CHIBears
Drop a Bears take that would’ve gotten downvoted at the time but ended up being true in the long run, preferably no QB takes
Here are a few:
Saying that Nagy wasn’t a good play caller and more of a one trick pony in 2018 (I first felt this way after seeing the play calls in the second half of the Eagles WC game)
Cutting Kyle Fuller was the right move
Pace’s philosophy for building the team wasn’t long-term and truly only gave us a 2 year window to win something, but after that we’d be screwed (which we were, look at the cap hell and lack of draft capital we had in 2021-2022)
Discussion
I absolutely hated that Kevin White pick
His name was Kevin White
Say his name.
Seems to me the fanbase was split at that time.
His injuries kind of make this hard to claim victory here. But he was a bust for us in the end so hard to defend it either.
So did I. Although NOT because of any injury concern. Just thought he was a one year wonder/workout warrior in college and the combine.
Now I suppose I was SORTA proven right. But who knows what he coulda been without the injuries.
You mean 2025 Offensive Rookie of the Year Kevin White?
Letting go of alshon Jeffrey was a good decision both depth and money wise
you would've hit -500 at the time
would’ve been interesting to see Alshon on the 2018 Bears, but i’m unsure if we get Allen Robinson or Taylor Gabriel if we do keep him around
Alshon would have been at least as good as either of those dudes in that squad, if he was mentally bought in (which he wasn't and is why it was a good idea to move on)
Neither Allen Robinson or Gabriel were actually good though.
That era of bears offense gets so incredibly overrated. The only plus skill player on the offense was Cohen and the offense fell apart when he got hurt.
Robinson is probably the most overrated Bear of all time because he put up some volume stats.
The only Bears draft pick that had me scathingly upset was Shea McClellan.
3-4 OLB, Mid Major, Short Arms, projected 2nd/3rd rd pick, Bears draft him for a 4-3. IT MADE NO SENSE TO ME. Literal only time I called into sports radio in my life lmao. Waddle and Silvy told me to chill. I was like David DeCastro, Chandler Jones and Whitney Merculis are right there what are we doing guys?
You mean Super Bowl champ Shea McClellan?
Yep one in the same. Pickle ball enthusiast Shea McLellan baby
The weird thing about that, was that you would come on here and get down voted. But literally every single person I spoke to thought the same thing. I didn’t meet one single person who thought that was the right pick in real life.
You can't criticize shit as it happens in here because everyone circles the wagons to look at the glass half full. Shea McClellan was horrible. I knew it off the bat, it was like when the Vikings drafted Christian Ponder lol. You cant have a convo here, you'll get bombarded with the party line and it's never civil lmao
I predicted Claypool would get 50 yards before the 2023 season. I got downvoted because folks were sure he'd be a significant contributor. He got 51 yards before being traded to the Dolphins that season.
Im not a downvoter but ill admit to being someone that was completely wrong about claypool.
I think the whole Claypool thing is where it helps to try and separate process vs results.
The process was sound, get a weapon (any weapon) for your young QB to see if he has it especially with a weak FA and draft class ahead of you. The results were so wildly bad, and he was 100% the wrong player to get. This is not defending the move and hindsight is always 2020, but you can look back and understand what Poles was trying to accomplish.
Ben Johnson might flame out and alienate everyone on the roster and FO (god I fucking hope not) but even if he does I’d say the process of signing a young, dynamic, offensive mind to helm the team with a young QB and instilling a sense of professionalism and discipline is 100% the right idea even if he winds up being the wrong guy.
I hated the move from the beginning.
Find a weapon, sure. But also understand the value of draft picks.
Second round picks are extremely valuable. If you’re going to trade it for a guy you’re going to have to give a contract to, the guy has to be a stud - especially if you’re a bad team.
It was a complete misunderstanding of both resources and the roster talent.
As someone who follows every team because I do fantasy football, I was totally shocked at how delusional this sub and a general NFL community was about Claypool. He was not a good wide receiver on the Steelers and anytime you pointed it out how he was really inefficient and how the Steelers were increasingly reducing its role. Bears fans and other delusional claypool truthers would scream at you
This fanbase gets really attached to mediocre players. If Caleb proves to be mediocre this season, there will be fans insisting it's not his fault.
