Post Draft Thoughts

[dll2000]

On 5/2/2024 at 7:50 AM, AZBearsFan said:

Scott intrigues me some this year. A lot of what he did for splash plays in college (using his elite speed on YAC stuff) isn’t what Fields does well. Fields struggled big time with MOF lateral moving throws. Williams doesn’t. Scott is certainly looking at less reps but those he gets I’m expecting will have more of a chance for success in 2024. He still needs to catch the ball better though. No question.

We’re too quick to dismiss guys as a collective IMO when they don’t flash right away like Scott or Pickens. Especially with mid round guys, usually they were mid round guys because they weren’t plug-and-play ready because of something that needed further development, because they’re lacking something physically like size or speed, or both. Scott was almost certainly a WR3 upside guy, not a ready made WR3. Pickens was always a rotational DT with growth potential (who hopefully gets more run as our backup 3T this year because that’s more his skill set than 1T IMO). We need to churn the part of the roster that isn’t producing anything of value, but we have to balance that with allowing ourselves to try to develop those guys with skills worth developing too. 

Good post. 

[dll2000]

10 hours ago, AZBearsFan said:

Bagent was a Getsy special. Wouldn’t surprise me if they allowed Waldron to pick his own developmental guy. Bagent has moxie and a great story, but he also doesn’t have an NFL arm.

I disagree.   Waldron doesn’t know him yet.   Bagent, like JJ McCarthy, is a guy coaches love because he is smart and is coachable.    

I still think everyone is basing the lack of arm strength from him being pulled from game for a Hail Mary.   It might be true.  I haven’t seen enough evidence to think he has a weak arm. I haven’t seen him leave any balls short.  He has at least as a strong as arm as Hurts and Hurts got paid.  Actually Hurts is a good comparison for him I think.  Not as good a runner, but same personality and attitude. 

Put Bagent on a stacked team and he will do well.  Can he ever carry a team? No, I don’t think so.   Can he be elite? No I don’t think so.  

Maybe he gets cut.  I think he ends up QB2 again when it is all said and done.  Given a fair chance.  

[StLunatic88]

51 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

I still think everyone is basing the lack of arm strength from him being pulled from game for a Hail Mary.

Its not man, weve gone through his a few times in the last year, and I feel like you always bring this up to excuse it away.

He doesnt have the zip on the ball to make NFL throws, we saw plenty of ducks from him when he got in the game. When he has to go to the far side of the field, it almost always looks like its about to be picked off.

Hes got a D2 arm, and thats not something you can fix

[AZBearsFan]

55 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

I disagree.   Waldron doesn’t know him yet.   Bagent, like JJ McCarthy, is a guy coaches love because he is smart and is coachable.    

I still think everyone is basing the lack of arm strength from him being pulled from game for a Hail Mary.   It might be true.  I haven’t seen enough evidence to think he has a weak arm. I haven’t seen him leave any balls short.  He has at least as a strong as arm as Hurts and Hurts got paid.  Actually Hurts is a good comparison for him I think.  Not as good a runner, but same personality and attitude. 

Put Bagent on a stacked team and he will do well.  Can he ever carry a team? No, I don’t think so.   Can he be elite? No I don’t think so.  

Maybe he gets cut.  I think he ends up QB2 again when it is all said and done.  Given a fair chance.  

To be clear, I’m not saying they should run him out of town. I just don’t think they’ll force him on Waldron if he wants to go another way. Or at least they shouldn’t. His choice for developmental backup QB might be Bagent anyway. 

[AZBearsFan]

2 minutes ago, StLunatic88 said:

Its not man, weve gone through his a few times in the last year, and I feel like you always bring this up to excuse it away.

He doesnt have the zip on the ball to make NFL throws, we saw plenty of ducks from him when he got in the game. When he has to go to the far side of the field, it almost always looks like its about to be picked off.

Hes got a D2 arm, and thats not something you can fix

That’s what I saw too. Also like 90% of his throws were within about 7 yards of the LOS. Either he can’t push the ball down the field, or he won’t. Both are bad. 

[dll2000]

1 hour ago, StLunatic88 said:

Its not man, weve gone through his a few times in the last year, and I feel like you always bring this up to excuse it away.

He doesnt have the zip on the ball to make NFL throws, we saw plenty of ducks from him when he got in the game. When he has to go to the far side of the field, it almost always looks like its about to be picked off.

