WrigleyField 22

Um okay ×2

I rather Bears just sign one of these guys instead of going after guys on practice squad or were injured or whatever. At least the guys below were actually productive at one point. Enough with going on "potential" or guys who hasn't had their shots yet. There's a reason why these guys were where they're at in their career that the Bears have been signing and I'm not just talking about WRs here either. We got enough of those guys already and now the time to add some vets here and there. They're going to be 1 year deals anyway. Hopefully Poles will be doing that after June 1st. A lot of these guys in FA can't be asking much $$$ by now so there's value to be had. Biggs hinted the other day Poles may not add anything else major at WR. Or elsewhere.

Really gonna be rooting for him to make it back in the league. Awesome thread here of some of his highlights as a Bear. Man, he provided some thrills

Per RAS, it's small. Guys can add on weight and muscle though. I wouldn't worry too much about height.

Nice

Dead cap fatalism is dumb. The Bears entered 2022 offseason in a better position than both Falcons and Giants, easily. Not even close. Houston maybe slightly better off depending on how you interpreted the Watson situation at the time. They're kind of better off, with the assumption they'll be set up with a top 3 pick and assets to get QB of choosing in 2023. I think something like $37m of that dead cap was created by the current administration. Not saying those moves necessarily didn't need to be made but they made those decisions to create the dead cap. But the constant mistake is people treating dead cap as only significant in the seasons where it's accelerated from a cut or trade. It was always there though. Of those four teams, here is where their future dead/guaranteed liabilities lied around October of last year (this data isn't super readily pullable, but I had been evaluating it around that time). Houston 113.3M (1 of 32) Chicago 149.5M (14 of 32) Atlanta 161. 4M (18 of 32) New York 183.3M (24 of 32) So Chicago may have a higher dead cap hit in 2022, but NYs isn't non existant, it's just scheduled to hit in 2023 or later. You can weigh this metric against rostered players (where Chicago is on low end), but at a gross level it still means their books were pretty clear. Mid tier team from past 4 years is mid tier cap leveraged. Huh. 9 times out of 10 the dead caps are inconsequential and at best are a useful trailing indicator of something else. Cap discourse would be wholly better off if they were never mentioned again IMO. /End nerd cap rant

Dead cap fatalism is dumb. The Bears entered 2022 offseason in a better position than both Falcons and Giants, easily. Not even close. Houston maybe slightly better off depending on how you interpreted the Watson situation at the time. They're kind of better off, with the assumption they'll be set up with a top 3 pick and assets to get QB of choosing in 2023.

or, like 1/2 the '85 defense I mean I'm sure there's plenty of bullies at large, but Kruetz's arc seems like a bad CW tv bully.

You couldn't write a more stereotypical bullying arctype than Olin right?

I know that's a joke, but I bet you it's a pretty close sentiment. The victim probably threw in a dig about the $15/hr being generous and that was it.

Olin is such a POS.

Without question Gordon at CB add is at least a premium position so no qualms that he went D with first pick. S definitely a lower value position value by most metrics, but I don't think you can bum it at both spots and this will provide the team options. And by most opinions Brisker was a good value pick there. Would anyone have batted and eye if he went top 30? Maybe Jackson turns it around and sees out his contract too and you have a all around premium group, but adding athletes on D on small deals is good. Now about next offseason and going hog wild on offense adds...

Right or wrong he's treating it like a re-do of Fields rookie year. Sometime rookie QBs are built around because there is no certainty they will even be in a position to draft a rookie. But even in cases where it's obvious a rookie is being drafted, the big investment often comes in year 2. So Poles is basically the GM who knew he was gonna draft a QB first overall, but didnt go agressive in building around them for year 1. Basically everything is reset for Fields new "year 1" I still don't agree with that approach, but I think that's basically what's happening. Yeah, I'm not saying he lied at all. I think they completely believe in Fields. But this is the NFL there's no sure things. Like I believe Fields will be a star QB in this league, but I'm not willing to bet my house, life savings, and 401K on it. That's basically where Poles and crew are. While I agree, it doesn't make any sense to just throw him out there with nothing....I think the logic here is, "well I don't want to spend all this money and high draft picks on players and be locked into them for 4 years, if I find out in the next 2 years that the QB isn't good enough". It's one thing to see all these tools Fields has on tape. It's another to see how he does in person, everyday in OTAs, minicamp, training camp, preseason and during the season. It's seeing how he takes to the new coaching staff, and new offense. They used him to look at tape to help determine what guys to draft, so I don't think he necessarily lied. Like I said earlier, there's definitely a middle ground I would have taken. Having a good RG on a 3-4 year deal is still good even if you do have QB issues. Obviously, QB is the most important piece, but it's not all or nothing w/ a QB. You can actually add good players to the unit before you have the sure thing at QB. I'm guessing the logic here is that they don't want a bunch of talent masking how good Fields actually is. LOL. Guys like Mayfield, Jimmy G, maybe even Cousins are guys who got paid (only 5th year option in Baker's case) and are not quite good enough because the talented supporting cast carries them a bit. I guess that's what they want to avoid. Makes no sense to me, but I sorta get it. Exactly agreed on the bolded. The goal of building around the next 3-4 years could have included more up front investments that still paid dividends 3 years from now. Look at Cleveland building around Baker and him flopping. They had a core in place and then just needed to be opportunistic to add a QB to it. Or they could have opted to restart again and you have pieces from which you could do that. The Bears didn't have to be Rams/Packers 2021 level of short term thinking in order to field a better team for 2022. For instance the Mack trade still made a lot of sense. So adding via draft capital is important, but CLE did a lot in FA and trades too. Anyways 2023 FA is gonna be huge. They have lots of money to spend to meet the Minimum cash requirements and I'd be shocked if they don't do it through FA (some resignings, but those won't be siginificant part of pie). One more WR and a G or G/T swing would be good at minimum. Fuller or Landry at WR. Daryl Williams at G/T? Or see if any cuts happen. Those aren't exciting long term adds, but I think they still need some one year stop gaps at this stage to give Fields fair shot to grow and develop.

