I would take a discount on the deal if I could trade fields within the division. Facing a team led by a QB who doesn't know how to throw consistently is a great thing to have.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Imagine how awesome it would be having the best QB in the division the very day the draft happens this year.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm just saying that the Vikings could be a good landing spot, their QB situation is bad, they dont have a high draft pick, and they have a ready-made offense. Fields athleticism could be intriguing to them.

Hub & Gabe Ramirez and guest Ed Smith (Az. Cards talk and ex Sox minor leaguer) couldn't come up with a QB who became elite with his non first team other than possibly Geno Smith.

Steve Young and Brett Favre come to mind.

They can, but they won't. Geno is a good QB, they extended him for a reason.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Imagine being the key word, because there isn't a QB in the draft better than Love.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I thought we were in the "Love isn't the reason we win or lose" phase already.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Oh you're a QB Winz guy? That's funny

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Love is just average. He will soon be highly paid and average.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Poles wouldn't be that stupid to give a hated division rival the best quarterback in the entire division. By the way, what does facing a team led by a qb "WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO THROW CONSISTENTLY" mean

Seriously, man. If you are going to critique Fields, you've got to do better than your last offering. To me, a quarterback either knows how to throw or doesn't. Define please what you mean about his supposed inability to throw. For the last 4-5 games, he has made pretty much all of the throws he had called for him to execute. What passes do you say that he cannot throw? You do know that he is ordered to throw what Getzy calls for him, right? Why don't you and others critique the fucking OC for those stupid ass play calls?

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

That was the old GM, not the current one. The Vikings would have to be quite desperate to trade for Fields.

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Just setting the RECORD STRAIGHT:


IN JUSTIN FIELD LAST SIX COMPLETE GAMES AS A STARTING QUARTERBACK, HE IS 3-3.

IN THOSE SIX GAMES:

PASSING: AVERAGED 232 YARDS PER GAME

RUSHING: AVERAGED 55 YARDS PER GAME

TOTAL : AVERAGED 287 YARDS PER GAME 12 TDS 4 INTS

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

You are devoid of rational thought. Based on performance at least.

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

Is 3-3 good?

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

Fields is 3-11 against the division. At this point Poles would be stupid if he didn't try his best to keep Fields in the division.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

_________________

I know. Average at best with the passing stats. But you can't ignore the running making him a couple of notches above average.

I'm still 50-50 on what the hell to do with Fields. I see both sides. I just fucking hope Poles makes the right choice.

Let me help you with this:

Teams know he runs well. Teams also know he doesn't pass well. That's why they shut down the running and force him to pass. See his stats from the Browns game. No running production. Why? Because they see what you see. Fields is the Ben Simmons of the NFL - too one dimensional to be a transcendent player. His limitations place a cap on his and the team's overall production capacity.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Thank you. I'm aware. Like I said, he's a little above average with his entire package. That's all I said. Which is not good enough.

Slightly below average actually. 23rd overall in QBR which takes the whole package into consideration. Don't fall for the Fields cult kool aid.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/qbr

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Anyone hear Hub yesterday? He said one of the options the Bears have is to keep Fields and use him in a Taysom Hill role. If he was a caller on Bernstein and Holmes they would hang up on him immediately.

As they should. It's an awful idea.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I bet fields would do pretty well as a punt and kick returner.

Maybe next year slide him over to safety as a replacement for Eddie Jackson.

_________________

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

On offense, the Bears could also run a variation of the wishbone or T formation with Williams at QB and Fields as a running back who also throws 3 or 4 times per game.

_________________

He's taken steps in his development. At best they've been baby steps as a passer. It's probably more accurate to describe them as 15 week aborted "fetus" steps. Not enough to pass on a quarterback with a top 2 and top 10 pick.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Perhaps Fields could take on a Bill Polian style role in the head coaching search

Theres a pretty good tl;dr thread breaking down why historically Fields is unlikely to be H1M !!!

The conversation around the #Bears QB seems to imply that sticking with Fields is less risky than starting over at QB — I disagree.

I think both options are, at best, equally risky.

I’ve covered Fields for his entire Chicago tenure. His ceiling is crazy high, and at times he'll do things other quarterbacks can't dream of. But overall, his play on the football field hasn’t been average yet. If you’re Ryan Poles and you bet on Justin Fields, you’re asking him to take a step forward in Year 4 that traditionally doesn't happen for quarterbacks... and hasn't happened for the last 10+ years.

Here's a quick list of underperforming 1st round QBs that did not drastically improve between Year 3 and Year 4:

- Daniel Jones
- Marcus Mariota
- Sam Darnold
- Mitchell (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky
- Ryan Tannehill

This list doesn’t include QBs like Jameis Winston or Baker Mayfield — they didn’t improve between Year 3 and Year 4 either, but they didn’t struggle enough in Year 3 to make the comparison fair.

This list also doesn’t include Blake Bortles, who actually did improve from “awful” to “pretty good” in his 4th year! The Sacksonville Jaguars even ended up extending him! As we know, he fell back to earth immediately the next year (2018), and from then it wasn't until four years later that the fans saw a winning season in Jacksonville.

You'll notice Ryan Tannehill on the list above -- he, Geno Smith, and Alex Smith are popular examples for how QBs can get better over time. They can! But in each of these examples' cases, the QB's development happened well after Year 4 (usually Year 6 or later) and generally involved changing teams at least once.

I'm rooting for Fields, he seems like a great person & a leader that's captured Chicago's locker room. But coming into the 2023 season, historical precedents existed that suggested Fields could still become a franchise quarterback -- the Josh Allen & Jalen Hurts comparisons dominated the offseason for a reason. A major jump in Year 3 felt attainable & historically backed, albeit a bit optimistic.

