I heard on the radio that Tennessee and NY Jets are interested in Cutler.
Well Raiola is suspended. Fucking piece of shit, stupid dirty selfish crap, I wish they’d have thrown him in the river years ago, but now we have no competent center.
Good to know someone does. Haven’t been around much this season due to work, real life, yadda yadda. Had there been something fun to talk about this season I might have made the time.
Anyways, I’m popping back in because I was putzing around on the Windy City Gridiron on SB Nation and was commenting on this article when I realized that my long winded analysis was probably never going to get read. I figured I’d cross-post it over here.
In response to this question: Grading Phil Emery: Should the Chicago Bears retain their GM for another season?, I said…
Everyone focuses on the draft, the free agents and the coaching hires but I think the under reported and forgotten point is that Emery has fostered a culture that seems to be be rotten on the inside. I’m not sure what he’s done or not done and its tough to know where responsibility lies (owners, president, coaches, GM) for creating a positive culture in an NFL organization but its crystal clear that there something insidious in Halas Hall.
We have coaches and players leaking things to the media. Players sniping at one another. We have what seems to be no accountability and a generally poor level of preparation. I’ve seen a number of hints on blogs and social media that this dysfunction stretches into the scouting and administrative staffs as well. Robbie Gould made a comment about this not being the “Bears’ way” and I suspect that he’s right. It’s unclear if he’s referring just to the leaks and fractured locker room or if it’s something broader.
Ultimately I think the GM grade and decision whether to keep Emery needs to come down to that question. Is Emery responsible for the apparent rancor and distrust? Is this a lack of institutional control from the GM’s office? Is it salvageable? Is it Trestman’s fault? Is it the McCaskey’s and Phillips’ fault?
I think, just looking at player personnel, Emery deserves to stay.
Pros: Marshall, Jeffery, Bennett, Fuller, Long, Ratliff, Young, Jones
Cons: McClellin (!), Rodriguez, Hardin, Greene, Allen, Frey, Williams
Trending up: Sutton, Ferguson, Bostic, Wilson, Mills, O’Donnell, Hurst, Mundy
Trending Down: Houston, Ola, Bushrod, Carey, Vereen, Washington, Perry, De La Puente
It’s a mixed bag, but that’s expected. Batting .500 in NFL talent evaluation and acquisition is probably a Hall of Fame rate. I certainly don’t think Emery has been a total failure here. The McClellin pick makes me irrationally angry still today since it was so obviously stupid at the time, but when I take a step back and look objectively he’s probably got more hits than misses. Thinking about the draft and UDFAs my biggest gripe is that there’s so many singles and so few doubles, triples and home runs. My second biggest gripe is that so many of those guys seem to take 2-3 years to pan out, he almost never gets impact starters right away. To be fair, this might well be industry standard though, under scrutiny you might find the exact same thing from other successful GMs around the league. Based solely on the roster, he’s earned another bite at the apple.
The attentive will notice that I omitted Cutler from that summary. He’s a special case and certainly people have strong opinions on him. I’ve gone from a supporter to ambivalent on him over the last 2 seasons, but ultimately I don’t think Emery extending him was a *clearly *bad move. The market for QBs is a weird one and Cutler isn’t dramatically overpaid, at least when you look at his statistical performance objectively. Winning and losing is a different matter and I’m still a little uncertain about how to fairly allocate blame, Cutler certainly gets too much in the general media, but he deserves a fair share there. Still, at least when evaluating Emery, extending Cutler was probably the only choice he had. I’d say that the Bears (Emery and Stein) probably made a mistake in setting the market for QBs last offseason and probably could have driven that price down by waiting, but letting him walk or franchising him would have been worse. The team would not be in a better place with some journeyman or a rookie right now. People who think that clearly don’t remember the Hutchinson, Krenzel, Quinn, Grossman, Orton etc. era very well nor have they been paying attention to the fates of the Browns, Jets and Raiders. The only way dumping Cutler helps the Bears is if they kept McCown and he did for them what he did for Lovie in Tampa…lined them up for Mariota. Who can honestly say the Bears strategy heading into this season should have been to tank?
On balance do you keep Emery? I’m not sure, too many unknowns to make a emphatic statement, but I’m leaning towards no. I think hiring Tucker, DeCamillis, Kromer and Trestman are too big of failures to overlook, had even one of them been a success I might be more open minded. My suspicion is that Emery and Trestman hold most of the blame for the cultural problems, either directly or indirectly. I think we move on and thank Emery for leaving the roster in a better place than he found it and give him a glowing recommendation for his next director of pro player personnel job.
One point that I read elsewhere that I didn’t spell out in the above comment is that there’s the stereotypical rumblings that the Bears could bring in a “football czar” to help right the ship and assist in some of the next hires. If that’s a real possibility then the case to keep Emery gets a little stronger.
If you give Emery the benefit of the doubt and trust that his grand plan to rebuild the roster is actually on track…that the crop of youngsters are on schedule and his draft batting average will soon prove to be pretty decent. And that these last 2 seasons are just a natural correction following Angelo and Lovie letting the roster age and never building depth. Then maybe you can make a argument that Emery was in over his head, that building an organization AND building a roster were too much for him. Maybe bringing in a football czar to help lead the coaching search and to either help build the culture that seems to be lacking or to find the coach who can offset Emery’s deficiencies there makes sense.
I suppose that’s a bit of a rationalization and counts on a whole lot of things happening perfectly. Also assumes that a football czar would be content to live with a GM that he didn’t pick and a coach would have to mesh with both the top guy and Emery. Sounds like a stretch.
