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OT: Bears & NFL Talk 103

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Backyard Hockey said:
Yeah, but it looked a bit better the last couple of games with shorter developing plays and the ball getting out quick. This was a major step back outside of one drive.
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The run game got nothing and no success all day, hard to keep things short when nothing works. The line and players did nothing well. The coach did nothing well. It was all bad all around
 
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Worst part is Eberflus is probably somewhere stroking himself over his defensive playcalling.

Also incredibly predictable to come in here and see the ska guy throwing a fit over a 4-9 team embarrassing themselves. Not healthy my dude
 
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Williams really just needs to throw it up and bank on DPI. It works for every legit qb. I know there was 1 game they had 2 clear calls not flagged... but with a regular ref crew. Just take the odds
 
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Listening to the Score now. Olin and the guys are saying how much Shanahan and staff absolutely clowned the Bears' coaching staff. Olin had 49ers winning 31-14 because of that. A terrible D that would get absolutely shown out by the guy who is arguably the best play caller on the planet. Think about that. Shanahan turned a Mr Irrelevant 7th round scrub into a SuperBowl QB.

HeisenBaez said:
Like I said before, I've joined the "getting rid of Poles" crowd. If feels like the are worse now than when Poles took over.
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Pole is a major problem. It's one thing to miss on picks, but it's another to ignore the most critical components of a team. He needs to be gone.
 
One of the biggest positives from the firing of Eberflose mid-season is exposing the concurrent and far more egregious mistakes committed by Fail-King Poles in badly misconstructing and misjudging the roster in addition to the bad coaching hires (plural) over and over. It was beyond silly to hear the blowhards go from blaming everything on Eberflose straight to blasting the McCaskeys, while illogically going so far as to praising Poles for "doing a good job for the most part" as the GM. The fact that neither the interim HC Thomas Brown who's been on the job barely for 10-ish days nor the rookie QB who's 13 games in has any answers is NOT a problem originating with Kevin Warren, no matter how in charge he sounded at the fire-Eberflose presser. Warren came in a year after Poles, he's the stadium guy, and he's not the one who has failed to address the trenches after three off-seasons while bragging about "the rebuild is about 75-80% complete" and "This is the deepest room I've ever been a part of.' So we have more versatility, more depth. Shoot, we have 10 guys, so I feel comfortable." No, you absolutely cannot trust Poles, who's proven to be a terrible and delusional judge of talent to hire the next HC, or plug the multiple holes on this roster using his would-be 4th draft. Three years is more than enough.

chicago.suntimes.com

Halas Intrigue podcast: Bay Area bloodbath

At least the Bears didn't lose on a questionable call at the end of the game.
chicago.suntimes.com chicago.suntimes.com
 
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A couple weeks ago I would have said that Poles is probably safe for one more year and one more HC decision. After yesterday I'm not as confident in that. If they manage to look even worse down the stretch than they did with Eberflus... I can maybe see his seat getting hot enough they he's canned too.

Next week will be a big test. Eberflus only lost by 3 to Minnesota just a few weeks ago and Brown will be in primetime against that same Minnesota team. If they get blown out that's going to be a really bad look for Brown and Poles.
 
Pez68 said:
Their lines are garbage and the team lives and dies by the line.
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Which is a HUGE strike against Poles, a former offensive lineman, who thinks he can be the smartest guy in the room and bargain bin shop for offensive lineman.

Fireable offense when you just lucked into the 1 OA pick and a QB prospect of CW's caliber, and that's what you protect him with.
 
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I will never understand a team that spends major draft capital on a QB that then in turn doesn’t immediate spend the rest of the year trying to supplement the offensive line in every way possible via the draft, trades, and free agency.

I’m a dumb man. I’d make for a lousy GM. But full stop, I’d basically draft nothing but offensive linemen and try to make as many deals for established O line talent via the other means immediately thereafter. A decent OL at least does wonders for a QB’s development and longevity. Don’t want to be a dumbass and get Luck’d.
 
I was hopeful they’d be able to keep Poles, but a clean sweep is in order. Should have flushed Flus last year, gotten your coaching staff, and if y1 ended up being a build year so be it. I understand why they kept him, but the end of year streak was fools gold. Every game needs to count in assessments moving forward. Now y2 has to be an overhaul year, y3 is the build year, and y4 is the compete year.

Not optimistic they’ll be able to overhaul the offensive line this summer (at least not in the draft). Think every dollar in free agency needs to go to upgrading the line, then use one of the 2nds and the 3rd to add line depth. Beyond that take DL with the first and other 2nd.

Maybe they get really lucky and the bears can draft two linemen who are starters, but I think hoping for a starting guard and a backup center out of the draft is most realistic.

Two top 40 picks on the D-Line should make the linebackers and dbs look better. Williams has the weapons, can the bears get him some beef and a scheme in one offseason? I’m not optimistic.