Tbf, if he's mediocre this season it will likely qualify as a top 5 all-time Bears QB season
The /r/chibears cycle:
Call every good player elite Call every average player good Call every bad player average
Praise the gm who put together such an apparently talented roster
Get mad at the national media for not realizing how good the roster is
Be perplexed by losing games, decide the only reason such a talented roster could be losing is that the coach is the stupidest idiot who ever coached, become convinced new coach will fix everything
Over and over and over
I've said this one a few times, but Charles Leno was always a LT you could win with. We've drafted so few solid OL in the last 15 years, to cut one for nothing and gift his spot to a 2nd rounder who'd never played LT before really was always a poor choice. That him getting let go was so celebrated, was always weird to me.
Crazy that we have some of the same arguments with Braxton now. Keep him until you get someone on the roster who proves they can replace them (or in Braxton's case, until you have to pay him way more than his worth).
Yeah the Braxton comp is funny in a lot of ways. I like that this front office seems very focused on bringing in competition. Either let Braxton show he's the best or have high upside guys in the pipeline who can take over. I would love for Braxton to ball out and force us to overpay him. There are a lot worse scenarios than having to pay a 26 year old LT you drafted and developed.
I think a bit of the Leno hate also came from when the franchise started to really degrade from the Lovie years as we moved to trestman and then Fox. We went from a team who was consistently average to above to a bottom feeder unfortunately.
Leno never missed games. That’s what made him better
Leno was serviceable, i don’t know why people expected him to be a star but yes he was just enough to get the job done. He’s kinda like Braxton, not amazing but also not terrible
It's a good comparison for Braxton in a lot of ways. They are day 3 guys playing premium positions who are out playing their draft stock, but can be upgraded from. I was always considered a "Leno stan" on here, but it was always more, he's not our problem honestly. I'd love to find an upgrade, but he was consistently one of our better Olineman. I was happy to see he had success in Washington after we let him go. A 7th round pick who got 2 decent contract extensions and played average to above at a premium positions for a decade is a great story.
Agreed.
Leno was a perfectly serviceable LT. People act like you need an All-pro at that position.
Oh bullshit!
I remember seeing so much film of him being used as a swinging door that would just allow defenders to murder whoever was behind the center.
He clearly just didn't fit in Chicago.
Yeah, I don’t know if there is any advanced stat for this, but one form of eye-test I have for OL is how badly are you beaten. Everyone is going to get beat, but doesn’t mean you should fall down or open-gate usher the DE to QB and Leno did this a lot.
The entire Claypool trade was one of the funniest cases of this sub's schizophrenia.
"We shouldn't be trading picks for veterans right now" was an incredibly popular take right up to the moment we traded for Claypool, then suddenly everyone loved it
I didn’t understand at all why he was the one to change people’s mind on that either. He had a pretty good rookie year and then like, 3 good games over the next couple. Seemed obvious to me that he had already topped out.
Coming from a longtime u/UrinatingTree subscriber (he's a yinzer), I sure as hell wasn't thrilled about that tik tok diva plaguing our offense in exchange for actual draft capital!
Dude kept the receipts. That is awesome! If I had a reward, I'd give it to you. lol
All i did was search my old comments lol. But I do remember when I made that post being sure i was right. I’m wrong about a bunch of Bears stuff, but I was confident in this one.
I’d wear those down votes with as much pride as Claypool did spending the money he stole from the Bears. 😂😂😂
I got downvoted to all hell last September for saying Velus never should have made the roster and was a waste of a roster spot. I expect to get a lot of responses to the contrary since its a more popular take now, but people didnt wana hear it after he dominated the Chiefs 4s in the last pre season game lol
It was insane that Poles' first draft went DB-DB-KR and has always been a sign of his disordered positional priorities
I could at least get behind the Gordon and Brisker picks because the secondary was definitely a big position of need at the time. Its the lack of following up those picks with meaningful additions in the trenches over the course of the next two offseasons that bothers me.
