WrigleyField 22

I hope Cutty is back. I know the meatballs will still cling to McCowns game management-ness, but in return I'll out-meatball them and point out Cutlers 4Q comebacked-ness. Briggs back couldn't hurt too. Peppers replicating tonight couldn't hurt either.

To add to that, I do think the Bears had one of the worse infrastructures around when he took over. Consistency is born in the ability to draft and develop players throughout the draft, and by the end, Angelo was one of the worst at that. I think at the end of Angelo's last season we had the lowest number of drafted players as a roster composite. And top teams often are at the top. Not really something you can turn around quickly. When you had traded away a lot of top picks too and invested quite a bit in FA, it was a recipe for disaster, not to mention failing on the top picks you had. And yet, the Emery reign in 16-12 so far, so it hasn't been a disaster yet. I will go as far to say though that the defense really doesn't matter. Even at its awful stage, our offense is conceivably good enough to overcome it most weeks and I can't imagine he can make our D worse.

You could have hired a 3-4 D guy, let 1/2 the defense go in the offseason and we wouldn't be any worse on that side if the ball. Yea, losing 15 d-linemen to injuries hurt, but holy Christ our safeties play out of position a lot Burn it down and start over I still have no idea how the Bears do not have one quality safety on the roster after spending 4 top 4 round picks on safeties and one in the 6th round over the last 6 drafts. (Hardin, Conte, Steltz, Wright, Afalava) That's the thing tho, Conte looked like he was on the rise last year Its actually remarkable. The one constant from our coaching staff was the DB coach and we brought in a D coordinator with a DB background. Several conclusions you could start to draw; - Our D Line was very important to the success of our D and Marenilli leaving has hurt everything - Tucker is overriding Hoke and whatever he did isn't making an impact now - General D injuries just putting more stress on the safeties - Wright and Conte really are lost causes despite whatever promise for league average effectiveness they once showed.

My first thought is I've given up on this year anyways, and Long has shown a lot so whatever. My second thought is Carimi looking like a good pick and then getting injured and never looking the same. pls be okay, and don't rush back or nothing Kyle.

You could have hired a 3-4 D guy, let 1/2 the defense go in the offseason and we wouldn't be any worse on that side if the ball. Yea, losing 15 d-linemen to injuries hurt, but holy Christ our safeties play out of position a lot Burn it down and start over I still have no idea how the Bears do not have one quality safety on the roster after spending 6 top 4 round picks on safeties over the last 6 drafts. One chalked up to injury. Another two looked a lot better about 7 months ago, even if they weren't top tier guys. Honestly struggling to remember who else we've picked going back that far.

I'm starting to question if Emery knows how to draft a defensive player. In his career I don't believe he's been responsible for drafting a quality defensive player Well he's had 2 drafts and drafted 7 defensive players, 4 in the top 5 rounds. Shea has been a spectacular bust relative to the position he was drafted. Wasting a 3rd round pick on a safety who couldn't play a snap for the Bears even though they have terrible safeties was a disaster as well. But Bostic looks like a solid pick, taunting penalties aside. Isaiah Frey has been decent as a 6th round pick thrust into significant action this year. I'm not sure about Khaseem Greene yet but he's starting due to injury and has been passible from what I've seen, don't remember how he's been graded this year. The other 2 are late round picks Cornellis Washington (6th) and Greg McCoy (7th). McCoy isn't on the roster anymore, and Washington has played sparingly. So in 2 drafts he's had 2 pretty big failures and has drafted 1 defensive player that looks to be a starter. Not good at all but again, its 2 drafts so I'm not ready to call him a failure at drafting defensive picks just yet. I have to say you are nailing it in this thread. Just going back on recollection and attempting to correlate his role as scouting director and such though, I do believe his best hits were on offense. Then again, I think the record just flat out favors picking more offensive players as well. Do think he has another 1st round DL bust from KC as well (assuming you allow a fair amount of the credit to go to him in his role as scouting director).

You could have hired a 3-4 D guy, let 1/2 the defense go in the offseason and we wouldn't be any worse on that side if the ball. Yea, losing 15 d-linemen to injuries hurt, but holy Christ our safeties play out of position a lot Burn it down and start over Is "wouldn't be any worse" really a glowing recommendation of making a switch to the 3-4? Either way you slice it, turnover is needed. 3-4, 4-3, 46, just get the right players in there. Okay maybe we don't want the 46 unless we're facing AP with Ponder at Q, but you get the idea. That being said, Emery has more experience scouting for a 3-4, so if he thinks he would do better finding a fit for that defense, lets go for it.

Wait, sucky teams survive journeyman 36 year old QBs? Actually they probably do suck more than their record. They've been incredibly lucky with offensive injuries to the point that if you gave us normal injury luck on both sides of the ball, our offense could easily sputter and our defense still wouldn't be that great. This team still needs big improvements throughout the roster; some depth on offense and basically everything on defense. Fire Mel Tucker, or don't, I'm not sure it matters. He hasn't done anything to me to question his ability as a league average D-Coordinator, but I think there's little downside of his replacement being worse too. But if our defense improves next year, it will be mostly because of better players, and any new hire will be there mainly as some type of symbolic turnover and transition.

Also this could be stupid because I have no idea how this would effect a kicker, but Robbie Gould's wife had a kid at 7:30 this morning. Gould was likely up all night at a hospital while his wife was in labor and then flew from Chicago to Minnesota this morning in time for the game. It's more than possible he was less than focused whether he wanted to be or not. But then again I could be completely off. Sports psychology is a pretty tricky field. You have guys like Phil Jackson with the reputation of being wizards at it, but at the end of the day I'm not sure anyone has a leg up in that realm. I don't think you let the baby thing into your mindset there. He had essentially 3 good kicks (even though one was short) and did a fine job on kickoffs too. I'm not sure you can point to it as a factor of him missing or let if affect decision making.

