So is anyone agreeable that after the 4-5 game stretch we are in we should know what direction the team might take? Just askin...
It's going to be interesting to see the final 9 games played out. The schedule ahead is so soft, for the most part (yes there will be a few decent teams left to play... but some really bad teams too). I don't know how the Bears could NOT be a 10-win team at the end of the season. If we just play .500 ball during this run we have 9 or 10 wins for the year.
So, what will that tell us about the Bears and the direction of the team?
I think it will have some fans pointing to the team having "turned it around" and Foles is "The Guy" and everything is wonderful in Bears wonderland.
I think it will have some fans pointing to the team not being as good as the record would indicate... certainly not good enough to win their division, and don't even THINK about a Super Bowl win with this team.
Some will want Nagy gone at the end of the season... like Lovie Smith who got fired after his last season (a 10 win season too).
Personally, I just want to see the games played and make up my own mind about it all. Too early to crown the Bears. Too early to count them out too. Gotta watch the games...
Looking at the remaining schedule it looks like another 5 wins are possible this season... this defense combined with some weak opponents probably will give the Bears a 10 win season - even with the poor offense. So there won't be any rebuild or firings. It's just not going to happen. The team won't quit on Nagy. The players like him too much to do that.
So the best we can hope for is probably that Ryan Pace will get a solid OC on the team and insist Nagy let the man do his job, calling the plays included. Then Pace needs to make a priority of getting the OL fixed. It's going to take BOTH the draft AND free agents I think. If Pace fails on this then he will be fired after next year. The other priority is obviously getting a QB for the offense. Yes it will be difficult. But he's going to be in his 7th off-season as our GM. If he can't do it in 7 years then he probably can't get it done ever here. Yes, it will probably be a rookie who brings nothing more than some hope for the future in that first season. But at least Pace needs to make the effort to draft our QB of the future. Then fans will at least have some hope that maybe the new kid can be good someday in the future.
If Pace and Nagy can't get it done by the end of next season then both will be gone. Yes, it's not good to go through the GM/HC replacement again. But what else CAN you do if the existing 2 guys can't get it done? Keep them? No. They will have to go and they will go. You don't keep failed leadership. You can't.
Hopefully (and I mean this), Pace and Nagy can make the adjustments needed and they stay. That's the ideal. And maybe they will turn it around. I know one thing. I'm tired of watching these pitiful offensive efforts. Last year and this year, the offense has been painful to watch. That's the only word I can come up with to describe the experience of watching football played this poorly on offense. It's painful to watch. It is shameful too. Pace should seriously be ashamed for people to see his work product of 6 years here - on the offense side of the ball. It's pitiful.
IDK why you expect Pace Year 7 to be substantially different than Pace Years 1-6. What is your basis for believing this? Nothing but desperate hope??
Pace hasn't drafted a single offensive star in 6 tries. Best he's done is Cody Whitehair...a Center.
We have very little cap space for FA signings so unless Pace absolutely kills it in the draft, I wouldn't expect much change in just "one more year". We need a QB (maybe 2), a WR (assuming Robinson leaves), and major OL help. That's a very tall order for one offseason and that's just the offensive side of the ball.
I can give you my reasoning, and its not an expectation, just a glimmer of hope... Both Pace and Nagy were pure rookies when we signed them. So, I give them a little room. Tbh im prepared to give more room to Pace only because I feel he has learned every year, little by little, think about it mp...hasnt he gotten "better"? On the other side, Nagy seems like he is regressin, its just a really strong feelin. But, I probably wouldnt get rid of any of them next year. But, that will be it for me. If Nagy abandons playcalling. One more chance.
How were the offensive stats the year before that? Just asking...
I mean you guys act like this guy is Phil Emery or Mark Hatley. And I forgot how easy it is to find a qb in this league...I mean the 31 other teams in this league have the QB position nailed and locked down...right? I'm not saying he's been perfect, but he's been no where near as bad as some of you make him out to be. Not even close.
