OT Bears 2019/20 season and beyond

[Susan]

Robert Quinn was by far the biggest money deal.

Jimmy got $9M guaranteed on a two year $16M deal. Greg Olsen got $5.5M of a $7M deal for one year.

My bad forgot about Quinn.

That Olsen deal is much better than the Graham deal. Less guaranteed, less years, better performance last year.

Calling $21M guaranteed for a QB expensive is silly. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/chicago-bears/nick-foles-9898/

Again, it's not an insane value deal but Foles is a Super Bowl MVP, he's won multiple playoff games and he's got deep relationships with our coaching staff. If we slightly overpaid to get him over Andy Dalton (who's never won a playoff game and doesn't have the relationship with our staff) I'm not about to say it's second worst offseason in the NFL.

The Packers literally traded up to pick a QB with 17 INTs when they have Aaron Rodgers. If this offseaon goes poorly they're on the hook for $3M for Jimmy and traded a 4th to have Foles be our backup for $8M over the next two years. Hardly anything whereas the Packers traded up to piss off their franchise player and drafted a RB in the 2nd when Aaron Jones has been really good.

[Chicago-Bull-E]

Regarding no fans in the stands, what is the feasibility of just have every third chair sold? It’s a ticketing nightmare, sure, but you’d fill a third of the stands, can claim proper social distancing (heck one aisle can even be for going up, the other aisle on the other side of each seating section for going down). You’ll still get a good chunk of fan noise, and can do temperature testing at the entrances.

It may look a little weird on tv, but teams get their tv money and a portion of ticket sales

[dice]

Regarding no fans in the stands, what is the feasibility of just have every third chair sold? It’s a ticketing nightmare, sure, but you’d fill a third of the stands, can claim proper social distancing (heck one aisle can even be for going up, the other aisle on the other side of each seating section for going down). You’ll still get a good chunk of fan noise, and can do temperature testing at the entrances.

It may look a little weird on tv, but teams get their tv money and a portion of ticket sales

it would require selling only every 4th seat to maintain 6 feet of social distancing in a particular row. then you'd have to skip every other row. so right there alone you can only sell 1/8 of the normal amount of tickets. PLUS you'd have to have military level precision to get people into and out of their seats, both entering/exiting the stadium and for bathroom/concession breaks

having fans in seats in 2020 just doesn't seem at all realistic if public health is more than a token consideration

[dice]

ESPN ranked the off-seasons of all 32 teams:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29180831/ranking-2020-nfl-offseasons-worst-first-barnwell-all-32-teams#CHI

31. Chicago Bears
What went right: Offensive tackle Germain Ifedi didn't live up to expectations as a first-round pick for Seattle, but the Bears were able to sign the oft-penalized lineman to a one-year deal for just over $1 million, which is good value for a solid run-blocker. They will try Ifedi at guard as a replacement for the retired Kyle Long. General manager Ryan Pace also took the first steps out of the Mitchell Trubisky business, declining the quarterback's fifth-year option while bringing in Nick Foles to compete for a starting job. While Robert Quinn's five-year, $70 million deal is expensive, it's for a player for whom ESPN's pass rush win rate analysis suggests was the most effective pass-rusher in the league over the past two seasons. I also liked the flier Chicago took on former Steelers first-round corner Artie Burns.

What went wrong: Despite the fact that Foles' contract was a disaster for the Jaguars, the Bears sent a fourth-round pick to acquire him and didn't force the Jags to eat any of the money, instead restructuring $21 million in guarantees to come due over the next three seasons. Foles could work out as the team's starter, but this is the equivalent of signing an expensive three-year gym membership as a college senior. There couldn't have been much of a market for Foles, and Andy Dalton, who was cut by the Bengals after the draft, came without the pick or significant cash attached.

The Jimmy Graham deal was likely the worst contract of free agency, as a Bears team that had already committed significant assets to tight ends Dion Sims, Adam Shaheen and Trey Burton under Pace gave Graham a two-year, $16 million deal with $9 million guaranteed and a truly inexplicable no-trade clause. Graham can't block, and he was anonymous during his time with the Packers. Chicago needed three voidable years to re-sign linebacker Danny Trevathan on a three-year, $21.8 million deal, which is like taking out a loan so you can help pay for that gym membership. There are still questions about what this team has at wide receiver and in the secondary, where it will likely need second-rounder Jaylon Johnson to start as a rookie.

