WrigleyField 22

More weapons that are actual NFL quality is good. Even an average-ish one. Eff the trenches, at least give Fields weapons.

I think poles is like theo Epstein where he is always super willing to walk away if it goes past the hard limit price he has set. I think in the long run that will serve us well. It's a welcome departure from Pace fixating on guys and paying absurd prices to get them. I just have some concerns about his positional priorities. It shouldn't be quite as hard in football as it is in baseball to set markets. It's a capped league with a very narrow pie everything comes from. Like of course identifying the right talent is important, but too much fixation on hard limits is just a lot less meaningful. The market really is whatever the league revenue says it is. Yea there's shifting positional markets, but... I just worry he's just being conservative for the sake of it. Like last year was a clear tank job. This year the investment levels don't really live up to a team trying to win. Improved of course, but at this point the biggest influence seems to be a cash floor that they have to meet. Really don't want see him be a Ballard who was a slave to his values. He's gotta ramp up his agrrsiveness in FA. It's a meatbally take that FA is bad. Invest in the team!

Can Floyd be a SAM who bumps down to DE on nickel as a rusher? He was never bad in coverage/run when he was here before. He improved his pass rush stats in LA.

Grain of salt PFF all you want, but I think everyone agrees the run D was trash last year. Hopefully a big upgrade there. Still a few DL bodies short.

Yea my recollection is Whitehair blocked well as a C and stuff, but just was a junky snapper often. I don't know what a normal baseline is. Mustipher had plenty of junky snaps too.

Greg Gabriel tweeted teams will prob schedule workouts again before draft. So he may get chance to redeem self.

Paying Cole Kmet along the lines of Kittle would be the least value focused move Poles could dream of. He's not talking about the amount, just the structure. Nah, amount will be close too. TEs in the Kmet value range are at like $14m right now. That's about where I have his ext number. Kittle was 5/75. But it was 2020 on a 198m cap. So equivalent value today would be 5/85. So if I started Kmet with a 14m baseline. Discount it a bit for having heavy up front cashflows. 5/65. About a 20% real discount from Kittle. Frontload between $16-20 cash as signing bonus. Something like that basically replaces the last big signing I figured they'd need to help reach minimum.

Also I know there's still a lot of offseason and more chances for players to be cut, etc but is there a chance the Bears don't actually spend to the cash floor and pay the extra money out? Feels more like a possibility each day. But my current theory is they'll throw the Kittle extension at Kmet which had a massive frontloaded signing bonus and that will more or less carry them across the finish line (along with a few small signings)

Borom, day 3 rookie, and random street FA camp battle for RT.

You may have heard of zero RB in fantasy football, but have you heard of zero DL in real football? Hot new trend.

I will not learn to spell check!

Trying to be smart about replacement value is smart of course. But I have a Keryth White, Trestman Ebner, etc every time someon wants to act like every day 3 RB is gonna be plug and play. At the very least Poles looks like he's gonna prioritize lots of swings on those day 3 picks so it's a somewhat more valid approach, but I think a lot of fans aren't prepared for the ruthless sunk cost approach that also requires. You're just multiplying the denominator enough to offset a much lower gross hit rate.

That's what luxuries are. Things you do in the right situation but not when you have more pressing needs hard disagree. I don’t know if the player is worth it, but if he is you make the pick. Waiting to acquire elite players until everything else is right is for cowards+This so much. People have too much of a tendency to think there is some natural order to team building. Reality is its just always a mess and the only really big mistakes are not letting go of sunk costs quickly enough. But anyways, someone forgot to tell Poles the "that's what the money is for" part. Pretty sure he has all the money under a mattress for safekeeping.

Oh, for sure. About the only thing that doesn't have me busting out the pitchforks about the state of the OL right now is that he went and got DJ Moore. That's gonna help the offense a ton. Before they got Moore, I figured no #1 type WR would be available and hitting lines hard was their only real option. So still think they need more, but waiting it out for now.

I don't think there's any chance of a restructure before a trade. The trade is gonna be tricky enough for GB without adding new restructures which could only make it harder for them. Jets can do whatever restructure they need after the fact. I mean unless GB is trying to eat more to improve the draft comp, but it's a pretty narrow margin of what they could even eat and still make the financials work.

I think in time a lot of the running/RB assumptions are gonna age like early baseball analytics. Not that NFL will ever be a 80/90s league because there have been so may rule changes to protect QBs ans promote passing, but it will be okay to run the ball again one day, lol

Outshot 42-29, win 6-3 The hockey gods are punishing this pathetic franchise Its deserved.

Outdated thinking. Wirfs, Lane Johnson, Sewell, and Ramczyk are top 10 overall OTs and play right side. Guys like Watt, Nick Bosa, Reddick rush exclusively from the left side of the D. This is a fair point, you want your best on their best, regardless of sides. I also disagree with Kyle's idea of muscle memory, not because it doesn't exist, but because it's not something an athlete can't overcome. For years RT was thought of being maulers not fleet-footed ballerinas. So, for decades RT was a position that was thought to be more of a power blocker. But if teams are storming the right side, a mauler won't do: you need the ballerina. It used to be the opposite because left tackle protected the QBs blind side as most QBs are right handed- hence h the QB won't see it coming. The thinking now is pressure is pressure and the weaker side has been the RT side, so put your best pass rusher on that side. Every guy has some natural tendencies vis a vie "sides", but it definitely exists on a spectrum and I do think most guys are ultimately adaptable with reps. Ideally if you're changing a guy you do it early in an offseason. But obviously backups have to intentionally practice both, so guys do it all the time. In the case of a Nate Davis who hasn't played the left since I don't know when, I'd definitely defer to a not broke / don't fix attitude. But specific to Bears if I didn't think the staff was already low on Jenkins I probably wouldnt think much on it about one of the two making a change of sides.

Next big cut wave will be post draft / post June 1. You can get some okay stuff then, but it's not likely deep enough where like every position is gonna have strong options.

Yea seems Homer is really just a ST. So kind of a expensive ST ace, but who's counting with Bears cap space.

Not looking forward to playing him 2x a year. The current DL is gonna struggle to tackle him, lol

Based on...? When he was with Baltimore, his 1st 2 seasons he was a pro bowler at RT which could mask his lack of agility better than at LT. He was one of the best at RT which suits his strengths better than LT. Those were also massively different schemes. What specifically says its a side issue verse a scheme issue. Legitimately want to know because I've seen it talked about a lot that Reid assigns pretty similar L/R schemes and expects them both to be on islands. Obviously the scheme issue with Outside zone has been mentioned plenty as well. So that factors in. But more and more it seems like the L/R distinction is dying and I'm jot sure it shouldnt be fully brought out backn and killed once and for all.

He's a good LT but he's an elite/best in NFL RT. Based on...?

Grain of salt (DBB is good on some things but I think still kinda iffy on player stuff)

On the latter part, I think to the extent he's just following market value, it's a good thing, but also really hard to prove/conceptualize and there's naturally lots.of different of opinion in values. But there is definitely time for a more solid holistic approach to form as to where he assigns value. (best analogy I can make, though imperfect, is people taking the Moneyball lesson as "OBP is inherently good" when the actual lesson was "OBP is inherently undervalued". You don't wanna be stuck thinking some new norm is established just to find the thing becoming the norm inherently makes it tougher to compete on that thing because a prices get pushed up.)