Bears 2024: 5.0 It's Caleb Williams time

[fleet]

I think it’s pretty convenient to forget that Poles traded for Claypool because he needed a weapon to evaluate Justin properly and not because he was deciding “between tanking and not tanking”

Did the trade work out? no. But let’s not act like we weren’t on a timeline with Justin and why it needed to be done. The same reason why he was adamant about the Panthers including DJ Moore. We needed a weapon to evaluate fields especially since Claypool didn’t work.

gotta say with all due respect, making a bad trade of a valuable asset based on accepting a lot of risk just for the sake of evaluating the quarterback would be among the worst circumstances to make a trade that I can think of. That would be very questionable GM judgment. I think it was mostly just a miss by a GM that is (hopefully) still learning on the job.

[Hold That]

gotta say with all due respect, making a bad trade of a valuable asset based on accepting a lot of risk just for the sake of evaluating the quarterback would be among the worst circumstances to make a trade that I can think of. That would be very questionable GM judgment. I think it was mostly just a miss by a GM that is (hopefully) still learning on the job.

Claypool was considered the best WR on the trade market at the time. Nobody thought it was a terrible trade at the time as they had multiple suitors offering 2nd rounders.

I don’t see it being bad to sacrifice a second rounder to see if you have a guy that’s worth 200+ million dollar contract or if you should move on.

the move did not handicap us otherwise we wouldn’t be in this position today. A position this franchise has NEVER been in I might add. So what are we talking about?

[Dresden]

there is not a single punter in the league that makes 4 mil a season, folks. taking a punter in the middle of the draft absolutely destroys your upside value. kiper put it best when he said that the 4th is the "boom or bust" round. you want as many boom possibilities that you can get. no sense in playing it safe here. especially given an offense that figures to be dominant

Well, Ryan Poles didn't get to be GM because he's stupid. I'm sure this was a group decision between Poles, Eberflus, Ian, and the special teams coach. Apparently, they felt getting a really good punter was worth it.

[HearshotKDS]

there is not a single punter in the league that makes 4 mil a season, folks. taking a punter in the middle of the draft absolutely destroys your upside value. kiper put it best when he said that the 4th is the "boom or bust" round. you want as many boom possibilities that you can get. no sense in playing it safe here. especially given an offense that figures to be dominant

What are you trying to say here? pick 122 makes league minimum per season that ends up being about $4M over the entire length of the contract. There are a ton of reasons to dislike punter in the 4th but salary is objectively not one of the issues. LMK if I missed the context of what that is in response to.

[dice]

That's pretty much the value of a 5th this year- a 4th next year. So he got equal value, and just accelerated the process by a year. What's to complain about?

nonsensical statement. total fallacy. there is no "time value of draft pick" like there is a time value of money. GMs do that **** when their jobs are on the line. THAT's when this year's pick becomes more valuable

GMs tend to value present picks more than future picks because it benefits them personally, not because it benefits the team overall. they are looking for their next contract in a job with a short shelf life

poles has no sense of value and the way he's going he will waste caleb's long-term potential to win super bowls. he's ryan pace redux except he was correct to tear it down when he came in and he thus lucked into caleb. whereas pace's fate was ultimately tied to trubisky

Nutty take imo. To not see how much better poles is than pace is very disappointing. Come to the positive side, dice, time to become a optimistic fan like the rest of us.

again, the one and only notable difference is the initial decision to clean house. and the off-the-charts luck

i'm in the "in caleb i trust" boat right now. i just fear that poles is going to squander his incredible gift

i was optimistic about fields and the team heading into last season (10-7 division winner). i was not rewarded for that optimism.
but you'll see more short-term optimism when i make my too-early 2024 season prognostication shortly!

[Dresden]

trading next years 4th for a 5th reeks of a guy who thinks his job is on the line this season. not a guy who should expect to be around a long time

use THIS year's 4th on the guy if you like him so much. save next year's 4th and skip the punter. christ

That's pretty much the value of a 5th this year- a 4th next year. So he got equal value, and just accelerated the process by a year. What's to complain about?

nonsensical statement. total fallacy. there is no "time value of draft pick" like there is a time value of money. GMs do that **** when their jobs are on the line. THAT's when this year's pick becomes more valuable

GMs tend to value present picks more than future picks because it benefits them personally, not because it benefits the team overall. they are looking for their next contract in a job with a short shelf life

poles has no sense of value and the way he's going he will waste caleb's long-term potential to win super bowls. he's ryan pace redux except he was correct to tear it down when he came in and he thus lucked into caleb. whereas pace's fate was ultimately tied to trubisky

You may think it's a fallacy, but that's what pretty much everyone else thinks- you subtract one round for each year in the future the draft pick is you're giving up.