Better but still not good.
I've posted this multiple times here before to refute those who magically believe the Bears offense was "good" in 2018. It wasn't. It was merely NOT AS BAD.
The defense that season was otherworldly as I'm sure you recall. It lead the league in turnovers and defensive scoring...by far. When you normalize out the short fields, the takeaways, and the defensive TDs, you find the actual offensive production of the 2018 Bears was low-average in NFL rankings. And keep in mind even that includes one outlier game vs Tampa where Trubisky threw for 6 TDs and we scored 48 points in a rout against the league's worst defense that year.
As a particularly apropos and illustrative example, we beat the 11-2 LA Rams that season, the team we just got trucked by, by a score of 15-6. I was there in the stands and remember it well. We did it with 1 TD, 2 FGs, a Safety, and 4 INTs. Trubisky had 110 yards and 3 picks. His "TD pass" was on a 2-yard gadget play to Bradley Sowell.
I don't think I need to go into what the offense looked like Pace's first 3 years under John Fox when all we had was JoHo running over people. I stand by my assertion that Ryan Pace hasn't produced a decent offense in his entire tenure as GM.
I've said this many times here: Pace has done a heckuva job on defense but he's failed massively on offense. I want a GM that can construct a well-rounded team that can win consistently, not just when the defense wins the game 90% on its own.
"I don't like the results so I'm going to add a bunch of other things to help change the results to something I like".
Thats what you've just done there. The offense doesn't control where it starts. It's job is to put points on the board. The defense doesn't control where it starts...it's job is to keep the other team from scoring. They either put points on the board and stop points from being put on the board or they don't. What you're trying to say is that if they had to go a longer distance they wouldn't have been as good. Except there's no way to prove that.
I think we're more in agreement than disagreement though.
I've posted this multiple times here before to refute those who magically believe the Bears offense was "good" in 2018. It wasn't. It was merely NOT AS BAD.
The defense that season was otherworldly as I'm sure you recall. It lead the league in turnovers and defensive scoring...by far. When you normalize out the short fields, the takeaways, and the defensive TDs, you find the actual offensive production of the 2018 Bears was low-average in NFL rankings. And keep in mind even that includes one outlier game vs Tampa where Trubisky threw for 6 TDs and we scored 48 points in a rout against the league's worst defense that year.
As a particularly apropos and illustrative example, we beat the 11-2 LA Rams that season, the team we just got trucked by, by a score of 15-6. I was there in the stands and remember it well. We did it with 1 TD, 2 FGs, a Safety, and 4 INTs. Trubisky had 110 yards and 3 picks. His "TD pass" was on a 2-yard gadget play to Bradley Sowell.
I don't think I need to go into what the offense looked like Pace's first 3 years under John Fox when all we had was JoHo running over people. I stand by my assertion that Ryan Pace hasn't produced a decent offense in his entire tenure as GM.
I've said this many times here: Pace has done a heckuva job on defense but he's failed massively on offense. I want a GM that can construct a well-rounded team that can win consistently, not just when the defense wins the game 90% on its own.
"I don't like the results so I'm going to add a bunch of other things to help change the results to something I like".
Thats what you've just done there. The offense doesn't control where it starts. It's job is to put points on the board. The defense doesn't control where it starts...it's job is to keep the other team from scoring. They either put points on the board and stop points from being put on the board or they don't. What you're trying to say is that if they had to go a longer distance they wouldn't have been as good. Except there's no way to prove that.
I think we're more in agreement than disagreement though.
Come on buktus, you'll better than that. When the defense has 36 turnovers, you really don't think that won't help the offense get some points?
The 2018 Bears defense was ranked the 2nd best of the DECADE. Trailing behind the 2015 Broncos...
That's #2 out of 320 defenses...
A defense like that will make any mediocre offense look good. See 2015 Broncos for results...
Here's another thing. 40 games with Nagy as a HC. Only 16 games the offense scored more than 21 points.... Including that great 2018 season.