CHIBears
What’s a bears take that’ll have you like this?
Let’s hear em folks
Discussion
Urlacher looked better without hair.
This isn’t a hot take. Those billboards look ridiculous. He looks like Cartman with his hat off.
Our sub is full of only the smartest, most based opinions in the nfl!
Like the legions who did this to me because I told them to have higher expectations than Mike McCarthy. The sub at the time was seemingly talking itself into hiring him so I said my piece and got yelled at. Big Mike didn't even land a gig this off-season.
Mike Ditka WASTED an entire generation of NFL talent in Chicago and was a colossal underachiever.
It it weren't for Buddy Ryan XX never happens.
The only Super Bowl winning head coach that doesn't have a coaching tree because he was a massive narcissistic idiot.
yuuuup
Mike Tomlin.
I really dig the alternate organe Jersey and helmet 🤷
I don’t mind the orange jersey. We do always get spanked when we wear it though
I absolutely love the orange jersey and I'm not afraid of downvotes. I'll die on that hill.
Definitely downvote worthy. Not only are the orange jerseys ugly, the helmets are a totally different shade of orange.
Looks janky af.
Kyle Orton would have won that Super Bowl
This will get you upvotes, not downvotes
I’m stunned honestly. And heartened
Agreed 100 percent. Orton was a good game manager and could sling that shit when he needed to. Wasn’t flashy but made plays when we needed him to (sometimes). Would have been good enough in the SB I think
Look up his stats from 05 and tell me if you still believe this. He was absolutely awful.
Well at least he could do a 3 step drop without falling over.
Mike Brown being hurt is what cost us the game. Reggie Wayne roasted Daniel Manning a couple of times that probably cost us the game. Yeah, a better QB would have sealed it, but it's debatable what we could have done on the roster (maybe Orton, but far from a sure thing). A healthy Mike Brown and we win that one.
Add a healthy Tommie Harris too.
Remember the charger game that year? Tommie Harris was coming off the ball so fast he was getting offsides. On replay he was just timing it perfect, he later said Rivers had a tell on the snap he figured out.
I can see it, in the sense we would have run the ball more, which could have worked to our advantage. Orton was dreadful in 2005, so if we had expected him to do more than the most simple stuff, it probably wouldn’t have worked.
No. I was there. I know what he did.
Say a "Hail Mary" for him
I bet that Pats cheerleader is so wet
This is the greatest thing ever. Thank you for it
I swear no one watched him play. He was embarrassingly bad. When Rex came in and completed a 15 yard pass our minds were blown
Soldier Field cheered for Rex when they benched Orton in 2005. Then the Chicago media absolutely trashed Orton the next day, saying they were thrilled it finally happened. Then, he didn't take a snap in 2006. Anyone who thinks Orton was the answer in 2006 is a blockhead.
Thank you, it was some of the worst offensive football I’ve ever viewed…..and I’ve been a Bears fan since the mid 80’s
People couldn't stand him even though we watched Johnathan Quinn just the year before. I was young, liked him at Purdue, and went to get his autograph after he got drafted here, so I was rooting for him. But even I just felt bad for him for sucking so bad. I definitely understood he needed to be benched though.
I was at that game against Atlanta freezing my ass off
Exactly. The actual hot take would be Brian Gresie would have won the super bowl over Rex.
Neck Beard > Sex Cannon
Why do so many people think this? Was terrible in 05. Didn’t play in 06
Yeah, a lot of people seem to have amnesia about that year. I’ve heard multiple fans say that they thought Orton played most of the year and was replaced by Grossman late in the season. “If we had stuck with Orton we would have won!” The defense got us there along with some of (good) Rex’s play. There were a lot of factors that contributed to the SB loss, and Rex was just a portion of that. His upside was way higher than Orton’s.
Yes! So many people confuse the quarterbacks of 05 and 06 and have for some time. Sexy Rexy started all 16 (19) games that year
This won't get you downvoted here, but it should. Orton was total shit until he became good enough to be a game manager in 2008.
He was the third stringer...Kyle ain't bringing Tommie Harris back, ain't fixing blown coverage by Daniel Manning, or fixing the line play.
This is one of those takes that seems pretty commonplace around here and makes me feel like most people saying it couldn’t possibly have been watching bears games at that point. 05 Orton was an atrocious qb. Like an 8 yard completion was a miracle. Rex was a massive upgrade because even with good Rex bad Rex he could push the ball down field. Rex was bad but still a waaaayyyyy bettter qb than orton atthat point. Seriously check out his stats from 05. This should be a take downvoted like the post asks for but somehow has become an accepted good take. Right on track from the sub that convinced itself Justin fields was a star qb.