Hard to argue with anything here. Will hope the guys they got play better than expectations, because on paper, this off-season was awful.

the way it's structured the foles deal is completely reasonable in a vacuum. i just don't like the idea of paying 2 QBs while cash-strapped. should've just rolled w/ trubisky and hoped for the best and spent less on a backup, allowing some other starting position to be bolstered

[dougthonus]

Calling $21M guaranteed for a QB expensive is silly. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/chicago-bears/nick-foles-9898/

Again, it's not an insane value deal but Foles is a Super Bowl MVP, he's won multiple playoff games and he's got deep relationships with our coaching staff. If we slightly overpaid to get him over Andy Dalton (who's never won a playoff game and doesn't have the relationship with our staff) I'm not about to say it's second worst offseason in the NFL.

21M for a backup quality QB that is dicey when it is a question as to whether he is an improvement at all over your incumbent. Especially when resources are very limited and you were bottom 3rd of the league (and probably near the absolute bottom) in offensive skill players last year.

I'd expect the offense to come back this year and be similarly poor to last last year. Not a huge football expert or anything, but it seems like they lost some solid defensive players and picked one up as well. Defense could go either way, but hopefully health brings it back to an elite level and may be more impactful than the roster moves one way or the other.

I don't think the Bears offense is any better this year, whether their season is better will hinge most likely on the defense going back to an elite level.

[dougthonus]

the way it's structured the foles deal is completely reasonable in a vacuum. i just don't like the idea of paying 2 QBs while cash-strapped. should've just rolled w/ trubisky and hoped for the best and spent less on a backup, allowing some other starting position to be bolstered

The total cash outlay to QB is not high, but I agree that to me the fundamental problem is you had few resources and spent a pretty huge chunk to bring in a QB that's of similar quality to the one you had. It probably mitigates your risk of having a god awful season but also minimizes your upside.

Bears best chance to win a super bowl was to double down on Trubisky and make meaningful upgrades on offense around him with that money instead. It also was a good chance that would kill you too, but the upside with Foles is really limited IMO.

Hope I'm wrong and that in our system Foles goes back to lightning in a bottle superbowl Foles, but I don't see that as overly likely. His body of work is pretty large to think that's what you're going to get on a consistent basis.

[molepharmer]

Calling $21M guaranteed for a QB expensive is silly. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/chicago-bears/nick-foles-9898/

Again, it's not an insane value deal but Foles is a Super Bowl MVP, he's won multiple playoff games and he's got deep relationships with our coaching staff. If we slightly overpaid to get him over Andy Dalton (who's never won a playoff game and doesn't have the relationship with our staff) I'm not about to say it's second worst offseason in the NFL.

21M for a backup quality QB that is dicey when it is a question as to whether he is an improvement at all over your incumbent. Especially when resources are very limited and you were bottom 3rd of the league (and probably near the absolute bottom) in offensive skill players last year. ....

There was a ranking from The Athletic (has a paywall) of the QB's support system (i.e. RB, WR, TE, O-line starters).

"...Last week, The Athletic’s Mike Sando analyzed the support systems that quarterbacks have based on the Pro Bowl talent around them over the past four seasons.

It’s an imperfect science but the results for most teams — including the Bears — do match the eye test.

According to Sando’s analysis, the Bears are tied at 28th with the Dolphins, Lions, Jaguars and Jets when it comes to “quarterback support systems.” That’s bad company.

If you do the math, that means they’re all tied for last in the NFL....."

They also ranked teams if you included the Pro Bowl replacement player starts. Bears were 22nd when including those starts (Whitehair, Cohen, etc).

[Susan]

the way it's structured the foles deal is completely reasonable in a vacuum. i just don't like the idea of paying 2 QBs while cash-strapped. should've just rolled w/ trubisky and hoped for the best and spent less on a backup, allowing some other starting position to be bolstered

The total cash outlay to QB is not high, but I agree that to me the fundamental problem is you had few resources and spent a pretty huge chunk to bring in a QB that's of similar quality to the one you had. It probably mitigates your risk of having a god awful season but also minimizes your upside.

