WrigleyField 22

Next up on my offseason plan, GM. In part one I hired Bill Polian as President of football operations. Tom Heckert. Another former GM, now currently Dir Pro Personnel for Denver. Was GM in Philly during Andy Reid's best years, but also was not the final decision maker. Was a GM for two years in Cleveland. They didn't post a good record, but his work has laid a good foundation. Still young in GM terms (47) and he can eventually be the primary football decision maker as Polian ages. In the near term he'll probably be higher touch on smaller personnel decisions than the big ones like first round picks. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Even if we trade Cutler we should be striving for playoffs. We'd just be trying to get there with a different roster build. It would just be really hard for this team to punt next year on purpose and be really truly bad. They'd have to leave tons of cash on the table (for what reason I'm not sure) and/or keep the entire coaching staff in tact. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Since it'd be a promotion yes, but not sure I see the motivation from him- seems like his gig is a strong one and he can ride out his career with Rodgers. As my post said I tagged Polian as the President. If we are hiring a Pres to oversee football we should be able to promote a highly successful current or former GM though.

I'll have to break my plan down into parts. I'll assume the decision is a top down change like Sulley said with Phillips moving to a Kenney type role. Part One: President of Football Operations This one is going to be lazy for me. There's a highly successful GM with tons of experience who has built three franchises. Tons of SB appearances. Bill Polian. President of Football Operations. He's not without warts. But he would have to be one of the safer hires. He'll hire a GM but like Theo be the main decision maker still. It will be a six year contract. One of my biggest concerns is some recent negative comments he said about analytics, but in full context I think it's okay and his record speaks for itself. Next up - GM... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Running every NFL team is a massive job. Every team is in a constant battle of attrition. The Bears climb is no more uphill than any other club of similar record. It seems near unanimous to me that we have a dreadful coaching situation. Everyone agrees it's pathetic. If there wasn't talent on this team I'm not sure we'd even have 5 wins. Coaching alone is our biggest area for growth. The personnel part is what it's been since Emery came on board which is trying to build sustained success through a strong player evaluation and development. A job that's usually several years in the making to catch up. Top 11 pick. Five other picks. Good cap space. Only one relatively important FA to retain. Punting 2015 for a strip down would be dumb. Not that we might not miss anyways but purposely stripping down wouldn't get us any closer for 2016 or 2017 either. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don't take that as support of this team. They'd still be underdogs (and three weeks is a lot in NFL terms) but it's just the way the NFL is. Unless you're the lowest of the lows and mismanaged terribly (particularly cap wise) a tear down is unnecessary. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

An OT loss in Week one most notably. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A tear down would be monumentally stupid. We're not in a cap crunch. No looking roster drain. Only missing one pick (a 5th). Whoever is in charge should be thinking playoffs. The team as it stands is a coin toss away from still being in the playoff hunt and with good coaching is probably sitting in the WC drivers seat. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

it seems dumb as hell but I don't see the "bugged" angle. wasn't it at the field? Yep after the Cowboys game. I, too, am very curious what drove Kromer to come clean. Anonymous quotes to reporters happen all the time. It's likely Kromer had done it before. So why reveal himself about this? The NFL Network's story with the quotes didn't come out until Sunday. Trestman said he knew about it the a Friday before. There's more to the story. Oh wow nice pick up. Yea this is weird Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Best option to guard the stretch fours? Not sure about that. Would be interesting if GarPax moved one of Mirotic/Gibson/Gasol for a wing upgrade. All of them look to be on favorable deals right now. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I could definitely see Emery turning over every stone, but not sure about bugging. Then again Pioli bugging wouldn't surprise me because Bellicheck bugging wouldn't surprise me. And Emery did work under Dimitroff too. Maybe. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't post gifs, but bravo treymon