The average Bears fan is not skeptical enough about the Loveland pick. The idea is that he'll be the next LaPorta, but LaPorta only had 726 yards last year when Johnson's offense was clicking on all cylinders. Similarly, I hear people try to retcon Kmet's performance and act like he desperately needed to be replaced. For comparison, Kmet put up 719 yards in 2023 with that dysfunctional Fields offense. So in addition to drafting a WR3 with our next pick, it begs the question of why we needed a second TE?
Meanwhile, our two weakest units remain our Edges and RBs, which are both likely going to be well below average this year. If things went differently and we drafted an Edge instead of Loveland, would anyone be sitting here saying "Dang we should've gone TE"?
My thing with the Loveland pick is that I don't love it, but it's just a function of where the draft fell.
We got late first round value out of a 10th pick because we picked 10th in a draft with only 9 top-10 worthy talents
It was a crazy shitty draft talent wise in my opinion.
Agreed.
And it was obvious in the lead up. We needed no fallers and someone to fall in love with Sanders to have a legit top 10 talent to fall to us
I really wanted them to take Mykel Williams and I still wish they had
Him, Grant or Walker and I'd have been ecstatic about it. But the entire bar groaned when they announced the pick; usually not a great sign.
I was unknowingly sitting right next to his buddy from high school at the bar I was at when I said “are you fucking kidding me?”. He then told me I’m an idiot and hopefully he’s right
This. The excuse is he will be the Bears version of LaPorta. Cool but LaPorta has not produced anywhere close to the 10th pick.
If you love the Loveland pick there is no defending the Burden pick.
I hate you all
That Caleb’s accuracy issues (10+ yards snd longer) and tendency to hold onto the ball too long,causing him to take sacks is a much bigger worry than people are willing to admit.
His lack of accuracy downfield was really troubling. I have to believe it's a mix between being a rookie having deer in headlights moments and also Shane Waldron being so incompetent that he left the wide receivers directionless at the tops of their routes with too much ambiguity about what to do at the very end of the play+scramble drill. A better middle three on the O-line and Ben's psychotic attention to detail will hopefully correct what looked to be a major flaw in his game last year.
I saw a PFF analyst lay it all on footwork. Was able to show that Caleb is excellent at reading and processing defenses, but he had this goofy tendency to throw without planting his front foot or having a bend in his knee when he does. He expected that to be corrected by the new staff and considered that was a much easier thing to deal with than reading defenses or making good decisions.
I choose your particular brand of kool-aid to be the most refreshing. I will consume this and call it a night
😆
OH YEEEAAAAHHHHHH!!!
That was my main takeaway as well when I was watching the film. His upper and lower body aren’t in line and made for some horrible misses.
That is the biggest aspect of his game I want him to work on except for less sacks.
In the grand scheme of things, the majority of fault, I believe after watching all the games and charting Caleb, was on the coaching. Now, the questions that we as Bears fans want to know is how Caleb plays when you remove the major issue that was coaching. That is what Bears fans want to know because if he is only 10-15% better this year, I will be a bit worried. Not looking for a new QB worried, since I'm a believer QBs need time, especially QBs like Caleb whose style of play needs adjusting to NFL standards.
After Shane left he went from being historically bad deep to just bad.
That was with a way over his head oc/hc also.
It's a bit Kool aid but he just needs to get better. Doesn't need to be top ten just like 20th, not 34th.
Despite concerns about accuracy and sacks, Caleb did have the 5th best season in total passing yards in Bears history.
I'm fine giving him a chance to redeem himself.
He also is number one in both attempts and drop backs. The 5th most attempts by a Bear in a season was 50 less attempts.
Total yards is a meaningless stat.
I also truly believe that since he had no confidence in the blocking or play calling that he rushed the plays, which made him throw too early, which led to overthrowing the receiver. If he had another half second for the receiver to get downfield more before throwing, I think he connects on a lot of those throws.
But then again, it's been a very, very long time since I've seen a Bears QB launch a ball more than 10-15 yards and actually have confidence it's going to be on target, let alone caught. So it could just as easily be an issue with him.
I think Caleb is better than either of Mitch or Fields. But the conversations I’m hearing this offseason sound scarily similar to the ones we heard about both of our previous bust QBs.
