Fields to Pittsburgh

[CWood21]

3 hours ago, jrry32 said:

I don't see this as a huge deal. The Rams had this situation occur, and McVay was able to do just fine with Jared Goff until he acquired the QB he really wanted. If you hire a good coach, it works itself out, unless Caleb is a total bust. If Caleb is a total bust, everybody is f'd, so there's nothing you can really do.

I'm with @viking on this one.  The Bears bungled it.  And bungled it badly.  There's a STARK difference between trading for Matthew Stafford who was a proven top 10 QB when healthy and inheriting a rookie QB coming off his first season in the NFL.  Basically, anything he learned his first year gets thrown out the window, so you've essentially wasted a single year.  I'm actually high on Shane Waldron after the work he did with Geno Smith, but if they have success he's an easy HC candidate and they're back to the drawing board as far as figuring out the play caller situation.

[StatKing]

8 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

The second they clinched the #1 pick, they weren't extending Fields.  Poles can talk about how he had an open mind, but he was locked into Caleb Williams at #1.  It's the only way he was saving his job.  If he would have stuck with Fields and Fields and/or the Bears struggled next year, the entire franchise is cleaned out.  Caleb Williams almost assuredly gives Poles 2-3 more years to turn it around.

I agree 1000% but remember what franchise we are talking about. The Bears have made worse decisions.

[sparky151]

12 hours ago, Soko said:

@sparky151 in shambles rn

Not really. I'm a Bengals and OSU fan. Fields got screwed over in Chicago. Poles should have been able to get a better return for Fields, even as a backup. Pittsburgh obviously isn't going to exercise his 5th year option so he'll be a free agent next offseason, same time as Wilson. 

I think the Rams would have been a better landing spot for him.

[Soko]

4 minutes ago, sparky151 said:

Not really. I'm a Bengals and OSU fan. Fields got screwed over in Chicago. Poles should have been able to get a better return for Fields, even as a backup. Pittsburgh obviously isn't going to exercise his 5th year option so he'll be a free agent next offseason, same time as Wilson. 

I think the Rams would have been a better landing spot for him.

You said the worst thing for Fields would be to go to a team for cheap, where he’d compete or be a backup. You named Pittsburgh specifically.

I feel for you bro bro

[CWood21]

5 minutes ago, sparky151 said:

Not really. I'm a Bengals and OSU fan. Fields got screwed over in Chicago. Poles should have been able to get a better return for Fields, even as a backup. Pittsburgh obviously isn't going to exercise his 5th year option so he'll be a free agent next offseason, same time as Wilson. 

I think the Rams would have been a better landing spot for him.

What part of all the former FRPs being traded for peanuts suggested that Fields was worth anything?

[squire12]

I think this is a good fit for Fields.  Run heavy team, strong defense.  Still comes down to whether the OC /playcaller can design things to what Fields does well.  

[malak1]

8 hours ago, Dr A W Niloc said:

It's difficult to imagine Kevin Warren having anything to do with this catastrophe.  And, no, inheriting a NFL franchise and having a fire sale without a fire does not make someone a football person by any useful definition.  Not even if they are the rule rather than the exception.

Kevin Warren reports only to McCaskey, iirc. 
 

What makes someone a “football person.”

[MacReady]

Man, poor Fields.

*Gets development stunted by an incompetent franchise by getting thrown into the starting position way too early when they have no offensive line, no skill players to help him.
*Gets a new head coach in year two who is a defensive minded head coach instead of the latest greatest QB whispering offensive coordinator.
*First two picks used on defense. 
*Shows considerable improvement while having no business improving with a defensive minded head coach.
*Watches Mac Jones, a fellow ruined QB in a defensive minded coaching staff, get traded to the best possible destination to rejuvenate his career by sitting behind a starter with a great head coach and a great offensive mind.
*Gets traded to the worst possible team for a QB to develop.

The QB bust rate in the NFL has gone from fairly high to 0.7%. The only quarterbacks who bust in the NFL right now are those who get developed wrong early by defensive minded coaches pretending to know offense and those who have zero social/leadership skills.

Caleb Williams is going to bust hard and it will be no indictment against Caleb Williams.

The Bears will show as much patience as possible, but their veteran stopgap will look like crap behind a bad offensive line and a single skill position player worth anything. Fans will get restless. Eberflus will get desperate and try to save his job and he'll throw Caleb Williams in. Williams will go 2-8. Bears will fire Eberflus. Then, instead of grasping their last chance to salvage Williams like the Rams did with Goff, like the Eagles did with Wentz, they will hire an offensive coordinator away from Andy Reid or some other already elite QB team or they will hire a defensive minded head coach and guarantee Williams bust status. 

 

[adamq]

People seem to think Chicago could have gotten more... why? This was likely always what the rest of the NFL thought about Fields. It just took this long for Poles to accept it and move on

[squire12]

30 minutes ago, adamq said:

People seem to think Chicago could have gotten more... why? This was likely always what the rest of the NFL thought about Fields. It just took this long for Poles to accept it and move on

Its possible Chicago could have gotten more before teams started to get other QB inplace.  

