The Bears-Offense

[SLCbear]

19 hours ago, Sugashane said:

Idk. Davis in his last year with the Titans looked good, but last year he rarely did. Maybe off the field issues affected his play more than most but I would put Jim at average at best right now. Idk much about Shelton or Bates. Jenkins and Wright have a TON of potential, but Jenkins is often hurt and Wright is young so mistakes are inevitable.

I'm not sure if they will be top 10 but it wouldn't shock me, I'm just happy the OL won't be like 2022 where the 5 OL played took turns where 1 guy gets his *** whooped right off the bat every play.

Ya those off-field issues hit HaRD and came at the worst possible time, new team new city, new season 

 Should be alot different for him this season, and Bates can take over if he continues to struggle. 

 TJs health is always a concern, Bates can take over at LG as well

 We can sustain a TJ injury or poor play from Davis, but not bOTH

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

18 hours ago, soulman said:

Other than the ability of the starting five to stay uninjured I'm not all that concerned with the OL.  Other than the injuries OC and inexperience were the biggest problem last year.  Davis is actually a very good run blocker.  Where he failed much of the time last year was in his pass blocking but he had a rookie RT next to him and a couple of OC who weren't much help.

Within reason Poles did what he could in the offseason to resolve at least some of those issues when he brought in experienced FA at OT and OC/OG, traded for Bates, drafted Amegadie and signed UDFA Benedet.  That's a whole lot of new faces who weren't here last year competing for roster and PS spots.  There may be more talent there than we realize just yet.

Very curious to see if they'll be good or not.  As fun as Fields' play could be, he hung the OL out to dry multiple times a game, even if he ended up creating something interesting out of it.  It seems like Williams does things a bit differently, as he seems a lot more willing to climb the pocket to give catchers time to work, and also generally seems to go through more reads which ideally should help the OL.

It's just weird to have so much unknown.  I don't know who our center is going to be week one, and it's totally possible that it could be someone like Conor Williams who isn't even on the time right now.  I don't know how many games Jenkins will play. I don't know if Davis is hurt/retiring whatever, to the point where I'm wondering if the guy we brought in to be C is going to need to be a guard again.  You could make a really good case that Poles could have gotten better players on the IOL and spent less on RB if they needed to save. We'll see, hopefully our scheme and QB are just so good that they can buy the OL time to get together through the season. That would be cool. 

[soulman]

We can probably count on one hand the number of NFL teams who have a top shelf OL across the board.  Based on how much top vet OT and OG are getting no one could afford it so everyone has a rookie or second year guy and maybe a journeyman type vet playing somewhere. 

Whereas Jerry Angelo was able to go out and "buy" an OL via FA that got the Bears to a Super Bowl that's not possible any longer.  Now teams pretty much need to build their OL from draft picks and mid or lower level FA and UDFA.  They're not able to sign multiple top shelf FA at their current cost.

[JibjeResearch]

PFF ranks Bears' WRsTE as 4th best, and some other ranks the Bears' WRsTERB-starters as 6th best in the NFL. 

Caleb is the make or break season for the Bears..., everybody knows that.  The coming up practices should say a lot if Caleb is special.

[AZBearsFan]

On 7/12/2024 at 8:36 PM, JibjeResearch said:

PFF ranks Bears' WRsTE as 4th best, and some other ranks the Bears' WRsTERB-starters as 6th best in the NFL. 

Caleb is the make or break season for the Bears..., everybody knows that.  The coming up practices should say a lot if Caleb is special.

I think it’s wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too early to use practices to say whether or not Caleb is special. He’s a rookie who’s never so much has had an NFL practice in pads. If he looks great right out of the gate then that’s amazing but if he looks like a rookie that’s totally fine, and should be expected IMO. 

[BeaReylo]

On 6/20/2024 at 6:26 AM, soulman said:

We can probably count on one hand the number of NFL teams who have a top shelf OL across the board.  Based on how much top vet OT and OG are getting no one could afford it so everyone has a rookie or second year guy and maybe a journeyman type vet playing somewhere. 