The best way I could describe Caleb vs Mitch & Fields is that you have to squint less to see him as a great NFL QB
However, you still have to squint
He had so many deep passes that weren’t even close to being catchable- he would sail them 10 yards past the receiver. It definitely has me worried
I genuinely think that Eberlose had him SO worried about turnovers that he made sure he threw the deep balls in a place that either no one, or ONLY his reciever, had a shot at it.
I really hope that’s true and Johnson can help him but Fields didn’t have any deep ball issues despite having Flus as a coach
Fields also seemed to be far less afraid to turn the ball over...
Fields played best before he started worrying about turnovers. Once Fields started talking about Flus 2-0-0 idea is when he leveled off his development.
This for sure. The T in Flus’s HITS mantra stands for turnovers for fucks sake. You’d think a head coach would know how to coach both sides of the ball.
It actually stands for The Ball and then he switched it tor turnovers.
The deep ball accuracy doesn't bother me that much. Lots of great QBs have subpar deep balls.
What scares me more are the 3-5 short and intermediate throws he would randomly spray in every game. Those could be what keep him from reaching his ceiling if he doesn't clean them up
Very Fields Trubisky like.
1000%. I always said last season was gonna be very telling about Matt Eberflus was as a coach… this year the pressure is on Caleb. If you can’t make a deep pass and get sacked that much you flat out cannot win a Super Bowl. If there isn’t major improvement we should definitely be concerned. I do feel like Ben Johnson can help scheme guys open and a better interior offensive line should help him not immediately scramble out of the pocket so much though so I’m hopeful
To be honest, I’m way more concerned about the sacks than the deep ball. It’s actual odd because he does have a great “feel” for the pocket, even after taking 68 sacks. It’s not like I’m watching Justin Fields who had zero pocket awareness. Sacks are a huge EPA negative and they kill drives. That aspect needs to be cleaned up. I’m hoping he can limit his sacks to 42 this year, which isn’t great by any means but it’s a step in the right direction.
If Caleb can be the 20th in deep ball accuracy that is fine. I doubt he’ll be a MVP caliber QB like I expected, but he can still be a in the 7-13 range which is better than anything the Bears have had in a long time.
He was scared on throwing INT’s, a fear no doubt reinforced by his “coaching”.
Everyone is worried about this, right? We just don’t want to say it out loud yet
I’m really worried about his accuracy, which is funny because one of his big upsides was his accuracy and arm talent being able to make all the throws and his placement was crazy in college could be the different ball
If Caleb doesn't fix his accuracy issues there is a very real chance he is not the QB beyond the 2026 season
Holding onto the ball was an issue for him in college as well, granted he could get away with it cuz it’s a different game and defenders aren’t as big or quick.
But I’d push back on the accuracy one. His deep ball wasn’t that big of an issue in college, and in his heisman season it was a strength of his. Although his last college season his deep ball was a bit hot and and cold. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be worried about it, but I’m not sure we should be as worried about it as his holding onto ball/sack issue.
fwiw, his clean pocket passing accuracy, and his deep ball accuracy were both ranked around #30 in the league. Definitely a concern even when factoring in the OL issues.
I think he just fell into the habit of playing like someone was on his ass every play... because most of the time, they were. He just didn't have the liberty to play with the anticipation of a clean pocket, if that makes sense
I agree.
At this point, we as Bears fans can take a microscope to every play Caleb Williams has every done (I have) and we will still not know until we see him with Ben Johnson. I truly believe the coaching staff was so bad last year that it is almost impossible to judge Caleb's rookie year.
The only reason why I bring up the sacks and accuracy issues because even though the coaching staff did him no favors, those two areas where historically bad and at some point it can't just be the coaches.
Lovie shouldn’t have been fired
Lovie should have been fired.
oH bUh WhUh BoUt 10-6?
What about the revolving door of OCs? What about the failure to reinforce that line after John Tait retired? What about firing the wrong coordinator after the super bowl and installing a puppet DC so he could be the Sr. DC playcaller that his ego was crushed by in the Super Bowl loss?
^ this is the post that's getting downvoted.
I was a huge fan of Lovie but there is a reason he is an unemployed coach as this moment. The game passed him by. He had his moments but he also had some awful seasons in Chicago, mainly due to the problems you pointed out... he could not find an OC worth a damn to save his life and by the time he got Martz, the Bears oline couldn't hold up long enough for those pass routes to work...