Bears best chance to win a super bowl was to double down on Trubisky and make meaningful upgrades on offense around him with that money instead. It also was a good chance that would kill you too, but the upside with Foles is really limited IMO.

Hope I'm wrong and that in our system Foles goes back to lightning in a bottle superbowl Foles, but I don't see that as overly likely. His body of work is pretty large to think that's what you're going to get on a consistent basis.

Foles has some ridiculous peaks in his NFL career and some bad lows. I don't know how you look at his career and say "YES, I know what I'm going to get this season from Nick Foles.

He's got 1 year with 27TDs and 2INTs while going 8-2 as the starter. He's got another year where he threw for 323 yards/game, 6 TDs and 1 INT to win the Super Bowl. The following year he was pretty good again in the playoffs and won a playoff road game and was on the verge of another GWD when Alshon tipped up an INT to end the game against the Saints.

The upside of Foles has been shown. 27 TDs, 2INTs in one year. Super Bowl MVP in a different year.

Overall, Foles has 71 TDS, 35 INTs in his career. Not sure how having Foles around minimizes upside when he's had some freaking magical runs in the NFL.

[Jeffster81]

The off-season is not 2nd worst in the NFL, imo. I don't love it but these media outlets are overblowning it. Hades, Cleveland had a grand slam of an off-season before 2019 and look at how their season unfolded.

I would put the Bears off-season in the bottom third not second worst.

I can say their two biggest moves money wise were Graham and Foles (and they gave up a 4th for Foles) and those both look like horrible value.

What looks like good or bad value today may not look like that once the season starts, but on paper their off-season is really bad. I don't know that I'd argue too much about putting a ranking on it exactly one way or the other.

Yes the off-season has not been good but second worst bad? I disagree with that narrative. Both Graham and Foles both could/should be free agents after the year and if they are then that probably means good news for the Bears at least it would Foles played well enough to think he could start for another team and decides to test the market. So it's not like they are long-term problems.

My main concern is NOT the contracts. There are ways to deal with those, my conern is Nagy/Pace getting the opportunity to pick another QB for 2021. They missed on Glennon and Trubisky, Daniel was just blah. Tyler Bray is practice squad. Nick Foles is a transitional QB.

[transplant]

Just about everyone I've heard or read says Foles is the starter. He's an average NFL QB. The belief of many is that the Bears offense with an average QB is a playoff contender (because Trubisky was dragging them down). I haven't given up on Trubisky, but I'm fine with the best QB playing, and if Foles sets the floor at average and if average is the best we can get, let's go to war with an average QB.

[dougthonus]

Yes the off-season has not been good but second worst bad? I disagree with that narrative. Both Graham and Foles both could/should be free agents after the year and if they are then that probably means good news for the Bears at least it would Foles played well enough to think he could start for another team and decides to test the market. So it's not like they are long-term problems.

My main concern is NOT the contracts. There are ways to deal with those, my conern is Nagy/Pace getting the opportunity to pick another QB for 2021. They missed on Glennon and Trubisky, Daniel was just blah. Tyler Bray is practice squad. Nick Foles is a transitional QB.

Arguing about whether they had the worst or 10th worst offseason is sort of irrelevant. Some national writer put them in some order.
I don't know that the Bears solved a single problem from last year's team which is why I think they had a poor off-season.

The best hope I have for them is that Foles plays way better than he has recently and that the team is healthier than last year. I don't know that they really upgraded anywhere though and will largely be hoping for existing pieces to play better than last season.

They didn't have a lot to work with due to the Mack trade. I wonder if Bears fans would take that one back right now. I know I would. Of course, I said that at the time too. It looked like a nice trade for one year, but we never built on that success, and now the team looks capped out and average. Maybe that's better than being lousy and flexible of course and it was at least really exciting for that brief period where Trubisky looked like he might be an NFL quality starter.

I thought at the time it was the type of gamble you make if you think you're ready to win, and I didn't believe they were. The 2018 Bears looked like they would prove me wrong. The 2019 Bears look like they will prove me right. I hope the 2020 Bears make me look like an idiot.

[Red Larrivee]

Nothing about the Bears reality changed after the offseason.