Whereas Jerry Angelo was able to go out and "buy" an OL via FA that got the Bears to a Super Bowl that's not possible any longer.  Now teams pretty much need to build their OL from draft picks and mid or lower level FA and UDFA.  They're not able to sign multiple top shelf FA at their current cost.

Top tier tackles are like QBs and pass rushers; teams don't let then hit free agency because to valuable and hard to replace.  The only way is through drafting or giving up a pretty penny via trade. 

[soulman]

On 7/14/2024 at 1:27 PM, BeaReylo said:

Top tier tackles are like QBs and pass rushers; teams don't let then hit free agency because to valuable and hard to replace.  The only way is through drafting or giving up a pretty penny via trade. 

Not OT in their prime years at any rate.  That's why I'm happy we have three OT on rookie deals right now.  If Jones continues to show improvement and Amegadjie proves he's an NFL caliber OL Poles should be able to avoid having to use a top pick on an OT for awhile and focus elsewhere.  I'm curious about Bendet as well.  OL Coach CMo seems to be pretty good at developing good OL talent.

[JibjeResearch]

On 7/14/2024 at 5:45 AM, AZBearsFan said:

I think it’s wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too early to use practices to say whether or not Caleb is special. He’s a rookie who’s never so much has had an NFL practice in pads. If he looks great right out of the gate then that’s amazing but if he looks like a rookie that’s totally fine, and should be expected IMO. 

Usually good players will show up in practice.

[beardown3231]

12 hours ago, JibjeResearch said:

Usually good players will show up in practice.

Then how come you wanted to keep Fields?

There's a difference between "special" and "good." Very rarely do rookies show they're going to be special in their first few practices. That's asking a lot. CJ Stroud looked like *** in their preseason game vs NE last year. Tone it down. We wouldn't know special here if it slapped us in the face anyway

Edited July 17 by beardown3231

[JibjeResearch]

3 hours ago, beardown3231 said:

Then how come you wanted to keep Fields?

There's a difference between "special" and "good." Very rarely do rookies show they're going to be special in their first few practices. That's asking a lot. CJ Stroud looked like *** in their preseason game vs NE last year. Tone it down. We wouldn't know special here if it slapped us in the face anyway

JF1 is great with the long balls.  He wasn't good with the quick short passing.  He needed a strong OL and Weapons.  The offense wasn't made for him.  He would have done much much better with what we have now. 

At the present, JF1 is better than Caleb.  Caleb has the potential and friendly cap space.  Only time will tell if the potential is real.... The time is fast approaching.

[AZBearsFan]

15 hours ago, JibjeResearch said:

Usually good players will show up in practice.

1st overall pick or not, he’s a rookie going into his first training camp. Expecting to see a ton of special right away is a fool’s errand. Not seeing it right out of the chute doesn’t mean it’s not there - it just means he’s a rookie going into his first camp. 

 

8 minutes ago, JibjeResearch said:

JF1 is great with the long balls.  He wasn't good with the quick short passing.  He needed a strong OL and Weapons.  The offense wasn't made for him.  He would have done much much better with what we have now. 

At the present, JF1 is better than Caleb.  Caleb has the potential and friendly cap space.  Only time will tell if the potential is real.... The time is fast approaching.

Reality is, no team in the NFL thought enough of Fields to trade for him to be their starting QB in 2024, even when the price was a conditional late round pick in 2025, in a league where half the teams have serious questions at starting QB. Fields getting a raw deal in Chicago with what he was given around him (which he totally was) doesn’t change that fact. 

[dll2000]

1 minute ago, AZBearsFan said:

1st overall pick or not, he’s a rookie going into his first training camp. Expecting to see a ton of special right away is a fool’s errand. Not seeing it right out of the chute doesn’t mean it’s not there - it just means he’s a rookie going into his first camp. 