The Velus pick was and is inexplicable. We had so many needs and he went an made a luxury pick on a 25 year old gadget player with a low ceiling. Theres a not insignificant number of fans who claim hindsight bias for something that was obvious the very moment the pick was made
When Cowherd knew that the guy couldn't track the ball in the air, it's clear the scouts hadn't done their work on him. He had one good, 5th college year. That's a 6th rounder.
And a bunch of us said it at the time and were angrily shouted down lol
I think it was less about VJJ and more about Poles. This sub does not want to criticize the GM.
I’m not saying Poles sucks, totally fine he’s our GM still, but I’m not gonna say he’s good until we actually have a winning record.
I think it was less about VJJ and more about Poles. This sub does not want to criticize the GM.
This 100% is it. Poles is extremely fortunate to survive 15-36 and get a second chance because Ben Johnson happens to have become a Cubs fan lol
Modern GMs don't normally survive that bad of systematic coach hiring.
Poles does suck. Don't be a pussy say it.
Lol I do think he sucks, but I didn’t want to piss off the “King Poles” people. That said I am genuinely fine he was still the GM this offseason cuz of Ben Johnson and the OL fixes.
I'm saying poles sucks
I used to say that. I still do, but I used to, too.
Poles is the ultimate no middle ground GM. Everyone either sucks him off or acts like hes the worst GM.
We really need to give him credit for the good moves (Bryce Young trade, TJ Edwards signing, etc.) and stop coping about the trash moves (keeping Flus, trading Roquan and giving 80% of his money to Tremaine Edbums).
The reality is until the wins come rolling in, he should absolutely not be considered better than average. And unless the Bears keep losing, he shouldn't be considered garbage.
He should be considered a below average to average GM who had a likely great offseason until either the wins come in or the losses do this season.
I think that it's easy to talk yourself into or out of a GM by listing every individual move.
The objective test for his abilities as a GM is the NFL season. 15-36
Rashaan Salaam was not going to be worth the hype.
my first Bears jersey! I was so sad
Time for you to have a colonoscopy old man!
That an offer?
YUP
The Bears moving to Arlington Heights is no big deal and if it’s done right, it’ll be a game day improvement for everyone who actually go to the games.
Edit: I tried to delete this because I misunderstood OP’s actual question; this is a current thing that we don’t know how it will turn out.
Only if they make access to the highway better.
Going to the big events at Arlington before it closed fucking sucked worse than driving to soldier field from the burbs.
They are not ready for transporting 6 figure audiences in that area as presently constituted.
Yeah after the million before Covid was a fucking nightmare leaving that place
Used to go to the track a lot and there is no way with NW highway and 53 and Euclid and the homes there that it is possible without tons of money the bears don’t have.
I live in Des Plaines. I'd almost rather walk home than try to leave that area by car if there was a modern football stadium without significant improvements to the roads there.
“Done right” is doing a ton of heavy lifting. Personally think any permanent dome is embarrassing x a real shame. September through most of November is beautiful football weather.
Agreed its not a big deal but I dont see how its possible for the game day to be improved by taking away the "fuck the packers" walk which is often the most entertaining part of going to a bears game.
Extending Tarik Cohen was a mistake
Tarik 😢 I think it was just the injury, which happens in the NFL. Thought 5M Per year was well worth it for what he brought to the offense and special teams. Overall the guaranteed 9M was not bad, god knows Pace and Poles have wasted more (cough al quadin muhammad /Yannick Ngakoue cough)
Good comment, but Poles brought in Muhammad due to the Eberflus connection
honestly man from a money perspective yes that was a mistake. but given all the guy has gone through, i’m glad he got paid.
Umm what exactly did Tarik do for the organization??
Can't predict injuries. The contract was fine.
Everyone saying it was only a mistake due to injury, but I think it was an overpay regardless. On a personal level, good for him, but I didn’t think it was the right move for the team.
This. He was an undersized gimmick back who was never going to hold up on the NFL.