I definitely think its an overreaction to want Trestman fired. If you want Trestman fired you want Emery fired, which admittedly may align for some people. But a head coach doesn't get fired after year one without wholesale changes elsewhere too. Hell, throw Philips in there as well (again I may be preaching to the insane choir here anyways) Definitely perplexed by the decision to go for it there. It would seem to me to go against the analytical angle of weighing outcomes (which I think has been Trestman's claim). I do think the penalty/turnover risk wasn't sufficient enough as an excuse, so long as the right plays are called. To me it reads as too much confidence in Robbie Gould. Don't follow your confidence, just keep looking at the outcomes and trying to improve your chances of winning. Everyone thought Robbie would make that, but it isn't good enough reason. Good post by UMFan above outlining the fact that Forte and Peterson where the two backs in the game, and for an OT with 4 minutes left being played between the two 30's, it was in our favor to keep going.

it was stupid to pan it so early. question it? sure. but now its appropriate to seriously doubt his ability to be a head coach. it sucks because he made the offense good but these decisions are maddenly stupid. Serious doubt? Maybe. But you can't believe he has made the offense better and then want him fired definitely for the second part. Old Style wasn't right then and isn't right now.

I guess I tender Murphy, because why not. But he has to be one the first guys you look to drop if you need roster spots for FA additions.

Yea Buffalo is one of my three Ds haha. Although I'm probably going Car this week I'm looking forward to playoffs with them.

Geno at home or away? If he's away play whatever D he's going against. If home keep looking but maybe play anyways.

Garçon and Bengals

I'll wait to see them unveiled. From a tradition standpoint though shouldn't the road uniform say the city name over the team name? Main home and roads are good though so hopefully this can just be a slight upgrade to the blues.

That could mean anything. At the very least, tanking could just be actively losing games. If this front office's history is looked at, they are much more likely to tank in an effort for cap space than losing for draft picks. I wouldn't be surprised to see aligning salaries to make a play for 2015 or 2016. If that were the case, the tough decision would basically come down to Noah. Everyone else is expiring, a amnesty option, or easier to let go.

Man the NBA is so messed up right now. Two legit teams in the East. Two bottom dwellers in the West. They should scrap conferences this year and let the best 16 in. Looking at the East's standings, they're just losing nearly every game they play against the West.

I don't think a D League is going to create true stars, but I think it would go a long way in helping teams that are dedicated to creating a system. Just imagine a bunch of guys being trained in Thibs defense for a few years and then stepping in on the cheap, allowing dollars to be allocated more toward the high end.

Would further limiting the college issue help? If players can't be drafted until after 3 or 4 years instead of what it is now (2 years, right?) might that help make the draft deeper in terms of talent? I don't really think so. You'll see a little bit of a dry spell for a while, then maybe one or two wild drafts from all the guys forced back, and then it would just even out. I think getting rid of the college rule altogether might be more helpful. Back before the rule, tanking and picking a high school player was so risky it wasn't even a good bet. Having that extra year of review against exponentially better opponents has made the scouting pool much less risky.

But we wouldn't even be trading for Tejada. We'd be trading for the chance to draft This Guy (Chosen only because he's # 7 on their list) Depending on how badly we want to tank, maybe we can also get This Guy and if we're lucky can combine those two to get This Guy Bottom line we're not getting This Guy I'm keeping Derrick Rose. If he is a Mark Prior, he at least won't stand in our way of eventually striking lottery gold one day.

Yes they do, and the Bulls don't.

I'm not convinced tanking is really that big of a deal, or even can be "solved", but what about a mixed system of weighted and equal chances. Like what if the first pick in the draft was a straight 1/14 odds. Picks 2-4 would then be weighted, similar to the old system, with 5 and after not being in the lottery. Everyone would still get their weights ahead of time, you'd just drop out the chances of the winning team after the first lotto. Basically assigning a separate group of lotto numbers. Or to get even a little more complicated, make it an increasingly favorable scale, and lottery all the way out to 7 or 8. So the worst team may start with a 7% chance, then a 15%, then 35%, etc. This general idea though would basically discourage all out tanking, but also encourage some playoff tanking, though I'm not sure exactly how likely that would be, especially since you'd be tanking for an all or nothing chance. The shifting scale would be particularly perplexing from audit perspective as numbers are pre-assigned. The alternative is to keep the 1-3 lottery format, but then extend the lottery format all the way from 4-14 with equal or increasingly equal odds. So as a the #30 team, if you miss out on your roughly 65% chance of top three, you are then thrown to the chances and just as likely to end up 4th as 14th. From a risk perspective not a huge deterrent, but a little bit, since you no longer have your #4 fail safe. And for the fringey teams, you're still keeping their jackpot odds low and thus their playoff tank incentive low. Or also open up the 1st round losers to the lottery, definitely at decreased odds though. Perhaps a second tiered lottery starting at 8 or 9.

I feel like I could put my entire roster up except TE and K (of which I have one each). But I'll keep it simple 1 Flex, 1 RB Zac Stacy @SF (and coming off concussion), CJ Spiller v. Atl, Shane Vereen @Hou, Donald Brown v. Ten, Bobby Rainey @Car, Alshon Jeffrey @Min Edit- I guess I'm throwing my QB pick up here too Foles v Ari or Brady @ Hou

Luck Nelson, DeSean, Cooper And now that I say that, how can I recommend two Phi receivers and not their QB? I guess I'm taking Foles too. While I'm not liking them to burn up Arizona, I do like playing the odds that you'll get at least 2/3 good plays from that combo.