WrigleyField 22

Its mostly Mitch I think. But I think the Allen success is an interesting case study. Shape your game plan to your players and not vice versa. Isn't that what a quality coach does? Put his players in the best position to succeed and thereby, put the team in the best position to succeed? In theory everyone says that, but there's definitely a spectrum of system guys verse non system types.

I don't think a hypothetical Wentz trade necessarily stops that. It's basically a cap dump like the Osewiler trade, hence the draft pick inclusion. Just one with perhaps a bit of upside attached to it. Granted that's cap you're not allocating to the OL, but I suppose it matters who's running the ship in 2021 and whether they have a win now mandate or not. It's theoretically doable though, and there's a legit argument for the Eagles to do it, it's just very hamstrung by basically being a 3 day window because of the roster bonus due. Obvioiusly there's a handful of teams with much more cap space that could offer the same deal.

I think the Blackhawks could conceivably just ditch the Indian head logo and tomahawk logo and keep the name, and even the gist of the imagery (basically this.) and avoid any further "issues". But I do think it's only a matter of time. Fwiw though the relationship they used to have with a local NA org is no longer so at this point their outreach is basically informal and not affiliated. Eta - the Hawks also are slightly different in that the name is inspired (granted by way of the military) by an actual person. Not sure if there's any descendents, but his people, in some form, make up a federally recognized tribe in the Sac & Fox Nation, so there would be the possibility of them more legitimately authorizing their use of any imagery in a similar way to colleges that use local tribal imagery with their support and consent.

The Spiders were a different team altogether. They were an NL team. The Cleveland AL team was only ever: Naps Broncos Lake Shores Bluebirds Rustlers I know they were a different team, but they're also a totally defunct franchise. So they can surely get their hands on those trademarks I'd think.

Yea I think a Tyrod Taylor type deal is the max for Trubisky, Call it 2/10 in consideration of the cap crunch. I'm not sure I would really love that verse just going through whatever else the backup QB market spits out at like half that cost, knowing you still really need to put resources into the draft to find a franchise play caller. Although I also don't really see any point to having Trubiksy and Foles. In this scenario, just see if you can trade Foles for like a 6th rounder in 2022. Mitch + Rookie, and if you feel you need another vet and need to carry 3, just wait on the market and get the scraps from the likes of Fitz, Flacco, etc who don't get signed elsewhere and are teamless come July. Or here's a wild idea. Foles for Wentz + a pick (say a third?). It has to go through within the first 3 days of the league year to be really cap beneficial for Philly, but they are in cap hell and could use the help. They take a big hit in 2021, but by accelerating all his other dead cap, they can play with other contracts to free up the space they desperately need in 2021 by deferring some guaranteed money into signing bonus and pro-rating it over several years. Critically, they get out of $25m in guarantees, which the Bears take on. The Bears take on the rest which would basically be a 100/4 with the first year guaranteed @ $25M. If he still sucks in 2021, they walk away free and clear. Obviously the Bears have tight cap as well, but if the cap stays flat, its doable. They could also always restructure part of his 2021 guarantee as well to defer some as well.

I like Spiders best if they go former team names.

Its mostly Mitch I think. But I think the Allen success is an interesting case study. Shape your game plan to your players and not vice versa.

I'm not sure NFL hell really exists like it does in basketball. It may be that I'm just in general very emotionally detached from the Bears these days, but I just don't care. The draft slot between 8 and like 15 isn't gonna end up being the difference maker.

OTOH the lack of Neil Funk left for a net upgrade in audio experience

Uh, no. How about for the Jets though.

Given enough time and a new surrounding I even think Mitch has an inexplicable "2017 Case Keenum" in him. It will just be in like 4 years and he'll be on the Vikings and come to Chicago and clobber them. Probably in a crucial win or go home playoff game. I mean, I don't think its out of the realm of possibilities for him to have an Alex Smith like second half to his career and be a starter for some time to come, albeit not with this front office and coaching staff Alex Smith career arc for anyone is deep into the netherworld of any realm.

He's been a terrible starting quarterback. He'd be fine as a backup. He can provide a spark in a game if your starter goes down, and maybe play good for a start or two. Given enough time and a new surrounding I even think Mitch has an inexplicable "2017 Case Keenum" in him. It will just be in like 4 years and he'll be on the Vikings and come to Chicago and clobber them. Probably in a crucial win or go home playoff game.

Kordell Stewart, Matt Leinhart. very different situations, however Stewart was a second rounder. And was still the starter when he resigned for a new deal. Leinart did not resign with AZ for a second deal.

I very much doubt it would happen too. Has a first round bust QB ever resigned with his team to be the backup?