Poles is trying to put the team in a position to win in the near future. He likely thinks having a better punter could mean the difference between a win and a loss or two this coming season- maybe the difference between making the playoffs or not.

[Dresden]

nonsensical statement. total fallacy. there is no "time value of draft pick" like there is a time value of money. GMs do that **** when their jobs are on the line. THAT's when this year's pick becomes more valuable

GMs tend to value present picks more than future picks because it benefits them personally, not because it benefits the team overall. they are looking for their next contract in a job with a short shelf life

poles has no sense of value and the way he's going he will waste caleb's long-term potential to win super bowls. he's ryan pace redux except he was correct to tear it down when he came in and he thus lucked into caleb. whereas pace's fate was ultimately tied to trubisky

Kind of a harsh take, even for you dice. Poles has been one of the best GMs in the league since he took over. He and his staff are being methodical. If Taylor gives us an all pro punter for a decade that helps the defense by pinning the opponent inside the 20 consistently then we have a winning pick.

he WILL be a terrific punter. who probably won't be punting much. you don't use a 4th rounder on that! people were saying the exact same thing about sauerbrun, btw. he was disappointing here for 5 seasons, somehow adding 3 yards to his avg. after he left and becoming an all pro

poles's next contract extension will be due to a stupifying series of events:

1) he inexplicably holds onto roquan until midway through the season
2) during that time, roquan plays a major role in the bears beating...the texans! putting them in the driver's seat for the #1 pick
3) lovie and a miracle finish in week 17 gifts the #1 pick to the bears
4) poles bets on justin rather than taking stroud, figuring that he can reasonably pivot to a mccarthy/penix type in the next draft...and maybe get really lucky
5) another miracle happens. but this miracle left him with no real follow-up decisions

i was one of the only people defending poles when things were in the toilet last season. despite the obviously bad claypool trade, which further threatened to cost us the #1 pick in 2023 (if he happened to play a major role in another win). but the shortsighted sweat trade made it clear that he had no idea what he was doing when it comes to building a sustainable contender. and he has kept right on doing it

You lose all credibility with me with a statement like that.

[NesimLE]

nonsensical statement. total fallacy. there is no "time value of draft pick" like there is a time value of money. GMs do that **** when their jobs are on the line. THAT's when this year's pick becomes more valuable

GMs tend to value present picks more than future picks because it benefits them personally, not because it benefits the team overall. they are looking for their next contract in a job with a short shelf life

poles has no sense of value and the way he's going he will waste caleb's long-term potential to win super bowls. he's ryan pace redux except he was correct to tear it down when he came in and he thus lucked into caleb. whereas pace's fate was ultimately tied to trubisky

Nutty take imo. To not see how much better poles is than pace is very disappointing. Come to the positive side, dice, time to become a optimistic fan like the rest of us.

again, the one and only notable difference is the initial decision to clean house. and the off-the-charts luck

i'm in the "in caleb i trust" boat right now. i just fear that poles is going to squander his incredible gift

i was optimistic about fields and the team heading into last season (10-7 division winner). i was not rewarded for that optimism.
but you'll see more short-term optimism when i make my too-early 2024 season prognostication shortly!

If you want a nightmare, imagine the reality where John Fox is returning in 2024 with his 5th offensive coordinator to try to get more out of Mahomes. Who has a career record of 57-50 after 7 seasons in Chicago. One playoff win. We didn't have a first or a second in this draft, cuz Pace traded them (and a future 1st and 2nd) to Denver for Surtain.