The guy that I’ve seen floated is Mike Holmgren. I’m not a fan really, since his Browns experiment was a disaster and he’s been out of the loop for a while. The Packer background also doesn’t sit well. But, maybe he’s just right. Old enough and confident enough to be pragmatic not micromanage everything, connected enough and respected enough to find the right people and set the tone. It’s a nice story at least.
I guess it’s time for me to start getting fired up for the draft. We’ll probably have answers in exactly 7 days.
I know it will come as little to no surprise, but we disagree on a great deal of things.
Marshall is a head case, who, while talented, is a big reason you have the problems you described about a rotten culture. With him and Cutler as your team leaders, this kind of dysfunction was all but assured. There’s a reason why Marshall can’t stay longer than a few years on a team, just as there is why the Broncos were so ready to get rid of Cutler. They’re cancers in the locker-room, and, while you seem to recognize that there is a problem, you don’t seem to notice who is causing those problems. A couple of high round draft picks to rent Marshall for a couple years is certainly worth it in production. But for the way it fucked up an otherwise solid locker-room? I’m not so sure.
I also don’t think Fuller can be a “pro”. He’s the worst rated Bears player on defense by PFF, with a -18 grade, which is 110th out of the 110 CB’s they rank. He had a couple great games at the beginning of the season, but since then, has been god-awful. Long is a top 15 guard, which isn’t surprising from a 1st rounder. But we now see just how many holes this roster had, I’m not sure Emery gets points for taking someone at such a position as guard. Young and Jones have negative grades at PFF.
As to “trending up”, I am boggled how you can consider Jordan Mills, trending up. He’s been awful since he entered the league, and the only reason he starts is that the other guys suck too. He’s J’Marcus Webb v. 2. Sutton and Ferguson carry negative grades, and are too young to call anything. Bostic is average, at best.
O’Donnell kicks ass though.
Surely. Which is why Emery will survive. Which is why Angelo survived, even though he sucked too.
And here I was expecting a “you know Hamlet, we have differed about Cutler since he entered the league, and now that the results are in: You were right.”
Too much to ask for?
I’m a little disappointed that even now, after the losses, the pouting, the benching, the drama, and the suckitude, you still seemingly support making Jay Cutler the highest paid QB in the league.
I guess there is nothing that could happen that would ever change your mind about him. 9 years in the league, one playoff win, bad QB’s rankings, and not even being clearly better than Josh McCown and you’re still convinced he’s worth almost $20 a year. I just don’t get it. I don’t think I ever will.
All I can say is enjoy him. Because god knows I’ve enjoyed this year of Bears football.
Not gonna bother to get into it but I want to say that on this topic you’re full of it. It’s a management problem, through and through. Every team in the league has problem guys in the locker room. The Bears problem is that they have no leadership outside of the locker room so the mood and energy of the team swings wildly in time with the results of the last game. Players are emotional and it’s coaches and the organization job to keep them in check. Lovie always managed that, and Lovie had Cedric Benson, Tank Johnson, Lance Briggs and your boy JWebb.
Cutlers a twat. Big deal, he was a twat when Lovie was there and the locker room was a rock.
Marshall on the other hand is not a problem in the locker room. Yeah, he freaks out when they lose. He also hosts half the frigging offense in the offseason down in Miami and mentored Jeffery. If you call him a cancer you’re just vomiting back up the latest ESPN meme of the day and not paying attention.
Marshall is better for this locker room than Briggs and Forte, two guys doing nothing but cashing checks at this point.
I didn’t say that Marshall and Cutler were the only causes, just that they were a cause too. But the very reason it’s a “management problem” is because they don’t manage guys like Marshall and Cutler. It’s not like Trestman and Emery are the ones causing the problem, they just don’t do a good job of containing the behavior of the problem children in the locker room. It seems silly to blame the management for not being able to control the players, and not blame the players.
I literally have no response to this. To conclude that Marshall isn’t a problem in the locker room is to ignore his earlier meltdown this year that led to him almost getting into a fight with Robbie Gould, his calling out of Jay Cutler, and the fact that every single team that has had him have given up on him, not because of his production, but because he’s a fucking headcase who is more trouble than he’s worth. The Broncos knew it. The Dolphins knew it. It wasn’t his production that was the reason they both let him go, it was his bad behavior in the locker room. How you can ignore that these teams don’t want him in their locker room, despite his obvious production and skills, is beyond me.
He’s a twat. But he’s also not a very good NFL QB.
This I like blaming nature for the rain falling through the holes in your roof and ruining the rug.
There are 60 odd 20 year olds making millions of dollars working out, competing and generally sacrificing their health. It’s cutthroat. There’s a 100% chance there will be head cases.
A staff that doesn’t build a solid roof can’t blame the players when it rains.
Clearly his previous organizations are the best indicator of what’s happening in the bears locker room. Nevermind all the stories about him seeking treatment and transforming himself.
And there are never fights in NFL locker rooms. Totally unique.
Time to start looking forward to the draft I guess.
Here’s the draft order.
Still no answers on what will happen with Cutler, but it’s worth noting that there looks to be 4 teams who could be targeting a QB drafting ahead of the Bears: Tampa, Tennessee, Washington, NY Jets.
I figure the Titans will stick with Mettenberger a bit longer. The Skins and Jets might stick with their highly drafted incumbents another season, so there’s at least a slight chance one of the top 2 QBs will be there. If we dump Cutler for Winston, I’m burning my Bears jerseys.
Word is Bears Preisdent Ted Phillips is going to be the business side president and they’re going to bring in someone else as the president of the football side.
And Ernie Accorsi is consulting for the Bears on the GM and Coaching search. Awesome news.
Bears hire Ryan pace as GM.