Things are such whack-a-mole with the bears. Flus closes the year with a strong locker room, a few critical and devastating late game failures and its full anarchy. Line drastically improves with Sweat, he gets paid and stops producing. DBs look solidied, Brisker gets concussions and Stephenson loses his mind. Wright and Jenkins look like 40% of a top tier line, bears shift position of Jenkins, lots of injuries and now neither is a clear solution. Need another receiving threat to compliment Moore, Odunze and Allen added, and Moore goes from drama-free top 15 WR to pouty, average receiver. What a mess.

I think guys like Williams, Johnson, Moore, Odunze, Dexter, and Sweat can be the stars on a winning team, however the three vets seem so disenchanted with things I wonder if they’re on their way to being detriments. I think that you can lay at Flose’s feet.

Fixing culture is always hard for losing teams. Doing it in the NFL when all three division rivals are very good? That’s incredibly difficult. Bears have their work cut out for them, again.
 
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matt trick said:
I was hopeful they’d be able to keep Poles, but a clean sweep is in order. Should have flushed Flus last year, gotten your coaching staff, and if y1 ended up being a build year so be it. I understand why they kept him, but the end of year streak was fools gold. Every game needs to count in assessments moving forward. Now y2 has to be an overhaul year, y3 is the build year, and y4 is the compete year.

Not optimistic they’ll be able to overhaul the offensive line this summer (at least not in the draft). Think every dollar in free agency needs to go to upgrading the line, then use one of the 2nds and the 3rd to add line depth. Beyond that take DL with the first and other 2nd.

Maybe they get really lucky and the bears can draft two linemen who are starters, but I think hoping for a starting guard and a backup center out of the draft is most realistic.

Two top 40 picks on the D-Line should make the linebackers and dbs look better. Williams has the weapons, can the bears get him some beef and a scheme in one offseason? I’m not optimistic.

Things are such whack-a-mole with the bears. Flus closes the year with a strong locker room, a few critical and devastating late game failures and its full anarchy. Line drastically improves with Sweat, he gets paid and stops producing. DBs look solidied, Brisker gets concussions and Stephenson loses his mind. Wright and Jenkins look like 40% of a top tier line, bears shift position of Jenkins, lots of injuries and now neither is a clear solution. Need another receiving threat to compliment Moore, Odunze and Allen added, and Moore goes from drama-free top 15 WR to pouty, average receiver. What a mess.

I think guys like Williams, Johnson, Moore, Odunze, Dexter, and Sweat can be the stars on a winning team, however the three vets seem so disenchanted with things I wonder if they’re on their way to being detriments. I think that you can lay at Flose’s feet.

Fixing culture is always hard for losing teams. Doing it in the NFL when all three division rivals are very good? That’s incredibly difficult. Bears have their work cut out for them, again.
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Great post, especially the part about how difficult it is to rebuild the O-line in an offseason.

It IS doable (the Panthers did it this past offseason), but the answer is, as you say, probably to spend A TON in free agency. The Titans have been building their O-line for a while (funnily enough ever since some people's dream HC candidate Vrabel allowed it to become the worst OL in the league), and one of the highest paid centers plus two top 11 picks in consecutive drafts has resulted in... an awful line.

The issue is that the entire interior is unplayable. Jones is playable if you can get a run game going, but if you're dropping back to pass all game, the rusher opposite Jones is going to bullrush him every snap, and will push him back into the QB a good number of times. There are a good number of guards entering free agency (and a center or two), but they need to SPEND. They can't enter the next season with either anything resembling the current line or a line that's starting 2+ rookies.

Depending on where the Bears land in the draft, DL may be preferable to OL, but I'm still leaning toward one of the best OL from the draft over the BPA DL, if only because the DL class is much deeper. OL, DL, DL, OL in that order.

A top drafted DL is much more likely to make a difference in year 1. But as you say, they aren't competing next season. If the next HC is an absolute miracle worker and they spend heavily in FA and the draft, one side of the ball may reach the level of the other three teams in the division. But right now, 3 years into Poles tenure, they are undeniably the worst team in the division on both sides of the ball.
 
Disappointing we don't have a single pass play of 50 yards or longer, especially with all the WR talent. You'd think if nothing else one of these guys would have made a big play for 50+ with YAC.

Only the Giants and Panthers join the Bears in that company.
 
ndgt10 said:
If this team ends the season 0-11 Poles has to be fired.
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Yup. I don’t know if he was forced to hire or retain Flus. He may end up being accountable for a decision made for him. That sucks, but 7 losses in a row, including the Pats- after saying it’s time to compete- pretty much has to be curtains. I think they need to go 3-1 for a chance of anyone being retained. Even then, say they get lucky against Detroit/Minnesota, beat Seattle, and Packers rest their starters in the last game of the season. Would we feel comfortable? No.

Poles and Brown may be the best option, and the fault of the team may primarily sit with Flus, with Poles and Brown being victims of a tough SOS once Flus was gone. However, you can’t go 2-3 or 1-4 under Brown and say, yeah we think we’re good- just a tough division and we had a really bad head coach and OC (which the people still here were championing last year).

I don’t know that Poles is the problem- he may be or may not be. Moreover, I’d have supported a new HC keeping Brown as OC, but now (as a HC who likely loses 4/5) they must go.
 
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