WrigleyField 22

you should do that on the twitter website not the northsidebaseball.com website. I did minus the send tweet bit. Amplify my hilarious tweet with your hundreds of followers

Can he clear protocol by then? I would think it's a given he's out. I'm protocol ignorant so I have no idea. I think people in protocol due to close contract can get out of it with 2 negative tests. Unless it's a situation where test was on Saturday, results weren't known till after the game Sunday, and it's 7 days from test?

Can he clear protocol by then? I would think it's a given he's out.

What if they made the whole playbook out of play action?

Anyone remember when how Pace and Nagy handled the pandemic was part of the justification for keeping the gang back together. Between that and their collaboration on the use of 7M TE, Jimmy Graham...

The only positive results coming out of Halas Hall lately are covid tests send tweet.

I'm not saying this guy doesn't have contacts, but I probably could have made up that tweet word for word if I was trying to sound like I had contacts.

I don't think they'll make any trades. For what it's worth though there is no cap issue for doing so as dead cap acceleration doesn't apply post June 1. Any future dead hits will hit 2022 instead of 2021.

Oh yea I totally forgot the Blackhawks were supposed to be in like win now mode lol.

While we can't tell what his long term trajectory is, I think it's wrong to say we can't tell of Fields is bad. His current state is what it is, but it would be great if he was great right now.

I didn’t say it was his fault, he just seems to fumble so easily Just run the damn ball! Nope, this is the game to pass.

So Bars at RT I assume? Borom, how's that ankle doing for next week?

Best sequence of the night.

I mean, even under the circumstance where Nagy gives up the playcalling, am I really supposed to buy in that Lazor is going to be the guy for the offense? I'm really skeptical Nagy can recruit a top offensive mind to run the ship because who's gonna really buy in that it's theirs to control? So you either need to bring in someone capable of fixing the offense themselves, or it's a D/ST coach and they can at least offer control of the offense to a strong OC candidate. Not wanting to switch coaches on a young QB is the only reason to keep Nagy, but not a good enough one. Fields hasn't exactly looked like he's mastered this offense, and it hasn't been geared to his strengths. And even with Nagy not calling plays, this is still one of the 3 worst offensive teams in the league. That's just not acceptable. Probably have to go with an offensive guy as the next coach. The thing about a defensive coach w/ a strong OC is that when those strong OCs have a good showing, other teams want them as a head coach. So, you essentially have to find a strong OC with strong assistants coming along with him, who are capable of taking over if the OC gets a HC job. The best guy for that was Brandon Staley, who came from the Fangio defense and had ties to the McVay offense. I'm not as worried about the O poaching. If it happens it likely means Fields has been successfully developed. And then we are talking about a situation where you're just trying to continue to do what works ans relying on Fields immense natural talent lifting whoever the OC is, likely next man up scenario. So yea, you would want a guy who has a clear plan to bring in a strong staff top to bottom. The other route being the college route which has obviously gotten more popular.

I mean, even under the circumstance where Nagy gives up the playcalling, am I really supposed to buy in that Lazor is going to be the guy for the offense? I'm really skeptical Nagy can recruit a top offensive mind to run the ship because who's gonna really buy in that it's theirs to control? So you either need to bring in someone capable of fixing the offense themselves, or it's a D/ST coach and they can at least offer control of the offense to a strong OC candidate.

Zach Lavine wants that Super Max.

Yea it certainly is way too early for some of these discussion, without knowing Pace/Nagy's fate. While I think it's possible the IOL is status quo, I feel like that will be a lot of combined money for Daniels and Whitehair without elite production. Maybe Daniels walks because his youth gets him a crazy deal. They won't have to decide on Whitehair right away.

Well Bulls are fun again. Weird Ayo rode the bench after surprisingly getting burn night 1.