Hes got a D2 arm, and thats not something you can fix

You could be right.  Show me some examples.  

I haven't seen enough to form a definitive opinion on his arm strength.

 

[Sugashane]

1 hour ago, dll2000 said:

You could be right.  Show me some examples.  

I haven't seen enough to form a definitive opinion on his arm strength.

 

Just my two cents, may be completely wrong but whatever.

I feel like he has enough arm strength to play QB, but it is a limiting factor for what a team can do. He threw behind his guys way too much but I think a lot of that was the game moving too fast for him (expected from a small school UDFA in his rookie year) and just being inaccurate (again, there was a reason he was an UDFA and Wentz went number 2 overall when coming from a smaller school). I don't think there is anything special about Bagent physically, but there are a ton of QBs hanging around the NFL with mediocre physical gifts.

The issue is there are few starting-caliber QBs or top reserves without something special to hang their hat on, at least something above average. Bagent seemed to process faster than Fields but he also was just an inaccurate IMO. Fields had an on-target percentage of 73% to Bagent's 77%, and Fields had a bad throw percentage of 17% to Bagent's 14%. But Bagent got rid of that ball faster and was pressured on about 16% of his drop backs to Fields on 26% of his. This lets me believe Bagent might be slightly more accurate, but only because he is getting rid of the ball faster and Fields is way more aggressive (8.0 intended air yards vs Bagent's 5.8). So close, but Fields has a stronger arm and is uberathletic. So the ball gets there faster and he can run. That's why Fields is the better prospect and will have a better career as a back up IMO.

Bagent lacks a cannon to say the least and - from the limited time we were able to watch him - seems to be quick to unload. This means his plus athleticism won't amount to much because he isn't pushing the defense deep, so they can sit on routes and don't have to worry about containment as much. So his only real chances to be worth a damn in the league is to be quick at reading and to be deadly accurate within 10 yards.

I think of Bagent as hoping to be post-injury Chad Pennigton. Pennington was deadly accurate and made Brees/Brady quick reads, but he lacked their ability to push the ball deep. So with Bagent you might need to run the same kind of quick hitting style offense Brian Schottenheimer and Tony Sparano ran. With some more work in practice and running scout maybe things slow down and he develops some more accuracy. I'd welcome a better reserve but it wouldn't be a priority for me at this time. Unless you get Tannehill then any reserve QB available is going to be at about the same level as Bagent IMO and you're likely screwed with any of them if Williams misses significant time.

[dll2000]

5 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

Just my two cents, may be completely wrong but whatever.

I feel like he has enough arm strength to play QB, but it is a limiting factor for what a team can do. He threw behind his guys way too much but I think a lot of that was the game moving too fast for him (expected from a small school UDFA in his rookie year) and just being inaccurate (again, there was a reason he was an UDFA and Wentz went number 2 overall when coming from a smaller school). I don't think there is anything special about Bagent physically, but there are a ton of QBs hanging around the NFL with mediocre physical gifts.

The issue is there are few starting-caliber QBs or top reserves without something special to hang their hat on, at least something above average. Bagent seemed to process faster than Fields but he also was just an inaccurate IMO. Fields had an on-target percentage of 73% to Bagent's 77%, and Fields had a bad throw percentage of 17% to Bagent's 14%. But Bagent got rid of that ball faster and was pressured on about 16% of his drop backs to Fields on 26% of his. This lets me believe Bagent might be slightly more accurate, but only because he is getting rid of the ball faster and Fields is way more aggressive (8.0 intended air yards vs Bagent's 5.8). So close, but Fields has a stronger arm and is uberathletic. So the ball gets there faster and he can run. That's why Fields is the better prospect and will have a better career as a back up IMO.

Bagent lacks a cannon to say the least and - from the limited time we were able to watch him - seems to be quick to unload. This means his plus athleticism won't amount to much because he isn't pushing the defense deep, so they can sit on routes and don't have to worry about containment as much. So his only real chances to be worth a damn in the league is to be quick at reading and to be deadly accurate within 10 yards.