Extensions in general are almost always overpriced and frequently regretted
That Matt Eberflus was worth a shot because he was a big proponent of the HITS philosophy - a success in a previous era of Bears football implemented by a coach that had been fired 10 years earlier - was pretty pathetic. Also, rolling the dice with him last year for Caleb’s rookie season when Jim Harbaugh expressed interest in coaching da Bears should have been a fireable offense.
Poles is lucky Ben Johnson wanted the job.
I'm still bitter about Poles not even interviewing Harbaugh.
Tbf from everything I heard him going to LA was always gonna happen
Idk there's been many rumors since 2014 that Harbaugh was genuinely interested in returning to Chicago to coach the Bears.
In fairness, I attribute the Harbaugh thing more to Warren than Poles. From what I've read, Warren can't stand Harbaugh after butting heads with him when he was commissioner of the B1G, and I gather the feeling is mutual.
Want to throw in hiring Waldron makes this so much worse. Keeping Flus is bad, but hiring Waldron is like throwing nuclear waste on your already steaming pile of bad decisions. That hire really made me question Poles more than anything else has.
Ryan Pace should have been fired 4 years before he was.
I kinda agree, Pace had 3 full seasons and didn’t produce until 2018. No reason he should’ve gotten 7 seasons like he did. Same can almost be said for Poles, he’s heading into year 4 and we have seen no success, if this season is another flop then I don’t know what to say
Yeah I'd have gotten rid of Poles and hired a new GM to go with our new coach.
if this season is another flop then I don’t know what to say
I do. "Poles, you're out. Ben, who do you want out of any GM candidate? Lance Newmark?"
Unless Caleb gets injured, there's no excuse for the Bears to not be at least decent. And if they aren't and the young guys don't look like much, Poles should probably be fired.
Ehh, Pace pulled off the calculated risk of stacking a defense then trying to develop a rookie QB.
In that, he did pretty much everything right besides draft the right QB lol.
Both him and Nagy should have been fired a year earlier than they were, and they should not have been allowed to trade up for Fields
Tbh if you say any gm/coach should be fired, you'll be right at some point...especially for unproven ones.
The OL is not going to be that great and our running game will be mediocre. When I said these two things after the hard knocks showing
Keeping Eberflus for a 3rd year.
Coupled with hiring Eberflus. His implementing his defensive scheme required a complete overhaul of the defensive roster in ways that essentially added multiple years of unnecessary suckage. We traded Mack to essentially draft Tyrique, who is a complete head case, and give up another second round pick for Montez Sweat. Meanwhile Khalil has more sacks than anyone he replaced and the corner we got for him is game breaking in all the wrong ways.
Then you put this dude Eberflus at the helm of potentially ruining 2 good QB prospects.
Flus wasn’t just bad, he actively harmed the franchise.
Firing lovie.
We were mostly all calling for his head. Ultimately, he wouldn't have lasted much longer but he should've at least been able to see the defensive core retire.
Briggs and Lach absolutely could've kept it going for a few years longer under lovie had he stayed.
The decision to bring in trestman as the alternative really made this an easy decision between the two options.
Firing Lovie was the right move. Not hiring Arians was the mistake.
I wonder if Bowles as DC could have salvaged that ancient defense had we hired Arians
My guess is they wouldn't have tried. The defensive rebuild would've started immediately.
Getting absolutely fleeced on the claypool trade. The mental gymnastics of some people trying to downplay a 2nd round pick while simultaneously hyping up our 2nd round pick we got for roquan was fun to watch.
Mike ditka is a dick, deserves at most a minority of the credit for 85, and if he didn’t have a mustache/accent/sweater we wouldn’t remember him.
Pretty sure we’d remember any bears coach that won a Super Bowl regardless of how he looked/dressed
My old man always hated on Ditka. He told me Ditka put the hammer down on players doing commercials during the 1985 season, saying it's a distraction. But a few weeks later and there's Mike Ditka in commercials himself.
Ditka won one superbowl. Any other competent coach could have won 3 with that roster.
This is very harsh. I mean are you forgetting what happened in 86?
