Poles A+++

[Zvbxrpl]

Coming out of the Pace era where he strapped this team financially and left a roster void of much talent, I'll have to give Poles an A+++ grade for getting in the position they are in. Coming into this year, I think we all knew it would be a really bad year. Poles job in year 1 was to clear as much cap as possible getting rid of aging non motivated vets. Goodbye Mack, Hicks, Quinn, Foles. Also, they have an opportunity for the 1 or 2 pick. Great tank job! This now allows the Chicago Bears to go into free agency with 100 million in cap space and have created a good scenario to trade down and get a nice youth infusion. Now if you believe Poles knows how to evaluate talent is and create a winning organization is another topic, but give the man his credit in year 1. He did exactly what needed to be done.

LOL is this satire?

Poles right now is a C/C+. He gets a lot of leeway for what Pace left him with draft capital/cap/dead cap/rosterwise--but he's done fucked up a lot. The Larry Ogunjobi medicals, trading what could be the 32nd overall pick for a WR who throws hissy fits on the sidelines because he doesn't know his assignments and has barely scraped 100 receiving yards in 6 games, and a bunch of guys he signed getting arrested for doing stupid shit. The highest paid OL in FA didn't start playing till week 6 or so, so its hilarious to watch Fields be roadkill frequently when he's not making absurd plays. After Ogunjobi failed his physical--he had zero plan at 3T. The Quinn trade was 'meh' because it felt like he held onto the guy too long and with dogshit along the DL Quinn just got doubled and taken out of every play.

Jack Sanborn was a good undrafted FA. So was Jaylon Jones, something we needed after seeing Thomas Graham flash last year only to see him land on the PS for 15 minutes before someone claimed him. Brisker and Gordon were good draft picks showing promise. Credit for those guys. I also like Justin Jones--he can actually penetrate and as a rotational DT or can be a serviceable 1T (ideally with a proficient 3T), I like him going forward.

The rest you can throw in the fucking garbage, so lets pump the brakes at 'Poles knows how to evaluate talent.' His 5th round LT is a turnstile that gets praised because he can run block and look good when Fields rolls away from him--equating to fans continuing to accept the same mediocrity at the position we've seen for decades; and until a week and change ago, everybody was ready to take Velus Jones out back old Yeller style. The SDSU LT kid he drafted got plucked off the PS. Dominique Robinson sucks. The rest don't even merit talking about.

This offseason is critical and will define his future. Does Poles value trying to build a modern offense? This is the only question that matters. We'll see. If he's trotting out Braxton Jones to play LT with a couple name changes on the OL and all of the resources funneled to defense like every Bears GM in my lifetime (sans Phil Emery) has done--I expect very little to change, and a year from now continued fan frustration without understanding how to win a fucking game--the unsexy way--in the trenches.

Now if Poles ends up drafting a shitload of new OL/DL early to piss off the dumbest of fans who still think WR separation is the problem, not pocket collapsing and his C/LT being man-handled into Fields' face anytime he takes a 3-5 step drop within a second of the ball being snapped--he gets his A+ from me.

 

[mecha]

LOL is this satire?

Poles right now is a C/C+. He gets a lot of leeway for what Pace left him with draft capital/cap/dead cap/rosterwise--but he's done fucked up a lot. The Larry Ogunjobi medicals, trading what could be the 32nd overall pick for a WR who throws hissy fits on the sidelines because he doesn't know his assignments and has barely scraped 100 receiving yards in 6 games, and a bunch of guys he signed getting arrested for doing stupid shit. The highest paid OL in FA didn't start playing till week 6 or so, so its hilarious to watch Fields be roadkill frequently when he's not making absurd plays. After Ogunjobi failed his physical--he had zero plan at 3T. The Quinn trade was 'meh' because it felt like he held onto the guy too long and with dogshit along the DL Quinn just got doubled and taken out of every play.

Jack Sanborn was a good undrafted FA. So was Jaylon Jones, something we needed after seeing Thomas Graham flash last year only to see him land on the PS for 15 minutes before someone claimed him. Brisker and Gordon were good draft picks showing promise. Credit for those guys. I also like Justin Jones--he can actually penetrate and as a rotational DT or can be a serviceable 1T (ideally with a proficient 3T), I like him going forward.