[Dresden]

Trading future capital could be plausible, you'd have to again consult the board, the roster, and what the next class looks like. The higher the value of the pick you're trading, the less likely it is that you're getting more value (or even equal value) than you could get by staying put and drafting there in the future. This year's 2nd was stacked, and we missed that opportunity, which is obviously not great lol. So yeah, the circumstances to move a future 2nd or 3rd are a lot tougher to find than the ones to move a future 4th or 5th. As an individual I don't know where that line is, but hopefully the organization has it mapped out more rigorously than gut feel or present bias. Because as you note, guys fall every year, and you need a systematic approach to put you in the best opportunity to capitalize when it happens.

we'll see how it all looks in retrospect. here's the first fruits of poles's strategy:

joey porter jr. was expected to go in the middle of the 1st round last year. the bears needed a corner. he fell out of the first round and the steelers nabbed him...with the pick the bears gave up for claypool. porter had a good rookie season

poles clearly felt that booker's value fell somewhere between 122 (punter) and 144. that's not a big difference at that stage of the draft. and i find it hard to believe that one draft differs much from another talent-wise when you get to that point in the draft

Poles detractors will be talking about Chase claypool for a 2nd rounder for the next 4-5 seasons.


If that’s been his biggest mistake thus far we’re in very good shape in comparison to other regimes.


Despite us getting Stevenson the NEXT ROUND who cares about Porter Jr. when we got someone arguably better.

Look at the total return we got for Bryce Young, and then tell me Poles is a lousy GM:

Darnell Wright, Stevenson, DJ Moore, Caleb Williams, and 2025 2nd round pick.

That trade alone has vaulted us from just another team trying to rebuild, to one of the most promising young rosters in the league.

[Dresden]

I think it’s pretty convenient to forget that Poles traded for Claypool because he needed a weapon to evaluate Justin properly and not because he was deciding “between tanking and not tanking”

Did the trade work out? no. But let’s not act like we weren’t on a timeline with Justin and why it needed to be done. The same reason why he was adamant about the Panthers including DJ Moore. We needed a weapon to evaluate fields especially since Claypool didn’t work.

Exactly. Everyone was crying about how Fields had no weapons, so the pressure was on Poles to get some, which he did. Not all deals work out. The rationale was sound.

[dice]

there is not a single punter in the league that makes 4 mil a season, folks. taking a punter in the middle of the draft absolutely destroys your upside value. kiper put it best when he said that the 4th is the "boom or bust" round. you want as many boom possibilities that you can get. no sense in playing it safe here. especially given an offense that figures to be dominant

What are you trying to say here? pick 122 makes league minimum per season that ends up being about $4M over the entire length of the contract. There are a ton of reasons to dislike punter in the 4th but salary is objectively not one of the issues. LMK if I missed the context of what that is in response to.

there's nothing a human punter can do to justify a 4th round selection. because the role is simply too small and inconsequential. as evidenced by their salaries. as evidenced by the small difference league-wide in starting field position. if the bears offense was the hawkeyes offense it would be different. this is a bad idea in a vacuum, but it's especially bad given offensive profile

you win in a hard capped league by cumulative performance above salary. a great punter at the minimum, despite the negligible bust potential here, doesn't do much to achieve that objective

the best teams are generally the ones with the best QBs (greatly underpaid) and the most consequential players on rookie deals

barring disaster the bears will be punting under 4 times a game. and disproportionately from close to midfield, where the value of a big leg is diluted

[Dresden]

I think it’s pretty convenient to forget that Poles traded for Claypool because he needed a weapon to evaluate Justin properly and not because he was deciding “between tanking and not tanking”

Did the trade work out? no. But let’s not act like we weren’t on a timeline with Justin and why it needed to be done. The same reason why he was adamant about the Panthers including DJ Moore. We needed a weapon to evaluate fields especially since Claypool didn’t work.

gotta say with all due respect, making a bad trade of a valuable asset based on accepting a lot of risk just for the sake of evaluating the quarterback would be among the worst circumstances to make a trade that I can think of. That would be very questionable GM judgment. I think it was mostly just a miss by a GM that is (hopefully) still learning on the job.

What is more important than evaluating your QB position, to know what you need to do in the offseason? We needed WR's, period. The draft was thought to be weak at that position that year. Poles saw the chance to get a promising young, big, fast WR during the season, to help out his young QB.

[fleet]

Poles is objectively doing a good job. While he has done some things that annoy the **** outa me, he also has the luck of the devil, and has above average draft judgment. This all could’ve gone more sideways, but the reality is that NFL owners look at the bottom line.