Yea anyone with the take that Lovie should not have been fired was not around during that period and simply looks at the record, lacking all context. Firing Lovie was the organization just ready to completely change things up and end an era. You're not going into a whole new team with Lovie still at the helm. They needed a new identity who could help realign the team and get us over the hump. It didn't work because the people doing the hiring were incompetent af but it does not change the fact it was the right decision.
Lovie then went on to suck at TB and even suck in college. Then did so bad in HOU that we got gifted #1 and is now unemployed. We actully pivoted away from his outdated style right on time which is a rare correct move by the organization
Why? Made the playoffs once after 06. The mistake was hiring Trestman over Arians
I think the entire world agrees with this take….
Shouldn't have been fired so late
bears only win 2 Super Bowls with Caleb and not 10 like we rightfully should
Ryan Poles is spineless, and got extremely lucky with the Panthers' ineptitude on the draft day trade. He's been an average drafter at best, and has done a horrible job at addressing core issues. The Sweat trade was too soon, Claypool was a joke, and every OL signing until this offseason has been absolutely atrocious.
Ben Johnson needed to come in and tell him what was important, and look what happens. It makes me wonder if Poles' is simply a pushover for the HC so that he can blame them when things go wrong.
I agree he’s an awful gm. We’re going into year 5 of his tenure and maybe just maybe if everything goes perfect we can win 10 games. A gm goinf into year 5 needing a lot to go right in order to achieve his first winning season is not a good place to be at all pretty sure on most teams he’d be on the hot seat or already gone if he was their gm with the results he’s gotten
I also very much don’t like Poles, but isn’t this year 4 for him?
The one thing that I can never get over with Poles was his handling of Eberflus. This was a HC who was historically bad in almost every conceivable metric, and was at the helm of some of the most dysfunctional environments I've ever seen in my entire time as a Bears fan (which is saying something). He was horrendous in every facet of his job, whether that was actually being the HC on the field or assembling a staff off the field.
Yet, not only did Poles choose to retain him at a time that couldn't have been more suited to just moving on- he then went out of his way to publicly endorse Flus and make it clear he 100% believed in Flus as the long term coach for the Bears.
And if it was just some one-off thing, where Poles made a hiring mistake and then corrected it, I wouldn't have cared as much. But to bring him back at such a crucial time period for this team (considering we all knew we'd be taking Caleb 1OA at this point) shows a seismic lack of critical thinking and objective analysis as opposed to emotional decision making from Poles.
Ben being interested in the Chicago job will be his saving grace. Had Ben gone elsewhere, Poles would very much be on the hot seat right now and would likely have been fired if another HC besides Ben came in and failed.
I absolutely agree, this is very well-put. Poles just looks like an absolute puppet man... I'm just happy Ben is pulling the strings now
Ryan Poles is an idiot
Me: I’m excited cause it feels like we finally have a good QB
Coworker: I mean we HAD a quarter back with Justin Fields.
This literally was a conversation I had last week lol
Sometimes you think there are real meatball takes on reddit, then you meat some real world bears fan psychos.
The Justin Fields psychological effect should be studied. I’ve never seen a fan base rip itself apart over such a bad quarterback before. It happened in Chicago, and it happened it Pittsburgh. I’ll be watching every NYJ game on the edge of my seat.
There is almost zero evidence that Jay Cutler was not a good leader. Most people just base it upon the fact that he has the male version of RBF.
Seemingly every teammate he ever had would agree with you. I think he was just legendarily terrible at press conferences.
Ryan Poles is a bad/mediocre GM & our DL will still be bottom 5 this year.
Mike Dikta was carried by Buddy Ryan as coaches
I don't get why everyone is so sure that Ben Johnson will be a great head coach just because he was a good OC. Chances are, the Bears will be hiring a new head coach within 5 years
I mean when it comes to hiring a HC, Ben was about as good of a candidate as you can typically get. Entirely possible it won’t work, but I don’t know how you can be surprised people are optimistic it’ll work.
He was basically the most proven OC head coaching candidate since Kyle Shanahan... and that was before he stayed an extra year in Detroit and had another top 3 offense. That doesn’t guarantee success but I think he has greater odds of success than the standard OC-to-HC.
He was the best bet available. It's always up to chance and getting Johnson will always have been the right call given the data.
If the Bears get this one wrong, I'm fine with it because at least, for fucking once, they got THE sought after guy instead of hiring some CFL "QB whisperer".
