skinny21

Pretty good chance of it for sure, but 1) I don’t love going into the draft needing a position, 2) will they be ready to start if we do land one?, and 3) that still leaves LT (obviously) and swing tackle as needs. Also, I shouldn’t have said “I don’t see how they’re going to address OT”, but rather “I’m curious if/how they’ll be able to address OT in an adequate manner”. Of course, given our oline play last year, the bar is pretty low for improvement, but with a rookie qb (presumably), lots of other teams needing OT, a pretty poor FA market, and this staff wanting to hit the ground running, it’s going to be interesting to see it play out. I can’t say I’d be shocked if Wylie starts early on. That sounds terrible of course, but I think last year was a terrible situation for him. Teams knew we were going to pass, knew they could get pressure almost at will (and he was a part of that calculus to be sure), so their back 7 could play to the shorter stuff. Made life harder on all our offensive players except maybe the backs… Feel like one of our resident cowboy fans had a “good riddance” take on Biadasz (maybe he wasn’t quite that harsh though). Quinn and Whitt can probably give a good accounting of him obviously. And I do like the age…

Center is interesting with 3 guys (that I know of) linked to our staff - Williams, Morse and Biadasz - all interesting options. I wouldn’t rule out them drafting one as well, but only if that guy is able to play guard. OT is the big one of course, I don’t see how they’re going nail down LT and RT…

Yeah, if they’re indeed leaning heavily into fairly frugal spending with an eye toward building in the draft, considering the market saturation, this might be one of the few/only spots I’d look to a longer term contract. I’m a pretty big fan of Forrest’s abilities/potential though, so I would hesitate on walling him off from a starting gig. I have no idea about fit, but the other one that jumps out to me - looking into taking advantage of Conner Williams’ injury status to get him on a reasonable, longer term deal.

Super picky? No, you’re right. However, as you know there are a group of teams that aren’t in the top 3 (ie liable to get a rookie to thrust into a starting role and relegating Wilson to a backup/mentor role), and they arguably have better rosters than ours - NYG, ATL, MIN, LV, PIT, and then potentially TB/TEN. And of course supply is limited to basically Kirk, Fields, Mayfield and Wilson and some rookies with pretty serious question marks. I’d be willing to bet one of these teams will find the pairing of Wilson with a McCarthy/Penix/Nix/Rattler/etc pretty appealing. I suppose there’s an outside chance WAS and/or NE replaces one (or two) of those qb needy teams via trading down.

It does. To be fair, you wouldn’t expect someone with a screen name of Voice of Reason to know much about that 😁

My list was so long you didn’t notice Curl on it… thus furthering my point 😁

Man, this safety FA class is pretty nuts - Winfield, Dugger, McKinney, Byard, Garnder-Johnson, Curl, Stone, Savage, Chinn and on and on.

True enough. Wonder how hard that is to gauge though for a new staff. I could see Izzo getting Tress’ opinion on ST personnel - the intangible stuff, not production - and if he did, I imagine Tress would rave about Reaves. Of course, just the fact that Quinn called him “Reavo” makes me think he’s very much on Quinn’s radar. Along that same vein, I wonder about Curl. Setting aside production, versatility, etc, IIRC, Curl was stepping into more of a leadership role last year, taking on some of the ‘field general’ aspects. Yet the communication/cohesion seemed to falter from ‘22. Now I place a ton of that blame on coaching - downgrading from coach Harris and Del Rio trying too hard to be clever - and talent/pass rush issues, but I have to wonder if the staff might prefer a bonafide leader on the back end. Edit: regarding Stromberg, I think he should have solid competition (whether at C, LG, or both), but I’d kind of be bummed to see him walled from an opportunity to earn a starting gig… like if we bring in good vets (particularly on longer contracts) at both spots. At least our starting interior and depth would look a lot better though!

Better have a plan to protect his blindside though!

I think they may re-sign Reaves… but then again, they’re apparently revamping this roster, so they might feel like they can find quality STers.

The thing about Leno is he provided a baseline of production, was available and his contract wasn’t that bad. A little worried we might have to have to pay even more for similar production, and for a longer term contract… and now we need two or 3 OTs. But I’m putting my faith in our staff. Tyron Smith looks like more of a possibility for us now, IMO. The Dallas fan on here that talked about Biadacz gave me some pause on him, but I could still see us adding him or Connor Williams. I wouldn’t be opposed to them penciling in Stromberg though with a rookie center to compete.

It’s even worse as we need a “x2” next to OT and Edge (as you well know). The change is exciting, particularly given our resources, but as you say… that is a lot of needs. I mean, he devoted more words to that position than any other, but otherwise I agree with your post… 😁

Yeah, I spelled out the first part of your post in mine. The second part touches on what I was referring to and is a good point. True enough, I meant my comments to be in regards to if I were McCarthy’s agent (or any of the top guys), but good point that the reward outweighs the risk for others. Your point about a platform is spot on as well - you’re not as likely to have whole contingents at a pro day, and I didn’t factor that aspect. Not directed at you guys - Is it true that combine throwing influenced Stroud and Richardson’s stock, or is that more speculation?