[HearshotKDS]

there is not a single punter in the league that makes 4 mil a season, folks. taking a punter in the middle of the draft absolutely destroys your upside value. kiper put it best when he said that the 4th is the "boom or bust" round. you want as many boom possibilities that you can get. no sense in playing it safe here. especially given an offense that figures to be dominant

What are you trying to say here? pick 122 makes league minimum per season that ends up being about $4M over the entire length of the contract. There are a ton of reasons to dislike punter in the 4th but salary is objectively not one of the issues. LMK if I missed the context of what that is in response to.

there's nothing a human punter can do to justify a 4th round selection. because the role is simply too small and inconsequential. as evidenced by their salaries. as evidenced by the small difference league-wide in starting field position. if the bears offense was the hawkeyes offense it would be different. this is a bad idea in a vacuum, but it's especially bad given offensive profile

you win in a hard capped league by cumulative performance above salary. a great punter at the minimum, despite the negligible bust potential here, doesn't do much to achieve that objective

the best teams are generally the ones with the best QBs (greatly underpaid) and the most consequential players on rookie deals

barring disaster the bears will be punting under 4 times a game

Ok I dont necessarily disagree with your point its just the $4M a season line seems to come out of nowhere.

[dice]

gotta say with all due respect, making a bad trade of a valuable asset based on accepting a lot of risk just for the sake of evaluating the quarterback would be among the worst circumstances to make a trade that I can think of. That would be very questionable GM judgment. I think it was mostly just a miss by a GM that is (hopefully) still learning on the job.

Claypool was considered the best WR on the trade market at the time. Nobody thought it was a terrible trade at the time as they had multiple suitors offering 2nd rounders.

again, the bears were tanking. not all 2nd rounders are created equal. and tanking teams should not be adding talent mid-season

plenty of people questioned the trade at the time for the above obvious reasons. not to mention the high cost

[dice]

What are you trying to say here? pick 122 makes league minimum per season that ends up being about $4M over the entire length of the contract. There are a ton of reasons to dislike punter in the 4th but salary is objectively not one of the issues. LMK if I missed the context of what that is in response to.

there's nothing a human punter can do to justify a 4th round selection. because the role is simply too small and inconsequential. as evidenced by their salaries. as evidenced by the small difference league-wide in starting field position. if the bears offense was the hawkeyes offense it would be different. this is a bad idea in a vacuum, but it's especially bad given offensive profile

you win in a hard capped league by cumulative performance above salary. a great punter at the minimum, despite the negligible bust potential here, doesn't do much to achieve that objective

the best teams are generally the ones with the best QBs (greatly underpaid) and the most consequential players on rookie deals

barring disaster the bears will be punting under 4 times a game

Ok I dont necessarily disagree with your point its just the $4M a season line seems to come out of nowhere.

it's evidence that punters aren't valued much

[NesimLE]

Isn't the fact that punters are very underpaid a way to get almost free marginal value under the cap? That actually goes for special teams performance in general...every ounce you can squeeze out in the "third phase" is basically free since it comes down to underpaid kickers, punters, and return guys, plus coaching/culture.

[Dresden]

Poles is objectively doing a good job. While he has done some things that annoy the **** outa me, he also has the luck of the devil, and has above average draft judgment. This all could’ve gone more sideways, but the reality is that NFL owners look at the bottom line.

Poles has to be one of the early leaders to be GM of the Year, either this year or next, if the team lives up to expectations.

[Kurt Heimlich]

Poles is objectively doing a good job. While he has done some things that annoy the **** outa me, but he also has the luck of the devil, and has above average draft judgment. This all could’ve gone more sideways, but the reality is that NFL owners look at the bottom line.

Claypool trade, Velus Jones draft pick (everyone misses on draft picks so this one feels like a nit) and the JF1 trade are the biggest complaints with Poles right? I guess there are some who still don't like the Sweat deal too because of the money that also had to be committed. I'm not there on that one though, Sweat was a total game changer on this defense at our most critical need. He could underperform going forward I suppose (this applies to literally everyone), but as of now that deal felt like a hit to me.

So really, if we just ban Poles from trading with Omar Kahn/the Steelers then like 80% of our concerns with Poles immediately go away

[dice]

Poles is objectively doing a good job. While he has done some things that annoy the **** outa me, he also has the luck of the devil, and has above average draft judgment. This all could’ve gone more sideways, but the reality is that NFL owners look at the bottom line.

a good team can have a bad GM and vice-versa. even in the long term depending on the QB. there's really nothing objective about grading a GM unless you were to have at least many decades of team results