We were well on our way to another chip until McMahon got his shoulder demolished.
We started 4 QBs that season. Mike Tomczak went 7-0 while throwing for 2 tds and 10 ints.
His Ricky Williams trade alone, to me, tells me he doesn't actually know how to lead a team.
Eberflus should've been let go before we drafted Caleb.
Pretty sure this wouldn’t be downvoted
It was a mix. 50/50 in this sub in real time.
Logically I think we could all agree he should've been, especially in hindsight. But that defense looked improved and it wouldn't have been fair to him to fire him.
But business isn't fair sometimes and not making the tough decision can lead to systemic issues down the line.
Hopefully they didn't fuck Caleb beyond repair as a result.
Fuck fair. he was 10-24 as a HC and had the worst defense in the NFL in year 1 while throwing his QB under the bus for losing with the worst defense in the NFL. The defense was shit in the 1st half of 2023 as well. 10-24 with 1.5 seasons of league worst caliber defense is more than fireable.
- Fair or not doesn't matter with hiring/firing HCs, you do what's best for the team. 2. Firing him was more then fair.
Look at the Texans firing Lovie, they didn't even give him a 2nd year. They gave him a shit roster, used him to tank their ass off, then sent him packing.
Eberflus should have been thrown out after year 2.
That was the most upvoted comment when he was brought back lol, not a hot take at all
Was this not the general consensus at the time? Lol
No thats revisionist history. Opinion was split because a large and delusional portion of the fanbase got fooled by the win streak against bums down the stretch in 23 and the fact that Flus grew a beard lol
lol that was a popular opinion
Saying that we were tanking in 2022 when we sent out Mack and Hicks and the best player coming in was Byron Pringle.
Saying that we've been a bottom 3 team for the past decade would net you downvotes two years ago. Probably not the case today.
There is no such thing as a special punter and if there was, tory Taylor wasn't close to being it last season
That Nate Davis was going to be a fucking bust prior to coming here had been a damn stud and all pro. Motherfucker got paid and basically said fuck this shit.
The number of people satisfied with flus after the new pants and haircut. lol. The world was screaming to replace him, but bears fans wanted more of that. Criticism of Flus was an instant downvote in this sub.
I definitely pointed out DJ Moore’s body language in game threads early on, before his walk off in Arizona. Was massively downvoted at the time. Now it’s a focal point of his training camp. People need to stop treating our 9-figure salary athletes with kid gloves. With that level of pay, professionalism is expected, not a bonus.
DJ Moore giving up on routes is all over the film last season and it's a major issue going forward
Ryan pace was a bad gm
Basically saying good about a bear after they leave the team (roquan magically isnt a good fit now, Brandon Marshall was somehow a headcase with us...because he yelled at the offense about lack of effort in year 2 trestman? Jeffrey "barely" helped the eagles win the fist super bowl and for one im slightly guilty of monty is replaceable)
Saying fields was a bad qb would get you permanently banned from this sub the cult was so strong within the mod team.
And saying right now Ryan poles is a terrible gm will get you downvoted.
And as for your last point is the perfect example. The entire reason we had cap hell was poles got rid of mack and his dead cap created all of our problems. Mack has out performed sweat every single season since mack was traded and is cheaper.
If you point out Jenkins is a better and cheaper guard than Jonah Jackson you'll be downvoted.
Depending on how the wind blows pointing out how Stevenson is one of the worst corners in the nfl will be downvoted.
Brisker being an average slot by any statistical measure will be downvoted by people who cant even name 5 other slot corners.
A sub of fans will never be able of criticizing the current team unless its so bad like every attempt at center under poles until hopefully dalman.
99% of posters know absolutely nothing about NFL schemes and playbooks.
Most plays are misidentified in game threads, and people underestimate the flexibility of play calls and the duty of players (especially QBs) to react.
