Seeing the comments from Jaire and Flus and I’m willing to put much more of the blame on ESB than I originally did. I still think the throw was a tad late. But that play didn’t decide the game. The 4th down TD at the end of the first half was the turning point. Also I saw that we had zero QB hurries? How is that possible? Erin didn’t even play that well and even with a mediocre pass rush we probably make enough plays to win even with the offense only scoring 19. As badly as we need a LT in the first round, I’m not going be pissed if we go edge or DT instead. Best scenario is we trade down and address both sides of the ball in the first round.
I’ll take a morbid, more scorched-earth approach here. I don’t think LT was ever going to be considered. Speculated? Yes. In the conversation among poles and his chief scouts? Sure for about 20 seconds. Yeah, I know what I’ve said about the guy I like and yeah, it’s still a need even though the OL had a mostly solid game yesterday, and I’m going to hate watching Skoronski be a future bookend Lt for someone else while fans and media here die on a stupid hill of ‘he wouldn’t fit here, he’s not athletic enough or have long enough arms’ when the athlete with long arms now isn’t good and doesn’t block everything. I’ve been hard on Braxton Jones—for good reason—and think he has a future on a competent team who knows what they’re doing—at a Guard spot. But they’re going to lie to themselves like the did with Leno and say ‘just good enough to be unnoticeable on most plays’ is what they need at the 2nd most important position on offense. It’s neanderthalic thinking. It’s regressive. It’s football stupid, but it’s the bears. But again, like under Jerry Angelo, the brief stint of Emery, and Pace—and inevitably Poles (we just need a Time Machine/fast forward to April). The bears don’t know what they don’t know. Offense. QB. Protecting the QB. What’s the comfort food/blanket that always makes them feel warm and at home? Defense. If they take Will Anderson or this Myles Murphy kid from Clemson who’s flying up draft boards right now, I’ll be fine. If death is not an option, and there is no kings ransom trade up, just take Will Anderson. I’ll maintain and die on the hill that drafting Jalen Carter would be an enormous mistake. But this is the bears. Pre-injured players whose production disappears in a snap of the fingers over a years time is the choice de-jour for a stupid franchise. Now to my benefit of the bears being a stupid franchise—they have 4 games left. I won’t be shocked if they show up and win one just to fuck up their draft spot for a moral victory. I’ve slowly been accepting over the weeks that if offense is taken at all round 1, whether it’s a trade back or not—the choice is WR. And after having high hopes for Jordan Addison this past weekend for the PAC 20 championship—he let me down, even though his QB never looked for him. The TCU kid Johnston I finally got to watch too and he’s tall, he’s got catch radius, but fuck is he slow. Dbs can screw up at the LOS, lose a hand fight and rebound easily to catch up to him. The pros will also negate him using his size. Believe it or not, and I expect to get a few ‘WTFs,’ but I’m in love with 2 first round cornerbacks after DLine. The bears probably aren’t taking Christian Gonzalez from Oregon or Clark Phillips from Utah, but they are going to be stars. Gonzalez is big and fast like Sauce Gardner. Can they hide penalties like Gardner at the next level? We shall see.
True. Getsy has been hit and miss for me most of the year but all things considered....he's mostly miss.
Alex Leatherwood played well enough in limited snaps yesterday to warrant getting a good look the remainder of the season.
... and yet another of indifference for me. Catch 22 isn't it? If he threw it on time it would have likely bounced off the back of Sloth Brown's helmet.
Gotta be honest if another DB is taken with either of the first 2 picks, trade down or not, i will fucking lose it. This season has shown up with brutal clarity just how deficient the Bears are in the trenches on both sides of the ball. We just saw how much use coverage is when the QB has 10seconds to pass. Poles failed his first draft because he tried to be too cute, now he needs to go back to fundamentals. I guess that can incorporate FA to a large extent as well but its impossible to factor that in to x degree in April while sitting here in December. Frankly tho, im not sure they could throw enough money at both lines in FA to get me off them for the draft. Don't have the knowledge of our college aficionados here but im fine with that. In this Bear's cave the main approach to the draft is still BPAfQB.
So much this, I will beat the drum for trenches all day and night. I get it, our CBs could use help too, but with the Eberflus/Lovie system of never blitzing and only rushing 4, we MUST have some pressure with the dline. And on the other side, as Ev says, with time Fields looks all pro. TRENCHES TRENCHES TRENCHES. Pat's point on being able to fill this gap in FA for DL? Cool, make it happen, there are are holes everywhere. Are there lots of FA options for OL though? We need a legit LT, and a goddamn center because if Mustipher is here fucking shit up again next year, I won't even know what to say. We just dropped two 2nd round picks on Gordon and Brisker. We drop another high pick or two on DB and we Poles Matt Fucking Millen for DBs rather than WRs.
The Bears are sitting with the #2 pick right now, and as the weeks go on I've completely soured on that Claypool acquisition because the Bears could have had the #2 and #33 selection as it sits now. Losing that #33 is huge for a guy that appears to have Roy (what I got) Williams's IQ. Given what the Bears need It's a no-brainer they have to trade down and approach this draft with a shotgun rather than a sniper rifle. As much as I want an OT it certainly isn't an option where they sit now. As bad as the WRs are I don't want to see that either before the 3rd round, in any scenario trading down with whatever picks. You've already wasted a 2nd on a clown receiver, start building from the inside out, and then I'll take this rebuild seriously.
Losing the 33-34 overall pick like that was borderline criminal. I hope Claypool can pan out and its still fairly early, but since he got to Chicago he's looked like the guy we saw in Pittsburgh. Long on potential, short on production.