One of the surprising rate statistics for me was Miller's strong sack%. It's one of those things thats less O-Line dependent than you think, and ANY/A takes Sacks into account whereas passer rating doesn't, which is IMO it's biggest improvement over it. And Mitch, despite his legs, has crappy pocket awareness which passer eating doesnt dock him for. So even not adjusting for era, Mitch is still behind Kramer and Cutler in ANY/A and just barely ahead of McMahon. that's not surprising. Its clear Trubisky cant read defenses, and that alone could account for him spending too much time staring down the field and not paying attention to the pocket he's in and/or making sound decisions with where to throw the ball. you have to wonder if better coaching could have helped him with that, or maybe not Probably some combination of more college experience and better college coaching and better rookie year coaching. But a lot (most?) is probably just the player still. As far as Nagy is concerned, I'm somewhat skeptical it's a coaching issue, but it's obviously hard to know.

The league wide improvement in passing efficiency. Pro-football has era-adjusted rating numbers. I'd probably chose ANY/A+, but they have several others too. Miller is a weird comp since he really just started one season, but he was a decent Bears-centric one. Not stylistically similar obviously. But the whole win 12-13 games and then lose to Philly ended up being poetic to the comparison too. Miller http://pfref.com/pi/share/ADNc2 Trubisky http://pfref.com/pi/share/0w4aI how do you generate that on PF? I'm having trouble pulling up Foles and Cutlers numbers for my own curiosity. eta: nvm, I found the chart in there bios. unsurprisingly, Foles and Trubisky are pretty close career-wise, Cutler ahead of both. Interestingly however, despite the benching, Trubisky has outplayed Foles this year by a decent margin in RATE+, 95 to 86 respectively. 100 being average QB play One of the surprising rate statistics for me was Miller's strong sack%. It's one of those things thats less O-Line dependent than you think, and ANY/A takes Sacks into account whereas passer rating doesn't, which is IMO it's biggest improvement over it. And Mitch, despite his legs, has crappy pocket awareness which passer eating doesnt dock him for. So even not adjusting for era, Mitch is still behind Kramer and Cutler in ANY/A and just barely ahead of McMahon.

what is "passer inflation" and how do you calculate it? I don't disagree that the league is far more QB friendly today then in the past, but I want to see those numbers on the Jim Miller claim The league wide improvement in passing efficiency. Pro-football has era-adjusted rating numbers. I'd probably chose ANY/A+, but they have several others too. Miller is a weird comp since he really just started one season, but he was a decent Bears-centric one. Not stylistically similar obviously. But the whole win 12-13 games and then lose to Philly ended up being poetic to the comparison too. Miller http://pfref.com/pi/share/ADNc2 Trubisky http://pfref.com/pi/share/0w4aI

rawaction mentioned in the Detroit thread that Mitch was now the Bears career leader in QB rating among players with at least 300 pass attempts. He’ll pass Ed Brown for 7th in all time passing yards this next game, Billy Wade for 6th if he starts another game after that, and probably Erik Kramer for 5th if he plays out the rest of the season. Of the four guys still above him - Cutler, Luckman, Harbaugh and McMahon - he’ll have a higher completion percentage and lower interception percentage. I realize all of this is way more a testament to how bad the Bears qbs have been than anything Mitch has achieved. That said, the biggest problem with Mitch remains the fact that the Bears traded up to get him with the 2nd overall pick. If he’d been taken with the 52nd pick, his performance would be deemed “fine.” You’d still want to bring in a better qb, but no one would be particularly disappointed in Mitch’s performance. Its also just a testament to general league wide improvement in passing numbers. I'd take Cutler obviously over him still. Kramer too. The rest I didnt really get to watch, but I'd probably take the lot of them as well. Adjusting for passer inflation he's basically a Jim Miller level QB. So yea, Kyle is right. A good backup and in a perfect storm can start and lead a 12/13 win team (with a great D obviously) and then lose to PHI in the playoffs.

Stop with the hot takes. This is Bears football. We run dive plays straight up the gut, bubble screens, and count on the Defense to score just like Papa Bear Halas intended.

That definitely sucks. Are they gonna go on as an independent league?

