Random Bears Thoughts - Offseason Thread

[Ty21]

2 minutes ago, beardown3231 said:

As a fan base but more importantly as an organization, when will we & they stop settling for "well he's better than the worst C in football so it'll be better by default"

Are you expecting to immediately become great at every position?

[TankWilliams]

10 minutes ago, beardown3231 said:

As a fan base but more importantly as an organization, when will we & they stop settling for "well he's better than the worst C in football so it'll be better by default"

Settling isn't the word I'd use.  Whitehair had some issues with snaps as a center but as a blocker he was solid.  Obviously he's a short term improvement, but my point is simply that he is an improvement and gives flexibility with the moves the team makes.  As it is, the addition of Nate Davis improves the Bears at 2 interior offensive line spots.  Thats not to say they should stop there, I'm fully on board with drafting a center and moving on from Whitehair entirely, but clearly the priority must be at tackle.  

If you are expecting the Bears to put out a superstar team next year, you are going to be disappointed.  If you build through the draft, as a team should, it takes some time to fill the gaps. I don't think there is justification to go after Poles for not paying bad players big money in Free Agency when he's said time and time again he believes teams need to be built in the draft.  

[WindyCity]

1 hour ago, TankWilliams said:

What ifs were there? I said "even if whitehair isn't great, he's an improvement over mustipher".  I didn't say "If Whitehair suddenly grows 3 inch longer arms and gets bench press lessons from Larry Allen he's going to great"

If Braxton improves.

If Jenkins can move to LG and stay healthy

If Whitehair can snap the ball, last time he forgot how to.

 

That is before we even get to rookies.

[WindyCity]

30 minutes ago, Ty21 said:

Are you expecting to immediately become great at every position?

Competent... maybe even above average...is not a ton to ask.

[TankWilliams]

Just now, WindyCity said:

If Braxton improves.

If Jenkins can move to LG and stay healthy

If Whitehair can snap the ball, last time he forgot how to.

 

That is before we even get to rookies.

I mean, yes, but you could look at ifs for literally every team.

If [player x] doesn't get injured

if [player y] doesn't regress

if [player z] stays out of trouble.

There are always variables.  Adding Mike McGlinchey as a RT doesn't remove variables, it just changes them.  Obviously more is to be done, I'm just saying we have made a step up, there are still potential free agents available that wont break the bank, and the Bears are in a pretty good draft position to grab some offensive line talent.  

[WindyCity]

1 minute ago, TankWilliams said:

I mean, yes, but you could look at ifs for literally every team.

If [player x] doesn't get injured

if [player y] doesn't regress

if [player z] stays out of trouble.

There are always variables.  Adding Mike McGlinchey as a RT doesn't remove variables, it just changes them.  Obviously more is to be done, I'm just saying we have made a step up, there are still potential free agents available that wont break the bank, and the Bears are in a pretty good draft position to grab some offensive line talent.  

Fingers crossed that they actually do it.

[AZBearsFan]

14 minutes ago, WindyCity said:

Competent... maybe even above average...is not a ton to ask.

Okay, but you can’t preach about competence and then complain when Whitehair and Patrick are at center. A healthy Whitehair and a healthy Patrick are both established to be competent at center. Not above average or good, but competent, especially when flanked by solid guards which we have in Jenkins and Davis. That’s the floor at the position now. Isn’t that exactly what you’re stumping for, or is Whitehair just the new Charles Leno? 

[HuskieBear]

Poles also seemed to have maneuvered the draft to pick up those extra picks and still managed to possibly be front in line for his choice in the first OT to come off the board

[WindyCity]

28 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

Okay, but you can’t preach about competence and then complain when Whitehair and Patrick are at center. A healthy Whitehair and a healthy Patrick are both established to be competent at center. Not above average or good, but competent, especially when flanked by solid guards which we have in Jenkins and Davis. That’s the floor at the position now. Isn’t that exactly what you’re stumping for, or is Whitehair just the new Charles Leno? 

Competence is the minimum standard. I would love for us to be above average, I think Fields deserves that. I am going to push for better than competence.

I complain about Whitehair because the last time we saw him play C he was bad... bad enough that he was moved to OG... where he was also pretty bad.

Patrick is a pylon. The tape he put together last year should have had him cut the minute the season ended. He was unprofessionally bad.

 

I guess are disagreement is on the quality of Whitehair and Patrick.

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

2 hours ago, Ty21 said:

Just because we have money doesn’t mean we need to blow it on bad deals. It’s entirely possible Jawaan Taylor’s step up this year directly correlated with Trevor Lawrence having a fringe elite TTT. A lot of Fields’ plays are long developing. Do you think Taylor would look like a $20m a year RT in those instances?