FO changes continue. McLeod is out (he declined an offer to stay) https://theathletic.com/2905697/2021/10/22/turnover-continues-in-cubs-front-office-with-jason-mcleod-set-to-leave-the-organization?source=user-shared-article

Re: the line, I'm thinking replace Mustipher with a FA. You can give Mustipher the EFRA tender as he's still a cheap backup. Resign Daniels, as long as it's not outrageous. Cut Whitehair. Resign Bars with a original round tender and bring in cheap vet swing guy to compete against him for the starting role and the swing interior role. The Whitehair move doesn't gain you 2022 cap, but is still a long term savings to the tune of 8M/year. The tackles are harder. Ideally they get to see some action this year from both Jenkins and Borom to pencil them in as 22 starters with just a solid swing guy to back them up. If they aren't healthy and still kind of a mystery it feels like you kind of have to go big at one of the tackle spots and let those two compete for the other spot, with the loser as a swing tackle. In which case maybe its not a FA C, or at least not too pricey of one, but still bring in a cheap vet option to create completion with Mustipher. Only 6 picks, don't think they can force any particular position, but obviously wouldn't hurt to add another day 3 body at OL if one is available. So ideal circumstance is: Borom-Bars - FA - Daniels - Jenkins With cheap-ish vet swing G, vet swing T, Mustipher, and maybe a draft pick or a guy like Simmons as your backups. Agreed on TE. Won't be elite, but serviceable and relatively affordable at least. One big FA splash is needed at WR. One big FA splash at nickle or CB. Bilal will probably be pricey, but worth retaining. Then rounding out stuff like ILB, SS, and some backup/rotation roles pretty cheaply. Extend Smith. Draft as always for me is BPA, with only the second rounder with any likelihood to add an immediate contributor. Supposed to be a good CB class which would certainly work. But I wouldn't turn down a WR, OL, S, LB, or DL either.

They have got some space and some picks. No not overwhelming of either, but it's fine. Everything really rests on Fields anyways. If he's great, most of the Bears issues start to take care of itself. If he flops nothing matters.

Hey at least we're bummed this year about Quinn possibly missing time.

Fields has to be good on a really strong scale IMO. It's not enough to develop Fields, there has to be strong offense output. But there's also a somewhat related point. This offense might just not be good enough of a supporting cast for Fields to put up strong numbers. While that isn't an indictment of Nagy, it is of Pace. And Pace should be on shaky footing IMO too. And Nagy certainly can't survive Pace getting the axe. And if Pace and Nagy never got secret extensions, Pace's contract is done this year and Nagy is entering a lame duck final year. So it's likely a choice between cutting ties or re-upping to the tune of 3-4 years. I think Pace is more or less avaerage when it comes to the draft. He has hit on late rounds studs/steals. He has blown early picks. It is a crap shoot for most teams to some degree. His big weakness is his use of multiple picks to get one player (Anthony Miller, David Montgomery, Jenkins) He's had some success in FA, but also made some really bad calls: Jimmy Graham at his price, Quinn was looking bad but may have turned things around - too soon to say, choosing Trevathan over Kwitkowski, Dion Sims for $15MM. Happens to every GM, I know. Hicks was a brilliant signing, so were so many other rotational DL, ARob was a great signing. The QB's I'll put on Nagy, as I don't think Pace targets either without Nagy's input. To sum up, I'd be fine with moving on from Pace for his handling of the OL the last few years. The rest of his track record seems about league average. I think average is fair for Pace. I just also really don't care about arguing the specifics of him anymore. There isn't only one way to be a good exec, but the sum of the parts hasn't added up. Nothing else really matters. Rams have splurged with early picks too and they're one of the strongest teams. You just gotta be good at whatever strategy you use. There is part of me that feels like Pace is actually really good at building out an organization. When you looks at their successes it does seem like things that are possible only by building out a really great top to bottom personnel department that communicates well. But on the higher touch or broader strategic thinking, it's not working out for various reasons. Again the specific reasons don't matter too much to me though. I've seen some people throw out a president of football ops role for Pace. If he truely wants to step aside and maybe see what a guy like Champ Kelly can do as the top decision maker I guess I'd be open to it, but Pace has to cede full roster and coach control. So really not much different than being axed either. But whatever. I don't see him as the top decision maker role, which is what's important. And he does actually have to fully step aside or else you run into issues of blocking/protecting staff, like a new GM.

Maybe Brady will confuse the downs again, but every series this time.

Fields has to be good on a really strong scale IMO. It's not enough to develop Fields, there has to be strong offense output. But there's also a somewhat related point. This offense might just not be good enough of a supporting cast for Fields to put up strong numbers. While that isn't an indictment of Nagy, it is of Pace. And Pace should be on shaky footing IMO too. And Nagy certainly can't survive Pace getting the axe. And if Pace and Nagy never got secret extensions, Pace's contract is done this year and Nagy is entering a lame duck final year. So it's likely a choice between cutting ties or re-upping to the tune of 3-4 years.