Interesting...

Given that Ian Rapoport is one of the biggest rumor mongers around IMHO much of what he reports has to be taken with a grain of salt or at the very least thoroughly vetted through logic and common sense to find the actual nuggets of truth.

I can only hope that at least some of what he's reporting is true in regards to ownership (if that's who he refers to as the "top brass") is getting serious about evaluating Fox and Pace to date.  The team is in a serious regression or what I'd call a dead man's spiral and also IMHO Fox's is only making matters worse with his flailing personnel moves and cryptic pressers.  Failing to give any vote of confidence to your starting QB and then stating that "there is no plan" is not a great way to engender loyalty and keep your team focused.

And while I agree that it may be time to move on from Jay Cutler it seems to be that Fox is essentially assuring it by his attitude about him and yet back in January both he and Pace declared that Jay was their QB of the present and the foreseeable future and that both would continue to support him and build around him. Pace has been silent on this ever since and passed on drafting a QB which would tend to confirm his position about it.  But now Fox appears to have done a 180 degree reversal and is about ready to scapegoat Cutler, or at least he was until he lost Hoyer.

Someone please tell me how this sounds like a guy who knows what in the hell he's doing. If this has caught my attention as a casual fan located 1000 miles away I can't see how it can't have caught the attention of Pace and the McCaskey/Phillips triumvirate.  I'd think you'd have to be nearly brain dead not to have picked up on all of this.  Burning the bridge with Cutler before they even have his potential replacement in house is a pretty dumb way to run a team you're trying to get back in contention yet Fox has pretty much set up a "it's him or me scenario" and based on what happened here in Denver I would not doubt that Jay has indicated that if he's not in their plans he would prefer to be traded now.

I think his comment this past week about Fox having no choice but to trust him tell us most of what we need to know about their relationship despite what has been said otherwise.  It seems to me that no matter which one goes they run the risk of setting themselves back but I have to ask again whose not accomplished their goal?  Cutler improved massively last year under Adam Gase but this year under a John Fox influenced Dowell Loggains not only has Jay struggled but the entire offense has basically been neutered by poor personnel decisions, inept play calling, a failure to make in game adjustments, etc.  I don't think anyone can hang that on Cutler because he did as much or more in the game and a half he was able to play as Hoyer did in all of his starts.

Personally I think Jay deserves a better shake than he's ever gotten in Chicago and for that reason alone I think they should trade him but I'll be happy to go on record as saying it won't help this team one bit as long as John Fox remains it's HC.  John Elway provided him with massive amounts of experienced talent here in Denver and one of the greatest QBs to ever play the game and he still could not produce a consistent winner at the playoff level.  He made one SB appearance with Adam Gase running his #1 ranked offense and then again neutered them so badly in the SB that Seattle buried him then lost again in the first round of the playoffs the following year but still couldn't grasp why he was let go.

IMHO John Fox is far more of a loser at this point in his career than he is a winner.  The only rationale for hiring him over a younger more offensive oriented HC like Gase was his mythical ability to turn teams around quickly and it has turned out to be a myth.  Hopefully the Bears "top brass" sees and understands this by now and won't lack the balls to simply pay him off and send him into retirement before we lose another one or two years in a rebuilding process that isn't working because if he's retained I'm convinced that's what will happen.

That could well be true but I'm not convinced that it will be Cutler who goes.  That only happens if Fox remains and if that isn't what's being hashed out by the "top brass" as Rapoport says then I'd have to wonder why it isn't.

Jay Cutler may never win a SB for the Bears and his star may be fading but they sure as hell won't win one with John Fox running the team either.  All of the gains Adam Gase was able to bring about with that offense last year have been completely destroyed in less than half a season by John Fox.

He won in Denver because he had OCs like Mike McCoy and Adam Gase and a QB like Payton Manning.  Without two top OCs to run his offense it's cratered and no one should ever expect Jay Cutler to be Payton Manning because no one else has been either.  That still doesn't make Cutler a poorer choice than Brian Hoyer yet Fox would more than likely have continued to start him over Cutler even after Cutler returned.

So.....how can anyone honestly say we should stick it out with a HC who saw Jeremy Langford as a better option than Carey and Howard at RB, saw Kevin White as a better option than Cam Meredith at WR, played rookie Leonard Floyd as a 3 down OLB from day one keeping his best all around OLB and pass rusher on the bench, and insisted on replacing Robbie Gould with the far more accurate Connor Barth (which was a lie) until he very quickly proved he wasn't.

So if this is the guy you want trying to resurrect your team well then you're welcome to him but I will not support him period.  I'm done with "the man without a plan" for good and I can only hope those who actually do control his fate see it the same way.

I just can't see us starting all over again... especially with the switch from 4-3 and most likely losing fangio. I do think jay wins a couple games for us and bounces us out of top 5 pick.

Any good coordinators available? Jim bob maybe? God I wish we hired Arians 4 years ago 😉

And this would make the most sense logically but this team has been run so illogically for so long that it's nearly impossible to predict what they'll do especially with a CEO who is convinced promoting his losing "brand" is more important than winning games and owners who have permitted the team to be run this way.

While it's true that Jay's guaranteed money has run out after this season his declining salary makes him one of the better bargains for a starting caliber QB and if the Bears don't think so I believe there are a number of other teams who be happy to have him with his contract or one he may be willing to renegotiate.

I don't know that anyone would pay top dollar in picks for him now.  The Rams aren't going anywhere soon and they just spent a top pick on Goff.  I also don't think his return to Denver would be well received by fans here and in Semien and Lynch it appears Elway has two young QBs he can win with and a HC who actually can coach QBs.

Following the season the biggest stumbling block to getting fair value for him will be the thought that if the Bears will release him why pay for him and with any other team I would think they would not be that dumb but I've seen them do so many dumb things already for so long it's not much of stretch to see them do that too.

Cutler may never win a SB but then others have who are no better than him and some even worse.  The bottom line is he still gives the team the best chance of winning games based on who they have to play QB now so the objective as you say should be to find a better QB and not throw the baby out with the bath water until then.

And playing to lose only to assure themselves of getting a top pick to spend on a QB is just as dumb.  Given the overall success rate of highly drafted QB, and then looking at our success rate drafting them would make me hesitant to ever think that would work for us any better than it has in the past.  We haven't really drafted a truly great QB since Sid Luckman.