brock Bowers is an elite level weapon on Year 2 of his rookie deal. Jakobi Meyers feels like a perfect fit in the St. Brown role of his offense, although not nearly as good. Solid OL talent. Cons- it's the Raiders. They make the Bears look like a well-run organization. Still paying FOUR other coaches. He'd be the 5th HC since they moved to Vegas in the 2020 season. Mahomes in division along w/ Reid, Payton, Harbaugh, Herbert, tough sledding just to get out of the division. Then there's still Allen, Jackson, Stroud in the conference. No QB, no clear path to get a QB anytime soon. Jaguars Pros- Big money owner. Potential to hand-pick his GM if he can convince them to fire Baalke. Not a completely clean slate. Has a QB, who hasn't been great, but Johnson "fixed" Goff, he certainly can fix Lawrence. Easiest division in the sport with no elite teams and actually a worse team than them in the division. Florida weather, no state tax, and no real pressure to compete immediately with a clear path to compete for division titles. Cons- Baalke makes the Bears GM history look like their the Ravens. If they aren't willing to fire him (and they haven't so far), it's a non-starter for a guy who actually has choices. If Lawrence can't be fixed, he's getting paid big money already and going to be tough to get out of this job alive if he can't turn around TLaw in the next 2-3 years. No history of winning. Bears Pros- 1 game away from SB last year, HFA this year, had SB dreams the last 2 years. Bears feel like the closest to reaching those being NOT in the AFC. Young, possibly generational QB in Year 2 of rookie deal. Talented D with all 11 starters and most depth pieces under contract. Can really rebuild the OL, RB, and depth of TE room. Familiarity with the division with proven success against them. Cons- not able to pick his GM at all. Has to work with what may be a hot seat GM. Pressure to win right away AND develop a young QB. Tough division with 3 playoff teams and 3 top 8 HCs in the game. Only of 3 teams w/ weather/field issues potentially limiting offensive effectiveness late season. Too many cooks in the kitchen? What's Warren's role? Is ownership gonna meddle? Relatively poor ($$$) ownership. These are 3 of the top 4 teams in cap space and top 7 in draft capital, so all provide a chance to add a lot of talent in a hurry. The key decision is how much say does Johnson want? How bad does he want/need a QB? Is he willing to build or does he want to win soon?

He was his conference's coach of the year this year and has built the program up to where they were an FCS playoff team. He was also part of the minority fellowship coaching thing the NFL did a couple years ago and spent a couple weeks with the Bears during camp. I will say, I think this is the true spirit of the Rooney Rule, because everyone knows Eddie George but there's multiple people asking in here "what's he been doing?" and he's actually been a solid to decent head coach. This is the exposure he may need to get to the league someday. Also, agree that they should be gushing about how well he does in the interview (even if he bombed it) to make it even more than just a favor they are doing for a friend.

Tomlin signed a 3 year 50Mil extension in June, complete with a no-trade clause. This reeks of the Bears leaking to show they are willing to pay whatever it takes for a HC.

I think Bears fans are really underestimating the RB's value in a Ben Johnson offense. His team spent decent FA money on Montgomery and still drafted RB in the top 15 in the same year. Not saying they'd take Jeanty at 10, but if Johnson is somehow the next head coach of the Bears, I would certainly not be surprised and would almost expect one of the Bears first 3 or 4 picks would be a RB, in a loaded class. Also worth noting, Johnson, the first year he became Detroit's OC, decreased Swift's carries from 151 to 99 (despite playing 1 more game in 2022 than he did the year before). And that was to give 252 carries to Jamaal Williams, which is 100 more than he had in any season before and over 100 more than he has had combined since he left Detroit.

This is exactly what I want on the offensive side. Wish we could have seen what Tyler Scott could do down the stretch, but whatever, he's probably not good enough anyway.

Obviously was a characturization of them. Was just trying argue my point. LOL. And you make good points, but I guess I am giving him the benefit of the doubt based on the differences I have seen. Angelo traded down a bunch, almost for the sake of trading down when he found those great late picks. Pace traded up way too much. Poles has traded picks for players, players for picks, and generally used sound logic for the moves he's made. It's probably me having a bit of blind faith in the guy, but he was able to get a coach fired midseason for the first time. And I'm convinced it wasn't his doing to keep him. I just feel like he is different. Remains to be seen if different = good.