How different is it throwing at the combine vs throwing at his pro day in terms of perception? I guess the former is willingly putting yourself in a more uncomfortable (and therefore riskier) situation, which itself could be viewed positively or negatively. If I were an agent, I think I’d be against combine throwing - you don’t have chemistry with your receivers, including knowing how they break, how fast they are, catch radius, etc. Now, if you nail it at the combine, that could be a nice win and you’re getting that data point out there earlier in the process, but I tend to think the risks outweigh the rewards (IMO).

Random because it’s old news at this point, but I think it’s pretty awesome that Kerrigan is sticking around.

I wonder if having an assistant qb coach (David Blough) has any effect on the decision of whether to get a veteran qb to help mentor our new qb? The question came to mind mainly because I can’t recall having that position in the past, though I’m guessing we probably did, at least at some point…

Jewell maybe? Cashman’s interesting based on PFF scores, don’t know if he wore the green dot though… Wonder if we re-sign Hudson. I’m thinking this FA period will perhaps be both a bit underwhelming and a bit exciting - I’m guessing we won’t land any studs, but I think we’ll fill a lot of holes with solid players (setting ourselves up nicely for the draft).

Haha, me to brother, me too. Fortunately we have JMU running cover for us 😁

Yep. I’ll even go so far as to say there’s a small part of me that wishes we’d finished outside of the top 3 picks, lol. But we didn’t and so going for a qb is a no brainer IMO (and I’m excited about it). I’d actually say that the way everything has lined up - Snyder selling, landing a quality GM, Ron accidentally tanking, etc. - well, I’m a big believer in taking what the universe drops in your lap.

You said it was ludicrous, and I agreed with you…? Anyway, I agree that “getting cute” with the decision to take a blue chip qb prospect is idiotic. If I had 2 guys rated closely or was torn on which to take though? I’d take the trade down in a heart beat. This is more about philosophy than what I think the Bears do, though I suppose there’s a small (maybe minuscule) chance that’s the boat they find themselves in… I’ll just add that part of my thinking stems from how opinions differ on Maye vs Daniels on this board, and in the media. Seems a general consensus that Williams is ahead of Maye, though of course we’ve seen some outliers there as well.

You hit on the main point that I didn’t initially spell out. If it’s a career defining pick, it seems to me adding high end picks softens the blow if you wind up wrong. And there’s a scarily decent chance they’re wrong whichever route they go. Again though, my hypothetical only applies if they have the prospects rated really close to each other. In other words, they wouldn’t need a guarantee of which qb was traded up for. Almost certainly wasting my time posting on the issue because I agree with you that’s it’s basically a lock CHI takes Williams (or at the very least stays put at 1)… just wanted to clarify my point a bit. Your scenario is definitely ludicrous lol. Are people suggesting that? I guess maybe I saw something akin to it mentioned a while back regarding us trading with NE?

Funny enough, your post actually gives me some pause. I mean, I’m right there with you in that I didn’t (and still don’t) think Chicago trades down. With that said, if I was in their shoes and had two (or 3) qbs rated close to each other, and/or if the room is divided on the pick, I’d have to consider a trade down. Given the crapshoot nature of the draft, particularly with qbs, adding a couple 1st round picks (or whatever) might be a really smart hedge. Of course that’s easy for me to say.

Yeah, I’ve had the same thought for a while now but decided I wasn’t stupid enough to suggest it. sorry, I meant “brave enough”… 😁

Obviously I have no idea how that would play out, but I can see clear potential for it being a big plus. 1. You’d have two guys with experience in the same offense, and that shared experience can serve as a translation bridge for the new offense. 2. If they’re good friends, you probably have less ego in the qb room, they’ll likely support each other and won’t be afraid to speak up in front of each other. 3. They’re apt to spend a lot of time outside of the facility together, which potentially means a lot more time learning together. 4. I imagine it’s easier to coach two guys that have the shared experience in terms of offense experience and age. 5. I could see how having a friend (that’s in all the same meeting rooms) might help a rookie get more comfortable, faster. 6. There’s a decent chance that whatever one qb needs to hear, the other needs to as well. There are potential negatives of course. To me, the big one (if we don’t wind up with a vet in the room) is that your rookie isn’t hearing/seeing the higher level questions and coaching that a vet might bring. Now, part of me wonders if that’s a little like learning pre-cal and calculus at the same time, but even if you only retain some of the advanced stuff, I’d think it might help provide context to the more basic stuff. I have no idea though.

All things being equal, yes, you’d think he’d go to a contender. Thing is, there are a lot of other factors in play here: 1) how many teams are seen as contenders right now, 2) what is their cap situation, 3) do they have backers in house already, 4) is ILB where they want to spend their money, and 5) might they prefer one of the other fair few quality linebackers set to hit FA. Not gonna dissect all of those, but just regarding cap space, I’m seeing the Bengals, Lions, Texans and I guess Rams as the only contenders with over 15mil in effective cap space. Ravens have just over 1mil, and I think 8 teams that were in the playoffs are in the red on cap space.