NFL Thread 2022-2023

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#128      

Illiniaaron

Geneseo, IL
Bears need to be careful here. Another td by the Packers and this could get away from them.
 
#130      

Illiniaaron

Geneseo, IL
Bears D looks really slow. Better figure out how to stop the run soon. 49ers rushed for 176 last week and Packers killing them with the run and short passes.
 
#135      
When will the Bears escape their 1930s offensive philosophy? Not this year.

I don't care what your receiving corp looks like. 11 pass attempts for 70 yards in today's NFL oughta be a criminal offense.
 
#136      
Hey let’s line up in shotgun on fourth and less than a yard really dumb.
Shoulda lined Fields up under center and have him sneak it in the conventional way if you wanted to keep it in his hands.

More smartest-man-in-the-room syndrome. Sometimes you just have to line up and gain an inch instead of trying to outsmart everyone.
 
#137      

KBLEE

Montgomery, IL
Even with the dumb play-call, I'm convinced that he actually scored. Goal-line technology has been used for years in soccer. Why can't they use it in the NFL?
 
#138      
Even with the dumb play-call, I'm convinced that he actually scored. Goal-line technology has been used for years in soccer. Why can't they use it in the NFL?
I thought he scored too honestly. And they even said on the broadcast they think he scored it just wasn’t clear enough to reverse it.

I agree with Collinsworth tho. Why not just have him under center and do the reach across the goal line thing. He’s like 6’4 225. Just jump, reach, break the plane, and then start to push just in case.
 
#139      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
When will the Bears escape their 1930s offensive philosophy? Not this year.

I don't care what your receiving corp looks like. 11 pass attempts for 70 yards in today's NFL oughta be a criminal offense.
This isn't even pretending to be an NFL offense personnel-wise. Most of these guys (including Fields) won't be in the league in 3 years.

There is no reason to even bother watching the 2022 Bears, and caring about them is just self-harm. This team's goal as set by their GM is to make the calendar say January, and they will accomplish their goal soon enough.
 
#140      
Defense couldn’t stop the run all night. But still, holding Rodgers and co to 27 points should at least give a team a chance.

But barely 200 yards of offense again. And even if you give the Bears that goal line TD, 17 points is never going to beat Rodgers and the Packers.
 
#141      
This isn't even pretending to be an NFL offense personnel-wise. Most of these guys (including Fields) won't be in the league in 3 years.

There is no reason to even bother watching the 2022 Bears, and caring about them is just self-harm. This team's goal as set by their GM is to make the calendar say January, and they will accomplish their goal soon enough.

Agree. This was all set up by ownership’s unfathomable decision to allow Pace and Nagy to spend future draft picks to get Fields in the first place.

Fields was set up to fail from the start.
 
#144      
Yes Yes a hundred times yes.
Just to argue the other side a bit. Imagine a scenario where Ryan Pace brings to ownership the trade they want to make and are told no. Suppose that player turns out to be the quarterback the Bears have been looking for like 50 years. Think fans would ever forgive that?

I think you can easily argue they both should have fired before the 20-21 season but not sure you can criticize ownership for not getting involved in football decisions when that’s the last thing you want to see happening. Let the coach coach. Let the GM GM. They had the wrong guys and should have moved on a season sooner but I don’t want them telling Poles what he can and can’t do with the team.

Fields hasn’t been dealt a fair situation but he isn’t exactly doing much to help himself. I think the most likely scenario is the Bears will move on from Fields in the next year or two but I don’t think Poles should shoulder any blame for how he handled this. The strategy is to fix the salary cap and get back some draft capital. Signing a couple more free agents on offense wasn’t going to fix anything. This roster needed an overhaul and it won’t be pretty.
 
#145      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
Just to argue the other side a bit. Imagine a scenario where Ryan Pace brings to ownership the trade they want to make and are told no. Suppose that player turns out to be the quarterback the Bears have been looking for like 50 years. Think fans would ever forgive that?

I think you can easily argue they both should have fired before the 20-21 season
That's exactly the point. Pace did not have the organizational commitment to make long-term decisions for the franchise, therefore moving on from him was the only way to avoid a catastrophic principal-agent problem.

This was no surprise. Everyone knew exactly what he was going to do.
The strategy is to fix the salary cap and get back some draft capital. Signing a couple more free agents on offense wasn’t going to fix anything. This roster needed an overhaul and it won’t be pretty.
Totally agree. It's ugly that this is something that's emerging as a team building path in the NFL, but it's rational for Poles to proceed this way.

And that is why I get cranky when the media indulges the total farce that there is a development or analysis process going on with Justin Fields. He is purely, 100% a sacrificial lamb and Poles has never given the slightest iota of thought to him as a long-term NFL player. This is a Potemkin football team, and the Brad Biggs' and Dan Pompei's of the world should be more honest with their readership about what they're being fed here. But the make believe is cashing everybody's checks, which Poles always knew, and it keeps the wolf from his door for six months, so Fields is worth more to the Poles Administration as a temporary object of fan hatred than a 2023 second rounder, it's all so cynical.
 
#146      
That's exactly the point. Pace did not have the organizational commitment to make long-term decisions for the franchise, therefore moving on from him was the only way to avoid a catastrophic principal-agent problem.

