Bears Den — Week #17
WARNING: This is going to be a long rant. I need to get it out of my system.
The only good thing about week #17 is that the Bears fans only have to suffer one more week of this season. The Lions tore the Bears to pieces 41-10. I will admit that I stopped watching when the score hit 31-10.
I have been a Bears fan for 60 years and this is the worst team ever. I posted a note over on the Bears forum that the Bears have been in business for 122 years and have never lost 10 games in a row.
Their defense is that what Poles did was “necessary” to rebuild… too many old players on expensive contracts. We need new blood, etc. etc. You’ve heard it all before. This is not the first time the Bears and other teams have been in this situation. In 2021 there were 8 teams with WORSE point differentials, but none of their GMs did what Poles did. He got rid of half the team just to create $123 million cap space and get us in this #2 draft position.
The idea is that he will now use all these resources to “build back better”, if I may borrow a phrase from a famous politician. So far, his big move was to trade the #34 pick in the 2023 draft for Claypool. The excuse that he is still learning the playbook is getting old. Yesterday he had zero receptions. He fits in perfectly with all these other receivers Poles brought in. They combined for 3 receptions and about 40 yards. Oh, and another of his brilliant moves was to bring in Alex Leatherwood for two years and $6 million, after no other GM wanted him on waivers. He played a couple games. He sucked (surprise, surprise). I could go on and on with his track record so far, but you get the idea.
The tragedy in all this is that the Bears have had Grossman, McNown, Cutler, Trubisky, etc. etc. failures at finding a franchise QB, and now that we have one with real talent, Poles has not given him the support to develop. The offensive line is a big problem, and he has no receivers (other than Mooney) with the talent to be starters in the NFL, which is why they were all discarded by other teams!
Dan Campbell said the Lions spent all week in practice figuring out how to stop Fields from running (running the ball is the only thing the Bears can do well). It didn’t work. Fields himself had 104 rushing yards in the first quarter. The Bears had 173 yards rushing in the first half and 7 yards passing…Yes, I said 7 yards passing.
Draft watch: One more week to go and Bears will have #2 draft pick. It will be interesting to see what Poles does with it. Bears already have 11 picks even without trading down. If he trades down to some team that wants Stroud, he will have a boatload of picks. Everybody on the Bears forum is all excited about that. I guess I should be, too, except I don’t see that he is a genius at evaluating talent, and that is what it is going to take to fill all the holes he has created in the roster.
Thanks for reading. If I posted all this on the Bears forum, I would be flamed.
In summary, I believe the Seahawks are doing a rebuild the right way, and so I am much more optimistic for the Hawks than the Bears in 2023, even though Poles has double the cap space and a better draft position.
WARNING: This is going to be a long rant. I need to get it out of my system.
The only good thing about week #17 is that the Bears fans only have to suffer one more week of this season. The Lions tore the Bears to pieces 41-10. I will admit that I stopped watching when the score hit 31-10.
I have been a Bears fan for 60 years and this is the worst team ever. I posted a note over on the Bears forum that the Bears have been in business for 122 years and have never lost 10 games in a row.
Their defense is that what Poles did was “necessary” to rebuild… too many old players on expensive contracts. We need new blood, etc. etc. You’ve heard it all before. This is not the first time the Bears and other teams have been in this situation. In 2021 there were 8 teams with WORSE point differentials, but none of their GMs did what Poles did. He got rid of half the team just to create $123 million cap space and get us in this #2 draft position.
The idea is that he will now use all these resources to “build back better”, if I may borrow a phrase from a famous politician. So far, his big move was to trade the #34 pick in the 2023 draft for Claypool. The excuse that he is still learning the playbook is getting old. Yesterday he had zero receptions. He fits in perfectly with all these other receivers Poles brought in. They combined for 3 receptions and about 40 yards. Oh, and another of his brilliant moves was to bring in Alex Leatherwood for two years and $6 million, after no other GM wanted him on waivers. He played a couple games. He sucked (surprise, surprise). I could go on and on with his track record so far, but you get the idea.
The tragedy in all this is that the Bears have had Grossman, McNown, Cutler, Trubisky, etc. etc. failures at finding a franchise QB, and now that we have one with real talent, Poles has not given him the support to develop. The offensive line is a big problem, and he has no receivers (other than Mooney) with the talent to be starters in the NFL, which is why they were all discarded by other teams!
Dan Campbell said the Lions spent all week in practice figuring out how to stop Fields from running (running the ball is the only thing the Bears can do well). It didn’t work. Fields himself had 104 rushing yards in the first quarter. The Bears had 173 yards rushing in the first half and 7 yards passing…Yes, I said 7 yards passing.
Draft watch: One more week to go and Bears will have #2 draft pick. It will be interesting to see what Poles does with it. Bears already have 11 picks even without trading down. If he trades down to some team that wants Stroud, he will have a boatload of picks. Everybody on the Bears forum is all excited about that. I guess I should be, too, except I don’t see that he is a genius at evaluating talent, and that is what it is going to take to fill all the holes he has created in the roster.
Thanks for reading. If I posted all this on the Bears forum, I would be flamed.
In summary, I believe the Seahawks are doing a rebuild the right way, and so I am much more optimistic for the Hawks than the Bears in 2023, even though Poles has double the cap space and a better draft position.
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