And scheme is overrated in general. It's almost never a scheme problem. NFL schemes are pretty homogenized, everyone's running variations of the same stuff.
when people were on a big Eberflus train heading into his 2nd year, i got the shit downvoted out of me when i suggested he hadnt given me any evidence that he’s the right guy. the pro-Eberflus argument was that he kept everyone playing hard in the tank year
at the end of that 2nd season i said it was humongous mistake to keep him and was one of the few things i actually hold against Poles
——- buuuut, glad we got Johnson and where we’re at right now. so whatever
The excuse of playing hard is unbelievably hilarious to me.
What GOOD does 'playing hard' do when the defense aka YOUR SUPPOSED BREAD AND BUTTER' keeps allowing 25+ motherfucking points a game??!
Trading for Khalil Mack was a bad long-term move
Bad because Mitch wasn’t good
I’ll always say I liked the process. I personally didn’t like Mitch but if you do you swing big on that rookie deal. Couldn’t of waited a year because guys like Mack do not become available often.
Pretty much anything Pace did from 2018 and on was a bad long-term move.
I got downvoted for pointing out that Roquan Smith was purposely misleading fans about "de-escalators." They were performance incentives, which are extremely common.
Mike Ditka was a kook
Jumping out of a pool is cool but it doesn't make you a good football player.
Actually was downvoted
I got downvoted for saying that Flus wasn’t an established head coach in the league.
When? Almost everyone did agree with this take by the end of the Packers game week 1 2023 or latest Broncos game 2023
I dug up the thread and no one was saying that Eberflus had proven he was a good coach. You and the other commentors just disagreed about the meaning of the word established. That wasn't a football take. It was dumb semantic bickering.
The Bears will have a worse record with CW replacing Fields, even with the addition of offensive skill players.
This would have been downvoted before last season. Sorry for the QB take.
Justin Fields is not a starting-caliber quarterback
And… he’s starting this year lmao.
He's not a bad tank commander
J'Marcus Webb was not that bad
Lollll this coming from the guy who has JWEBB NATION under his Reddit name.
I found the JWebb burner account, you ain’t fooling us dude.
He was fine for a 7th round pick
JWebb was so weird because he would get slaughtered for like 3 games in a row, and then completely lock down Jared Allen for an entire game, and then proceed to get wrecked by nobodies in the next two games.
Not sure if the timeframe has been long enough but Jack Sanborn will not be a starting line backer.
Paying roquan a bit extra than paying demar hamlin
Letting Robbie Gould go was a big mistake that was going to cost us games. And we replaced him not with Cody Fucking Parkey, but Conner Barth. We replaced Conner Barth with Santos, who was replaced with Mike Nugent, who then was replaced by Cody Fucking Parkey. And he was replaced by Eddy Pineiro, and Santos for his second stint. Not saying Robbie would have been with us til now, but he retired in 2023. 8 years after we let him go. SMH
Robbie said leaving really helped him. He did not mean it maliciously at all. Basically, he needed a new team, or he might have had a much shorter career. Paraphrasing.
That says more about the atmosphere in the organization than Robbie. Should have dropped a lot of others before him.
That makes perfect sense, when you remember that he practically costed us a shot at the playoffs in his final year as a bear.
I was actually hyped with the Kyle Long selection that draft, his inexperience starting at Oregon and off field issues had people worried. I just saw a mean man who loved football. I think when healthy he was one of my fav bears lineman to ever watch
Ryan Poles wasn’t a good GM. Poles should have been fired after last season and that he’s been a bad GM. Cole Kmet is TE2. Mike Brown is not better than Charles Tillman. Griese is not better than Grossman. We shouldn’t fire Lovie. Getsy isn’t a good OC hire.
I have long list.
Neal Anderson was a solid running back pick, even though Walter was still starting.
My soul was crushed when the inevitable happened when Vic Fangio left for a bag as a head coach. The people in my circle were optimistic about Pagano taking over and I knew it was an L move.
I was positive Nate Davis was a bust from the start and people were pissed at me because Poles was an OL and knows what he is doing. Since he specifically targeted Davis, that must mean he will be great. Nuts to that I saw this guy was hot garbage.
2005: Charles Tillman is a top 5 corner in the NFL.
We are coming up on the one year anniversary of this sub having an absolute meltdown over the most successful NFL coach in modern history because he said Caleb Williams didn't look particularly accurate in the preseason.