But now, 10 starts into Year 3, it seems as if the Year 3 jump we'd hoped for simply didn't happen:

- Fields' EPA/Play actually dropped between 2023 (-0.038, 23rd) & 2022 (0.032, 22nd)

- Fields' Success Rate dropped as well (2023: 40.9%, 29th. 2022: 45.3%, 23rd)

- Fields ANY/A has risen slightly (5.06 vs 4.63) but still places him beneath Aiden O'Connell, Kenny Pickett, Desmond Ridder, and Jordan Love.

All while his Sack Rate (10.6%) still sits at 2nd worst in the league.

Fields' volume passing stats have improved, particularly when we use raw stats like Yards/Game (149.5yds in 2022, 197.6yds in 2023), but these don't account for a significant drop in his rushing yardage per game (76.2yds in 2022, 48.8yds in 2023) that's undercut his jump in passing production.

His passer rating actually remains unchanged between years (2022: 85.2 -> 2023: 85.6), but even using Passer Rating to gauge Justin Fields feel unfair when the metric doesn't account for most of where Fields has struggled (sacks, turndowns, etc).

I'm a fan of Justin Fields the person and, given a few years of development, think he could easily experience a Tannehill or Alex Smith-like surge. But based on what Fields has put on tape over the last 3 years (even just this year if you'd like to exclude 2021 & 2022 from the discussion), I would be worried if the Chicago Bears bet the future of the franchise on him taking a leap that no other quarterback like him seems to have taken.

Returning to the topic that started this post, I don't think the Bears' situation is as simple as "just take the rookie and hope things get better" -- Chicago needs major upgrades within their offensive coaching, a new Center, and new additions to their Wide Receiver room at a minimum.

They can theoretically make those moves while still drafting a rookie quarterback, but I understand the appeal of trading down from #1, adding a treasure trove of draft capital, and building a roster so stacked with talent that it feels too big to fail regardless of who's calling the signals. If Chicago trades down and finds their Brock Purdy, Russell Wilson, or Dak Prescott, they could make noise in a hurry.

But looking at the Raiders, the Commanders, and the Falcons scares me when I think about Justin Fields' future.

These teams added as much talent as they could around question marks at quarterback, but now all three teams enter Week 15 with losing records, due in large part to poor quarterback play. All three teams may feel forced to make desperate moves this offseason in an attempt to make good on talented rosters that are ready to win right now.

Could these three teams stumble into drafting the next star quarterback taken further down the order? Anything is possible, but they're all solving a similar problem to the one Chicago would find themselves in if the Bears pass on a quarterback early and Justin Fields doesn't drastically step forward. Worse yet, if Justin does step forward in 2024 before then falling back to earth in 2025 (a la Daniel Jones, Blake Bortles), the Bears will have put themselves in the Giants' position once they, justifiably, extend Fields at the end of the year.

All of this to say: I don't believe Justin Fields has been good enough in 2023 to confidently trade the Bears' highest pick without a viable backup plan at Quarterback.

If they plan to trade their top pick, I hope they bring in a competent veteran option (Gardner Minshew may be your best choice) or a late-1st-round developmental rookie like JJ McCarthey, Bo Nix (not my preference), or Quinn Ewers, should they declare. The roster you'd hope to build by trading down would be too good to leave in one players' hands, especially given how often Fields gets hurt.

But if Ryan Poles is blown away by a would-be rookie quarterback, I think Poles has shown enough scouting acumen over the last year to fully trust his judgement. Caleb Williams and Drake Maye both look like phenomenal quarterback prospects, and while the list of former #1 overall picks doesn't include a laundry list of Super Bowl winners, it includes an awful lot of decidedly good quarterbacks.

Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jameis Winston, Cam Newton, all of these players played better in their rookie seasons than Fields' 2023 season so far. Jared Goff, Trevor Lawrence & Matthew Stafford struggled as rookies, but all rebounded with strong 2nd or 3rd years. I haven't even mentioned Joe Burrow or Andrew Luck yet, who played at a level I think few would argue with.

So who in the last 15 years does this leave us worried about? Bryce Young, Sam Bradford, and JaMarcus Russell. The irony is not lost on me that the most recent example on our minds (Young) has played like Chicago's worst-case scenario.

But, as long as you think Caleb Williams or Drake Maye are better than those three, history suggests that picking a QB at #1 would stabilize the Bears' quarterback position for 3-4 years while also giving Chicago a stronger chance at Top 12 quarterback play (say 41-50%, I expect you'd call 5-6 of the names above Top 12 guys) than Justin Fields does going forward.

None of this thinking takes into account the rookie contract clock, because I don't think I need to talk about it to make my point -- even if you limit the discussion to "which option gives Chicago better quarterback play over the next four years", I still think Fields is the riskier choice.

If Fields remains an inconsistent QB in the mold of Howell, Ridder, or Daniel Jones, the Bears' future becomes a matter of how much you think a new coach & an influx of talent can cover for struggles under center. If Fields steps forward, he'd be the first quarterback in the modern era to successfully do so after three poor years.

Sticking with Fields is being made out to be the safest choice this offseason -- it isn't. There is no "safe" choice.

But both choices offer some of the most exciting upside we've seen in almost a decade of Bears football. Both choices offer the chance for Chicago to build something sustainable on offense and defense, to contend for more than just a one-off division title and an early playoff exit. Both choices offer a potential great team that, should things at quarterback fail, might still be a good team anyways with the right coaching hire and a few well-used draft picks.

This offseason should be enthralling, but it won't be without risk -- Ryan Poles has his work cut out for him. I can't wait to see how things play out.

_________________
Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.