 

Reality is, no team in the NFL thought enough of Fields to trade for him to be their starting QB in 2024, even when the price was a conditional late round pick in 2025, in a league where half the teams have serious questions at starting QB. Fields getting a raw deal in Chicago with what he was given around him (which he totally was) doesn’t change that fact. 

This.

I still maintain Fields CAN be good.  Really good. He has all talent in world.  But he HASN'T been good to date except in spurts.

He is good enough to be one of 32 starting QBs in NFL IMO or at least a good back up.  He will be in league for years to come, and who knows the light bulb may come on.  He is way more talented than Geno Smith for example.  And Geno made most of a later shot at starting job.  It just didn't happen here in time.

[dll2000]

2 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

This.

I still maintain Fields CAN be good.  Really good. He has all talent in world.  But he HASN'T been good to date except in spurts.

He is good enough to be one of 32 starting QBs in NFL IMO or at least a good back up.  He will be in league for years to come, and who knows the light bulb may come on.  He is way more talented than Geno Smith for example.  And Geno made most of a later shot at starting job.  It just didn't happen here in time.

To trade number one overall in a year with good QB prospects to build around 3 years of on field uncertainty would have been foolish.  

No NFL GM would have done it.   Many fans would have.  

This is not to say you can't have a good team with an avg. QB.  You absolutely can.  So trading 1 and loading up around Fields may have worked eventually or for a time.  But it is not preferred method and much harder to sustain.  

You need a top 10 QB to compete for titles year in and year out.  Top 4 or 5 really.  That is hard to accomplish.  But you just keep playing lottery until you do. 

 

 

[soulman]

Maybe the more important thing here is to recognize that CW's teammates and coaches see something special in him.  How soon that will be in evidence to everyone else is still up in the air.  There will be times he's gonna look "not so special" like most rookie QB do but what I'm looking for and everyone else I would guess is that he gains experience from his mistakes and doesn't repeat them.  JF never seemed to get to that point.  He made strides but it was often two steps forward then one step back that slowed his progress.  He failed to produce at a higher level as a starter and some of it not his own fault.  We can't afford to have CW going down that very same road.

CW should be the most talented QB prospect we've seen here in our lifetimes and mine goes back to the days of guys like Johnny Lujack, Bobby Layne, Ed Brown, Billy Wade, and **** ton of failures who followed.  Who knows whether or not CW is gonna be that "generational talent" he was touted to be?  All we know now is that he's gonna have the opportunity to prove it.....or not.  For me he's one of the thing that makes me most excited about the present and the future of the Bears.  That and finally having a GM and staff who at long last seem to have a great formula for turning this team from consistent losers into consistent winners.  So we'll see how it goes.

[Bigbear72]

2 hours ago, soulman said:

Maybe the more important thing here is to recognize that CW's teammates and coaches see something special in him.  How soon that will be in evidence to everyone else is still up in the air.  There will be times he's gonna look "not so special" like most rookie QB do but what I'm looking for and everyone else I would guess is that he gains experience from his mistakes and doesn't repeat them.  JF never seemed to get to that point.  He made strides but it was often two steps forward then one step back that slowed his progress.  He failed to produce at a higher level as a starter and some of it not his own fault.  We can't afford to have CW going down that very same road.

CW should be the most talented QB prospect we've seen here in our lifetimes and mine goes back to the days of guys like Johnny Lujack, Bobby Layne, Ed Brown, Billy Wade, and **** ton of failures who followed.  Who knows whether or not CW is gonna be that "generational talent" he was touted to be?  All we know now is that he's gonna have the opportunity to prove it.....or not.  For me he's one of the thing that makes me most excited about the present and the future of the Bears.  That and finally having a GM and staff who at long last seem to have a great formula for turning this team from consistent losers into consistent winners.  So we'll see how it goes.

I see you failed to mention Cade McNown. Shame on you sir.