champaignchris

My question comes down to why the Bears would think this 60% completion percentage, 2:1 TD:Int ratio, 90 QB rating quarterback will be so much better than the 60% CMP%, 2:1 TD:Int, 90 Rtg quarterback that they just gave up on? To such an extent that they’d give up assets to get him and pay $25MM in 20201 when they’re already over the salary cap? Are they hanging their hats on 2017 and 2018? Because that’s starting to be a long time ago in NFL terms. People can point to his lack of weapons these last few years, but what weapons do the Bears have? Especially if they have to let Robinson walk because they can’t get under the cap any other way. If they really need to give up multiple draft picks and a player to get Wentz, they should just go all the way in and go after Watson.

Carson Wentz has $59M guaranteed left on his deal and was the worst full time QB in the NFL last year. I don't understand why it isn't incumbent on them to pay us for the favor of taking him. I’m with you. I don’t see why the Bears should give up much in value for the privilege of paying Wentz $20MM a year. Put Mitch’s and Wentz’s career numbers side by side. Wentz is better but only marginally so. Certainly not to the extent where the Bears should be giving up picks to pay him $20MM a year when Mitch could be had for Marcus Mariota’s contract. Not that those are the only two options. I just don’t see why one guy is gold in the Bears’ eyes and the other guy is trash.

Marwin Gonzalez and Jonathan Schoop are both probably upgrades at 2b. Maybe. I guess.

He was ok in 17 and real good in 18. Then he started giving up a ton of HRs.

They have bizarrely similar career stats and were born 11 months apart. They’re basically the same players.

Vizquel getting more votes than Rolen is insane. Rolen was just as good defensively but could hit. Same holds for Andruw Jones. I’m not sure any of them belong in the Hall, but still...

They did sign an actual backup catcher who shouldn't be too horrible over 200 plate appearances. But then, I guess that's me being optimistic that they didn't just sign their starting catcher...

This is the type of catcher I figured they’d eventually sign. Now, need about five more Big League players to fill out the roster.

I don’t like the idea of the Bears picking up Wentz. Physically, Wentz and Trubisky are completely different QBs, but in terms of production, they’ve put up very similar numbers, and at two years older, he’s much more of a finished product than Trubisky is. Between the two at the same price, I’d rather have Trubisky.

Yea, so you're cutting a bunch of starters and only have FA to really replace them. They can of course fit his cap number, but building a winner around it is entirely different. yea, unless they were to get Watson with something akin to what they traded for Cutler with it would hamstring the team. Watson would end up where he is: a super talented QB on a team void of another talent. Draft a qb, or get lucky with Prescott Right. The Bears really don’t have any other assets to trade. So they’d probably be looking at minimum their next three first round draft picks for Watson.

College HC and pro HC seem like they require different skill sets. It seems like the guys who’ve washed out transitioning from one to the other far outweigh the success stories, but maybe not. Maybe it’s just that all coaches wash out at a really high rate. The NFL HCs who went directly from college to the NFL and who have over 100 career victories: Tom Coughlin Pete Carroll Dennis Green Sid Gillman Don Coryell George Allen was a college HC before he became a pro HC, but spent 8 years in between as asst and DC with the Bears under Halas. Halas letting him get away to the Rams and then promoting Jim Dooley instead when Halas retired is one of the big turning points in Bears history.

This has been the issue with NBA basketball for generations... At any one time there are maybe a dozen basketball players in the world that are heads and shoulders better than everyone else. The smaller teams compared to other team sports means that these elite players have a disproportionate impact on the game in comparison. This is why Bill Russell's Celtics went to 12 finals in 13 years. Or MJ's Bulls won 6 finals in 8. Or whatever team LeBron happens to be on has gone to the Finals 9 years in 10. Wilt was in 6 Finals in 10 years. Shaquille was in 5 Finals in 7 years. Etc., etc. The generational talent almost always wins out. It's not like baseball where the greatest pitcher of all time still needs other pitchers to go in games he's not pitching and guys to score some runs for him. There aren't enough elite players to go around. The NBA could eliminate about 10 teams, disperse those players throughout the rest of the league, and the only people who'd even notice are the fans in the cities that lost teams. (As a Pacers fan, I acknowledge that this is a pretty dangerous stance to take - My team would absolutely be one of those teams that nobody missed.) NBA players have figured this out and have figured out how to leverage themselves onto the teams they want. Guys who don't want to be Charles Barkley or Steve Nash - all time greats who just happened to not be the single greatest at the time they were playing - go looking for an opportunity to win championships.

If the Pacers just traded 1 year of Oladipo and nothing else for 3 years of Lavert, I'm fine with that. Oladipo wasn't going to re-sign with the Pacers at the end of the year. Not much difference between the two in performance at this point anyway. Lavert is 2 years younger and probably more reliable from an injury perspective.

Yes. But... you could argue that the team essentially already fired its offensive coordinator back in week 11.

