Random Thoughts

[JAF-N72EX]

On 9/1/2021 at 4:32 PM, soulman said:

2019 or 2020?

It was last spring when we were shopping for competition for Mitch and Dalton was seen much like this spring as possibly the best available option.  But Cincy seemed to dawdle on whether or not they were willing to trade him then finally released him.

By then we'd already traded for Foles and committed to his restructure contract which has become yet another albatross hung around our necks.  What I've questioned is had Pace and Nagy been more patient might they have gotten Dalton in 2020 after all?

There are times when Pace's aggressiveness has been a benefit and others where it's been a burden.

Good catch. Yeah, I meant 2020, not 2019. What I was meaning to say is that they went after Dalton last year.... my brain is still working in 2020 season mode for some reason since 2021 hasn't registered yet apparently lol.

To anwer your question, could Pace/Nagy have waited until Dalton was released and still possibly got him like the Cowboys did? Sure. I believe so. It was def a reactionary signing by Nagy/Pace, no question. But as I said I think they just wanted to be sure they had a more reliable option than just Foles for 2021 in case thier plans went awry so they jump on the opportunity to get Dalton as a fall back regardless of price.

Last year (2020), Cincy was trying to trade Dalton and he asked the FO to let him have a say in where he went instead of just trading him anywhere and they agreed to it and honored his request just to do him a solid out of respect. Unfortuently for Dalton his market was dry because Cincy was also asking too much in trade... especially when teams already knew they were drafting Burrows and Dalton would eventually be released. Pace/Nagy had just signed Lazor when Dalton went on the trade block and they reached out but Cincy was asking too much. IIRC, the Bears were the only team to make inquires about a trade. How serious they actually were about a trade....I dont know.... I cant say for sure. But when Pace/Nagy were looking for a crutch for Mitch they had two vet players in mind. Dalton and Foles (because of their obvious history relations to the staff---Foles/Nagy, Dalton/Lazor).

It seems to me Dalton was actually the first choice and they only settled on 2nd best Foles because they didn't know how long Cincy would be holding Dalton captive while trying to get as much as they could out of him before releasing him and Pace/Nagy wanted to address the elephant in the room ASAP without possibly missing out on a chance to get either option.

They wanted to give Mitch "competition"(lol) and obviously couldn't do that if they had waited much longer to make that happen. They didn't wanna lose out on a chance to get a replacement and be forced to roll with a Mitch/Daniel combo again so they chose to get what they could at the time in order to eliviate the pressure of being wrong  (even if it still cost them a 4th round pick which is still laughable).  

Both moves for Foles and Daltons make not make much sense in terms of financial value wise since it's equavleint to putting a patch ontop of a patch to patch a patch and overpaying for it,  but I can understand why and when they did it vs the alternative options. Even if I disagree with it.

 

[soulman]

2 minutes ago, JAF-N72EX said:

It seems to me Dalton was actually the first choice and they only settled on 2nd best Foles because they didn't know how long Cincy would be holding Dalton captive while trying to get as much as they could out of him before releasing him and Pace/Nagy wanted to address the elephant in the room ASAP without possibly missing out on a chance to get either option.

They wanted to give Mitch "competition"(lol) and obviously couldn't do that if they had waited much longer to make that happen. They didn't wanna lose out on a chance to get a replacement and be forced to roll with a Mitch/Daniel combo again so they chose to get what they could at the time in order to eliviate the pressure of being wrong  (even if it still cost them a 4th round pick which is still laughable).  

Both moves for Foles and Daltons make not make much sense in terms of financial value wise since it's equavleint to putting a patch ontop of a patch to patch a patch and overpaying for it,  but I can understand why and when they did it vs the alternative options. Even if I disagree with it.

I believe Dalton was their first choice and signing him this year would seem to confirm that.

Yeah, they needed to address the elephant in the room but in their impatience they shot at and took down the wrong elephant especially given the price paid in both draft capital and the contract guarantees Foles was given.  With more patience they could have had Dalton on their own terms and I doubt he would have balked at signing with the Bears.

There is virtually no way to not see that as a mistake if only because Foles would in all likelihood also been available much later had Dalton not become available.  The likelihood of that once they had Burrows was admittedly pretty slim.  This is not the first or the only time in his career as GM that Pace's impatience to "jump the shark" so to speak has proven costly.

