Bears talk 2.0; Fields era begins for real for real

[ThisGuyFawkes]

What an embarrassing game. I had to turn it off and I don't even have anything else to do. I'd rather just sit quietly in an empty room.

[Howling Mad]

Trubisky is on his 3rd tub of popcorn.

[IliketheBullsNBearstoo]

Matt Nagy is in over his head.

Unfortunately so is Fields.

Of course, he's a rookie. He needs time and hasn't been put in the best of situations. He has talent, is smart, and has the swagger, the mistakes will go away as he learns. Way too soon to give up on this kid.

[patryk7754]

the jets might be the only team with a worse offense. This team is 1000% held back by coaching. Look how much comfortable Fields is when the offense is more open. WRs not all in the same spot and getting open because they run past 10 yards. Nagy is too smart for his own good.

This defense is too good to do a rebuild imo. With everyone healthy, we might have a top 5 front 7 and the offense has really good pieces. Mooney, great run game and a QB on a rookie contract. We're a good player caller away from having a top 16 offense.

[IliketheBullsNBearstoo]

What an embarrassing game. I had to turn it off and I don't even have anything else to do. I'd rather just sit quietly in an empty room.

I love Nagy's passion, I really do, but week in and week out it is the same embarrassing feeling. This just isn't a well coached team. Its more than making the right play calls and substitutions. Its about this staff teaching and the players respecting what they are being taught and soaking it in and staying disciplined. It should all translate to the field on game day. It isn't week in and week out.

[IliketheBullsNBearstoo]

Thomas Graham Jr is a player.

Would like to see more of this kid.

[Dresden]

I liked what I saw from Fields in the 4th quarter when they started throwing the ball. Their basic offense is just so predictable. Run, run, run, run, throw a short pass, run, run, thrown a screen pass, run, run, fumble.

I heard announcers say Fields leads the NFL in fumbles, and he hasn't even played every game.

[IliketheBullsNBearstoo]

I liked what I saw from Fields in the 4th quarter when they started throwing the ball. Their basic offense is just so predictable. Run, run, run, run, throw a short pass, run, run, thrown a screen pass, run, run, fumble.

I heard announcers say Fields leads the NFL in fumbles, and he hasn't even played every game.

Definitely one of the things he needs to work on. Its nice seeing him gripping a football on the sidelines afterwards, he knows he needs to work on these things and he will.

[Jcool0]

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[Susan]

I liked what I saw from Fields in the 4th quarter when they started throwing the ball. Their basic offense is just so predictable. Run, run, run, run, throw a short pass, run, run, thrown a screen pass, run, run, fumble.

I heard announcers say Fields leads the NFL in fumbles, and he hasn't even played every game.

When he pushes the ball down the field, it's obvious how special he is but the offense is poorly designed and they really lack playmakers at the pass catching positions right now. Mooney is the only one WR who will still be here next year - Byrd is dreadful, Godwin is fragile but decent and ARob is checked out.

Fields has moments where the game is too much for him, but he calms down and figures it out. Those two sacks were rookie mistakes, but he's got the physical ability, toughness, competitiveness and smarts to overcome those moments.

Go get a good rookie WR, sign a DJ Chark/Christian Kirk or Michael Gallop and with Mooney it should be enough to be fun.

Kmet and Fields need to get on the same page in the red zone. Cole has 0TDs this year and that's a big part of what we're missing right now - get him to be a reliable red zone threat and things aren't so bad down there.

[nomorezorro]

the jets might be the only team with a worse offense. This team is 1000% held back by coaching. Look how much comfortable Fields is when the offense is more open. WRs not all in the same spot and getting open because they run past 10 yards. Nagy is too smart for his own good.

We're a good player caller away from having a top 16 offense.

look nagy obviously sucks, but this is an insanely optimistic read on an offense with a questionable qb, a shaky offensive line and one receiver under contract for next year who can catch. bad playcalling alone doesn’t drag an average offense down to one that averages 17 ppg

[nomorezorro]

kmet isn’t a reliable anything threat, because he can’t catch

[Susan]

-If Thomas Graham can come on strong in the last part of the season, it would be a huge win for the defense. He got picked on today and played out of his mind, we'll see if he can keep this up.

-Akiem Hicks is just awesome, when he's healthy and firing on all cylinders, he's the lifeblood of the defense

-Roquan Smith deserves to be in the Pro Bowl, he was all over the place again tonight

-Robert Quinn has 16 sacks right now. Without Khalil Mack for a majority of the year. If those two are healthy at the same time, it would be so fun to watch.

[Susan]

the jets might be the only team with a worse offense. This team is 1000% held back by coaching. Look how much comfortable Fields is when the offense is more open. WRs not all in the same spot and getting open because they run past 10 yards. Nagy is too smart for his own good.

We're a good player caller away from having a top 16 offense.

look nagy obviously sucks, but this is an insanely optimistic read on an offense with a questionable qb, a shaky offensive line and one receiver under contract for next year who can catch. bad playcalling alone doesn’t drag an average offense down to one that averages 17 ppg

How many times do you gotta see them run 5 yard hitches?