- They had an elite defense last season and still have one now.
- They had one of the worst offenses last season and still have one of the worst offenses now.
- They had one of the worst starting QBs last season and still have one (to a lesser degree) now

As usual, the Bears will be hoping that their offense can do just enough to not waste an elite defense. The problem is that nobody knows the identiy of this team's offense. They don't run the ball well, they don't pass well, their offensive line isn't highly talented or good, their TE play is still mediocre at best, and there is only one playmaker that any team gives a damn about in Allen Robinson.

This still looks like a 9-7, 8-8, 7-9 type of team.

I'm nto sure what the long-term strategy is. It's dfficult to stay afloat in the NFL without a good starting QB, and the Bears are paying one bad one and one mediocre one in a loaded NFC. They're not awful and they're not contenders; we're just middling on paper.

[dice]

the way it's structured the foles deal is completely reasonable in a vacuum. i just don't like the idea of paying 2 QBs while cash-strapped. should've just rolled w/ trubisky and hoped for the best and spent less on a backup, allowing some other starting position to be bolstered

The total cash outlay to QB is not high, but I agree that to me the fundamental problem is you had few resources and spent a pretty huge chunk to bring in a QB that's of similar quality to the one you had. It probably mitigates your risk of having a god awful season but also minimizes your upside.

Bears best chance to win a super bowl was to double down on Trubisky and make meaningful upgrades on offense around him with that money instead. It also was a good chance that would kill you too, but the upside with Foles is really limited IMO.

Hope I'm wrong and that in our system Foles goes back to lightning in a bottle superbowl Foles, but I don't see that as overly likely. His body of work is pretty large to think that's what you're going to get on a consistent basis.

Foles has some ridiculous peaks in his NFL career and some bad lows. I don't know how you look at his career and say "YES, I know what I'm going to get this season from Nick Foles.

He's got 1 year with 27TDs and 2INTs while going 8-2 as the starter. He's got another year where he threw for 323 yards/game, 6 TDs and 1 INT to win the Super Bowl. The following year he was pretty good again in the playoffs and won a playoff road game and was on the verge of another GWD when Alshon tipped up an INT to end the game against the Saints.

The upside of Foles has been shown. 27 TDs, 2INTs in one year. Super Bowl MVP in a different year.

Overall, Foles has 71 TDS, 35 INTs in his career. Not sure how having Foles around minimizes upside when he's had some freaking magical runs in the NFL.

trubisky's career has been even more variable. you don't know what you're gonna get with either one of them. although it's more likely that trubisky's pro bowl year was a fluke. either way, on the whole we can't expect that foles is anything more than a minor upgrade. which had to be paid for

[dice]

- They had an elite defense last season and still have one now.

it was elite 2 seasons ago because of the 27 interceptions, easily leading the league. down to 10 last season (near bottom of league), making the defense merely good. by and large same personnel. so was the defense of 2 seasons ago even fundamentally elite or was it a fluke outlier due to the inherent random variation involved with turnovers? guess we'll find out more this season



that's an average of 1 team win created by every 4 takeaways. bears had 17 less takeaways (entirely due to interceptions) and 4 less wins. par for the course. though the offense declined somewhat as well

[Susan]

The total cash outlay to QB is not high, but I agree that to me the fundamental problem is you had few resources and spent a pretty huge chunk to bring in a QB that's of similar quality to the one you had. It probably mitigates your risk of having a god awful season but also minimizes your upside.

Bears best chance to win a super bowl was to double down on Trubisky and make meaningful upgrades on offense around him with that money instead. It also was a good chance that would kill you too, but the upside with Foles is really limited IMO.

Hope I'm wrong and that in our system Foles goes back to lightning in a bottle superbowl Foles, but I don't see that as overly likely. His body of work is pretty large to think that's what you're going to get on a consistent basis.

Foles has some ridiculous peaks in his NFL career and some bad lows. I don't know how you look at his career and say "YES, I know what I'm going to get this season from Nick Foles.

He's got 1 year with 27TDs and 2INTs while going 8-2 as the starter. He's got another year where he threw for 323 yards/game, 6 TDs and 1 INT to win the Super Bowl. The following year he was pretty good again in the playoffs and won a playoff road game and was on the verge of another GWD when Alshon tipped up an INT to end the game against the Saints.

The upside of Foles has been shown. 27 TDs, 2INTs in one year. Super Bowl MVP in a different year.