Let's look at Pace's expenditures on vet QBs with which to surround Mitch and Fields.  IIRC correctly Glennon was $18 mil gtd, Foles was $21 gtd + a 4th round pick, and Dalton is $10 mil all of which adds up to $49 mil + a 4th round draft pick.  That's about $1 mil more than the guaranteed monies paid to Trubisky and now Fields + innumerable picks spent on both.

While I'm certainly glad to have finally gotten Fields no one on planet Earth could ever agree that the path we took to getting here was anything but somewhat insane.  All I can say is that Pace should pray to his God every night that Fields does become his franchise QB and that GMcC is very forgiving of the total costs involved with finally getting to this point.

[dll2000]

@JAF-N72EX and @soulmanNice summaries - I agree with most of what you both are saying.

In hindsight the right move would have been to wait on Dalton for cheaper and no draft capital who may have preferred the Bears given he would have been able to start vs. back up.

But in fairness to Pace - Foles was a bird in the hand and they didn’t know if they could get Dalton.  But Foles cost made him a bad option unless he turned out to be solid starter on a good team for a few years which he did not. 

Also had Dalton won job (which seems likely) Bears probably win more games and likely don’t get Fields.

Interesting Butterfly effects.  

 

[soulman]

35 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

@JAF-N72EX and @soulmanNice summaries - I agree with most of what you both are saying.

In hindsight the right move would have been to wait on Dalton for cheaper and no draft capital who may have preferred the Bears given he would have been able to start vs. back up.

But in fairness to Pace - Foles was a bird in the hand and they didn’t know if they could get Dalton.  But Foles cost made him a bad option unless he turned out to be solid starter on a good team for a few years which he did not. 

Also had Dalton won job (which seems likely) Bears probably win more games and likely don’t get Fields.

Interesting Butterfly effects.  

 

There is that to consider but I don't know if I'm convinced we would have done any better with Dalton than Foles/Mitch if only because it was still Nagy's offense with Nagy calling plays most of the year.

The difference maker might have been Dalton at QB with Lazor calling plays due to their previous relationship but since Nagy won't do that even now I have my doubts he would have done it in 2020 either.

As for the "bird in the hand" reasoning I get it but IMHO that's often where he shoots himself in the foot as it appears that he's done again with Jenkins.  Given that his injuries were common knowledge and we now know were the reason for his fall it's quite possible Pace could have had him at #52 without having spent even more picks to trade up for him. 

But that speculation on my part and we'll never really know.

What I do know or at least sense very strongly is that Pace never seems to be able to assemble the entire "puzzle" well enough to challenge the best teams.  He no sooner gets one section finished when it gets knocked out of kilter while he's working on another section.  It's his inconsistency and repeated mistakes that are maddening at least for me.

Edited September 10, 2021 by soulman

[dll2000]

26 minutes ago, soulman said:

There is that to consider but I don't know if I'm convinced we would have done any better with Dalton than Foles/Mitch if only because it was still Nagy's offense with Nagy calling plays most of the year.

The difference maker might have been Dalton at QB with Lazor calling plays due to their previous relationship but since Nagy won't do that even now I have my doubts he would have done it in 2020 either.

As for the "bird in the hand" reasoning I get it but IMHO that's often where he shoots himself in the foot as it appears that he's done again with Jenkins.  Given that his injuries were common knowledge and we now know were the reason for his fall it's quite possible Pace could have had him at #52 without having spent even more picks to trade up for him. 

But that speculation on my part and we'll never really know.

What I do know or at least sense very strongly is that Pace never seems to be able to assemble the entire "puzzle" well enough to challenge the best teams.  He no sooner gets one section finished when it gets knocked out of kilter while he's working on another section.  It's his inconsistency and repeated mistakes that are maddening at least for me.

With Jenkins its clear Pace likes to gamble on injured or high risk talent in draft.  The Jackson find excites him.   Reminds me of Krause always trying to find another Pippen.

That kind of thinking is intoxicating - making the genius pick no one else did.

I think that is a fine strategy in middle rounds - small school and injured players. It would be mine.  It is a good strategy because odds of finding a starter in middle rounds is poor anyway and impact players are what moves the needle.

Shaheen in 2nd was a way too early pick for example.

 I think I would try to take more sure thing picks in first two rounds.  No such thing as sure thing, but that would be my philosophy.  

 

 

[Sugashane]

17 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

With Jenkins its clear Pace likes to gamble on injured or high risk talent in draft.  The Jackson find excites him.   Reminds me of Krause always trying to find another Pippen.

That kind of thinking is intoxicating - making the genius pick no one else did.