-Jordan Howard regressed under Nagy
-Tarik Cohen regressed under Nagy
-Mike Davis was better before and after he was coached by Nagy
-Cordarrelle Patterson was better before and after he was coached by Nagy
-Andy Dalton was better in Dallas last year
-Nick Foles got injured in Jax but was better in Philly
-Mitch was not developed at all - that was Nagy's main job, we'll see what winds up happening with him
-Anthony Miller regressed every year

This WR core was bad before they were injured, they're really bad now but still, Nagy's done his skill position groups very few favors here in his 4 years.

[Kurt Heimlich]

This team is irrelevant. The NFL is all about parity so as long as the dinosaur's at Halas hall wake up long enough to replace Pace and Nagy there will be some reason to hope again once this waste of a season ends.

[MalagaBulls]

Saw the highlights and as much as it is another nail in Nagy's coffin, it also put on show Pace's horrendous record with drafting playmakers.

[Dresden]

The drumbeat is pretty loud and steady now that the Bears must clean house. I heard it on the national broadcast last night, you hear it in the Chicago media as well as the national media. If the Bears do anything less than that this offseason, the owners are going to get a lot heat. So hopefully that's what they do. I think the example set by the Bulls has also raised expectations and provided a blueprint for how quickly a team can be turned around with the right decision makers in place.

Last night's game was just an embarrassment- all the stupid, out of control penalties, along with the rest of the incompetence- and all on national tv.

[patryk7754]

the jets might be the only team with a worse offense. This team is 1000% held back by coaching. Look how much comfortable Fields is when the offense is more open. WRs not all in the same spot and getting open because they run past 10 yards. Nagy is too smart for his own good.

We're a good player caller away from having a top 16 offense.

look nagy obviously sucks, but this is an insanely optimistic read on an offense with a questionable qb, a shaky offensive line and one receiver under contract for next year who can catch. bad playcalling alone doesn’t drag an average offense down to one that averages 17 ppg

Thinking we have the potential to be the 16th best offense in the NFL is insanely optimistic?

bad playcalling absolutely can drag down an average offense to below average. Especially with a rookie QB and horrible play design.

He doesn't call any plays the has anyone run past 10 yards, his receivers are always all over each other with their routes, and he tries too hard to our smart defenses with his design. He consistently makes bad decisions that cost the offense momentum or even points. Terrible clock management. He completely took Robinson out of the game plan. He plays people who shouldn't be in and leaves people out that should be playing.

Obviously there are things that you can't entirely blame on Nagy like Fields inconsistency and just bad discipline on the team as a whole but a lot of blame for those things still fall on a HC who is supposed to be a super smart QB whisper.

[patryk7754]

Here are all the positives about the bears going foward
-when healthy, easily a top ten front seven. Maybe even top-5
-top-10 run game that has the potential to be even better if fields would be utilized in it.
-A true number one corner
-Mooney and Grant at WR

Here are the main negatives
-lack of legit talent at CB
-Pass blocking
-WR talent overall
-play calling/and design
-inconsistency from Fields
-TE

These negatives can theoretically be fixed before we even get to the draft.
Justin Britt, C
Quennsennberry, G
Hayden Hurst, TE
PJ Williams, CB
Desmond King, CB
Juju Smith, WR
Josh Reynolds, WR


Signing those guys fills our wholes at a relatively cheap cost. None of those guys are big time names but they are all above average (except maybe reynolds)

[micromonkey]

When trying to sift through the issues that are "Fields" vs Bears/Nagy here is what I see that Justin needs a lot of work on.

Accuracy in the short game. Sure I do put a lot on the receivers for not catching some catch-able balls but more (short) passes need to precise and on the money, in stride, etc. I would not underestimate this skill as I think people assume this is easier to fix than the long ball but its a skill in itself. And in order to win in today's NFL this is probably the #1 QB skill--chip away all day with this and then hit deep.

Ball security. Yet again we see more turnovers from him. Whether its sack fumbles or anything else--he needs to work on this big time.

Quicker on read/release. He needs to make the pass just a tad faster. He actually was better in stretches last night but this needs work no matter what. He needs to either run or throw it away. Rodgers is the king in throwing the ball away and not taking a sack--Fields will need to work on this to save massive negative yards we keep seeing. Some is rookie--but some is him just missing things. Again I have no faith in the current staff to address/fix any of this. You can watch Walsh talking to Montana during "the catch" game where they beat the Cowboys. Walsh calmly tells him--if you don't see what you want just throw the ball away. I see none of this rapport--maybe its happening in the headset who knows. In that 4th down play last night he just needed to whip it up and pray because it was clear he wasn't going to get it running. An INT in the endzone would be no worse.

Needs to work on protecting himself not taking sacks (again throw it away) or hits. I am glad they finally called that late hit helmet to helmet-because that was cheap and not needed-but the announcers brought up a good point--his baseball slide does leave his head up higher and potentially riskier slide than some other QBs. Again--are we working on this?

I'm willing to see many other things as typical rookie issues. But part of the inconsistency is his lack of quality in the short game.
I'm still maybe one of the few who believe that organization/coaching play a much bigger role in QBs than pure skill--but right now there are just as many bad signs as good signs with Justin. He's definitely not as NFL ready as Mitch was and I'm not sure what is fixable vs what may be fatal flaws. We really have to hope for a Steve Young TAM-->SF type transformation but this is a rare transformation.

While I hope a regime change could make him better--I'm just not sure--there are a lot of issues to fix. I would not give up on him just yet--but you would want to see almost historic leaps in season 2 for him to be on track.