If Chicago was insisting on a 2nd round pick and ATL,  LV, NE, SEA, NYG, MIN, DEN were willing to do a 4th.  Teams moved on and when only 1 team is left, the price dropped.

[Pool]

Trash organization is trash. Film at 11.

[mse326]

9 hours ago, jrry32 said:

I'd rather have a guy like Fields who can be a weapon than a run-of-the-mill backup. I'd expect my top offensive mind to be able make the adjustments needed if the starter goes down.

What has he done that indicates he can be a weapon? He can run, but that hasn't been enough to do a damn thing.

[jrry32]

6 hours ago, StatKing said:

That's not how offenses function my guy. You have a series of core plays/concepts installed during training camp/preseason that are used throughout the season. If your backup QB can't run those plays at a moments notice you have a problem.

I've literally seen the Rams do this, my guy. If you think Fields can't run a NFL offense, I don't know what to tell you.

[jrry32]

2 minutes ago, mse326 said:

What has he done that indicates he can be a weapon? He can run, but that hasn't been enough to do a damn thing.

He looked like a weapon in 2022 when he ran for over 1100 yards on an atrocious Bears offense with an underwhelming coordinator.

6 hours ago, CWood21 said:

I'm with @viking on this one.  The Bears bungled it.  And bungled it badly.  There's a STARK difference between trading for Matthew Stafford who was a proven top 10 QB when healthy and inheriting a rookie QB coming off his first season in the NFL.  Basically, anything he learned his first year gets thrown out the window, so you've essentially wasted a single year.  I'm actually high on Shane Waldron after the work he did with Geno Smith, but if they have success he's an easy HC candidate and they're back to the drawing board as far as figuring out the play caller situation.

What are you talking about? McVay rolled with Goff for four years and won. I'm not talking about the Stafford trade.

9 hours ago, Tugboat said:

The problem is, to have that "weapon backup" locked and loaded and ready to go, requires a whole bunch of diverted practice time if the concepts and offensive philosophy is that much different than what your Starter is running.  Which you're not going to bother with, because that's a waste of the time that you do have to dedicate to your actual gameplan and refining and drilling the execution of your actual scheme and offensive concepts.  It's also just asking everyone to think in two different modes at once.

 

Even if your Starter goes down for more than just the remainder of whatever current game, and you have a week to prepare and install a different concept to suit the "weapon guy"...it's a whole lot to dump on everyone all at once.  It's going to take time that you don't really have, to get things up and running and executing at the high level it needs to succeed.

 

It's one thing if you've got a backup who can execute the same general system and offensive concepts as your Starter...and just happens to be a running threat or whatever as well.  That's great if you can find it (typically through the draft until they walk as a FA for more opportunity).  But most of the time when you've got these guys with crazy athletic gifts who can't latch on as a starter...it's because the mental half of their game is underdeveloped or inadequate.  ie. Like Fields, they'll need a scheme that switches gears significantly...using their legs to simplify the processing and reads they're asked to make (pre and post snap).

That has repercussions for everyone else and their responsibilities and roles, especially the more complex and nuanced an offense gets.

It's just not the sort of thing that you can typically swap out "on the fly" to nurse a game home if you unfortunately need to.  And in the grand scheme of things...if your Starter goes down for any extended period of time where that "weapon" at backup might have time to get things tailored around them, you're probably sunk anyway.  Very few teams are built to withstand the loss of their starting QB for an extended period.  There are a rare handful of backups (usually younglings drafted by a team) who happen to have the upside to just keep the same offensive system rolling, who can keep a team above water in that scenario.

 

In other words...if a "weapon" at QB is a big enough weapon to go out there and legitimately win a decent number of games, there's a very good chance that someone in this desperately QB-starved league would have noticed, and given them a real look as their Starter.

Disagree. It really doesn't. I'm talking about Justin Fields here, not putting a WR who can barely throw at QB. Steelers were able to adapt just fine to Mike Vick as a backup when Big Ben went down. Rams did this in multiple years when they had QB injuries. They had backups come in who ran more read option and more designed QB runs. (Unfortunately, those backups were sucky players.) It's not difficult. Since you're trying to continue to develop Fields as a NFL QB, you want him to learn the normal system.

[mse326]

1 minute ago, jrry32 said:

He looked like a weapon in 2022 when he ran for over 1100 yards on an atrocious Bears offense with an underwhelming coordinator.

No he didn't. He looked like someone who has one trick and it isn't good enough on it's own to succeed. Unless you are playing him at RB 1100 yards means nothing if he can't throw the ball. He doesn't see the field nearly well enough or fast enough.

 

8 minutes ago, jrry32 said:

I've literally seen the Rams do this, my guy. If you think Fields can't run a NFL offense, I don't know what to tell you.

From what QB to what QB did they entirely change their offense?

He can't run and NFL offense. Nothing he has done has indicated he can. His processing and vision is just to slow. And that definitely isn't going to improve as a backup.