I think of Bagent as hoping to be post-injury Chad Pennigton. Pennington was deadly accurate and made Brees/Brady quick reads, but he lacked their ability to push the ball deep. So with Bagent you might need to run the same kind of quick hitting style offense Brian Schottenheimer and Tony Sparano ran. With some more work in practice and running scout maybe things slow down and he develops some more accuracy. I'd welcome a better reserve but it wouldn't be a priority for me at this time. Unless you get Tannehill then any reserve QB available is going to be at about the same level as Bagent IMO and you're likely screwed with any of them if Williams misses significant time.

We are also analyzing a rookie who got 4th string reps until very late in camp.  Which is almost nil.   I think he had 2 full 11 man team reps in practice I attended.  

Starter takes almost all reps in season.  

Aside from Raiders game, which Bears dominated, he was not getting all the myriad turnovers Fields was enjoying late in the year from our defense.

I am not saying he is great, good or bad.   I am saying he is likely not bad, and I don't know have enough data nor does he have enough NFL experience to speak of his ceiling.

 

[dll2000]

25 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

We are also analyzing a rookie who got 4th string reps until very late in camp.  Which is almost nil.   I think he had 2 full 11 man team reps in practice I attended.  

Starter takes almost all reps in season.  

Aside from Raiders game, which Bears dominated, he was not getting all the myriad turnovers Fields was enjoying late in the year from our defense.

I am not saying he is great, good or bad.   I am saying he is likely not bad, and I don't know have enough data nor does he have enough NFL experience to speak of his ceiling.

 

Remember how Fields did when he came in for Dalton cold in season without reps. 

That is to be expected for anyone. 

[AZBearsFan]

1 hour ago, dll2000 said:

We are also analyzing a rookie who got 4th string reps until very late in camp.  Which is almost nil.   I think he had 2 full 11 man team reps in practice I attended.  

Starter takes almost all reps in season.  

Aside from Raiders game, which Bears dominated, he was not getting all the myriad turnovers Fields was enjoying late in the year from our defense.

I am not saying he is great, good or bad.   I am saying he is likely not bad, and I don't know have enough data nor does he have enough NFL experience to speak of his ceiling.

 

That’s fair, but with respect to his upside (whatever it is), he’s gonna have almost no chance to get there in Chicago because CW is going to get nearly every if not every developmental rep out there, so as a Bears backup for the next few years you’re almost surely just gonna see what we saw last year if he’s forced to play.

What we saw from Bagent was 2-2, losing in a blowout to the Brandon Staley Chargers (scoring just 6 points in the first 57 minutes) and in a game in which he himself turned the ball over 3 times in the 4Q of a very winnable one score loss against NO. In the two games he won, he beat literally the league’s worst team playing on a short week (scoring just 16 points to win by 3 against CAR at home) and a tanking Josh McDaniels Raiders team (using its own backup QB, on the back of 3 INTs including a pick six). If the benchmark for him “impressing” in those 4 games was not blowing the wins that were figuratively handed to him, then fine - he met that bar. But that’s not really a bar. 6 INTs and 2 fumbles lost in 4.5 games paired with a 6.0 ypa and a questionable-at-best arm doesn’t scream “Let’s see what we’ve got here” to me, no matter how few reps with the starters he had in practice. They gave him the “Just don’t **** it up” playbook on game day and he still turned the ball over 8 times in 4.5 games. None of that is good IMO. Some of it is just less bad than the rest. 

Edited May 3 by AZBearsFan

[dll2000]

16 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

That’s fair, but with respect to his upside (whatever it is), he’s gonna have almost no chance to get there in Chicago because CW is going to get nearly every if not every developmental rep out there, so as a Bears backup for the next few years you’re almost surely just gonna see what we saw last year if he’s forced to play.

What we saw from Bagent was 2-2, losing in a blowout to the Brandon Staley Chargers (scoring just 6 points in the first 57 minutes) and in a game in which he himself turned the ball over 3 times in the 4Q of a very winnable one score loss against NO. In the two games he won, he beat literally the league’s worst team playing on a short week (scoring just 16 points to win by 3 against CAR at home) and a tanking Josh McDaniels Raiders team (using its own backup QB, on the back of 3 INTs including a pick six). If the benchmark for him “impressing” in those 4 games was not blowing the wins that were figuratively handed to him, then fine - he met that bar. But that’s not really a bar. 6 INTs and 2 fumbles lost in 4.5 games paired with a 6.0 ypa and a questionable-at-best arm doesn’t scream “Let’s see what we’ve got here” to me, no matter how few reps with the starters he had in practice. They gave him the “Just don’t **** it up” playbook on game day and he still turned the ball over 8 times in 4.5 games. None of that is good IMO. Some of it is just less bad than the rest. 

