I feel I should post this. I would be derelict in my duty if I don't. Kansas City Chiefs vs Philadelphia Eagles I'm here for the halftime show! No. Wait. Scratch that. Nothing against rappers but I'm here for Lauren Daigle and Trombone Shorty!
Eagles 10-0. I can't watch the game because my satellite has too much snow on it. I will just have to amuse myself, I guess..
If we learned anything from yesterday its once again how the best run teams in this league win games by prioritizing and patiently building up their trenches. Eagles have the best OL as we all know and their front 4 got pressure all damn day, didn't even need to blitz. Maybe Poles can one day get that through his thick skull.
Super happy for Fangio. Eagles front four completely wrecked that game and frustrated the shit out of the Chiefs.
Yeah, didn't realize until yesterday that he was from Philly. Thinking about how dominant their last 2 games were, plus the fact that they only lost once in the last 16 and that was barely a loss in a game their starting QB didn't play, and their overall season point differential, I'm going to say this Eagles team is the best team we've seen in the last 5-10 years, maybe even going back to the 2000s.
I really liked it. Not the biggest Kendrick Lamar fan but I thought the performance was good and it was fun watching him basically tell Drake to fuck off.
I can't remember if you were on the Carter train, but I know @tunafat was. He obviously fell into a better situation with the Eagles I think to manage his headcase issues, but man he is dominant. I will own up to being wrong about his off field issues affecting his performance. If we had it to do over again, Wright or Carter?
Also, I am sad I didn't watch the game. I don't love the Eagles, but an absolute pantsing of the "GOAT apparent" with an incredible defensive line.....that's something anyone can enjoy.
Yeah, I'm pretty confident the Bears would have ruined him, he wouldn't have had the veteran presence around him like the Eagles did to keep him straight and focused, but the dude is an absolute force to be reckoned with. Then there are those people who look at the stat sheet and say, "0 Tackles and 0 sacks, he's a bust. I'm glad the Bears didn't draft him." I was like, "Dude, did you even watch the game?"
I wasn't because of his off-field issues and the fact that I desperately wanted us to get a LT. At least Wright as a RT isn't horrible but Patg had me sold on Skoronski and of course he goes the very pick after Wright.
We can't compare a player's success elsewhere as a 1-to-1 here in Chicago. Surviving this shit show is no guarantee. Carter always had the explosive potential to completely wreck games. Wright's ceiling was always lower. In that respect, you take the DT, especially since both are positions of need. That said, I also feel that LT is the second hardest position to get right, behind QB. So, I will never argue with a team taking a LT top 10, getting the best guy they can. Poles took a RT without elite level quicks. Wright is still the best player on the Bears' OL, but that's not saying a whole lot. I'm well on record saying that Poles is a failure that I want gone, and his complete lack of talent evaluation and roster building skills has been on full display since day one. The Chase Claypool trade is just the perfect encapsulation of it all. I'll never defend the guy, and if they really did extend him (as has been suggested by some), I will personally punch Georgie boy in the face at his mom's funeral.
We have to stop doing this… Darnell Wright isn’t a bad player, he was actually good, something I can’t say for the other 4 guys on the OL this past year. Is he perfect? No. Was he a bum? No. Was he the level of a Trent Williams or Lane Johnson, also no. He’s closer to Trent/Lane than he was to being a bum. Jalen Carter, A—pled out to the crime he was in limbo for right before the draft and B—has had the luxury of playing next to 3 other dogs on a DL, where he gets a lot of 1 on 1s and one of the brightest DCs in football. He would not get that/have gotten that here. And while yeah, we saw him a lot in the backfield on Sunday, Mahomes had gotten rid of the ball already or someone else came in unblocked and already got to him. The same thing we’d get on Gervon Dexter for, like popping on screen and being just close enough, but not getting there—we’re praising Carter for because the eagles got results with Vic Fangio, where as Eberflush’s unit was typically giving away points and yards like candy on Halloween. And let’s keep one more thing in mind. Myself especially guilty—but we’ve ripped the OL a lot during Poles’ tenure. 2 years ago the bears were ranked 31st. Last year, they were 26th. This year—they’re the 17th ranked OL by PFN. Now with the fucking mess that was the interior OL this past year, they’re still moving in the right direction. No, it’s not a sign they should take the foot off the gas, quite the contrary—they need a new IOL. They’ve gotten better, and I begrudgingly have to give credit to Braxton—but he and wright were a big reason why. PFF had Wright as the 5th ranked RT in 2024, behind Lane Johnson, Brian O’Neil, Zack Tom, and Penei Sewell, based solely on the metrics of pass block win rate, run block win rate, penalties, sacks allowed, and total snaps played. I get PFF is the king of trying to find the granular stat to somehow offset the big picture, but this guy isn’t some bum/bust Poles missed big time on, and it just feels like the consensus is to laugh at the bears for screwing up again—which most of the time they deserve, just not this time. Winning a Super Bowl is a team effort, if you flipped Wright and Carter, the eagles would have another all-pro OT and Carter might have joined Jaylon in the pro bowl. If I had to do it over again, I’d take Wright. NFL Offensive Line Rankings 2024: Insights Into All 32 OLs Entering the Super Bowl Bears' Darnell Wright was among the NFL's best right tackles in 2024
Again, I think the Eagles situation for him was much, much better which is what tips it for me, including former Georgia players he knew to keep his off field issues in check as well. As for the question I dropped like a match and walked away from, I agree with Wright not only because of the situation, but because the Bears have continued to neglect that side of the ball in the trenches, and with Sweat and then the draft of Dexter/Pickens Poles has dropped some draft capital that way already. At the moment though, there's no question Carter is a bigger impact to his team that Wright is for us so it's not super cut and dried.
To support BWW's point about who each player was surrounded by - there were so many plays on tape (I've watched every offensive snap except the last two or three games, because I was just exhausted) where Wright was the only one not completely up his own ass on every play. More importantly, he was often doing the job for the empty-brained guard right next to him. Wright is undoubtedly the best thing on that line, and if he has a competent guard playing next to him, I think we're going to start to see that dominance more often. Also, he had a completely wasted year of development because he had an offensive line coach / coordinator that was actively hurting the team, and he spent most plays having to do the guard's job, too. If we're comparing him to Carter, I still think that Carter's ceiling as a pass rushing DT is higher than Wright's as a RT. However, until this team has an offensive line that can beat a high school freshman pass rush, I will always bang the table to draft more OL. I think we've all been on that same train, year after year, while Poles takes anything but...