The rest you can throw in the fucking garbage, so lets pump the brakes at 'Poles knows how to evaluate talent.' His 5th round LT is a turnstile that gets praised because he can run block and look good when Fields rolls away from him--equating to fans continuing to accept the same mediocrity at the position we've seen for decades; and until a week and change ago, everybody was ready to take Velus Jones out back old Yeller style. The SDSU LT kid he drafted got plucked off the PS. Dominique Robinson sucks. The rest don't even merit talking about.

This offseason is critical and will define his future. Does Poles value trying to build a modern offense? This is the only question that matters. We'll see. If he's trotting out Braxton Jones to play LT with a couple name changes on the OL and all of the resources funneled to defense like every Bears GM in my lifetime (sans Phil Emery) has done--I expect very little to change, and a year from now continued fan frustration without understanding how to win a fucking game--the unsexy way--in the trenches.

Now if Poles ends up drafting a shitload of new OL/DL early to piss off the dumbest of fans who still think WR separation is the problem, not pocket collapsing and his C/LT being man-handled into Fields' face anytime he takes a 3-5 step drop within a second of the ball being snapped--he gets his A+ from me.

say what you want about Emery, he retooled that offense quick. like almost every player was good. I've ripped on Tucker for years but I think the carryover defensive players from Lovie Smith just sandbagged the team.

Emery is like 10 years ago and he's only 2 GMs removed. how they shit him and Trestman out like immediately and held onto Pace for an eternity still blows my mind. fucking Wannstedt got 3x as long as head coach for posterity.

as for Poles, it's wait and see now. I still think he went a little more than 100% effort on budget and very little was allocated to getting difference makers, which you've outlined thoroughly.

 

[Bearly]

Poles just signed EQ to a one year deal (again). Does that mean next year is a tank year as well?

Poles grade can only be an incomplete at this point and that signing was for backup money at less than $1m.

Equanimeous St. Brown | NFL | Spotrac.com

Equanimeous St. Brown contract and salary cap details, full contract breakdowns, salaries, signing bonus, roster bonus, dead money, and valuations.

www.spotrac.com

 

[Bearly]

say what you want about Emery, he retooled that offense quick. like almost every player was good. I've ripped on Tucker for years but I think the carryover defensive players from Lovie Smith just sandbagged the team.

Emery is like 10 years ago and he's only 2 GMs removed. how they shit him and Trestman out like immediately and held onto Pace for an eternity still blows my mind. fucking Wannstedt got 3x as long as head coach for posterity.

as for Poles, it's wait and see now. I still think he went a little more than 100% effort on budget and very little was allocated to getting difference makers, which you've outlined thoroughly.

In it's 2nd year, that offense will have scored less points than this one. He inherited a 10-6 team with an offense that included Cutler, Forte, Marshall and Jeffery. D was ranked 3rd. The defense crashed a lot more than the offense improved( for one year, 23rd year 2) and they got fired due to completely losing the team and embarrassing the franchise with some the crap that went on. The 3 years prior, Lovie averaged almost 10 wins per season and that Emery crew averaged 6.5. That team was in complete disarray when the change was made.

 

[Zvbxrpl]

In it's 2nd year, that offense will have scored less points than this one. He inherited a 10-6 team with an offense that included Cutler, Forte, Marshall and Jeffery. D was ranked 3rd.

Uhhh…wow man. I hope the caffeine hasn’t kicked in because there’s a lot of wrong happening here.

Phil Emery didn’t inherit Brandon Marshall. He traded for him. He didn’t inherit Alshon Jeffery either, he drafted him. He inherited J’Marcus Webb at LT and paid Jermon Bushrod then Drafted Kyle Long.

And it’s very disingenuous to say ‘he inherited a D ranked 3rd.’ That defense was old, over the hill, outdated, in steep decline talent wise, and urlacher in his mid-late 30s suffered a crazy knee/leg injury week 17 the season prior and didn’t return (Emery’s biggest mistake, IMO) but people thought he’d clash With the new defense because he’d ‘done it his way for so long.’

Emery’s biggest mistake with Mel Tucker was keeping a 4-3 with shit-for-brains in Briggs calling assignments pre-snap, which he couldn’t do because 54 for a decade plus prior told him what to do/where to be. Tucker had a great run in Jax prior to the bears running a 3-4, and when Emery took McClellin I thought he was doing the smart thing and transition to a 3-4 but didn’t. Mix that with a bad Hc who couldn’t control a locker room and that’s how 2014 happened.

I’m not giving Emery a pass or trying to die on a hill that his tenure was cut short. I’m saying he’s the only GM in decades that valued offense when building a team. Pace didn’t. JA didn’t. Hatley and wanny didn’t. Poles is still TBD.