Williams would go on to have some of the worst accuracy stats in the league
I said during training camp last year that the Bears o-line was a dumpster fire. Fanboys drinking the kool-aid downvoted me without mercy.
I hated the fields pick from day one. Are we win now or rebuilding? We had a team with a lot of holes, but still some positives (good defense, Allen Robinson was a STUD the prior year, David Montgomery, etc). We retained Matt Nagy AND Ryan Pace. We just signed Andy Dalton as our starting QB for $10 Mil (not that he was a SB caliber QB). Then we trade up and get Justin Fields who was no where near ready for the NFL. Yet, Bears fans were over the moon for him. Made no sense.
Yea this was going to be mine but idk if it was too QB-related. I was pissed that Pace was allowed to trade up to draft a first round QB in his lame duck year. I don’t watch college football so don’t really ever have a strong opinion about players, but was pissed about the process. Any take that wasn’t calling Pace a God for the move was downvoted. I remember even Luke-warm takes were downvoted.
Yup that’s right I totally forgot about that by the time I made the comment lol. But I guess the Fields pick was more of a symptom of the disease. The real point is that we were stuck between this rebuild and win now position and it screwed us for years.
It was the definition of catching a falling knife.
Allowing pace a second massive QB trade up was insane
Eddie Jackson was more replaceable than Adrian Amos
Depressingly true... Amos was the textbook definition of a scorned ex, after we let him go.
Ryan Pace should have been promoted to President of the Chicago Bears instead of Warren. I’ve slightly come around to Warren but Ryan Pace got the Bears to spend money, he rebuilt the way the Bears invest in their training and staff programs. We would be shovels in the ground at this point if he was president.
Ryan Pace could not properly manage the cap, but I believe part of that was drafting the wrong QB and trying to recover from it. In terms of what he did to bring the Bears into the 21st century in terms of staffing and facilities I believe he deserves more credit.
I will still get downvoted for this, but based on needs at the time, the Greg Olsen pick was awful.
Thomas Jones was on his way out the door
Cedric Benson was instantly a question mark after the SB fumble and “injury”
John Tait, Rueben Brown and Fred Miller were all north of 31
Desmond Clark and John Gilmore combined offensive stats were the most production the Bears had seen from the TE position in a decade
There were bigger needs that should have trumped any best player available philosophy.
Most of Angelo's drafts were abysmal, even before they made the Super Bowl (2005 comes to mind). Big reason for why the team collapsed so quickly after Lovie
Swift needs another RB and have less carries, more catches to be successful.
I hated the Cedric Benson pick. With a passion. It was an unnecessary pick considering the other needs of the team at the time. They already had Thomas Jones and he was the better back for the Bears. Benson should’ve been the one traded in 2007 instead of Jones.
Everyone absolutely hated me for saying the the 2018 Bears were the 2016 (?) Jags... I literally couldn't have been more correct.
Ditka was a seriously overrated head coach.
Chris Conte is a useless PoS who was sexting my cousin 15 minutes before a Packer game then gave up multiple deep touchdowns. fuck that guy
Wait... seriously?
Did he have good text game? Lol.
If your cousin grew up hot, you need to marry them.
"Picking Hester in the 2nd round is worth it, even if he is just a return specialist"
In the past few years: letting go of Charles Leno was dumb. Everyone just trusted Pace for no reason. We have been trying to get a replacement level (Leno type) LT since then.
More recent: bring Flus back was doomed from the start. Should have been canned. If the thought is we had to wait for BJ (which just isn’t true, but what if), then we still should have fired Flus and brought in a Jeff Saturday, lotto ticket, fan favorite for a year. It literally could not have gone any worse.
Into the future: Poles and Warren are setting this organization back a decade, probably two. Caleb won’t be that guy, cause Poles is allergic to making good, sound, football winning decisions. He thinks he can outsmart and outclass everyone. But he’s not that smart and class doesn’t mean shit in the NFL. Warren was handed the plan, but his 7th grade civics lesson told him he needs Chicago to compete with the burbs. Everyone and their mother knew Illinois wasn’t handing out money to stadium, but Warren knows better. Now the tariffs keeps the costs rising even further, and he still thinks IL will pay for it. Between these two knuckleheads, we will be lucky to get 4 play off appearances in the next two decades.
