2021 NFL Draft

[soulman]

Read an interesting piece this AM that I won't bother to re-post since it's just another "one man's opinion" piece but I did find his reasoning to be sound.  He ranks the Bears needs as follows.  I'll briefly give his logic for each one.

1) CB - Having released Kyle Fuller the Bears lack a true shut down corner.  Marcus Trufant hasn't been an effective CB for nearly 5 years and others like Burns who failed in Pittsburgh, and Roberson who has only CFL experience are a far cry from replacing a CB of Fuller's ability.  Can't say that I disagree and a top CB will be available at #20.

2) OT - They obviously have plans to play Ifedi at RT again and Leno will hold down LT but is in the final year of his contract.  Due to the depth of the position in this draft and having the starting spots covered an OT could easily be a 2nd or 3rd round pick with Castillo entrusted to coach him into a starters role in 2022.  So a round 2 or 3 pick.

3) Slot WR - Miller is on the trading block and Goodwin is not a slot guy.  Like Mooney he's a "Z" type guy with blazing speed and your deep target and/or decoy.  So it's either draft a "Y" type or hold onto Miller hoping he finally matures.  But he's another guy in the final year of his deal which makes him trade bait.  Fortunately slot types can be found in most any round so like Mooney strike when the value is too good to pass on.

4) QB - The need is there but the opportunity to get a top talent is not.  Pace has invested in two quality vets who won't embarrass him but won't win a championship for him either.  But Dalton could do just enough to ensure the jobs of Pace and Nagy for a bit longer while they work to develop the 2nd tier QB they draft in round 2 or 3 where both the cost and the risk is lessened.  This fits my thinking as well.

What I'll sum up with is the thought that Pace is not finished with his plan to obtain Russell Wilson in 2022 if not sooner.  If he truly believes he can pull this off then drafting a rookie later makes sense. 

He can sit while learning behind Dalton and Foles in 2021 and becomes an understudy to Wilson thereafter hopefully gaining ground each year much like Aaron Rodgers was able to do and either replace Wilson should be become to costly to keep or continue to work as a premium #2 until his day comes.....if ever.

This approach doesn't get us a top rated rookie this year but it does fill gaping holes in the roster hopefully making it easier both now and in the future for any Bears QB to succeed. It also preserves future picks for a potential trade for Wilson or to trade up for a QB in 2022 when there may be fewer buyers in front of us also desperate for a QB.

Thinking on this it would be hard not to see how filling the CB and OT gaps now would make sense and avoid having to "buy" more costly help in FA.  Plus we continue to add speed at WR which plays into the schemes Nagy wants to run and we actually have two QBs who've shown more ability to complete deeper passes than Mitch was able to.

I wouldn't be unhappy if it broke this way.

Edited April 21, 2021 by soulman

[dll2000]

Poll driven mock draft for Bears.  This is a good draft.

British dude on PFF threw out a idea that scouting dept. could just be for checking background and attitude for high risk.    And then just drafting consensus pick at your slot.   Actually has a higher hit rate.

I pointed out that if Bears had drafted guys this board wanted over years they would have a much better team. 

Might be something to group think drafting.  No one will ever do it though.  Egos are way too big.

 

[WindyCity]

1 hour ago, dll2000 said:

Poll driven mock draft for Bears.  This is a good draft.

British dude on PFF threw out a idea that scouting dept. could just be for checking background and attitude for high risk.    And then just drafting consensus pick at your slot.   Actually has a higher hit rate.

I pointed out that if Bears had drafted guys this board wanted over years they would have a much better team. 

Might be something to group think drafting.  No one will ever do it though.  Egos are way too big.

 

That would be a solid draft.

I do not think it moves the needle much for 2021, but it would add some talented players for the next regime to work around.

[beardown3231]

The rich get richer

[WindyCity]

1 hour ago, beardown3231 said:

The rich get richer

When you have a QB everything gets easier.

[soulman]

4 hours ago, WindyCity said:

When you have a QB everything gets easier.

You can keep the QB.  I'll take cash instead.  That makes a whole lot of things easier.  🤑

[topwop1]

5 hours ago, WindyCity said:

When you have a QB everything gets easier.

I saw Brown was ranked something like 25th last season amongst all tackles according to PFF and that was playing RT

Not saying it's not a good move for the Chiefs but I think he's a little overrated

[soulman]

9 minutes ago, topwop1 said:

I saw Brown was ranked something like 25th last season amongst all tackles according to PFF and that was playing RT

Not saying it's not a good move for the Chiefs but I think he's a little overrated

If you're desperate you might have a tendency to overpay.

We could be looking at that with the Bears come next Thursday.

[WindyCity]

1 hour ago, soulman said:

You can keep the QB.  I'll take cash instead.  That makes a whole lot of things easier.  🤑

Except winning

[WindyCity]

30 minutes ago, topwop1 said:

I saw Brown was ranked something like 25th last season amongst all tackles according to PFF and that was playing RT

Not saying it's not a good move for the Chiefs but I think he's a little overrated

He played LT most of last year when Stanley was hurt. He is good. Better than normally is available.

The Ravens draft OL so well.

[soulman]

2 hours ago, WindyCity said:

Except winning

You're the one focused on winning the Super Bowl in 2021 and every year thereafter as often as possible.  As I recall many times you've posted about this as being your primary goal.  So it's very natural for your strategies to work around achieving that.

I'm looking at things more realistically when I'm looking at them at all and even that has only been in the last week or two after Heinz and malagabear suggested I reappear and offer some comments on the team and the 2021 draft.

I see a team mired in a 35 year slump of it's own creation.  The McCaskey Family simply lacks the savvy needed to build a winning organization.  Who else would have permitted Michael McCaskey to manage the team for 15 years presiding over a plummet from World Champs to the dregs of the NFL?