On the other hand, if we can't find success with the QB everyone wanted, assets around him better than most #1 picks get, and the coach everyone wanted, then like...what do we have to do to get it right?
Statistically speaking, absolute truth. But there’s always intangible impacts…and when you factor in the Bears organization, they’ll probably be two coaches removed from BJ in 5 years.
Im more confident that he will still run a good offense at least and knows what hes doing on that front. As far as being a good or great HC remains to be seen but regardless this was the best hire we couldve made given the circumstances
This is the first time in a while that the Bears got someone who's a consensus positive. No reaches, no scrambling to hire a replacement/plan B, no cheap asses.
The difference is I won’t be mad at the front office if Jonson is in over his head at HC instead just in the lab as OC because it was the actual correct hire even if it fails it’s a gamble they should and thankfully did take
The Bears are still much more likely to be 5-12 than 9-8
I don’t even care if we have a losing record, I just want to see the offence be competent and put together touchdown drives regularly. Show some growth
I still believe in Mitch
During that 6 TD game, I thought he finally unlocked it. Turns out that TB defense was historically awful. But still such a fun game.
People just WIDE the fuck open.
It was indeed a fun game.
I was there. I thought I saw the second coming of Christ in him on that Kentucky blue grass
Good lord
Still 😭
I'm just curious what the heck that person posted to get down voted like that.
EA community team responding to a post, defending microtransactions in one of their games. It was a brutal response from the community to the audacity.
Ben Johnson and a bolstered interior OL is not enough to get us to 9 wins this season.
As Bears fans we have one of the stupidest fan bases in football and I swear 90% of you are still in high school
gambling.com had the bears 4th dumbest. In our fan base defense being a major market team should be a hindrance when it comes to being gullible gamblers. To our detriment the Vikings and Titans were the other 2 non NY or Chi teams. Not exactly "public teams".
Sid Luckman isn't the king of fuck mountain. The talent disparity back then in all sports was ludicrous. Damn near most black and white games you see any 54 of us would have been legends.
Jay Cutty is the Bears' goat.
The Mack trade was both a bad move at the time and bad after the fact
It was a fantastic move if Mitch was a good Qb. But because he wasn’t we wasted picks and never won a playoff game
It was a massive gamble on Trubisky that didn't pan out
The Bears won’t finish above .500 this upcoming season and realistically won’t compete for the playoffs until next season.
Mitch was better than Justin. By a lot
So many of you are way too obsessed with that podunk town up north with a smaller population than Naperville. An amount of ribbing is good fun, but I swear some of you must just be angry all of the time.
Probably something about Justin Fields should have stayed and we should have traded away the number one pick for another massive haul.
So we can draft Jaxson Dart this year instead?
BUH THUH HAAAAWLLLLL! THE HAAAAAAAWLLLLLLLLLLL
Cole Kemet is mid, overpaid for what he provides, and will be losing his starting job to Colston Loveland if we are not running 2 TE sets.
Screen passes are a perfectly standard staple of every good NFL passing offense and the way people shit their pants over them in the game threads is embarrassing
but the reason that they re standard staple of offenses is because they work. the reason they work is because defenses are scared of teams doing other things. our offenses are never good at doing other things so teams are never scared of them so our screen passes almost never work.
As long as you don't call the same screen 3 times in a row... what team would do that
Tory Taylor was a below average punter last season. He got a little better as the season went on and I would call his second half average.
He will never be a special punter because there no such thing as a special punter.
Tory Taylor was a terrible draft pick
Colston Loveland will be more of a bust than Adam Shaheen was; Tyler Warren would have been the right pick at #10.
Drafting any TE that high is a wasted pick.
people downvoting this don't understand the point of this post
Dear god I hope you’re wrong
Interesting.
I had Loveland as a better prospect than Warren when I scouted this draft. To me, Warren seems like the protocol bust TE - older college player who had a only one great year, not particularly fast (refused to test), has poor separation, and has no clue how to run routes.
Loveland shouldn’t be a top 10 pick in most drafts but in this years draft where there were very few top end players, it’s acceptable. In most drafts I think Loveland goes anywhere from 17-25.
I'm trying to get downvoted..
Caleb Williams probably won't be the QB in 3 years
Respectfully I really hope you’re wrong lol
I'd be pretty surprised.
He may not ever be more than a poor man's Kyler Murray, but I have trouble seeing him flame out completely
A poor man’s Kyle Murray is not good. And I say that as someone who is probably more optimistic about Murray than most.