 

[abegibronlives]

Coming out of the Pace era where he strapped this team financially and left a roster void of much talent, I'll have to give Poles an A+++ grade for getting in the position they are in. Coming into this year, I think we all knew it would be a really bad year. Poles job in year 1 was to clear as much cap as possible getting rid of aging non motivated vets. Goodbye Mack, Hicks, Quinn, Foles. Also, they have an opportunity for the 1 or 2 pick. Great tank job! This now allows the Chicago Bears to go into free agency with 100 million in cap space and have created a good scenario to trade down and get a nice youth infusion. Now if you believe Poles knows how to evaluate talent is and create a winning organization is another topic, but give the man his credit in year 1. He did exactly what needed to be done.

"Tanking" is the easy part.

Rebuilding after the tank job is where the rubber meets the road.

For now, I'd give Poles an "incomplete"....We'll see where it goes from here.

Year two is huge.

 

[FatRabbit]

Bears already has best rushing offense in the NFL so Bears easily Best team in the NFL after 2023 draft and use those 100millions.

 

[bamainatlanta]

Uhhh…wow man. I hope the caffeine hasn’t kicked in because there’s a lot of wrong happening here.

Phil Emery didn’t inherit Brandon Marshall. He traded for him. He didn’t inherit Alshon Jeffery either, he drafted him. He inherited J’Marcus Webb at LT and paid Jermon Bushrod then Drafted Kyle Long.

And it’s very disingenuous to say ‘he inherited a D ranked 3rd.’ That defense was old, over the hill, outdated, in steep decline talent wise, and urlacher in his mid-late 30s suffered a crazy knee/leg injury week 17 the season prior and didn’t return (Emery’s biggest mistake, IMO) but people thought he’d clash With the new defense because he’d ‘done it his way for so long.’

Emery’s biggest mistake with Mel Tucker was keeping a 4-3 with shit-for-brains in Briggs calling assignments pre-snap, which he couldn’t do because 54 for a decade plus prior told him what to do/where to be. Tucker had a great run in Jax prior to the bears running a 3-4, and when Emery took McClellin I thought he was doing the smart thing and transition to a 3-4 but didn’t. Mix that with a bad Hc who couldn’t control a locker room and that’s how 2014 happened.

I’m not giving Emery a pass or trying to die on a hill that his tenure was cut short. I’m saying he’s the only GM in decades that valued offense when building a team. Pace didn’t. JA didn’t. Hatley and wanny didn’t. Poles is still TBD.

Tucker didn’t have a great run in Jax. He had one decent year playing bad teams. He was in over his head. **** that guy.

 

[Bearly]

.

Uhhh…wow man. I hope the caffeine hasn’t kicked in because there’s a lot of wrong happening here.

Phil Emery didn’t inherit Brandon Marshall. He traded for him. He didn’t inherit Alshon Jeffery either, he drafted him. He inherited J’Marcus Webb at LT and paid Jermon Bushrod then Drafted Kyle Long.

And it’s very disingenuous to say ‘he inherited a D ranked 3rd.’ That defense was old, over the hill, outdated, in steep decline talent wise, and urlacher in his mid-late 30s suffered a crazy knee/leg injury week 17 the season prior and didn’t return (Emery’s biggest mistake, IMO) but people thought he’d clash With the new defense because he’d ‘done it his way for so long.’

Emery’s biggest mistake with Mel Tucker was keeping a 4-3 with shit-for-brains in Briggs calling assignments pre-snap, which he couldn’t do because 54 for a decade plus prior told him what to do/where to be. Tucker had a great run in Jax prior to the bears running a 3-4, and when Emery took McClellin I thought he was doing the smart thing and transition to a 3-4 but didn’t. Mix that with a bad Hc who couldn’t control a locker room and that’s how 2014 happened.

I’m not giving Emery a pass or trying to die on a hill that his tenure was cut short. I’m saying he’s the only GM in decades that valued offense when building a team. Pace didn’t. JA didn’t. Hatley and wanny didn’t. Poles is still TBD.

My bad. I guess that's right but it turned into a shit show and huge embarrassment, partially due to Marshall but that last year was the most disappointed I've ever been in a Bears team. The lack of effort and infighting was unprecedented. Losing the team would be an understatement. The rest of the NFL must feel similarly because since that firing his highest position has been national scout which is his wheelhouse.