I guess so. I'm young enough to have missed the Bears SB win.... Can't think of any teams that wouldn't have put their team through some lean years at some point. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'd agree, they are a lot like us I'd definitely rather be a Bears fan than Skins. They've just been a series of high priced FA failures it seems like for as long as I've watched NFL football. The Bears have at least developed some young guys that created a NFC champ team. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We literally have a OLine coach who made his name flipping late picks and UDFAs into top flight NFL lines. He's obviously gonna be gone but he isn't the only guy out there to do it. There is actually a decent chance Mills or Leno or even Groy could fill a spot by 2016. I think we've already invested more in young lineman the past two than the previous ten. Spot - 2015 - 2016 -2017 LT- Bushrod - Long - Long LG - Slausson - Slausson C - DLP/comp - DLP/comp RG- Day Two DP 2015-------> RT - Long - ? - ? I think that's a fairly middle road outlook. Not too pessimistic or optimistic. Maybe Long doesn't switch to the left side, so yea you still need a Tackle either way. If that RG is a combo G/C that's even better and you can develop that into a long term C (being a harder spot than G to fill). Or maybe that draft pick is a G/T combo who bumps out to T post Bushrod. Sure you might bust on the pick and there are injuries, but none of our guys are injury prone. And we're getting experience for our backups this year, so that's good long term for injury risk. Not a mess. If we have 60% of our 2016 rotation locked in at the end of this offseason (conservatively at that) we're doing okay. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Blackout issues come up for those who live in the Cubs territory but don't get the channel games are switching too. People in Indy probably don't get wls7 but did get wgn. And here comes David again to rehash that people in Indy get WGN America and not the local one Chicagoans get, and that sports broadcasts were going out the door. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't see Slausson falling off that quickly. Plus the one hole that's basically agreed upon as a minimum for 2015 should be filled in 2016. And you continue to develop the projects you have and fill in with value vets when needed... Not the dire portrait you paint, sorry. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Would you guys trade Cutler for Manziel and a midround draft pick? My minimum return for Cutler is a Alex Smith like return. But it's contingent on having a capable replacement or identifying a guy you want to draft within the first three picks. Manziel and a third or something would be interesting. I'm not convinced on Manziel as an NFL QB though I'd defer to the scouts and experts if they thought he was. If we do get a new coaching staff though if lean towards trying to make it work with Cutler for another season or two until a replacement was developed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk If they identify someone they like well enough in the first round, what about Jay (+ midround?) to the Redskins for their first? As a base framework, I could see something like that happening if Snyder gets on board the RGIII bust bus. I don't know how you could turn down the Redskins first. Isn't that gonna be like top 3-5? A Redskins deal would probably more like their second, which is the type of pick KC gave up for Smith. Depending on where both firsts end up a swap of QBs, a swap of firsts, and another pick or two headed our way perks my ears if dealing with the Skins. But even then I might be waiting until draft day and making that call based on who's there when the Redskins pick comes up. There are like 12-14 teams still putting up worse DVOA from their QB than the Bears. About half have a young guy they are committed to or their own expensive vet, but there is still a strong QB market of 6 or so and only two consensus top picks. And Hoyer will headline the FA market. We shouldn't rush Jay out. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Right now, they're at 6, we're at 9. I don't see them getting much higher than 5th overall. Those are truly atrocious situations ahead off them. I'm not on the get Jay out of town bandwagon. But my thought is, if it's not at the next major coaching change, it's not happening until the contract is over. Not that is necessarily a bad thing, but if we have the assets now to acquire the next qb, why not do it, if we really do believe one is an elite guy. Rather than wait until 2018 or 2019 and hoping there's a difference maker available then. I mean if we don't trade Jay were committed to him fully for next year. Following year would involve just a little pain to move on. So ideally you want to commit the next two years to him... Preferably under a new coach. I'd look to develop a guy still with a decent pick committed in 15 or 16. Worst case you are no worse off than you would have been. Best case you have two valuable, tradable QBs. Not rushing a young QB would be great though. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[expletive] even Mills isn't a complete lost cause. He's coming off his best game of the season after being demoted following a rookie season where he exceeded expectations but had offseason surgery. He can be a swing G/T and possibly still develop into a long term plug and fill guy. Our idiot OC made his name putting together OL of nobodies as have many teams. And we have other pipeline development guys in place. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I look at the OLine as a weak link type of thing. It's stunk largely due to there constantly being one big hole. It's true we only have one young building block type piece, but Bushrod and Slausson don't need to be replaced in 2015. And DLP is probably adequate to replace Garza. Or something around that talent level. Huge difference between improving the line and revamping 80% of it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

lol. Yea someone is out of touch with reality alright. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's not only not perfect it is completely wrong. 3 years isn't half a semester. Best case outcome of your example is ending the semester with a c+ anyway. Nah if you ace the final the midterm is meaningless. 3 years is probably a pretty good approximation of GM half life as well. But I did say it was a simple analogy. It's clear to me Emery fucked up his first hire. If he was as lacking in the other areas this team would be even worse than 5-8. Fix the coaching and Emery is suddenly an above average GM. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is kind of my view. He gets a D or F from me right now but I still see a glimmer of hope because individual things haven't been bad across the board. I wouldn't be heartbroken if he was canned too, but I fear the alternative for sure. I don't buy into the whole "tries to be smarter thing". Any GM is going to go against the consensus at some time. I wouldn't trust the job to crowd sourcing. Just because someone takes a risk doesn't mean they were out to prove something, just that their efforts led down a different road. So while you have to question how they reached their decision to me it just comes across as lazy fans moaning to assume it was reached because Emery or anyone goes against the grain just for the sake of going against the grain. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk This is the same very weak argument used to support hendry as gm. Individual good moves are meaningless. Emery is in over his head. He's a division 2 strength and conditioning coach in ill fitted executive clothing. Hendry did end up putting together some good teams though... The strength coach thing is so irrelevant and on par with the hipster GM meme. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk i think you are in denial of reality. Emery's outsider status with no connections to quality nfl people contributed to his horrible hiring. 3 years later and there is no indication anything has improved. If he is fired tomorrow he will never get a high profile gig again. He will ride off into the sunset as a scout. The Bears were the only team that would hire him and trestman and there is no reason to think that has since changed. Why should the Bears be the only team to keep employing him? He's been a disaster. This team is just an older less functional version of the one he inherited. O line is a mess. Offense is disappointing. Defense and special teams are both horrible. The entire coaching staff is awful. Your view of him as an outsider is odd. He's worked under 3-4 GMs and got his most recent job before the Bears due to recommendations within the FO circle. Also not true is this team being older than the one he inherited. Also not true is the Oline being a mess. But keep preaching brother. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Out of curiosity I did a search for GM candidates a couple weeks ago. Not as popular of a topic as potential HC, but there's a few articles. The resumes of some of these guys were oddly close to Emery in 2012. Like just push every date of his NFL resume back 3 years. Then it's a bunch of right hand men to current successful GMs. History isn't necessarily friendly to those types either though. It's a giant crap shoot with GMs with the marginal difference between most being slim and the number of guys with A grades and non elite QBs nearly zero. If I thought Phillips was a it more capable I may feel differently but it's just a coin toss to me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's a simple analogy but right now Emery's grade is like at a midterm that had a paper, a project and a midterm test. He's an average student with some potential in 66% of the scoring and royally flunked the test when he had access to a dated cheat sheet that would have given him a C on the test. So he's failing, but not incapable of turning it around. I'm can handle waiting out the rest of the semester because I don't really know what else is out there and our president is probably hopeless. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk