For what it’s worth: as far as I can tell, the Bears have never fired a coach in mid-season. Not that that means they won’t, but even when they’ve had train wrecks in the past, they’ve waited out the season.
(The Packers, similarly, had never actually fired a coach during the season, until sacking Mike McCarthy in 2018.)
The rest of the season is going to be torturous. They can’t fire Flus until the end of the season because they have no one to promote. Bringing in some one from the outside to be head coach during the season is a very very bad look for any NFL franchise. Poles has to go. I really like his approach/philosophy but the results are very disappointing. Name one player that you can say “Yeah, I am so happy that the Bears have (insert player name)”. Warren needs to hire an experienced NFL GM and let the GM pick his coach.
Caleb Williams is rumored to not to want to go to a team that he deems unfit to develop a quarterback. I doubt he would stay in school another year, so he might pull an Elway/Eli Manning and demand a trade. That could be a good thing. Supposedly the Bears consider three QBs “NFL ready” so a trade could bring in more draft picks, maybe even a player.
This was accurate, but goddamn he just posted 45 points for me in the dynasty league tonight, woohoo! Even better that I was able to watch it. So fun.
Well wow, there can’t be many games in the modern NFL when you score 40 points when only one of your wide receivers catches a pass. But yeah, when that one guy catches 8 balls for 230 yards and 3 touchdowns, you can do it.
Two straight games now when Fields looked like a genuine NFL quarterback – and no turnovers this time.
Is it too soon to say we called him a flop too soon? 
The whiplash from watching Bears fans is killing my neck.
You’re a Packers fan, no? How many decades has it been since you were in despair over miserable QB play and having potentially the worst team in the league back-to-back seasons?
You gotta let us enjoy these meager victories and glimmers of hope.
The Bears just traded Chase Claypool to Miami for the smallest possible compensation: swapping 6th and 7th round picks in the 2025 draft.
Well played, Mr. Poles.
It’s too soon to start talking about Fields being the guy. While he had a couple really strong games statistically, he also gakked a few plays really badly in those games. I know perfection is unrealistic, but that throw that injured Herbert was AWFUL. Herbert was so wide open and Fields underthrew that short little swing by 5 yards. Herbert twisted his knee and ankle trying desperately to salvage the throw. He also missed a wide open Mooney on 2 deep balls.
One of Fields consistent patterns is that he whiffs on the easy throws. Hi screens, check downs and short middle throws are often missing by 3-5 yards. IOften the ball still gets caught, but he leaves no chance for any YAC. The Bears screen game has been such a problem partly because Fields isn’t on time and isn’t given the runner a chance to set up blocks because he’s forced out of position.
Clearly Fields is a guy that can make some great throws down the field when he has time. His accuracy on those deep throws is still suspect, but those are harder throws so you can forgive it. But he’s still struggling on the routine stuff. Also, it should be noted, that the Broncos and Commies have two of the worst coverage units in the league.
I really don’t know what to make of this. One, this is a hilariously low value for him. The fact you couldn’t even get a 6th rounder outright is just sad. Even though the Bears (and Chase) have managed to tank his value, this is quite extreme. Poles is probably just wanting to close the door on this situation and get it out of the papers, so making any deal now is probably his priority.
However, if we’d have just hung onto him until the noise died down. Either keeping him as a healthy scratch or making him the 6th WR so he never sees the field, I have to think a better trade would have surfaced. If a contending team suffered a major injury at the position or otherwise needed a live body down the stretch, he had to have been able to command a 4th or 5th round pick back. Kadarious Toney commanded a 3rd and 6th round pick last year. Robbie Anderson got a 6th and 7th. Jalen Reagor got a 4th and a 7th. Laviska Shenault got a 6th and 7th. Now, some of those are future picks, but still Claypool should have gotten something in that range this year.
In the end, Poles did the guy a favor sending him to Miami. That somehow makes this feel like an even worse failure.
