Bears 2024: 5.0 It's Caleb Williams time

[Dresden]

i said it first, but here ya go:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/40052203/should-teams-trade-nfl-draft-lessons-deals-2024-class-winners-losers

"There's one more thorny problem: How should we value future picks? The common trope is to suggest devaluing future picks by one round per year, although I'm not sure that plays out as often in practice as is suggested. (Nobody was offering teams a 2026 first-round pick for their third-rounder last weekend.) From a team perspective, there's no reason current picks should be worth more than future selections; the focus on present value is a product of impatience by general managers who have their jobs riding on the line."

and also by GMs whose jobs AREN'T in immediate danger (poles) but get suckered by opposition GMs who reference the fraudulent "rule"

Is it about impatience or about increasing the championship window right into next season?

could be either! but the bears championship window is certainly not confined to next season (IF the team is actually a contender next season - a defensive regression from the turnover machine at end of last season is a likelihood, as it was in 2019). as things look now the window should only be expanding BEYOND this season

Also, Booker fell.

he did. probably for a reason. the bears valued him more in line with prognosticators than what other teams did. see the "sure, but my team..." section in the article i provided

and even if he IS a legit 3rd round talent, that doesn't explain why poles took a freaking punter in the 4th over him! i don't recall anyone here or in the media advocating for that weird move. despite the bears having a poor punter

We're at the place where we are because of him. Why not respect it?

i'm not going to rehash this, but we're in the optimistic place we are because we have caleb and, to a much lesser extent, odunze. elite talent playing on huge bargain contracts

we have caleb because...

1) poles held onto roquan too long, leading to his starring role in a win over the texans, nearly costing us the #1 pick...but was bailed out by a miracle ending in a season-ender houston inexplicably tried to win (thanks lovie!)

2) poles chose justin fields over bryce and CJ, a reasonable but ultimately incorrect decision. poles and the panthers then made a perfectly reasonable trade from both sides, which it just so happens the panthers lost dreadfully due to bryce and the team being unexpectedly awful (miracle #2). although the end results of the trade might still be open to substantial historical revision given that poles reportedly passed on NEXT year's panthers #1 pick in favor of a WR 1 year into his new contract. now, DJ moore was terrific last season (i though he deserved pro bowl). but if that panthers pick ends up at or near the top again...

we have odunze because the bears pitifully underperformed in the first half of the year (bad offseason/early season prep? poles was at least partially responsible for the eberflus hire). then got lucky in the draft (thanks harbaugh!) despite the panicky sweat addition potentially costing them draft position

so the real question is "why not as a fan just enjoy the reality that the bears (and poles) benefitted from off the charts luck?" poles's grade should be based on how he navigates his incredible good fortune way more than the role he had in making it happen. and thus far i think he's made short-sighted decisions toward that objective (mainly trading picks for established market value performers rather than simply doing the hard evaluation/negotiation work in free agency and saving the picks). he seems to have abandoned the initial long-term planning approach that resulted in his good fortune in favor of instant gratification. claypool, sweat, allen, now booker...

If having young guys on rookie contracts is so valuable, why do most SB winning teams have more veteran squads? I don't know that for a fact, but I would guess that it is true. So at some point, you do want veterans, because they are better at winning football games than young guys are.

So if the Bears think their window of opportunity is now, it makes plenty of sense to at least have some balance on the roster between young guys and veterans.

[HearshotKDS]

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If there an option to trade Herbert for any draft pick, even if its a comp 7th round pick, I think Bears have to do it. Frankly speaking Herbert, who is a good rusher but poor receiver or pass blocker, is the type of back the post CW team doesnt get a lot of value from. Swift/Johnson/Homer is good enough RB room for 2024 and the Bears are going to be looking for a stuf dual threat RB regardless in the 2025 draft anyway.

[fleet]

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good news. here's hoping for a 5th!

Spoiler:

seems very unlikely

Teams don’t give up 5ths for the Herberts of the world. They might for a much more high profile running back that can block and catch. They go the UDFA route way before a 5th imo. 6th or 7th at best unless I am way off.

[Dresden]

and even if he IS a legit 3rd round talent, that doesn't explain why poles took a freaking punter in the 4th over him! i don't recall anyone here or in the media advocating for that weird move. despite the bears having a poor punter

It's been stated that he took Taylor first, with the plan to trade back in to get Booker down the line, because he felt that Taylor would come off the board in the next few picks, while Booker would be available for a trade up later. In which case, he used this year's and next year's 4th to get the two players he wanted in the 4th round. Not ideal, but at least not dreadful.

why would he think that taylor was about to be drafted? or that booker wasn't, for that matter?

That's what Poles said in an interview. You think he's lying?

[Dresden]

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If Caleb and Odunze are humming, and DJ maintains, it will be difficult to resist the money saved by letting him go, and drafting a rookie receiver. His money can go to possible extensions for guys like Tevin Jenkins and DJ.

...and kmet maintains, and waldron's 2 TE-heavy system is a success...then having 3 strong WR options is redundant

should'a saved the pick and cap space and signed a hybrid WR2/WR3. it's not like landing odunze wasn't a 50/50 proposition. now we've got 3 WRs who should all be featured

And if Odunze wasn't there at 9, we're in a bind, down to 1 good WR. No thanks. Having Allen there to help mentor Rome and provide a safety blanket for Caleb will be invaluable. That's why almost every analyst out there praised this move.