Right or wrong he's treating it like a re-do of Fields rookie year. Sometime rookie QBs are built around because there is no certainty they will even be in a position to draft a rookie. But even in cases where it's obvious a rookie is being drafted, the big investment often comes in year 2. So Poles is basically the GM who knew he was gonna draft a QB first overall, but didnt go agressive in building around them for year 1. Basically everything is reset for Fields new "year 1" I still don't agree with that approach, but I think that's basically what's happening.

I have zero issue with the draft overall. My issue was how much they sat out FA. Even an extra starting caliber OL and WR would have made a nice boost to O. Hopefully all those OL pay dividends down the line but this year, it still feels like a little bit of a wish and a prayer. But if Thomas or Jones is awesome day 1, Poles looks like a genius. About that extra WR still. Unless they're playing lots of 12 personnel (which I guess could help protect a young OL), there's some vets they could go sign to raise floor of group.

Yea probably just sees that was the first O pick and called it the best lol

Jean Delance is another combine invite guy they signed OL Jean Delance, Florida NFL Combine rating = 5.90 https://www.nfl.com/prospects/jean-delance/32004445-4c07-3640-9622-ed04594313c9 https://thedraftnetwork.com/sr-prospect/jean-delance-a25c32fe-2b5a-4acc-b18c-60fcc79c2829/ So far 22 total signings and 14 tryouts. With that number of signings I think they actually need to make some corresponding moves, or some tryouts are being mis-reported as signings.

horsefeathers ton (20+) of UDFAs already reported, but only 2 who were combine invites. LB Jack Sanborn, Wisconsin NFL Combine rating = 5.63 PFF Big Board= 200 https://www.nfl.com/prospects/jack-sanborn/32005341-4e04-7762-4775-97edb77192d7 https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/jack-sanborn/82566/draft-profile TE Chase Allen, Iowa State NFL Combine rating = 5.96 PFF Big Board = 296 https://www.nfl.com/prospects/chase-allen/3200414c-4c08-1182-aecf-faa5e2918941 https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/chase-allen/39988/draft-profile

Poles seems to value 40 time over the agility drills like cone/shuttle. But he also got skill guys who are pretty dense. Just kind of interesting. Overall a class big on athletic traits though.

Landry, Fuller, and Hurns are 3 WR they could sign at varying levels of $/risk/upside.

A lot of special teamers. Should have a couple starting DBs and the a whole lot of role players and backups and projects. One of the OL probably gets cut but most of these guys can probably make this roster. Honestly I don't know if any of those OL get cut unless they are just really bad. Even if they wanna go sign another vet. Borom-Whitehair-Lucas-Jenkins top 4 Thomas-Carter-Kramer for one starting spot and two backups. Jones development piece who doesn't dress One more backup spot for Dozier, Davenport, etc.

Poles is a traits guy. All these guys have big athletic traits.

Volume on day 3 might as well. They were way behind on filling out both 53 man and 90 man rosters. Braxton is a big project, but huge potential. Poles first small school flyer.

No brainer move based on how many roster spots Bears have open. And I suspect this was even the original agreed upon deal, but they had to wait for the comp picks to be formally awarded.

Yep, some definite self preservation going on it feels like. Should they be treating Fields any other way? He might be “our guy” as fans, but he’s definitely not Poles’ guy. Um, for self preservation, no. It's an ugly reality, but about 90% of fans and owners seem to tie a GMs fate to a single roll of the dice at a QB. So Poles is gonna keep his roll in his back pocket. But if I was a owner I'd make sure my GM felt confident that he could just try to build around a QB and not worry if they fail.