Oh for sure, and all your observations are spot on. If the season ended today we’d definitely be looking to draft our QB of the future yet again. But after the utter dreadfulness of the first three games, it was impossible to imagine that he could still save his career in Chicago. Now it’s not impossible, but still IMO pretty unlikely.
Sure, he could have done better. He also could have gotten nothing if Claypool had gone public with something truly toxic. The other WRs you mentioned were still with their first teams, whereas Claypool has now flopped with two teams, so it’s that much harder for GMs to believe they can salvage him.
It’s probably pure coincidence that the Bears offense has improved so markedly in the two games without Claypool. But only probably.
If he leads the Bears to say 6 wins (and the Panthers get something rolling) you have to think he’ll be back. Not just because he’s won the job, but because he’s sabotaged our ability to get Caleb. That I think is 100% in the cards.
I don’t think that necessarily matters. The Steelers sold him for a high pick, that isn’t the same thing as getting chased out of town. I’m not aware of any well-known rumors of him being a cancer in Pittsburgh, but that could just be that Pittsburgh is just a tighter ship with more compliant press.
If he was a locker room problem in Pittsburgh, they did a heck of a job of massaging the situation, so his value was high at the deadline.
Agreed. We have him under contract for another year and maybe two, so there’s no urgency to move on unless he’s absolutely irredeemable AND there’s no obvious good way to draft his successor.
Which makes Poles’ trading a 2nd-rounder for him all the more stupid. As for his current trade value, recall also that Miami only has him under contract for 12 more games. Toney had more than two seasons left on his rookie deal when KC acquired him.
I’m pretty sure that only came out AFTER the Bears made the deal. The Steelers wisely kept it hush hush until they found the sucker.
Claypool was on tape kicking a guy in a bar fight in 2021. He infamously celebrated a first down instead of hurrying up as time wound down in the 4th quarter. In May of 2022 (6 months before he was traded to the Bears, he had to answer questions about his dedication and work ethic. The Steelers certainly played Poles for an idiot.
I don’t think it’s fair to compare Fields and anyone to Mahomes and Kelce, who have been together for Mahomes’ entire career.
Perhaps I’m forgetting the context here, but I don’t think I made that comparison.
RNATB replied to the wrong post.
Basically, you said that Fields can’t make lemonade out of lemons… If one of his receivers runs the wrong route, it screws him up. But if Travis Kelce runs the wrong route, Mahomes can still turn it into a touchdown. So yeah, it was a direct comparison.
To be fair, I think the point you were trying to make is that running the wrong route isn’t an automatic failure and a QB can still succeed if it happens. And you did use a good comparison. Of course, the easy counter (which I think RNATB was making) was that it’s easy to say when the QB is Mahomes and the receiver is Kelce, who are each possibly the best at their position in the entire league, and Mahomes has thrown to Kelce his entire pro career, so he could probably do it blindfolded and concussed at this point.
The Tua/Tyreek comparison is closer, in that Tua is young, and hasn’t been playing with Tyreek forever. But still, you have at least a really good QB, and one of the better receivers. Maybe a better comparison, but still, I don’t think Fields has a Tyreek.
From my perspective you both have good arguments.
Thanks for connecting the dots. I follow now.
Yeah, my intent wasn’t really to say that Fields needs that level of mind meld with a receiver at this phase of his career. It was just convenient that the Bears played the Chiefs the week I made that comment so the example was top of mind.
Just saying that it’s not really reasonable to me that a WR being out of position justifies a QB booting a play entirely. Especially if that QB is an athletic QB like Fields who you’d want to thrive when things go off schedule. Perhaps it’s a step up in the degree of difficulty but you can’t give a QB a pass when someone else makes a mistake, there’s 11 guys on the other side of the ball trying to make that happen on every play.
Now that Eberflus managed to save his job for one more week, he’s looking to finally backfill this gap at least partially.
This still keeps the door open for Lovie to take a position, but Eberflus would have to view him as a direct threat. The linked article floats Rod Marinelli as an idea which is definitely in the same ecosystem.