I would like to think that, but the last GM traded up for a guy because he drove his grandmother's beater car, over what would be the best QB in the league when he also said he had them rated equal (Watson was more logical a pick). Emery would have surely taken Penix because he thought he was smarter than everyone else. Angelo would have kept Fields and traded back to get more 2nd round picks. Nevermind the fact that none of the previous GMs would have had the Bears in position to have the #1 pick that led to the Caleb trade. They all would have tried to build the team around Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn.

I get it, but I don't look at it that way. He's leading the process because he's the only one capable of leading the process in-house. There have been GMs that have drafted for their teams and then gotten fired. It's a terrible way to do things, but so is keeping a coach because of his contract. And so is letting a coach do a press conference and then firing him 2 hours later. Just get the hire right. Just do the best for Caleb. I don't trust anyone more than Poles (maybe Cunningham, but package deal) to at least make moves with Caleb's best interest in mind.

I think it's crazier to trust the guy who can't get the stadium taken care of to get the GM hire right. Poles 100% deserves to be fired. But it also just so happens that he's probably the most competent person currently in the organization to get things right. The results have been disgustingly bad, but I think his thought process has been solid and different from recent Bears history. This franchise has been defense + running the ball from hell or high water. He had the guts to trade away the QB who made half of that equation among the best in the league. I can't say with any confidence that any other GM the Bears have ever had would taken Caleb and tried to gear the team to playing modern football. Everything about Poles (young, black, analytical) is a positive change from Bears past. And I think there's enough smoke out there that he wanted to get rid of Flus and wasn't allowed. The Bears historically would not even think about hiring Ben Johnson. They'd be hiring Vrabel or Carroll and trying to set a high floor with defense, rushing and discipline.

Am I the only one that thinks this is the right way to go about this? Poles is the only one that has ever interviewed a HC candidate before. The alternative is that Warren and guys like Accorsi and Irsay do the whole HC/GM process at the same time again and hire the guy that best embodies Chicago Bears legacy as the GM who agrees with their HC of choice. "Leading the search" isn't the same as being the sole person to make the hire. Poles SHOULD be involved in finding and interviewing the candidates. Obviously, you have Warren and some other guys in there. If the coach(es) you want say they want to bring in their own guy, you let them bring in their own guy, thank Poles for his help, and move on from him.

Broken franchises have been fixed before. 49ers had 8 straight non-winning seasons before Harbaugh, and 4 more after and before Shanahan. The Lions were broken for years. This is fixable. It is fixable fast.

Yeah it's tough. I'd expect Poles to have the desperation to get things right fast. But I don't trust him to be able to get things right, and desperate GMs usually make short-sighted moves that hurt the franchise in the long-term.

So, a couple things with this. First, it's not just QBs who "suck". It happens all the time with QBs who aren't taking the next step from mediocre to good. We've seen it happen to guys like Mayfield and Darnold, who did suck, but moved on to become good QBs in better organizations. We've seen it happen to Cutler in 2 different organizations, including ours. He certainly didn't "suck". All it takes is another up and down season, because he's learning a new offense for the 3rd straight year, the GM is trying to put his stamp on the team and there's a lot of moving parts that keep him from progressing fast enough for the new GM's liking (because we know he'll never blame himself for the QB's failure). Secondly, the whole "new GM hire good HC" thing is actually WAY easier said than done. Somebody has to hire the GM. I'm sure Kevin Warren will take charge of that search, but he has literally never hired a GM before. Despite being an NFL executive for years, he's never been involved in decisions on the field side of things. So now you have inexperience hiring someone likely inexperienced. Or maybe there's another committee they hire led by Jim Irsay's 90 year old ass.....because that's worked out so well every other time. The only way this really works is that you HAVE to have the head coach hire the GM. And the only way that makes sense is you have to hire a HC worthy of picking his own GM. The only guys that have enough of a resume to even be able to get that type of power are guys with successful HC experience (Vrabel, Carroll) or a guy who is the hottest HC candidate on the market ala Kyle Shanahan years ago, Ben Johnson. And you trust this front office with a HC hire over a GM candidate, because the HC hire is a lot easier to align with your vision for what to do with Caleb, your most important asset.