Overall, Foles has 71 TDS, 35 INTs in his career. Not sure how having Foles around minimizes upside when he's had some freaking magical runs in the NFL.

trubisky's career has been even more variable. you don't know what you're gonna get with either one of them. although it's more likely that trubisky's pro bowl year was a fluke. either way, on the whole we can't expect that foles is anything more than a minor upgrade. which had to be paid for

Trubisky's biggest win was a game against the Rams in the regular season where he played like crap. Foles outdualed the GOAT in the Super Bowl. Trubisky had a good game against the Bucs and threw for 6 TDs, Foles went out had a 27-2 TD-INT ratio across 13 games.

Trubisky's peak doesn't touch Foles. Foles' issue has been more injuries than anything. Trubisky has been steadily meh his career here.

[dice]

Foles has some ridiculous peaks in his NFL career and some bad lows. I don't know how you look at his career and say "YES, I know what I'm going to get this season from Nick Foles.

He's got 1 year with 27TDs and 2INTs while going 8-2 as the starter. He's got another year where he threw for 323 yards/game, 6 TDs and 1 INT to win the Super Bowl. The following year he was pretty good again in the playoffs and won a playoff road game and was on the verge of another GWD when Alshon tipped up an INT to end the game against the Saints.

The upside of Foles has been shown. 27 TDs, 2INTs in one year. Super Bowl MVP in a different year.

Overall, Foles has 71 TDS, 35 INTs in his career. Not sure how having Foles around minimizes upside when he's had some freaking magical runs in the NFL.

trubisky's career has been even more variable. you don't know what you're gonna get with either one of them. although it's more likely that trubisky's pro bowl year was a fluke. either way, on the whole we can't expect that foles is anything more than a minor upgrade. which had to be paid for

Foles outdualed the GOAT in the Super Bowl.

no he didn't. not only did brady throw the ball more effectively, setting a super bowl record for pass yards w/ no INTs, but he did it against a much better pass defense. the pats gave up a lot of passing yards that year

but the eagles did win the game!

Trubisky's biggest win was a game against the Rams in the regular season where he played like crap.

so he gets penalized in the "biggest win" contest...because his team happened to win in a game that he played poorly?

this is what happens when you conflate individual performance w/ team performance

the more appropriate comparison, if we're going to boil careers down to single games, would be most impressive performance overall. in which case for trubisky would be when he "outdueled" dak prescott in a big game last season

and by the way...trubisky had a better rating than foles when they went head-to-head in the playoff game (although foles was facing a fearsome bears D), including taking them into game winning FG range in the last minute

Trubisky had a good game against the Bucs and threw for 6 TDs, Foles went out had a 27-2 TD-INT ratio across 13 games.

Trubisky's peak doesn't touch Foles. Foles' issue has been more injuries than anything. Trubisky has been steadily meh his career here.

can't argue with that

[dougthonus]

Trubisky's biggest win was a game against the Rams in the regular season where he played like crap. Foles outdualed the GOAT in the Super Bowl.

Yeah, Foles magical playoff run was great. It's just that he's been pretty poor outside of that for six years. That's a lot of sample size of "very average" to a small, but timed perfectly, sample size of great.

Foles went out had a 27-2 TD-INT ratio across 13 games.

I think it's completely irrelevant what Foles did 7 years ago. Information loses value with age. You can go back 2 years ago and say Trubisky had a QBR of 70.8 which is just a shade off of Foles best QBR of 71.4 from 7 years ago. Trubisky has had the best recent season in terms of performance.

Trubisky has actually played at a higher statistical level more recently than Foles has.

Trubisky's peak doesn't touch Foles. Foles' issue has been more injuries than anything. Trubisky has been steadily meh his career here.

Most people will throw out any stats that are older than three years old. If you do that with both players, then Trubisky has had a better regular season performance more recently than Foles. Foles had a magical playoff run that lead to a title. Both have been pretty lousy most of the time, both have had injury problems and present significant injury risk going forward.

I felt the Bears had one of the worst QB situations in the NFL before Foles and think they still have one of the worst in the NFL after Foles. The fact that they're among the worst in the NFL in players around the QB means that neither is in position to succeed either.