This was no surprise. Everyone knew exactly what he was going to do.

Totally agree. It's ugly that this is something that's emerging as a team building path in the NFL, but it's rational for Poles to proceed this way.

And that is why I get cranky when the media indulges the total farce that there is a development or analysis process going on with Justin Fields. He is purely, 100% a sacrificial lamb and Poles has never given the slightest iota of thought to him as a long-term NFL player. This is a Potemkin football team, and the Brad Biggs' and Dan Pompei's of the world should be more honest with their readership about what they're being fed here. But the make believe is cashing everybody's checks, which Poles always knew, and it keeps the wolf from his door for six months, so Fields is worth more to the Poles Administration as a temporary object of fan hatred than a 2023 second rounder, it's all so cynical.
Where I disagree is that Poles is using Fields as scapegoat to avoid blame. I don’t think that’s fair to Poles. I think the fan base is incredibly supportive of Fields and understands that he hasn’t been given a lot to work with this year. I don’t know one Bears fan who hates Justin Fields.

There are so many NFL quarterbacks who have taken huge leaps in their second and third years. I think he wants to see what he has in Fields and I know this isn’t the ideal situation to evaluate him in but it’s all he’s got. The extremes are to:

A. Roll the dice and assume Fields is going to be that guy and spend all the cap money and mortgage your future again.

B. Trade a quarterback after playing part of his rookie season and hope you didn’t just trade Payton Manning.

The reasonable approach is to plow ahead with the rebuild and trust that even on a bad football team you can see growth and the emergence of an NFL quarterback if it’s there.
 
#148      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
The reasonable approach is to plow ahead with the rebuild and trust that even on a bad football team you can see growth and the emergence of an NFL quarterback if it’s there.
You're revealing why the Poles gambit works.

Justin Fields has ZERO chance to progress whatsoever as an NFL quarterback with this roster, period, end of story. Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes would have been in the same boat, there is one NFL starting lineman and one even roster-level NFL receiver on this team, no chance of any success whatsoever. The best thing that could happen in Fields' development would be for him to tear his ACL tomorrow and rule himself out of being a part of this team.

And yet, because the conventional wisdom you're expressing, Fields 17 weeks of embarrassing failure are all going to hang on his shoulders in the public eye.

You will give up on him by the end of this season, I guarantee it. We will revisit this in December.

And that's ultimately where I find Poles' plan to have strategic problems beyond just being ugly and cynical in the way it treats Fields and the fanbase. When the top 2/3 pick we'll end up with has to be spent on Bryce Young, that's a pretty big asset that can't be spent elsewhere, and the rookie QB isn't going to make it an appealing destination for free agents. Or you expend major resources on a free agent (or trade) QB, and that uses up even more of your resource pile.

Tanking has been shown to work in the NBA and MLB, not as reliably or often as Internet Bro Sports Culture has become ideologically dedicated to, but positive examples exist. There seem like real implementation problems in the NFL that Poles is sailing into, we'll see. If he drafts well enough or poorly enough, nothing else will matter anyway.
 
#149      
Yeah. The Bears would love for Fields to magically become a super hero QB who can win by himself. But they’re not going to do anything to help make it happen.

The notion that Fields has time to develop isn’t true. He’ll be halfway through his rookie contract after this year and the Bears won’t be able to count on him as a starter in year 3.

Every single one of us Bears fans have seen this movie before. Fields will struggle this year and the Bears will bring in “competition” in the off-season. Someone like a Gardner Minshew. Fields will be given no rope at all in season 3 and is in and out of the lineup.

After season 3, the Bears decline Fields 5th year option. They also probably fire their offensive coordinator. Fields is then in and out of the lineup in season 4 as he “struggles to learn the new offense” and Eberflus and Poles are desperate for their first winning season

After season four, Fields becomes a free agent, the Bears draft a QB in the first round, and Eberflus is under pressure to win right away with a rookie QB.
 
#150      

Ransom Stoddard

Ordained Dudeist Priest
Bloomington, IL
Yeah. The Bears would love for Fields to magically become a super hero QB who can win by himself. But they’re not going to do anything to help make it happen.

The notion that Fields has time to develop isn’t true. He’ll be halfway through his rookie contract after this year and the Bears won’t be able to count on him as a starter in year 3.

Every single one of us Bears fans have seen this movie before. Fields will struggle this year and the Bears will bring in “competition” in the off-season. Someone like a Gardner Minshew. Fields will be given no rope at all in season 3 and is in and out of the lineup.

After season 3, the Bears decline Fields 5th year option. They also probably fire their offensive coordinator. Fields is then in and out of the lineup in season 4 as he “struggles to learn the new offense” and Eberflus and Poles are desperate for their first winning season

After season four, Fields becomes a free agent, the Bears draft a QB in the first round, and Eberflus is under pressure to win right away with a rookie QB.
I reluctantly agree with this, and it feels like a re-telling of the Mitch Trubisky saga (there's obv some differences, but the broad strokes are similar). The biggest differences to these old eyes is that Fields' big plays seem bigger than Mitch's big plays with the Bears.
 
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