[Dresden]

i said it first, but here ya go:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/40052203/should-teams-trade-nfl-draft-lessons-deals-2024-class-winners-losers

"There's one more thorny problem: How should we value future picks? The common trope is to suggest devaluing future picks by one round per year, although I'm not sure that plays out as often in practice as is suggested. (Nobody was offering teams a 2026 first-round pick for their third-rounder last weekend.) From a team perspective, there's no reason current picks should be worth more than future selections; the focus on present value is a product of impatience by general managers who have their jobs riding on the line."

and also by GMs whose jobs AREN'T in immediate danger (poles) but get suckered by opposition GMs who insist on adhering to the fraudulent "rule"

"Don't sacrifice future picks for lesser picks in the current year's draft. If there's any rule an executive should take away from this article, it's this one. Teams can incur the moral hazard of general managers and front office people making decisions that increase their chances of holding on to their jobs at the expense of the organization's long-term viability. Handing out a backloaded deal would be an example of that sort of decision, allowing an executive to build a better team now while restricting a team's spending long after that front office person has likely left the club.

The same holds true for trades in which teams make deals that are obvious losses on paper."

For one thing, this rule generally only gets applied to picks one year out. 90% of all trades of future picks involve trades one year out. So you do often see a 3rd this year swapped for a 2nd next year.

Secondly, teams rarely trade away FRP's. They are pretty much the exception to this rule. So the example given above isn't a good one.

Lastly, this is just one guys opinion, and it flies in the face of what is pretty much generally accepted practices in the NFL. So I don't see any reason to blast Poles for doing what just about every other GM is doing.

And to top it all off, he got what was viewed as a 3rd round talent in the 5th round, so great move, Poles.

[Chi town]

https://www.dabearsblog.com/2024/the-poles-project#more-36679

Jeff delivered.

[Chi town]

If Bears are contenders and Allen gets his catches he will be resigning to get a ring.

[biggestbullsfan]

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[ThisGuyFawkes]

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The downfall of Buffalo begins...

[fleet]

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The downfall of Buffalo begins...

Claypool was more humble and focused under Big Ben. Possible something along those lines can happen under Josh Allen. Or, yeah….

[TheJordanRule]

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The downfall of Buffalo begins...

Claypool was more humble and focused under Big Ben. Possible something along those lines can happen under Josh Allen. Or, yeah….

Looking back, it must've been tough to stay motivated when your QB struggles to read defenses, and was thinking about two other guys way more consistently. Of course, Chase didn't do a great job when he got thrown to, either, so you can hardly blame Justin for the pecking order. This was one of those situations where there was no connection whatsoever between two young guys who needed to learn the new skills on the fly to ever even make that connection possible.

[HearshotKDS]

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The downfall of Buffalo begins...

Claypool was more humble and focused under Big Ben. Possible something along those lines can happen under Josh Allen. Or, yeah….

Smoot would have been a nice 1 year placeholder at DE until Poles could address the position on a more permanent basis in next years draft. Wonder what his contract amount is, he was a decent hand in the dirt DE but did not take well to the 2 point stance heavy duties JAX asked of him this year. Emmanuel Ogbah or Carl Lawson still available and make a ton of sense as guys likely to get 1 year journeyman contracts who are also likely to be better than Ngakoue.

[Chi town]

As Jeff said in todays dabearsblog that I posted…

If Bears are winning and have a shot at contending…
Poles will be making another Sweat type trade to put us over the top.

[Dresden]

I wonder if they'll bring Ngakoue back. He was pretty disappointing, but maybe that was an anomaly.

[nomorezorro]

it was not an anomaly. he's never been particularly good; he's just been opportunistic about racking up sack numbers. awful against the run, doesn't reliably generate pressure

[nomorezorro]

re-signing ngakoue would immediately become a bottom 2 move of poles's tenure to me. absolutely zero reason we should be re-signing a guy who sucked ass for us (and already had a questionable resume when we signed him to begin with)

[fleet]

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If Caleb and Odunze are humming, and DJ maintains, it will be difficult to resist the money saved by letting him go, and drafting a rookie receiver. His money can go to possible extensions for guys like Tevin Jenkins and DJ.

...and kmet maintains, and waldron's 2 TE-heavy system is a success...then having 3 strong WR options is redundant

should'a saved the pick and cap space and signed a hybrid WR2/WR3. it's not like landing odunze wasn't a 50/50 proposition. now we've got 3 WRs who should all be featured

Well according to Pat the Designer, if we let KA go, we will get a 3rd or 4th compensation pick in 25. So, a year rental works out pretty good in that case.

[nomorezorro]

allen can't bring back more than a 5th round comp pick because of his service time, and we only get a comp pick if we lose more qualifying free agents than we sign, which still isn't very likely next year

[Chi town]

re-signing ngakoue would immediately become a bottom 2 move of poles's tenure to me. absolutely zero reason we should be re-signing a guy who sucked ass for us (and already had a questionable resume when we signed him to begin with)

Agreed. Dude sucks. Does nothing.