I think that is a fine strategy in middle rounds - small school and injured players. It would be mine.  It is a good strategy because odds of finding a starter in middle rounds is poor anyway and impact players are what moves the needle.

Shaheen in 2nd was a way too early pick for example.

 I think I would try to take more sure thing picks in first two rounds.  No such thing as sure thing, but that would be my philosophy.  

 

 

I agree for the most part.

I think when it comes to certain positions there will have to be a high involvement in one's ceiling. For example, I'm not spending a first round pick on a QB that  I think tops out at Dalton's level. To me you absolutely swing for the fence at that spot. Average QBs are just going to keep you in purgatory. I can look at EDGE and CBs the same since I think they are places where having an impact player at can make massive implications to your team. About any of the other base positions are a tier below to me and then follow exactly as you said.

First round picks can be used for any base position on offense or defense to me too. I might not want to spend a top 5 pick on a RB but I was rooting for getting Henry in a trade up to 28-32 when the 5th year option was more team friendly. For some reason a lot of people say to never draft a RB in the first, but impact players can come from any spot so why restrict yourself?

The further in the draft you go the less chance they have of being successful, so why not make a swing? You're paying coaches to develop players so go off the traits they want for that spot and go. Injury concerns, legal concerns, etc are just factors to take into account but at the end of the day wins trump all.

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

If you wanted to identify Pace's biggest trait it's aggressiveness.  Sometimes it works out  but it also leads to him overpaying and trading away the future if he thinks a player is worth it.  He seems to get better results and also a better process when he's patient and lets a player come his way like all his late round gems, or even really with the Fields trade. It had to be hard or was too expensive to get higher than 11 but while we have to see if Fields works out you can't fault him for that move.  

I really wish he had his wife in the room with him nagging him about his moves up especially.  "Honey, are you really sure you need an Adam Shaheen? Why don't you trade back instead"

 

[soulman]

55 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

With Jenkins its clear Pace likes to gamble on injured or high risk talent in draft.  The Jackson find excites him.   Reminds me of Krause always trying to find another Pippen.

That kind of thinking is intoxicating - making the genius pick no one else did.

I think that is a fine strategy in middle rounds - small school and injured players. It would be mine.  It is a good strategy because odds of finding a starter in middle rounds is poor anyway and impact players are what moves the needle.

Shaheen in 2nd was a way too early pick for example.

 I think I would try to take more sure thing picks in first two rounds.  No such thing as sure thing, but that would be my philosophy.  

 

 

True but it's often that kind of gambling that ends up making gamblers broke as well.  When you've beaten the odds the smart money cashes in their chips it doesn't keep on hoping for yet another unexpected jackpot.

Two drafts in a row Pace has spent a 2nd round pick on injured players with 1st round grades who fell to the 2nd round.  I'd have far less of a problem with this if he was drafting them for a position he already had covered with an aging vet but that's not how he played it.

For instance.  We had Amukamara to play RCB so Johnson comes in as his understudy and starts in year two.  That way if there were concerns about his shoulder injuries we'd have time to evaluate them and take care of the problem even surgically if needed.  We didn't do that.

The same with Jenkins especially knowing he'd had several back injuries and even quit the 2020 season early to deal with those prior to the draft.  So you keep Leno for another year or at the very least sign an equivalent vet to handle LT and deal with Jenkins issues just like Johnson's.

We didn't do that either or at least not until we were forced to and the availability of FA OT was pretty slim.  Why keep Graham at a position we had adequate depth at only to restructure his deal to create more cap instead of doing that with Leno and protect LT where we were thin?

I mean there comes a time when I think we have to call out Pace over some of his decisions.

Edited September 10, 2021 by soulman

[dll2000]

58 minutes ago, soulman said:

True but it's often that kind of gambling that ends up making gamblers broke as well.  When you've beaten the odds the smart money cashes in their chips it doesn't keep on hoping for yet another unexpected jackpot.

Two drafts in a row Pace has spent a 2nd round pick on injured players with 1st round grades who fell to the 2nd round.  I'd have far less of a problem with this if he was drafting them for a position he already had covered with an aging vet but that's not how he played it.

For instance.  We had Amukamara to play RCB so Johnson comes in as his understudy and starts in year two.  That way if there were concerns about his shoulder injuries we'd have time to evaluate them and take care of the problem even surgically if needed.  We didn't do that.

