Vikings beat Bears - who gets the deflated ball?

The OL has been hurt by some bad luck (Davis long leave of absence, Jenkins injury, Brax injury) no doubt but yeah the C position has been a dumpster fire and it can't be blamed on factors that couldn't be known in advance.

Whitehair had snapping issues before.  Lucas Patrick has been unavailable and not very good when he was available going back to last year.  Poles and the coaches deserve blame for mis-evaluating that.

Going forward, you need TWO NEW CENTERS this offseason--a starter and a decent backup.  Unless the mysterious Doug Kramer (get him in there to get some work in) turns out to be way better than expected, you need two new ones.

Fortunately, C is one of the cheapest positions to acquire so sign a solid vet free agent AND draft another one.  Let those two fight it out with Kramer in TC next August to see how the depth chart sorts out.   

Whats your dead cap, ser?

I see your point.  And maybe that is the best way to go.  You know me.  I tend to go overboard on everything.  But teams usually don't let an elite C get away from them.  And that's what I truly want to see anchoring the OL.  Like a young Olin Kreutz, or a young stud like Frank Ragnow, the Lions C (although he was a top-20 draft pick in the 1st round).  The Lions understand the value of linemen now and they are finally winning.

And if we drafted the top C in the draft, he would have veteran guards on both sides of him that first season.  He'd be fine - if he truly is a top-tier elite talent.  He would then anchor the entire OL unit... the heart of the OL.  That investment (a 2nd round draft pick) would pay dividends for a decade... and maybe even a bit more than that (Jason Kelce is 35 now).  If we ever want to have a solid offense here I believe we need to bring in top-tier talent.  We need to do that with both the OL and the DL (like the Lions).  Build out the team from there.  I understand it will take more than 2024 to do this.  I also would be fine going QB/WR in the first round this year... because I think the best C next year could be had with that top 2nd round pick.  If we truly want to change things on offense in general, and with the QB in particular, I think the Bears need to focus first on offense... bring in top-tier talent to go with that QB.  Don't spend top resources on defense until the QB/O is set.  Get the O and QB right - and THEN worry about defense in 2025.  Of course the Bears won't do that... and the team will continue to suck, and they will "wonder why" they can't get a QB to succeed here in Chicago.  LOL.

Centers and even guards don't tend to get drafted in the 1st round, especially the high 1st.  There's no need for that.

There's stud Cs and Gs available on Day 2 in rounds 2-3 every single draft. Heck, that's why I was hoping for Tippman or JMS last year in round 2.  Chiefs drafted a stud C (Creed Humphrey) in round 2 and he became a key factor in turning that OL around after the SB loss to Tampa in which Mahomes was running for his life the whole game.  

Overall point is, of all the problems to have in NFL football, this one is pretty easy to solve.  Just sign a solid vet FA C/G AND draft a guy you like somewhere in the middle rounds.  Those two guys plus Kramer (and/or Feeney) can fight it out in OTAs and TC next yeaa r to sort out the depth chart.  Whitehair and Patrick will be released (two perfect examples of why holding onto to vet players a year too long can come back to bite you in the ass).  Don't need a rocket scientist to fix this position.

BTW, Brian Baldinger was on the CHGO show today (available on YT).  They talked about the ridiculous play with Whitehair blocking his own teammate and the play JF1 got hurt on when he held the ball a ridiculously long time after missing an open read to DJ Moore.  

It turns out I was mistaken in what I read earlier.  Fields didn't take 6.1 seconds.  He took 6.9

You almost can't make this stuff up. 

7 seconds
Truly mindblowing