If we only give out great value deals we're going to have a ****load of LB, RB and safeties as those are the positions that usually don't get overpaid and see slower year to year salary growth.  

It's where we're at that we're so committed to value deals that we're counting on a drafted rookie to be a starting OT. Which happens!  It's just that if I was given the choice of overpaying 3-6m for a tackle and knowing you're at least average to saving that money and having a hole I would rather the former in the context of developing your QB.  

Everything is a risk; there's the risk you overpay McGlinchley and are stuck with some bad money for 2-3yrs which hamstrings you when you're going for it in 2024. It's also a risk to count on drafting a starter at the 2nd or 3rd most important/expensive position when the rest of your OL is already kinda ****ty or uncertain.  

I totally hear the points people are making, but I guess I'm just saying if there was a time and  place to sign a "bad" deal and risk a little money it was at tackle and it was a couple weeks ago.  

Still seems like the way to go from here is to either trade for someone off the wall, or draft OT in rd 1 and then also hopefully pick up a cut low end starter, for cheap. Kind of locked into that, at least I hope so as the prospect of Jones/Jenkins/Whitehair/Davis/Borom and then having a late second round RT competing with Borom is going to suck and I've watched enough suck and would like not suck on OL. 

 

[WindyCity]

31 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

Okay, but you can’t preach about competence and then complain when Whitehair and Patrick are at center. A healthy Whitehair and a healthy Patrick are both established to be competent at center. Not above average or good, but competent, especially when flanked by solid guards which we have in Jenkins and Davis. That’s the floor at the position now. Isn’t that exactly what you’re stumping for, or is Whitehair just the new Charles Leno? 

Right now our line is 

LT: ?

LG: Above Average

C Maybe Competent

RG: Above Average

RT: Talentless black hole

 

You are going to need one hell of a draft and some serious internal development for that to be an above average group...competent isn't guaranteed with 3/5 spots having legit question marks.

[Ty21]

The season doesn’t start the day after the draft. Several different avenues to continue to upgrade the line, even if it’s addressed in full in the draft. 

[Bigbear72]

17 minutes ago, Ty21 said:

The season doesn’t start the day after the draft. Several different avenues to continue to upgrade the line, even if it’s addressed in full in the draft. 

I not sure about this. I'll have to verify that the season doesn't start the day after the draft and then I'll give my opinion on this matter because most here seem to disagree with you.

[beardown3231]

27 minutes ago, Ty21 said:

The season doesn’t start the day after the draft. Several different avenues to continue to upgrade the line, even if it’s addressed in full in the draft. 

You mean like last year when they scooped up Reiff? Let's be honest, guys who are still free agents are either serious injury risks, serious locker room risks or serious talent risks

 

2 hours ago, Ty21 said:

Are you expecting to immediately become great at every position?

No. I'm expecting to be immediately adequate or better in the trenches like we all thought would happen. Bears control the offseason! So many draft picks and so much money!

Had I did a mock offseason prior to free agency and had the Bears putting $90M into linebackers, $14M into the DL and $11M into the OL, probably 90% of posters here would've said "where's the OL and DL help? Poles is going to hit the trenches hard!" Again, keep this same energy if he takes Gonzalez or JSN at 9.

2 hours ago, TankWilliams said:

Settling isn't the word I'd use.  Whitehair had some issues with snaps as a center but as a blocker he was solid.  Obviously he's a short term improvement, but my point is simply that he is an improvement and gives flexibility with the moves the team makes.  As it is, the addition of Nate Davis improves the Bears at 2 interior offensive line spots.  Thats not to say they should stop there, I'm fully on board with drafting a center and moving on from Whitehair entirely, but clearly the priority must be at tackle.  

If you are expecting the Bears to put out a superstar team next year, you are going to be disappointed.  If you build through the draft, as a team should, it takes some time to fill the gaps. I don't think there is justification to go after Poles for not paying bad players big money in Free Agency when he's said time and time again he believes teams need to be built in the draft.  

Paragraph one: what will you say if their first 3 picks aren't at OT? Also, Whitehair was competent at C years ago. I guess I could also say "he struggles snapping the ball? Good thing that isn't a big part of playing that position then!"

Paragraph two: then literally what was the point of freeing up so much cap space? If he isn't going to address premium positions/the trenches with the money, then what is the point?

[TankWilliams]

33 minutes ago, beardown3231 said:

Paragraph one: what will you say if their first 3 picks aren't at OT? Also, Whitehair was competent at C years ago. I guess I could also say "he struggles snapping the ball? Good thing that isn't a big part of playing that position then!"

Paragraph two: then literally what was the point of freeing up so much cap space? If he isn't going to address premium positions/the trenches with the money, then what is the point?

Lol