The Chiefs were pretty darn good before Mahomes got there. They had five straight winning seasons and went to the playoffs 4 times before Mahomes became their full time starter.

I’m probably the only Pacers fan here. I’m glad they brought back the whole team. I’m really curious to see what they can do with any health at all. They didn’t have Brogdon, Sabonis, Oladipo and Warren all on the court at any single time last year. I think 3rd in the East is a realistic goal, but blowouts of the Bulls and Knicks don’t tell us much yet.

Won’t matter if the Cardinals lose to the Rams, which they will if they play anything like they did today.

that was the first season i followed sports/the bears and, while i remembered narrowly missing the playoffs, i forgot about that whole scenario That was my first year as a fan too. The Bears have made the playoffs 5 times in my 25 years as a fan. Yeesh. I started watching football when I was 8. The 1981 Chargers-Dolphins playoff game followed by Montana hitting Clark in the back of the end zone the very next weekend. Two of the greatest NFL games of all time. I was hooked. From the time I was 11 until I was 18, the Bears made the playoffs 7 times, won 6 division titles, went to the conference championship game three times, and won a Super Bowl. In the 29 years since, they’ve made the playoffs 6 times.

rawaction mentioned in the Detroit thread that Mitch was now the Bears career leader in QB rating among players with at least 300 pass attempts. He’ll pass Ed Brown for 7th in all time passing yards this next game, Billy Wade for 6th if he starts another game after that, and probably Erik Kramer for 5th if he plays out the rest of the season. Of the four guys still above him - Cutler, Luckman, Harbaugh and McMahon - he’ll have a higher completion percentage and lower interception percentage. I realize all of this is way more a testament to how bad the Bears qbs have been than anything Mitch has achieved. That said, the biggest problem with Mitch remains the fact that the Bears traded up to get him with the 2nd overall pick. If he’d been taken with the 52nd pick, his performance would be deemed “fine.” You’d still want to bring in a better qb, but no one would be particularly disappointed in Mitch’s performance.

i don't disagree, but they'd never do that (and len would probably want nothing to do with forcing him out) aren't you my anti-vin scully buddy too? Vin Scully was doing the Brennamen meme for years unironically and people thought it was folksy because he was lucid in the 50s. Dan Bernstein’s Scully impression is grimly hilarious... “And now I’d like to say a few words about the Jews...”

eh, they had Cutler, he was decent. unfortunately he was just overshadowed by GB pulling HOF QB's out of thin air. I think the key for the Bears is they simply have to take a "quantity is quality" approach and draft qb's nearly every year until they find one that can stick. I don't mean in the 1st every year either, but in any round where they find someone who has potential and makes sense for that round (ie, not a reach). I would say Cutty, as much as I loved him was decidedly average, but also the best QB I've seen on the Bears since maybe Kramer's one season in the early 90s. At his best he could lift the Bears offense up to win games. At his worst, he was the reason we lost games. We saw more of the latter than the former, but he did have quite a few games where he played good enough for the Bears to win. Clearly he had some issues with coaching staff and personnel put out there. Maybe he could have been a lower rung pro bowl guy with the right coaching, but probably not. Cutler brought a lot of issues down in himself with his media-unfriendly attitude and seeming nonchalance about his play. But he had a horrible o-line during the first half of his Bears career and a miserable defense during the second half. The Bears had 3 head coaches and 6 offensive coordinators in his 8 years in Chicago. Show me the qb that’s succeeded in similar circumstances. He was hardly a superstar, but he put up pretty similar career numbers to Eli Manning and Joe Flacco.

Fred Taylor was picked 9th.

I forgot how much they paid for Chase Daniel. The same year the Bears signed Daniel to that 2 year/$10MM contract, Ryan Fitzpatrick signed with the Bucs for i year/$3MM. But you can do that with that entire list of qbs. They overpaid for Glennon when they could have gotten Case Keenum (among others) for half the price. They traded up for Mitch when they could have traded down for Watson or Mahomes (or Mitch). They spent a draft pick and a ton of cash for Foles when they could have gotten guys like Dalton or Bridgewater for just cash. And none of this is 20/20 hindsight. People were saying these things at the time they were happening.

They’ve had about 3 great recruiting classes in a row and have two likely lottery picks in their starting lineup. They’re long, deep, athletic, defend well and can handle the ball. The only real weakness might be outside shooting, although they’ve looked fantastic in their first two games against lesser competition. They play Baylor on the 2nd for their first real challenge of the year.

I don't think you understand this board if you think people here will care about the standings during the first year of a complete teardown. Or I guess maybe I don't understand the board. It will depend, right? Trade Hendricks and Darvish, have a top 10 system heading into the season, and no one will care what the standings are, especially if guys like Marquez debut. Do a blatant salary dump without adding any significant young talent, and yeah, people are going to scream if the team is 20 games out of what looks like it’s going to be a winnable division.