 

[94c4lt1]

say what you want about Emery, he retooled that offense quick. like almost every player was good. I've ripped on Tucker for years but I think the carryover defensive players from Lovie Smith just sandbagged the team.

Emery is like 10 years ago and he's only 2 GMs removed. how they shit him and Trestman out like immediately and held onto Pace for an eternity still blows my mind. fucking Wannstedt got 3x as long as head coach for posterity.

as for Poles, it's wait and see now. I still think he went a little more than 100% effort on budget and very little was allocated to getting difference makers, which you've outlined thoroughly.

Am I a giant dummy for thinking that Trestman would’ve been a great OC? Our offense was pretty damn good with Tresty at the helm but his cringy kumbaya shit, lack of effective leadership, and Mel Tucker’s garbage defense while he was HC was disastrous.

 

[bamainatlanta]

Am I a giant dummy for thinking that Trestman would’ve been a great OC? Our offense was pretty damn good with Tresty at the helm but his cringy kumbaya shit, lack of effective leadership, and Mel Tucker’s garbage defense while he was HC was disastrous.

Trestman’s offenses historically fell apart after the 1st year.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

Am I a giant dummy for thinking that Trestman would’ve been a great OC? Our offense was pretty damn good with Tresty at the helm but his cringy kumbaya shit, lack of effective leadership, and Mel Tucker’s garbage defense while he was HC was disastrous.

Egghead was a good coordinator but not a good head coach.

 

[Bears4Ever_34]

say what you want about Emery, he retooled that offense quick. like almost every player was good. I've ripped on Tucker for years but I think the carryover defensive players from Lovie Smith just sandbagged the team.

Emery is like 10 years ago and he's only 2 GMs removed. how they shit him and Trestman out like immediately and held onto Pace for an eternity still blows my mind. fucking Wannstedt got 3x as long as head coach for posterity.

as for Poles, it's wait and see now. I still think he went a little more than 100% effort on budget and very little was allocated to getting difference makers, which you've outlined thoroughly.

Yeah, his drafts were mostly terrible, but he did manage to draft a high impact player in each of the 3 he took part in (Jeffery, Long, Fuller). He came in right away and traded for a proven #1 WR in Marshall and paired him up with a young Alshon. The following year he bolstered the OL by drafting Kyle Long and signing the best LT on the market in Bushrod at the time. He also added another weapon as a pass catcher in Martellus Bennett, which cemented the Bears as one of the leagues' most dangerous offenses.

Poles version of this ended up being a massive overpay for Chase Claypool and drafting a 25 year old WR who can't run routes or hold on to the ball in Velus Jones. Wouldn't be surprised if he turned his focus to OL help and drafted a bust at OT, and then he'll go out and sign another lineman in free agency who turns out to be another swing and a miss.

His first season as Bears GM has been nothing short of a disaster, whether it was free agency, the draft, or trades. He better right this ship back around real quick or he's not going to hold on to this job for much longer. You can't have another 3-6 win season next year and expect to have a job by year 3 when you've got a budding star at quarterback still playing on his rookie salary.

 

[Toast88]

Time will tell, but I still think the most likely outcome is he is just like all the other Bears GMs we've seen---Overmatched, in his own head, and eventually, exposed as subpar.

I don't feel good about the Roquan situation. Even if Roquan was being an asshole to Poles, by all accounts he was still a professional with his teammates and coaches. There was no reason Poles couldn't have just franchise tagged him for a couple of seasons (for less money than he offered) while trying to figure out the contract situation. And the Roquan trade looks even worse when you stand it up next to the Claypool trade.


Also, hiring Matt Eberflus is looking like it may end up being a mistake. "It's too early to say that!" Ok, ok, fine. But so far, it's not looking good. It's looking like his rah-rah-try-hard approach may not be the way.

Eberflus' management of Fields' various injuries has bordered on negligence, from allowing Getsy to call multiple designed runs IMMEDIATELY after a medical timeout for Fields' injury running to the sideline, to letting him continue to get batted and bruised by his own fucking o-line during the Lions game, to other similar instances.

He's also your typical "I'm guarding state secrets" coach, which by itself isn't out of the norm from most other coaches, but taken with everything else, is part of the con-list.


So no, I'm not giving Poles an A++++++++. I'm giving him an "Incomplete" and we'll see.

I'm more than happy to wait on him and Eberflus to ultimately see whether they're the guys, but just being honest, neither looks good right now (Eberflus looks worse than Poles, but we'll see). And the overwhelming likelihood is that after all these decades, the Bears still haven't found their guys to take this team out of the doldrums and into the spotlight.