Right now, I'm feeling: Rick Smith- President of Football Operations (former Texans GM before O'Brien) Ed Dodds (Colts asst GM) or Joe Hortiz (Ravens asst GM)- GM Brandon Staley - HC (Rams DC, former Bears asst under Fangio) Shane Waldron- OC (Rams QB coach, passing game coordinator) Jay Rodgers- DC (Current Bears DL coach, former asst under Fangio) Dodds seemingly was a package deal with Robert Saleh last year when Cleveland was interested, but Cleveland went with another HC. So, he may be of a lot of interest to Detroit. If that's still the case, give me Hortiz. But yes, I went with a defensive head coach. He has Bears ties and his name is Staley! But the ideal pairing is a Fangio disciple led defense with an offensive coach from the Shanahan tree. Best of both worlds. Waldron could bring in a veteran consultant since all these guys are young. But Rodgers and Staley overlapped under Fangio, and allows the Bears to keep and promote maybe their only good position coach. I'm not convinced you'd be able to poach the likes of Dodd with what is effectively a number 2 role. Maybe Hortiz. I think if you like Smith you just make him the GM. Smith is an intriguing option though.

I don't think borrowing from the future will be a thing you have to worry about. Ryan Pace did that because he was desperately trying to win to save him and his coach's jobs. Assuming he's fired, I don't know of too many situations (maybe some past Cleveland GMs) where a guy comes in and starts throwing tons of money around. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm worried about Pace not being fired, then? I think we're being over-optimistic about the offense though, outside of Robinson, who probably won't be back. The offensive line is a dumpster-fire and it's *all* of them. They range from "below-average starter but definitely a starter" to "why is this guy in the league," but none of them are good. Montgomery is aggressively ordinary and average. Kmet and Mooney look like they could be useful guys but it's a long way from "useful" to "above-average starter." Everyone else can go away forever and not be missed for a second. And we still don't have a QB, which is by far the most important position. Foles is just Trubisky but with mobility instead of intelligence as his dump stat. You could probably fix all this in a couple of drafts, but by the time you do, the defense that is already too old will be in need of a complete overhaul. But focus on the offense first anyway because who cares about defense? If they keep Pace I don't know what to expect. But I'd be more concerned about possibly leveraging fuutre draft resources than future cap resources. That may not be a ringing endorsement, but that's where I am. Also if Pace is back I really really hope it's with an extension so hes not acting with his job on the line. If he's got a fresh 4-5 years hopefully he acts rationally, understanding he still hasn't addressed QB and doesn't have an obvious great route to do so yet.

Well that's a little more fair Kyle. I generally don't count accidental tank years, but if you include this season and then say next season is kind of shot, that should be the extent of it more or less. Pace may have been aggressive with cap maneuvering but those affects don't last that long as long as you commit to ripping off the bandaid. That said if Pace sticks around I'd generally expect him to continue to push the cap deferral limits since thats been the Saints approach. I'm not against sneaky cap manuevering; might as well stack cap resources into windows, even if it's a little boom or bust. The Saints would be on the extreme end, but theres a balance to strike I think where maybe you're doing a cap reset every 4-5 years and maximize 3-4 year windows in between those resets where you mini tank. That cap manuevering can happen in concert with the long term comp pick pipeline where you continually build draft capital and keep on getting picks back from the comp process, feeding the next group of comp pick getters. Considering what Pace inherited he set up that comp pick pipeline about as quick as you could expect.

THE TEAM LACKS DEPTH, AND THEY LACK DEPTH BECAUSE THEY'VE TRADED AWAY PICKS. THEY CANT AFFORD TO KEEP DOING THAT sry capslock eta: look at it this way, they don't have a #2 WR, no #2 RB, no #1 TE (there's hope for Kmet), and all of their OLine backups are 7th rd or UFA's. You know what helps a team fill out those backups at reasonable prices? draft picks. Sure, this off season could be different with the CAP being low, but you're just likely to get older players who will command more salary anyway Raw is absolutely right. You can and should trade up for a game-changing QB, just have to get the pick right. No one is saying Kansas City (10th overall for 27 overall, a 3rd rounder and a 1st rounder the next year) or Houston (12 for 27 and a first rounder the next year) traded too much for Mahomes and Watson. Obviously they should avoid trading a first rounder but they shouldn't have to at their current trajectory. They can and should backfill draft picks in other ways, yes (trade veterans, compensation picks, trade downs in non-QB scenarios). Also, if you don't have conviction on the QBs available, don't force one and work on filling the many other holes on the team. The Bears will probably get another chance at the top QBs in 2022. Good post except the word conviction is hereby banned post-Pace era. That is a dirty word now lol.

Its a tough task, but multi year tanks (intentional or not) don't really have a track record for the NFL either. And sometimes teams do get it together quicker than expected. So to me theres definitely a line where I don't have high expectations, but the right guy making the right moves is at least putting them into competition for the division by 2022, and a concerted multi year tank is dumb. With the average player arc just about every team is 2 years away from some component of their team being in shambles too. So, yea take some hits in 2021 is my plan, but then move on and keep building. Obviously they can get too aggressive too soon like trying another Mack type deal, but within reason they shouldn't be holding back by 2022 IMO.