Who else would have promoted the teams former Controller and Director of Finance to President/CEO knowing he lacked the background of everything necessary to build a winning organization?  CFO?  Sure.  CEO?  He's been a joke for over 20 years and yet the McCaskeys won't replace him with someone who is qualified to run their team.  They run the place like a Mom and Pop bicycle shop not an historic NFL franchise.

IMHO you could draft Trevor Lawrence and they still won't make it to the top of hill and remain there like the team GSH built in his hey day or the one Jim Finks and Jerry Vainisi built and Mikey destroyed.  At one point in time the Bears held a significant margin of wins over GB but for nearly 30 years they've beaten us like a red haired step child.

I still wear a Bears windbreaker and cap nearly every day and a leather Bears bomber jacket when it's colder.  The guys at my local liquor store call me Mr. Chicago because of it but to be honest I'm just happy when the Bears don't stink up the place like they did under Fox.  I've ceased to be that emotionally involved any longer and enjoy it more when I try to analyze what's goin' on inside of the heads of Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy.

You're among those who believe the NFL is so QB centric that you must have a GOAT prospect to win.  But have you noticed what happens to team like GB when they don't put enough support around their GOAT?  It's still a team sport and even Tom Brady couldn't take the Bears to the SB or maybe he would have signed here and not TB.

With all due respect, you're chasing a dream while I'm only looking at building something respectable enough to compete. 

If GMcC ever wakes up one day and realizes how wrong they've been for so long and finally does what his grandfather did, hires the best Exec VP of Football Ops he can afford, and he sends Teddy Bears into retirement or a desk in the basement with his own red stapler this team is going nowhere near what they could be and should be if GMcC knew what he was doing.

As always.....JMHO

Edited April 24, 2021 by soulman

[WindyCity]

What is the point of being respectable and trying to compete? I get that winning 8-9 games is better than 4-5 on actual Sundays.

But the NFL is that QB centric. We are not actually able to “compete” without a top 10 QB. 
 

I get building and being responsible, but I truly believe that it doesn’t matter. You have to have the QB. Once a decade a great team with a mediocre QB makes a run, but that requires every planet and star to align at the right moment.
 

The Packers are consistently competing. They may only have 1 Super Bowl win, but since the Packers Super Bowl win they have played 15 playoff games and been to 3 NFC Championship games.

The Packers have built a good team around Rodgers, winning the Super Bowl is hard and takes some luck. But since their Super Bowl win they have missed the playoff twice and made 3 NFC Title games.

 

[WindyCity]

Soul, I get all your points about the deep incompetence that runs in the McCaskey DNA. I agree with it all.

But a great QB changes everything. Consistently competing changes everything, and not Bears competing, I mean actually making the playoffs every year.

Mahomes is obviously an extreme example of a QB that wakes up a stagnant franchise.

Herbet in LA has made the Chargers legitimate and a destination for coaches and players.

Watson has carried the most dysfunctional franchise in the league to the playoffs as many times as the Bears.

Josh Allen has Buffalo rocking. Buffalo has had good teams before, but they haven’t had a QB in 30 years. 
 

They changed the game to be this. You either have a QB or you are treading water, hoping that at the exact moment Joe Flacco goes off you are healthy and sitting on an elite defense.

 

[abstract_thought]

7 hours ago, WindyCity said:

What is the point of being respectable and trying to compete? I get that winning 8-9 games is better than 4-5 on actual Sundays.

But the NFL is that QB centric. We are not actually able to “compete” without a top 10 QB. 
 

I get building and being responsible, but I truly believe that it doesn’t matter. You have to have the QB. Once a decade a great team with a mediocre QB makes a run, but that requires every planet and star to align at the right moment.
 

The Packers are consistently competing. They may only have 1 Super Bowl win, but since the Packers Super Bowl win they have played 15 playoff games and been to 3 NFC Championship games.

The Packers have built a good team around Rodgers, winning the Super Bowl is hard and takes some luck. But since their Super Bowl win they have missed the playoff twice and made 3 NFC Title games.

It's not this simple because of the CBA. Plenty of teams find their franchise QB and it never amounts to anything. Look at the Lions.

If you can't capitalize on the QB's rookie contract years, your window for a Super Bowl closes. Trading multiple future picks for a QB will mean the Bears are locked into the current roster. It means they'll have fewer resources to rebuild the aging defense. It means they'll have fewer resources to actually fix the OL and WR positions.

I didn't want to retain Pace/Nagy for this exact reason. The short-term interest is to make a splash move. The best thing this franchise can do for the long-term is to let that regime play itself out and start over with a full set of picks.

[WindyCity]

54 minutes ago, abstract_thought said:

It's not this simple because of the CBA. Plenty of teams find their franchise QB and it never amounts to anything. Look at the Lions.

If you can't capitalize on the QB's rookie contract years, your window for a Super Bowl closes. Trading multiple future picks for a QB will mean the Bears are locked into the current roster. It means they'll have fewer resources to rebuild the aging defense. It means they'll have fewer resources to actually fix the OL and WR positions.

I didn't want to retain Pace/Nagy for this exact reason. The short-term interest is to make a splash move. The best thing this franchise can do for the long-term is to let that regime play itself out and start over with a full set of picks.

The Lions are an incompetent franchise and still have the same number of playoff appearances this decade as the Bears.

What teams with franchise QBs who have been paid struggle to consistently compete? Does it get more challenging when the QB gets paid, of course, but good teams continue to build around even well paid QBs.

Trading up for a QB just means you need to maximize with the resources you have left. But the defense doesn’t need to be dominant when you can actually score points.