The Bears organization is broken. But so is the Jags org. So are the Saints. If the Giants and Raiders jobs open up, they are broken too. The Lions were pretty broken too before Johnson got there. Hell, they were pretty broken for his first 3 years there before he became the OC.

Sounds like you parsed through this pretty perfectly.

This was the best case scenario watching the play. Twitter doctors (legit ones) were thinking torn ligaments in the knee. If nothing is torn (doesn't sound like it is), this is a 4 month recovery and he's easily back in time for training camp.

He hasn't thrown an INT in the United States since Week 3. LMAO

They really need to hit free agency hard. Like a real solution (or 2, or 3) on the OL. Can't really count on being able to pick whoever you want on the OL where they are scheduled to pick. There's only 2 legit OTs that project top 15. And about 3 teams that pick before the Bears that probably have that as their #1 need. There aren't really any guards slated for the top 10, unless you play a tackle there. But mostly, they need a guy they know that can play. Not a guy that was a backup swing guy somewhere and pencil him in to start for them. Not a guy with position flexibility that is good depth if someone gets hurt. Not a guy who's former team is telling the world "this guy doesn't like to practice". Of course, this is what they've needed for 3 offseasons now.

Like I pointed out. He's literally had 2 offensive possessions the last 2 weeks when the score has been within reach that weren't completely ruined by someone else's mistake. Obviously, there's 13 other games of data, but the non-competitive stuff has mostly come in the 3 weeks post Eberflus. The first 6 were all competitive. Arizona and NE were not (a lot of his fault). Then 3 games that were competitive to the wire (other than 1st half vs Detroit). Maybe I'm being an apologist, but I'll cut some slack when 2 coaches have been fired and 90% of the team has visibly quit.

Not trying to come off as an apologist, really I'm not. But like today, 2 WR fumbles and a 1st down holding penalty on his first 4 drives. Last week, the playcalling gave the ball twice on 4th and 1 to a RB that likes to run sideways, and he obliged by going sideways. Also mixed in was a rookie completely whiffing a block and getting Caleb blindsided at the top of his drop. That was also 3 of the first 4 drives, and the 5th time he got the ball he was already down 3 scores in both games. There were always going to be ups and downs. I wish he was consistently better as well. But I also like wishing to find millions of dollars in a pile of dog crap.

I was asking what's the alternative for Johnson. If this organization is too dysfunctional, so is like 80% of the NFL, just that some of them win pretty consistently, and he's quite literally never getting one of those HC jobs, And every single move in the NFL is crossing fingers and hoping it works out. The Bears could trade for Mahomes, and we'd be hoping he doesn't tear his ACL in the airport. This is a sport where guys get their careers ended in a blink and formerly good players aren't good in a new situation. There's no guarantees with anything.

I mean, I get it with the Caleb stuff. But this is quite literally going to be a top 5 QB season in Chicago Bears history. I know, low bar and all, but he's also had to deal with the first ever OC getting fired in-season and the first ever OC getting fired in-season. Maybe part of that is on him, but there's nothing statistically to suggest that those are his doing. If you're disappointed on a "relative basis", I have no idea what relation you are making. He's had a better rookie season than former #1 picks: Jared Goff, Bryce Young, Matthew Stafford, David Carr, Jameis Winston, and basically the same statistical rookie seasons as Kyler Murray and Joe Burrow. If it's relative to other rookies, he's having the same statistical season as Bo Nix who broadcasters rave about when I watch the Broncos. If it's relative to more experienced QBs, that's more of a you problem for having too high expectations than a Caleb problem.

So just like Detroit before Ben Johnson got there? Like I said, what's the alternative? There's 32 of these jobs. The teams that aren't poop emojis don't get rid of their coaches unless it's a rare situation (see Eagles- Reid).