Is anyone optimistic about next season?

[Aquineas]

I generally try to remain optimistic and hopeful about this team, but so far I don't have confidence in the early coaching moves.

• I didn't want to lose Helfrich- I would have much rather seen some games where he called plays. Now granted, I don't know for certain that he didn't call plays, but it sure seemed like every time on offense it was always Nagy who was speaking into the QB radio. You know with some teams, there are offensive systems that you know have game-planned well and you know their scripted plays, usually the first 8-10 offensive plays, are going to lead to an efficient opening drive with a possible score. New Orleans is one of those teams- you always know they're going to at least move the ball on their first drive. With the Bears, the opposite is true. You could almost always assume that the Bears would open their first several drives with 3 and outs. These coaches could not put an effective offensive game-plan together to save their lives. So my questions around the OC position are: is Nagy the problem? Will he insist on calling the plays when a new OC comes in? And will his insistence on calling plays deter a quality OC from coming in?
• I'm not yet sold on Juan Castillo.
• Pace and Nagy seemed to have doubled down on their previous decisions. Committing to Mitch as the starter? Why do that now? Mitch has not consistently played like an NFL starter. Now I get the part about the running game generally sucking for much of the year and the offensive line not playing well, but at the end of the 2018 season, my feeling about Mitch was I saw some good things by Mitch and plenty of "WTF was that moments?" where his footwork led to wildly inaccurate passes with no ability to hit anyone deep downfield. "Give him another year in the system, and he'll improve." Well he's had another year in the system, and we still see occasional good moments but still far too many wildly inaccurate passes (again, mostly due to inconsistent footwork) and too many "WTF moments."
• When Nagy defiantly stated in an interview this season, "I didn't come here to run the I-formation" (or something along those lines), well, my question is, if it's working, why the heck not? Don't try to be the "cute" genius that can't adjust your play calling to your team's strengths and weakness. Actually, that's my biggest criticism of Nagy- he does exactly that. Nagy seems to think he's still in Kansas City and has world class speed all over his roster. He does not. And if your offensive line is happy because they're knocking mother-fuckers off the ball in the I-formation and you're moving the ball (albeit slowly), then dammit beat the living crap out of that defense.
• Harry Hiestand coached a helluva college offensive line. Yeah, this line sucked. But how much of that was because of system, players

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

I didn’t read all that but my answer to thread title as of right now is ask me after the draft it’s way too early at this time

 

[Leomaz]

Absolutely

 

[Aquineas]

I didn’t read all that but my answer to thread title as of right now is ask me after the draft it’s way too early at this time

IMHO, after the draft is the worst time to gauge a team. Way too much optimism for unproven 23 year-olds and their ability to impact a team. On the Bears anyway, very rarely has hype about draft picks translated to decent play.

 

[Anytime23]

Hard to say right now. Gotta see how FA/draft goes. All I know is you cannot make a couple assistant coach changes and think this team as currently constructed will turn it around in ‘20.

 

[HeHateMe]

I'm an eternal optimist and think Nagy will be microdosing by the time preseason rolls around.

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

IMHO, after the draft is the worst time to gauge a team. Way too much optimism for unproven 23 year-olds and their ability to impact a team. On the Bears anyway, very rarely has hype about draft picks translated to decent play.

True but it’s really the culmination of free agency and cap cuts that happen after the draft that I’m also figuring into the equation.

so if you’re asking should I be optimistic going into next season with the 2019 squad progressing I’m saying fuck no. I have to see the final masterpiece to give a real evaluation of things.

 

[BigTom]

It's the NFL, there should always be optimism in the off season. Teams move in and out of the playoffs every year. The Bears have enough proven talent that they can be competitive and go 8-8 in a year where the offense was atrocious. Get some actual production from the offense and a few more turnovers to go the defenses way and they're right back to an 11-13 win team and in the playoffs. Of course it could just as easily go the opposite direction and turn into a 4-12 season but might as well be optimistic for now.

 

[KittiesKorner]

no, not really

 

[TL1961]

I generally try to remain optimistic and hopeful about this team, but so far I don't have confidence in the early coaching moves.