The same with Jenkins especially knowing he'd had several back injuries and even quit the 2020 season early to deal with those prior to the draft.  So you keep Leno for another year or at the very least sign an equivalent vet to handle LT and deal with Jenkins issues just like Johnson's.

We didn't do that either or at least not until we were forced to and the availability of FA OT was pretty slim.  Why keep Graham at a position we had adequate depth at only to restructure his deal to create more cap instead of doing that with Leno and protect LT where we were thin?

I mean there comes a time when I think we have to call out Pace over some of his decisions.

In his defense you win big with blue chip players - not average guys.   You have to find a way to get the blue chip players.  

Johnson gamble is paying off for now.  Jenkins is not - but is not yet - not, not ever. 

Of course if Johnson hurts his shoulder this season that is going to turn 180 degrees to negative.

 

 

[soulman]

3 hours ago, dll2000 said:

In his defense you win big with blue chip players - not average guys.   You have to find a way to get the blue chip players.  

Johnson gamble is paying off for now.  Jenkins is not - but is not yet - not, not ever. 

Of course if Johnson hurts his shoulder this season that is going to turn 180 degrees to negative.

 

 

I don't completely disagree with this but out of 22 starters on any NFL team how many are actually blue chippers vs core starters who are very good at carrying out their assignments but will never be chosen as an All Pro or even voted to a Pro Bowl game in their entire career?

If you're lucky you may end up with a half dozen blue chip guys on your entire team and you hope one is your QB another is your best Edge Rusher and maybe a CB for good measure. If you can also squeeze out a blue chip RB and WR you should be playing for a Lombardi Trophy.

Johnson has played well enough so far to have looked like a worthwhile gamble but let's not forget we lost him at the end of last season and for the playoff game due to his re-injuring his shoulder and this season hasn't begun.  What do we say if lose him for awhile this year?

Jenkins we've covered so much already that there's little more to say except if his injuries were well known when he was drafted and Pace still wanted to gamble then releasing Leno sure seems to be like a pretty poor move on his part especially when compared with Fields.

What I mean by this is that your rookie QB whose been a very successful two year starter at in a major college program must sit and learn behind the $10 mil vet we signed but your injured rookie OT who played at RT in college is expected to come in and start immediately at LT?

Don't quote me on this but there are days I think Pace and Nagy spend a lot of time in Paces office with the shades drawn firing up a hash pipe and playing with Paces snowglobe.  🤣

 

 

[Sugashane]

Kids game starts in 30 mins and all players were supposed to be here an hour ago. Our QB hasnt shown so my son is taking snaps and refreshing on the plays from there. Ive never been so nervous for a game. Lol

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

12 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

Kids game starts in 30 mins and all players were supposed to be here an hour ago. Our QB hasnt shown so my son is taking snaps and refreshing on the plays from there. Ive never been so nervous for a game. Lol

Holy cow, good luck today!  Hope he does well and either way it's a good day to learn a lot about himself.  Let us know how it goes

[Heinz D.]

17 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

Kids game starts in 30 mins and all players were supposed to be here an hour ago. Our QB hasnt shown so my son is taking snaps and refreshing on the plays from there. Ive never been so nervous for a game. Lol

Yikes! 

[Sugashane]

6 minutes ago, RunningVaccs said:

Holy cow, good luck today!  Hope he does well and either way it's a good day to learn a lot about himself.  Let us know how it goes

 

1 minute ago, Heinz D. said:

Yikes! 

Yeah. He's the back up and filled in earlier but hasn't even taken a practice snap in a few weeks. Looks good in pregame work, throws are spinning well but hes sipping his elbow when he's on the move and throwing some ducks. 

I kept telling him elbow up so now every time he runs by he's telling me "elbow up dad." Smart *** kid. 😅

[Sugashane]

Holy crap we won. 27-20. Ben went 11-16, threw 2 TDs and ran for another. 2 drops and had to be around 200 yards. WArs played really well and Ben got it to them in space. Had a 60+ yard passing TD on a major underthrow the WR came back for and had a ton of rollouts that he either took an easy out or drag or ran it. 

The other TD was a jet sweep that was suppose to be a fake but Ben handed it off to the wrong kid. 

Switched to a 6-3-2 defense since they were big. Basically went to a goal line defense where OLBs covered the flats. Ben played safety but sonce they never really threw he was getting to just be clean up. He did get trucked once. Lol

We were told Ben is staying the starter until further notice since this other kid is always late. He never showed up though. So I'm going to be running routes a lot this next week. Ugh.