A few weeks ago, you saw people saying he was a generational talent, that they would pick him (as a prospect coming out of college) over Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, John Elway, comparing his game to Patrick Mahomes. He has lost a few games this year but Jesus, his defense gives up 33 PPG, 420 yards of offense per game and they let people score 94% of the time in the redzone.
He has 119 total touchdowns over 3 years with only 13 ints. This year he is completing almost 70% of his passes. Are you guys genuinely concerned about his ability to play at the next level or is it just nit picking at this point?
This narrative has been said for many years and is utterly flawed and is done to cope with our QB not panning out. The same way people said we were ruining Mitch! he’ll go be a star somewhere else are doing the same with Fields. Those 2 can’t play the QB position, I don’t care if they were on the Eagles/49ers.
The Bears have drafted literally 1 QB in the top 10 since Jim McMahon (Trubisky) and have only drafted 5 QBs in the 1st round since 1960 - McMahon, Harbaugh, McNown, Grossman, Trubisky, and Fields.
Also none of these guys were really great prospects, McMahon 2nd QB selected, Harbaugh 4th QB selected, McNown 5th QB selected, Grossman 4th QB selected, Trubisky was the 1st QB selected, but also played like 13 games in college, and then Fields 4th QB selected.
This idea that we’re drafting premier talent and ruining them is so false and our QB “luck” is what every franchise has gone through.
I’m in no way saying we have had bad luck. I believe we have had plenty of serviceable QBs over the years. What the team has lacked, and still does (but is getting better), is a support system. In Lovie’s era we had the defense, but not a reliable offensive line. We even had the weapons under Trestman, but the offensive live was a sieve. Recently, the team management has started to pay attention to the offensive line, but at the expense of the defense.
In my mind we currently need a lot of pieces to be a decent team. Our secondary on defense while serviceable isn’t deep enough. I feel like we need one to two more DBs. On the DLine we just picked up a great addition in Sweat, but we need another threat up front so we can take the pressure off the DBs. That is at least 3 players on defense to get us where we need to be to be an average team in the league. On offense we still need two offensive linemen. We are have seen over the past few years how important having a healthy OLine is and having them all on the same page because they have experience working together will only help make the offense better. We also need a WR1 or WR2. I know we picked up Moore, but he can’t be our only weapon downfield. We either need a better WR1 to take his place and make him compete to earn back his WR1 position, or a better WR2 to support him and take some of the attention away from the defenses to free Moore up.All that said, we need more than just a QB to make this team better.
But recently, people are calling for coaches and managers to be fired. We need to have some continuity from this franchise and if we are yelling to fire our Offensive Coordinator, our Head Coach, or even our General Manager, we are not going to see the change that that coach (or GM) envisions for the team. If we as a fanbase want to see our Head Coach or Offensive Coordinator fired, then we need to have faith in our franchise to find a better one to replace them with. What I was saying in my original comment is, I don’t trust our franchise to pick a better OC, HC, or GM. And if we draft the best QB in the draft with a Top 5 Pick, and then they are coached by another Getsy, Lazor, Helfrich, Loggions, Gase, etc. we will be right back on the QB train again because we will still be either throwing screen passes or running the ball on 2nd an 8+ because they don’t have the balls call a pass play and throw the ball downfield. We will all be right back where we are now bitching and moaning about how this team can’t develop QB talent. And the thing is, it’s not a QB issue. It is a team issue.
I propose we trade down away from the QBs and pick up talent on both sides of the ball to build around. Get the DB or two that we need. Grab a DLineman. Grab a pair of WRs, an OT/G maybe even a Center that we need. Maybe pickup a TE that can bailout our QB when they are in the redzone or catch a pass on 3rd down past the sticks. We have a ton of cap space available and we need to find the players to pay it to. The most cost effective way to do that is through the draft. That way when out team is ready in a year or two we can pick up our QB and they can succeed like CJ is doing down in Houston.