Matt Eberflus growing a beard will not make him a good coach.
Maybe Marc Trestman should just stick with the CFL.
They should have cut Pat O'Donnell(6th Rd pick in 2014) and kept Tress Way.
They were right to fire Lovie
Kyle was better than Rex. I said this at the time and got mocked
Naggy playing up the missed field goal in the off-season was the first sign it broke his brain.
Bringing in 20 guys and having a kicking competition from 43 yards was pretty pathetic
It kinda showed that he's a douchebag bully. A kicker missed a kick. It happens. Move on. He never did though.
Yea it really did. It barely missed, it happens. Handled it like an insecure idiot
He's a bald man who wears a visor, the signs that's he was a moron were right there in front of us the whole time.
It also got tipped. No one ever seems to bring that up.
Low trajectory
He missed that kick but found the uprights four times in one game just a few weeks earlier.
Idk I thought the kicker competition was somewhat successful. We ended up with Pinero but Fry has also been on rosters. Plus it led us to Santos, whose been pretty consistent
If only they put as much effort into the O-line competition as they did for the freaking kicker spot 🙄
I blame Pace for the missed kick honestly. Might sound stupid, but the signs were there. Parkey was an awful kicker towards the end of the season and going into the playoffs without replacing him was dumb. This is what I was telling my friends at the time. I was praying we signed some random kicker in week 16-17 to join the team.
But alas, we went into the playoffs as a defensive team that could hit field goals. Truly a recipe for disaster, and I blame Pace.
I was about to say, do you even remember how fans were reacting when he did though? They were cheering! But that’s exactly what this post is about lol Carry on
A high school coach would think this was a lame move.
He really thought that the kicker was the only real issue going into 19. When in fact the defense lost their mad scientist and Mitch wasn’t the guy being two of the biggest issues.
My tinfoil hat theory was that he knew Mitch sucked but couldn’t do anything about it (because he also sucked). Given that neither have had much success confirms it
Nagy is the OC for a team that's been to 3 straight Superbowls. Maybe it's just me, but I'd love that success.
You'd love success holding Andy Reid's clipboard and not calling plays?
Sure, why not. He's getting paid a lot. He doesn't have to work the hours of the HC. He still gets to have fun designing plays and implementing them. Still gets a ring for the SB wins.
Yep. I’ve been saying this ever since the double doink game: Cody Parkey was a scapegoat and had every right to go on the media to defend himself after he was hung out to dry by the team.
That loss was 100% on Nagy and the offense, not Parkey. Parkey was 3/4 on the day, scored all our points in the first 3 quarters, made the first kick that was iced, and the double doink kick was blocked.
Nagy coached a dud of a game against the worst team in those playoffs. Mitch and the offense put up 0 TDs through the first 3 quarters after the defense stopped Philly all day. That’s unacceptable.
Nagy should have started defending his kicker from jump after the game. Saving everything I said above. But instead, he let the media eat Parkey alive to save his own neck. After he stood there, mouth agape, after coaching 4 quarters of boring, uncompetitive football.
I (like most of us) loved Nagy until the press conference the next day. I get no one wants to lose because of the kicker, but his offense scored only 15 points before that kick and barely moved the ball before the 4th. Focusing so much on the kicker was a) a real shitty thing for a HC to do and b) factually far from the only reason we lost.
I was officially on red alert when he brought like 20 kickers to camp and made such a big deal out of it every practice.
Dude has PTSD from that moment.
In 30 years he’ll be an Ace Ventura movie villain
Laces out!
Great take, I also remember Mitch’s press conference giving me a bad taste. He seemed to be really focused on saying how he felt like he did all that was needed to win instead of taking pressure of his kicker by saying he wasn’t the sole reason for the loss. Even if they convert the FG, 18 points isn’t necessarily killing it.