For anyone who's going to be super pissed at this take, what players can you point to as development guys that Poles dug deep on that are now looking like great value picks? Braxton Jones? Nope. Dominique Robinson? He might be the closest one. Whatever happened to all these great value picks he supposedly got mid-and-late draft? Have any of them developed well so far?

 

[Bort]

The motto for this year was, "Take a step back this year so we can take two steps forward next year. " The 2022 Bears have been a brutal watch but it will be more tolerable if the arrow is pointing up on the Bears next year. Poles needs to have an A+ draft in the spring. I do worry about his ability to evaluate talent because most of his draft picks from 2022 haven't made much of an impact.

At least the 2023 draft will be exciting for Bears fans with so many possibilities on how the Bears will proceed.

That's what happens when you only have 3 picks in the top 150 and none in the first round.

For as late as they were picked, Braxton Jones and Dominique Robinson just being backup/rotational caliber players as rookies is beating expectations.

The only likely bad pick that we can legitimately gripe about was Velus Jones Jr. #71 overall is way too high for a returner/gadget player.

 

[Discus fish salesman]

Time will tell, but I still think the most likely outcome is he is just like all the other Bears GMs we've seen---Overmatched, in his own head, and eventually, exposed as subpar.

I don't feel good about the Roquan situation. Even if Roquan was being an asshole to Poles, by all accounts he was still a professional with his teammates and coaches. There was no reason Poles couldn't have just franchise tagged him for a couple of seasons (for less money than he offered) while trying to figure out the contract situation. And the Roquan trade looks even worse when you stand it up next to the Claypool trade.


Also, hiring Matt Eberflus is looking like it may end up being a mistake. "It's too early to say that!" Ok, ok, fine. But so far, it's not looking good. It's looking like his rah-rah-try-hard approach may not be the way.

Eberflus' management of Fields' various injuries has bordered on negligence, from allowing Getsy to call multiple designed runs IMMEDIATELY after a medical timeout for Fields' injury running to the sideline, to letting him continue to get batted and bruised by his own fucking o-line during the Lions game, to other similar instances.

He's also your typical "I'm guarding state secrets" coach, which by itself isn't out of the norm from most other coaches, but taken with everything else, is part of the con-list.


So no, I'm not giving Poles an A++++++++. I'm giving him an "Incomplete" and we'll see.

I'm more than happy to wait on him and Eberflus to ultimately see whether they're the guys, but just being honest, neither looks good right now (Eberflus looks worse than Poles, but we'll see). And the overwhelming likelihood is that after all these decades, the Bears still haven't found their guys to take this team out of the doldrums and into the spotlight.



For anyone who's going to be super pissed at this take, what players can you point to as development guys that Poles dug deep on that are now looking like great value picks? Braxton Jones? Nope. Dominique Robinson? He might be the closest one. Whatever happened to all these great value picks he supposedly got mid-and-late draft? Have any of them developed well so far?

I disagree on franchising roquan. I don't ever want that much money allotted to an off ball LB. It's not an important position. Also I don't think the Claypool trade affects the roquan trade. Claypool trade was clearly terrible. But WRs are much more coveted and valuable than an off ball LB in a contract dispute who has minimal impact but wants to be paid more than anyone else at his position. I thought they did well on the roquan trade then fucked it up by trading their pick for claypool

 

[bamainatlanta]

That's what happens when you only have 3 picks in the top 150 and none in the first round.

For as late as they were picked, Braxton Jones and Dominique Robinson just being backup/rotational caliber players as rookies is beating expectations.

The only likely bad pick that we can legitimately gripe about was Velus Jones Jr. #71 overall is way too high for a returner/gadget player.

It just baffles me as to what people were actually expecting with a lack of early round picks. I believe some thought he should have hit a home run with every pick although the VJJ pick was more of a common sense issue

 

[bamainatlanta]

I disagree on franchising roquan. I don't ever want that much money allotted to an off ball LB. It's not an important position. Also I don't think the Claypool trade affects the roquan trade. Claypool trade was clearly terrible. But WRs are much more coveted and valuable than an off ball LB in a contract dispute who has minimal impact but wants to be paid more than anyone else at his position. I thought they did well on the roquan trade then fucked it up by trading their pick for claypool

Roquan is a dumb **** and a ticking time bomb with his off field antics. Imagine giving him $18 million +