• I didn't want to lose Helfrich- I would have much rather seen some games where he called plays. Now granted, I don't know for certain that he didn't call plays, but it sure seemed like every time on offense it was always Nagy who was speaking into the QB radio. You know with some teams, there are offensive systems that you know have game-planned well and you know their scripted plays, usually the first 8-10 offensive plays, are going to lead to an efficient opening drive with a possible score. New Orleans is one of those teams- you always know they're going to at least move the ball on their first drive. With the Bears, the opposite is true. You could almost always assume that the Bears would open their first several drives with 3 and outs. These coaches could not put an effective offensive game-plan together to save their lives. So my questions around the OC position are: is Nagy the problem? Will he insist on calling the plays when a new OC comes in? And will his insistence on calling plays deter a quality OC from coming in?
• I'm not yet sold on Juan Castillo.
• Pace and Nagy seemed to have doubled down on their previous decisions. Committing to Mitch as the starter? Why do that now? Mitch has not consistently played like an NFL starter. Now I get the part about the running game generally sucking for much of the year and the offensive line not playing well, but at the end of the 2018 season, my feeling about Mitch was I saw some good things by Mitch and plenty of "WTF was that moments?" where his footwork led to wildly inaccurate passes with no ability to hit anyone deep downfield. "Give him another year in the system, and he'll improve." Well he's had another year in the system, and we still see occasional good moments but still far too many wildly inaccurate passes (again, mostly due to inconsistent footwork) and too many "WTF moments."
• When Nagy defiantly stated in an interview this season, "I didn't come here to run the I-formation" (or something along those lines), well, my question is, if it's working, why the heck not? Don't try to be the "cute" genius that can't adjust your play calling to your team's strengths and weakness. Actually, that's my biggest criticism of Nagy- he does exactly that. Nagy seems to think he's still in Kansas City and has world class speed all over his roster. He does not. And if your offensive line is happy because they're knocking mother-fuckers off the ball in the I-formation and you're moving the ball (albeit slowly), then dammit beat the living crap out of that defense.
• Harry Hiestand coached a helluva college offensive line. Yeah, this line sucked. But how much of that was because of system, players

Nobody on the Bears' offensive line can knock anyone off the ball.

 

[TishLover]

Always!!!! Every fricking year!

 

[westcoast bear fanatic]

Not with Mitch at the helm. He will Blake Bortles us into oblivion. Wake me up when he is replaced.

 

[Bears4Ever_34]

It honestly all depends on who the quarterback is. Hard to get enthused if they're just going to run this whole thing back again with Mitch under center. Problem is, outside of the pipe dream of getting Tom Brady or maybe Nick Foles at a discount, I'm not sure who else is out there in free agency that I'd rather have right now. It certainly wouldn't be Marcus Mariota or Andy Dalton.

 

[coolio]

I just hope we don't grab Teddy Bridgewater

 

[wisconsinbearsfan]

Yes, because clearly Nagy is not an idiot.

 

[Black Rainbow]

Most important thing is bringing in a veteran QB to backup Trubisky.

If they bring in no one, completely skip the preseason, and try to sell me, "Mitch looks like he graduated to level 300 in our closed, simulated game." Get ready for a long season.

 

[bufordht]

I think with some luck and the right off season moves this team just might be competitive in 23.


Seriously

 

[Jack Lantern]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1211666399673880576

 

[Southside]

Im not optimisitc at all with Trubisky at QB, in fact the moment that killed me was the press conference. Especially when George McCaskey said that we need to score more points on defense. If you draft a QB #2 overall, he's supposed to be a difference maker who elevates your team, not a guy who gets masked by his defense.

That entire press conference was disappointing, and it feels like the team is more concerned with making Trubisky look good than winning games. Trubisky is so far behind that you can't develope him AND win 10+ game simutaneously. Bears have to make a choice and they are chosing Trubisky over the best interest of the rest of the team, wasting primes. They are also disrespecting the fanbase who already know that Mitch sucks, we've watched him for 41 games. It's about to be year 4. For them to feed us this, "we need more time to evaluate him" narrative is an insult to our intelligence. When/if he still sucks after 50 games, then what?

We averaged 18.6 ppg against on defense whch was good enough for 4th in the league, and yet we barely eeked our way to .500 record. But none of the guys at the top seem to want to hold Trubisky accountable for wasting an entire season, if he cant make the playoffs with the 4th ranked defense then how will he carry the Bears in the future as we get older on defense? I wouldnt be shocked if we were under .500 next year. Could you imagine if we had no defense or our defense had been ranked 25th or lower, how bad our record would have been this season with Mitch? We seriously may have only won 5/6 games.

 

[Jack Lantern]

Think positive Southside!

If Nagy sends Mitch out week after week and he continues to struggle, he'll just end up losing the locker room which will just equate to more losses which in a way may be a good thing cause it'll just accelerate Nagy and Pace's walking papers.