It’s a three year contract and as of now nobody on a rookie contract is worth resigning to anything other than a team-friendly deal. It’s absolutely a fine use of cap space.

I don’t see them passing on Ashton Jeanty now. If he’s not there maybe they go defense, but even then I think they probably go left tackle or even wide receiver again.

But it doesn’t change his inability to evaluate and draft good offensive linemen.

_________________
2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

And it does not change the fact that this is a good and needed move in the moment.

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

No doubt, spend, spend, spend when you totally suck at doing something.

_________________
2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

Glad we agree.

_________________
"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

We are in agreement. Ben Johnson or not, the OL needed to be improved and they have done that.

Sure seems like Ben Johnson has sparked a significant change in their roster building philosophy.

_________________

Yes. They could still draft OL, and I don't think anyone would say "that's too many new OL". The OL was a dumpster fire, and now it's not.

These signings do open things up more in the draft to pick "best player available" over 100% needing OL

and he is 26, so they bought him for only his prime years. I still don't think he's great, but they are only getting his best.

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Do you really see it that way? This to me is classic Offseason Championship Bears Football. And I like the Dalman & Thuney moves!

But this has been their MO forever. Fail to really draft or develop any star talent, make splashy offseason moves, then it all winds up being less than the sum of its parts once the games get played. I see no departure of that philosophy with Ben Johnson at all.

100%. I hope that best player is a defensive lineman and not a running back from Idaho, but they’ve created flexibility here.

_________________

Oh yeah! Who's your daddy?, Chicago!

_________________

Based on nothing more than intuition and a certain fluency in the Bears’ traditional behavioral patterns I don’t foresee defense getting much love this offseason. I think they are very sensitive about their first overall pick not looking like even a top three rookie quarterback last year and are going to way overcompensate to save face.

Maybe I’m wrong, we’ll see. Ryan Poles has never drafted best/most talented player available his entire tenure, I don’t think he’ll start now.

Scratch that defensive comment…I’d still like to see them take Campbell if he’s around.

Seems like everybody is mocking him to the Jets so I doubt he’ll be there.

_________________

He’s a fringe top ten center in the NFL. Realistically he’s probably something like fifteenth-ish best, but you hope he can improve.

It’s significantly better than Lucas Patrick or Coleman Shelton or Sam Mustipher, but anyone thinking the Bears just got prime Travis Frederick is going to be severely disappointed by the reality. A reasonable good-case scenario is that he stays healthy and is one of the more forgettable players on the roster (in a good way).

I don't think it's overcompensation, it's "we have three years to decide if we want to extend this guy, and if we can't prove that he should be extended then we are all out of jobs."

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

I don’t think Ben Johnson will be held accountable if Caleb Williams is a dud. Around the league it seems like most people have pretty much given up on him, or at least are kind of indifferent about his future. Certainly the only place he actually has any hype to live up to his draft billing is the insular world of the Chicago Bears fandom

But it will look pretty bad for the McCaskeys, Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles if he stinks next year. At a time where they are desperately searching for public cash they really want to show that this time really is different.

You have created your own world when it comes to this shit. I’ve never seen 1 single player break someone the way Caleb has broken you. It’s fascinating in a way.

_________________
If the rule you followed lead you to this, of what use was the rule?

Moving on.. looks like Dalman is going to be a Bear. I’m fully on board with this move, this is a good signing imo

_________________
If the rule you followed lead you to this, of what use was the rule?

It's one of the most fascinating delusions I've ever seen.

_________________

OL goes from bottom five to at least top half and maybe top third

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

He’s the least accurate passer of the last twenty five years to start all his team’s games. I don’t know what to say, if he were a straight white guy there’d be an entirely different narrative around him even in Chicago. For now nationally most people chose to use platitudes or just not talking about it.

If "the league" thinks he is a dud after year 1, then 75% of the talent evaluators on teams and in the media should be shot. Because they all would have missed badly.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

new flash: the vast majority of hyped draft picks don’t live up to the billing. Now multiply that baseline by the identity politics/DEI that makes people very desperate to make Caleb Williams happen…its not too difficult to fathom why the guy arrived in the league and looked like a fifth round pick.

In case twitter never comes back:

Bears signing DE Dayo Odeyingbo to a three-year, $48 million contract. (via
@RapSheet
,
@TomPelissero
)

Here’s your edge help bro.

You know how unthreatening a Montez Sweat/Dayo Odeyingbo pass rush tandem is to teams that have Christian Darrisaw/Brian O’Neill or Taylor Decker/Penei Sewell. Even Rasheed Walker/Zach Tom are going to have zero problems bottling up the Bears rush off the edge.

Meanwhile the Bears are going to run back Braxton “Eight Starts” Jones who will spend most of the year on the sideline while some bum swing tackle they sign off the scrap heap gets merk’d alongside Darnell Wrong who is just a living monument for the biggest NFL draft day fuckup of the last three years (if you don’t count taking Caleb Williams over Jayden Daniels).

Yes, I 100% see a philosophical change. They have just consciously improved the OL with 3 moves. Of course I'd like them to draft and develop guys on the line, but the immediate need is they have to make the OL better. They have done that. We knew 2 years ago they needed to make the OL better....they didn't do it. It went ignored. It's a huge difference.

I'm not at your level of desperation with Caleb, but he did not have a good first season. The Bears didn't do much to help him, as he was working with Boobs for Coaching and bad line play. No more excuses....he has to show something this next year. He might....IDK....he might not. We will see soon enough.

_________________

Grady Jarrett now too. Bargain bin hunting. Bears are going offense in the draft.

Don't sleep on Grady Jarrett. If he has anything left it will be a nice signing.

_________________

What I’m saying is that fundamentally this is still an organization that makes big splashes and big headlines in the offseason then lays a huge fat egg when it’s game day. I’m not upset at the moves, I just don’t see how this team is going to compete with Minnesota, Green Bay and Detroit with their complete lack of elite talent.

What I’d like to see them do is take a deep breath, abandon this idea of contending for anything other than third place next year and sell off some parts to give them the draft capital to rebuild this roster in Ben Johnson’s image. Instead we are getting a bunch of win-now moves to give them a false sense of flexibility to take a receiver or running back at tenth overall.

There Bears are operating under this completely inexplicable urgency to compete while on Caleb Williams’ rookie contract. It’s built on two very flimsy assumptions: 1) That they are even capable of beating MIN, GB or DET 2) That Caleb Williams is going to be worth giving $330,000,000 to in a couple years.