If he maintains 2nd chair he will get significant reps in both camps.

In camp starter gets roughly 70% of reps and 2nd gets like 25% and everyone else splits rest.  In season practices it is like 95% starter and back up 5%.  

At 2023 camp PJ Walker was getting 2nd team reps and it broke down about like that.  It would go Fields then Walker then Peterman.  Then Bagent got whatever was leftover.

He'll get those PJ Walker reps this year unless he gets replaced or supplanted.

 

 

[SLCbear]

8 hours ago, AZBearsFan said:

A depth guy getting depth guy levels of reps - that seems like a great problem to have, no? If he earns them he’ll get more, but we won’t have to force it. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

I think it’s hard to read into the JSN stuff so far too much. Could be that he’s just a whiny player. He was the guy his last healthy season in college, even on a team with Olave and Garrett Wilson. Did he expect to come in and immediately unseat a superstar (DK) and one of the best WR2s in the entire league for the past decade (Lockett)? If so, that seems like a him issue - those jobs are hard to take away even as a 1st round pick.

Everything we’ve heard about Rome so far is that he’s a humble, team first, detail oriented, hard working guy. The writing is on the wall for Allen to be a short term guy here too, especially with Poles saying the other day that they’re not in a hurry to look to extend Allen. Now that Rome is here, they clearly see him as a bridge to Odunze being 1a with Moore. Allen is a HOF caliber WR but he’s not a Bears legacy player in CHI like Lockett is in SEA. If all goes according to plan, next offseason Rome slots in at WR2 for 2025 and we’re looking to replace Allen with one of our 2nd rounders or our 3. 

I am very excited about this offense, the new weapons are obvious but the Oline, which was middling, should be better,  likely top 10ish- top12

 Braxton entering Yr3 has a freak rookie to hold off, Jenkins is a beast inside and is healthy, Bates or Shelton >> Lucas Patrick, Nate Davis is aLL the way back mentally/emotionally and should look VERy good once again!, Darnell is a STUD and only going to get better ...we have quality veteran depth inside (if TJs health falters) and young KA looking to prove himself outside..

 Should be a very solid group !

Then Caleb and all of the WEAPONS! 

 I talked up our Big 3 WR group all last offseason, DJ Mooney and Claypool  ha haha 

now its legit, Keenan DJ and Rome ****ing Odunze 

PLuS Gerald Everett replacing Tonyan

and DeAndre Swift now in the back field 

Please do NOT **** the bed Shane !

Edited May 3 by SLCbear

[Sugashane]

3 hours ago, dll2000 said:

We are also analyzing a rookie who got 4th string reps until very late in camp.  Which is almost nil.   I think he had 2 full 11 man team reps in practice I attended.  

Starter takes almost all reps in season.  

Aside from Raiders game, which Bears dominated, he was not getting all the myriad turnovers Fields was enjoying late in the year from our defense.

I am not saying he is great, good or bad.   I am saying he is likely not bad, and I don't know have enough data nor does he have enough NFL experience to speak of his ceiling.

 

Exactly, that why I was talking about him being an UDFA. He had no expectations and outplayed veteran back ups who were suppose to have a big advantage over him, so it is hard to expect too much of him as a starter but seems like at least a serviceable back up option. 

Let him run scout team and take 2nd team reps, that will be plenty for now. 

[Sugashane]

39 minutes ago, SLCbear said:

Please do NOT **** the bed Shane !

You're about 10 hours too late for that. It was tequila Thursday at my home. 

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

On the subject of one Mister Bagent.  I think the arm looks limited on games.  He operated the offense better than Fields (mostly) but even on throws he made, they look like they all go the same speed, which is Bagent-maximum.   He also had some big blunders just like Fields. I will say the OC made the game plan fit Bagent better than he did for Fields most of the year, which is a boost, plus he had the bench QB effect of getting away with a bit as opposing DCs didn't know him yet. My friend that met him last fall still raves about him and how he hopes they trade Williams for, you guessed it, the haul, and then start Bagent.