Correct. But it's above the Dalton line and keeps him on the job for 5+ years
Wouldn’t that be Justin Fields
That’s a good one for this prompt. I agree but I hate that I do and hope I’m wrong
The intent is to provide fans with a sense of pride and accomplishment for finally getting a 4000 yard passer
If the Bears had a league average-to-good quarterback from the 80s like a Marc Wilson, Neil Lomax, or Danny White instead of Jim McMahon, they would have won 2-3 Super Bowls.
I made a post at the time before the ‘24 draft saying we should draft Jayden Daniel’s instead of Caleb Williams. It got downvoted to hell.
We’re about to waste the multi-year window of a top 3 (if not the best) defensive backfield in the NFL because Poles has ignored the D-line.
And he’s just creating a cycle of suck by passing on a very good edge rusher class this past draft. He could have had a marquee edge developed in a couple years, but nah, let’s draft a TE in the top 10 instead.
Our WR room is not as good as people make it out to be. Rome was underwhelming especially for a top ten pick and it was always going to be a mistake taking him over Brock Bowers
The Bears failed Justin Fields.
I will take it a step further. I still to this day get downvoted for pointing out that Poles obviously did not want Fields when he took the job.
Poles did nothing to help Fields. Hell he did nothing to even properly evaluate if Fields was the guy or not. That might have been one of the least talented offensive units any team has fielded in years.
Poles was just to much of a coward to trade him before the 2022 draft when Fields had by far his most value. The worst Fields would have gone for his and 2nd rounder plus and most likely would have gone for 1st plus.
The stadium in AH is going to be a bigger traffic shit show than Soldier has ever been.
No one i know even bothers to drive to solider field anymore
Mine is kind of basic, but I have stood on it since even his time in Chicago. Jay Cutler was a talented starter caliber quarterback in the NFL and we let him down between horrible offensive line and mismanagement within the evolving modern era. We were running offensive place like it was the 1990s. Offense was a tertiary focus behind special teams and defense. If we wanted to focus on those two things first, we never should’ve gone with a pocket passing strong arm capable of play action.
Bears ownership and organization are just as terrible as the other teams. We're just on a high hope with a new QB and coach just to repeat the cycle.
(I really hope I'm wrong)
The 1985 Bears were a bit lucky that 1980’s coaches are more stubborn than they are today. There’s a reason no uses the 46 as a base defense anymore and Buddy Ryan’s head coaching career was pretty short lived.
But in 1985, “I know the Bears have crushed the play action pass to oblivion and send the house every play, but our long developing play action passes will work if you pansies EXECUTE DAMNIT. What do you expect us to do, be like the Dolphins and get rid of the ball quickly and not even fake it to a RB? That’s pussy ball and I’m not Don Shula, DO I LOOK LIKE DON SHULA boy!!!”
The bears will never have a franchise QB because developing QBs simply isn’t in their dna
Grossman wasn’t the problem
I grew up Bears.
I picked the Patriots during the Brady years to root for just so I could know what winning felt like.
Lovie deserved to be fired
I think the Bears franchise should receive taxpayer money as part of the stadium construction cost.
Now, I think it should be in return for a minority ownership interest that ties the Bears to Chicago in perpetuity, the proceeds feeding back into the community, and people focused benefits, like transit improvements including access to the stadium itself, traffic alleviation efforts, reserved locations for local businesses in the stadium area, and so on.
I also think it should be contingent on working out a long term cost-sharing plan for transit operational costs and improvements, and an agreement to work in concert to limit pain and exposure for the larger transit system just for the stadium events.
That said, it just seems like the least of evils in a league that prevents actual collective ownership, would be better than selling a chunk to some hot garbage venture group to get more cash flush, and would give all the local fans and non-fans something in return for their investment going forward.
There was no universe where it made sense to keep Justin fields.
But trading down and either taking a different qb or even getting a veteran stopgap instead of taking Williams was a massively underrated option.
I'm fine with taking Williams, but people were way too hostile to the possibility of trading down.
I feel like that’s all hindsight which ig is a good comment to have with the theme of this post but Williams was the #1 pick 100/100 times nobody other than a few teams with qbs like mahomes or burrow would have traded the pick. No one in their right mind was trading it even if it looks like the much better option now
Nope, I said it at the time too.
It feels like hindsight because reddit gets obsessed with converging on a take and down voting the hell out of anyone who says otherwise.