[dougthonus]

that's an average of 1 team win created by every 4 takeaways. bears had 17 less takeaways (entirely due to interceptions) and 4 less wins. par for the course. though the offense declined somewhat as well

You can argue that losing Hicks hurt the pass rush a lot last year which gave QBs a lot more time and lowered the number of mistakes you were likely to pressure them into.

If you want to have hope as a Bears fan then I think it comes in the form of Quinn being added and Hicks being back. The Bears could be set up for an absolutely monster pass rush this year and completely dominate the point of attack on defense. If so, that's likely to lead to a spike in turnovers.

[Susan]

I'm not really sure what you two want.

Foles has a statistical run that's pretty freaking rare. He's got a Super Bowl MVP victory over Brady. We have no idea what Foles will bring. He was brilliant in 2013, he was 6-2 as a starter before he broke his collarbone in 2014, got traded to STL where he sucked with
no legit WRs, left there and was a backup in KC followed by Philly where he was 7-2 as a starter and happened to win a Super Bowl/Super Bowl MVP and the following year won a road playoff game against Trubsiky and our dominant defense.

Here's the list of players

Dude's career is weird but his peaks are about as high as it gets in the NFL. To say "Bears best chance to win a super bowl was to double down on Trubisky" and then ignore Foles' peak is just a weird take. Trubisky's peak doesn't touch Foles from either a team accomplishment standpoint or a statistical peak standpoint.

I have no idea what Foles is going to bring this season and to pretend like you do would be foolish. Dude's been all over the place in his career. If he's healthy and the defense is rolling, this is a really good team.

[dougthonus]

I'm not really sure what you two want.

I don't know that the Bears could have done much, certainly not at QB. They went all in earlier and now live with the constraints on resources they had. I think their draft was lousy, it looks like they massively reached for a TE and also used up a ton of cap room to overpay a TE on the market, and going into the season, I'm not confident that they'll actually be all that much better at TE despite using a ton of resources to shore up the position.

On QB, they also used a lot of resources given that it took a good amount of their remaining cap room and a fourth rounder. So probably what I would have liked to see more is to use all the cap room and pick they spent Foles/Graham to instead upgrade the offensive line / running backs / WRs. Probably wouldn't have drafted their TE either.

If you do that instead, then I think Trubisky stands as good a chance as being solid as Foles does. I know the world would have hated committing to Trubisky another year, and in many ways, so would I. I just don't think Foles was a big enough upgrade given that the talent around him is so poor.

Foles has a statistical run that's pretty freaking rare. He's got a Super Bowl MVP victory over Brady. We have no idea what Foles will bring. He was brilliant in 2013, he was 6-2 as a starter before he broke his collarbone in 2014, got traded to STL where he sucked with no legit WRs, left there and was a backup in KC followed by Philly where he was 7-2 as a starter and happened to win a Super Bowl/Super Bowl MVP and the following year won a road playoff game against Trubsiky and our dominant defense.

2013 is totally irrelevant. It's not even worth bringing up.
2017/18 playoff run was great, but he wasn't super special in the regular season.
2018 season was solid before getting hurt.
2019 he was awful and lost his job to someone awful

Dude's career is weird but his peaks are about as high as it gets in the NFL. To say "Bears best chance to win a super bowl was to double down on Trubisky" and then ignore Foles' peak is just a weird take. Trubisky's peak doesn't touch Foles from either a team accomplishment standpoint or a statistical peak standpoint.

He's not had a good full season in the NFL for seven years.

I have no idea what Foles is going to bring this season and to pretend like you do would be foolish. Dude's been all over the place in his career. If he's healthy and the defense is rolling, this is a really good team.

I wouldn't pretend to know what will happen in any sport. I've not said or implied that I do. It's a matter of probabilities. Foles hasn't had a complete quality season in the NFL for seven years. If you want to say anything can happen, sure, anything can happen. I agree he has shown enough to think if everything falls just right he could have a magical year.

I just think that's an improbable outcome not an impossible one. Foles isn't a bad bet in a vacuum to me. It's spending so much on Foles + Graham + losing your pick to get Foles + using your best pick to reach for a TE that most people had going 30 spots later. Overall, it feels like poor value up and down the board.

I hope things work out, I think they'll probably be around 8-8 again, their upside, as I noted earlier, seems mainly to me on defense and hoping they have a monster one this year.