WrigleyField 22

Well most rookie QBs suck. But also, it wouldn't be a open competition (and rarely is there ever a true thing as an open competition). It would be, "Justin is the starter"

Fair enough but someone else did so I was responding to that. Yea, tough luck. He'll get over it. It's not like you'd be talking about sittimg him for years. His contract is fixed and if he's great, his second contract value won't be impacted.

Not necessarily, IMO. If somehow Fields becomes Lamar Jackson MVP I think stock on Caleb will still be sky high. If Fields is good, not great, then he's your trade target and his value was restored. And anyways, taking two swings to make sure you get the QB right would literally be worth any lost trade value.

Howell being traded to Seattle. Even the competition /grooming spots are going elsewhere.

Free agency only sucks if you're a efficiency nerd who enjoys missing the forest for the trees. Poles is approaching free agency every year with way more conservativeness than the talent level or cash spending of the team says he should.

Here's the tweet. "sizable contingent"

Maybe Sean Payton will come through with a solid for his old team.

As long as Waldron will run the personnel, pass catcher is a area of dire need. Granted the definitely need 2 more WRs too, but a good pass catching TE can fill holes.

The context was if they trade down from 9. But I've heard some crazy helium. It could be like 13-18 range he goes.

I think there's been some mixed things on that. Notably Greg Gabriel saying he's starter, which makes me think he's the swing backup. One of the bear reporters threw out the Oregon center since the pro day is today. Whether thats anything or just idle speculation, I don't know.

I mean they thought that when cities first tried multi sport venues until people hated them and they didn't meet expectations. I mean, literally a modern football venue is multi sport. Theyll throw a tiny basketball court at midcourt and host a Final 4! But an MLB and NFL team ain't sharing venues and the little bit of extra space requirement isn't exactly the issue. The biggest issue is both Comiskey and Soldier Field projects sucked so badly. Both of those, with ongoing upkeep, should have easily gone at least another 15-20 years if they had been done well.

Don't think there is any proposal for a shared arena.. Just shared financing deal.

I don't think most of these teams are signing day 1 FA QBs and holding out that they might goad Poles into a better deal. They're most likely moving on. Maybe NE and Minny could be in play (at least one of them likely drafts a QB though - maybe both do). Think the other suitors who were purposely the stronger ones have moved on.

While there's some similarities to last year obviously, a lot of the circumstances are different. We've gotten pretty used to Poles being pretty honest, and I actually do think he is, but if he wants to keep Fields and move off 1 maybe he's being purposely elusive or misleading now and treating it differently than last year where a great deal materialized early. The "CW good deal" is gonna be bigger than the Bryce deal, so there's no guarantee it would materialize on some timeline. Hopefully this is pointless and Poles is using pick #1 on QB, but if he's trading it, the real mismanagement isn't some combine quotes.

If that's his plan I think his comments mean practically nothing.

Seemed like it was the Sox side trying to create a latch on opportunity to a bigger project to help what would be a very unpopular public deal for Sox new home. But maybe it can get bundled and you could create some shared infrastructure/transit upgrades that (at least purportedly) benefit both.

That type of attitude is nearly pure platitude at this point. Any further interactions are basically formal job interviews. You're more likely to overreact to something small and meaningless than gain valuable new insights cuz you had a day long meeting.

They're totally trying to trade up for JJ. If they can't land him, or even if they can, Darnold is the type of Bridge investment they need. Denver... Who knows. Maybe also trying to trade up or Payton will bail out Saints and trade for Taysom Hill lol

Remember they have two seconds, so they can neglect two spots in FA 😂

The world was simpler when your whole city could burn down due to poor building codes and then you could build one of the best public parks in the nation on top of the rubble you filled into the harbor.

I think something akin to the One Central plan is more feasible than filling in the harbor. Which is to say, both have issues. That One Central plan is looking for 6.5B in subsidies and is apparently undergoing through a big proposal review which could kill it or clear the way. A transit hub was central to that plan, but my understanding was most transit folks felt the transit aspect was poorly thought out and didn't make sense. That said, that plan is to basically create space over the train with a transit hub, with connected pedestrian access over LSD. Originally it would be to current SF, but could be connected to South Lot, with revised transit deal (and loop in development 78 and maybe a revitalized Comiskey (soccer?).

There would of course be locker room issues with Fields/Caleb. Even the scant comparable history shows that for sure occurs (GB wasn't all sunshines and rainbows twice, nor was Aikman/Walsh. I'm not sure about KC or San Diego, but if you told me there was I wouldn't be shocked.) But (sample size alert) there also isn't any indication/case of such a shared dev approach delaying or failing a guy. And while some guys like Manning overcome awful rookie campaigns and some like Herbert or Stroud wow from the start, cases like David Carr have most agreeing you can definitely ruin a guy. If you have the option not to, that's probably a reasonable approach that should be in consideration. Options better than not in most cases. With Fields having aparently no market there isn't that much purported downside to holding. You destroy his value from a 5th to nothing? But if Williams would benefit from a red shirt year, that value is immeasurable. Or it's totally unnecessary and he could be Stroud day 1. I think you can definitely weigh the risk/reward upside against the risk/reward of rushing your next shot at a franchise QB and the meager day 3 trade comp. ETA - or even if a Williams is a Manning who works past rookie struggles, there's value in a higher floor 2024 and competing still - main point being there's a strong argument that rookie QB learning curves may be an unnecessary thing whereas they're sometimes viewed like necessary dev time)

I actually would be fine without being at top end of DE market. I think Bears could have done a lot of damage at premiums spots in wave 2 and built out both staters and depth. But there's probably like 10M of excess value what you could have sunk into S and RB and gotten decent production. Hope Byard is ageless and Swift stay healthy. But if Bears wanna spend like a team with real playoff aspirations, whatever. If they spend like a team still rebuilding, I don't like it.

Kind of a lot (including guarantees) imo. Poles hitting up lower valuation positions with strong mid-level money to start offseason...

They'll get a cut from the NFL that I'm sure they're counting in the $2B. Much of the rest could come in form of creative financing that won't require 1B+ up front