There was no doubt that Williams was no. 1. That doesn't mean the bears had to be the one to make that pick
I felt and still feel like I was the only one with that opinion. Glad I'm not. Williams is far from proving that he was worth himself, versus any of the other QB 1st rounders + a haul
ESPN had an article a few months ago where they polled front offices across the league to rank all the QBs as prospects since 2020. Williams was #1, ahead of Lawrence and Burrow, which means it’s safe to say front offices have him as the best prospect since Luck, which means (unless someone outranks him in the next few years) he is the Gen Z “generational talent.” You don’t trade away the chance to draft the best QB prospect of a generation.
I'll trade anything for the right price
Regardless of whether he counts as generational or not, he wasn't in the Manning/Elway/Luck tier of prospects
I will downvote Braxton Jones haters to hell.
He's a good player. Maybe not a great player, but he's absolutely an NFL starter talent. don't downvote, show your work. go and count out how many LTs are better than him .
I have to agree. He’s not an all pro by any means, but plenty of teams out there have a lot worse.
That said, he’s replaceable if someone shows out.
Braxton Jones is like Charles Leno, Jr. IMO. Solid, but not a super high ceiling player.
I don’t necessarily hate him or love him at this point, he’s more of an unknown commodity. The PFF statistics say that he and Wright were really good, but the eye test disagrees, considering how many unblocked rushers somehow made it through last year. BUT, I’m also cognizant of the TERRIBLE scheming and preparation that the whole team was subject to last year, so I’ll reserve judgement. For a 5th round pick, he’s been more than solid.
DJ Moore's age and attitude problems will drive him out of town within a year or two and the extension was a mistake.
Cole Kmet's missed blocking assignments negate his positive contributions in the passing game.
No matter what pff is telling you, watching film will let you see Braxton Jones' man disrupting the pocket way too often. He's a liability at left tackle, not a hidden value gem
All of our DBs after Jaylon Johnson are mid at best, some of them get overrated by fans because they throw occasional big hits.
There was nothing wrong with the offensive scheme last year. It was a perfectly standard modern NFL scheme, not as innovative as what Ben Johnson runs but no worse than what 25 NFL teams run each season. The coaching problems were leadership, effort and standards, not scheme.
Before the massive injury run in the second half, the offensive line was in the vicinity of average. Williams and Swift were making it look worse than it was. (It really was that bad in the second half).
It's very unlikely Amegadjie finds a home at tackle in the NFL. If he's anything, he's a road grading guard with mobility issues, like Matt Pryor.
When a locker room gets as cancerous as ours was last season, it's both the coaches and the players at fault and both need to be cleared out. We will regret only addressing half the cancer.
Cutler was a good QB hampered by revolving door linemen and a revolving door of OCs. Sure he was a gunslinger that forced throws but we were rolling in 2011 until he broke his thumb. We would’ve made wildcard for sure. We were like 7-3 and completely unraveled to finish 8-8. After that, it was the Trestman shitshow and then Fox/Gase.
So many meatballs wanted to start guys like Jimmy Clausen and shit over Cutler. Fans are fucking stupid
Mike Martz agrees with you. He recently had an interview where he basically states that the offense had no budget and he wasn't given starter caliber players on the line.
Updated with link: https://youtu.be/_16KOD6TIA4?t=701
Martz: if we only had some decent-caliber linemen, we could run these fuckin deep routes
Cutler: mike, I'm running for my life and gettin killed out here
Martz: fuck it, we ball
Cutler: tell Martz i said FUCK HIM
Fucking send it. What's the worst thwt could happen
This is a great segue into my hot take which is that it was time to fire with Lovie and that wasn’t a mistake
We were 7-1. Finished 1-7 after Cutler broke his thumb.
To this day, I still wonder what that year could have been…
7-3
This is nowhere near a hot take
We have fans trying to bench Caleb for Bagent, our fans wouldn’t know good QB play from a Bears QB if it hit them in the face
It did got them on the face and they think we should’ve kept Justin
oh god i can’t even read the name Jimmy Clausen without getting war flashbacks. i hated him so much
I hated him already because of notre dame, him going to the bears and becoming a hero to meatballs certainly didnt help at all
I've been to one bears game live in Seattle (I live in WA) and it was the fucking Clausen shut out game. Kill me.
This is basically THE Cutler take of this subreddit
isn't this the most popular Cutler take on the sub?