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“I think when you’re going to play defense, you’re going to lean on takeaways to help a young offense, and you don’t have a kicker, a reliable kicker, that you’re going to need those points from after some of those turnovers,” Fox said on ESPN’s “NFL Live,” where he serves as an analyst. “I think the kicking question is really big right now in Chicago. And I think that might be a problem for them in the season.”

UOK wrote:https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2019 ... n-nfl-espn

“I think when you’re going to play defense, you’re going to lean on takeaways to help a young offense, and you don’t have a kicker, a reliable kicker, that you’re going to need those points from after some of those turnovers,” Fox said on ESPN’s “NFL Live,” where he serves as an analyst. “I think the kicking question is really big right now in Chicago. And I think that might be a problem for them in the season.”

Says the guy that was largely responsible for pushing Robbie Gould out the door.

You can argue about how they did relative to resources available, but in an absolute sense, if you’re talking about worst offseason personnel-wise, the Bears have to be prominent in the conversation.

They had the least draft capital to work with (5 picks total, 4/5 on Day 3, none in the top 70).
Their free agent changes were a net negative.
They lost a high quality coordinator, which might be a hit.

Bear fans are counting heavily on “2nd year together and in the offensive system” improvements to outweigh all that – which is possible, but a long way from certain.
Regardless, I don’t think you can really lump that in with “offseason moves”.

Their free agent changes were a net negative.

Eh, IMO it was a push. I mean they almost went player for player when it comes to additions and losses. Also, fans are greatly over-valuing Callahan and Amos, and by extension undervaluing Skrine and HCD.

Bears lost FA / vs gained FA:

Kevin White / Cordarrelle Patterson - Upgrade
Eric Kush / Ted Larsen - Push
Bryan Witzmann / TJ Clemmings - Push
Bryce Callahan / Buster Skrine - Push, but close
Adrian Amos / HaHa Clinton-Dix - Push
Benny Cunningham / Mike Davis - Upgrade
Josh Bellamy / Marvin Hall - Push
Cody Parkey / Elliot Fry (Pinero was a trade) - TBD

The Bears also lost Michael Burton and Daniel Brown to Cleveland, and gained Kevin Pierre-Louis. But it's difficult to correlate although it's probably a net loss.

You also have to keep in mind who the Bears resigned:
Aaron Lynch
Nick Williams
Pat O'Donnell
DeAndre Houston-Carson

Then these Bears are FAs that remain unsigned...aside from Acho it's addition by subtraction:
Dion Sims
Sam Acho
Marcus Williams

They had the least draft capital to work with (5 picks total, 4/5 on Day 3, none in the top 70).

Eh, they didn't have as many picks as other teams or as high as other teams, but one could argue from a value standpoint, they did better than a lot of other teams with the picks they did have.

They lost a high quality coordinator

They also gained a high quality coordinator. But I'll give you this one. Fangio was ostensibly the best DC in football, so loosing him was probably the biggest hit to the team. But again, it's not like he was replaced by some unknown or chump.

Bear fans are counting heavily on “2nd year together and in the offensive system” improvements

As they should, because progression within a well designed system is a real thing.

wab wrote:Also, fans are greatly over-valuing Callahan and Amos, and by extension undervaluing Skrine and HCD.

I think Clinton-Dix will be the 2019 version of 2017 Prince Amukamara - former high draft pick comes to Chicago with some concerns and becomes a stable presence.

As far as Amos and Callahan goes, I don't personally feel they were over or underrated. All of Callahan's positives are offset by his injury history, and Amos is steady but unexceptional (and presently vastly overpaid).

UOK wrote:

wab wrote:Also, fans are greatly over-valuing Callahan and Amos, and by extension undervaluing Skrine and HCD.

I think Clinton-Dix will be the 2019 version of 2017 Prince Amukamara - former high draft pick comes to Chicago with some concerns and becomes a stable presence.

As far as Amos and Callahan goes, I don't personally feel they were over or underrated. All of Callahan's positives are offset by his injury history, and Amos is steady but unexceptional (and presently vastly overpaid).

Great comparison. I don't expect Haha to be a playmaker, but I expect him to be in the right place at the right time 99% of the plays.

wab wrote:

Their free agent changes were a net negative.

Eh, IMO it was a push. I mean they almost went player for player when it comes to additions and losses. Also, fans are greatly over-valuing Callahan and Amos, and by extension undervaluing Skrine and HCD.

Bears lost FA / vs gained FA:

Kevin White / Cordarrelle Patterson - Upgrade
Eric Kush / Ted Larsen - Push
Bryan Witzmann / TJ Clemmings - Push
Bryce Callahan / Buster Skrine - Push, but close
Adrian Amos / HaHa Clinton-Dix - Push
Benny Cunningham / Mike Davis - Upgrade
Josh Bellamy / Marvin Hall - Push
Cody Parkey / Elliot Fry (Pinero was a trade) - TBD

The Bears also lost Michael Burton and Daniel Brown to Cleveland, and gained Kevin Pierre-Louis. But it's difficult to correlate although it's probably a net loss.

You also have to keep in mind who the Bears resigned:
Aaron Lynch
Nick Williams
Pat O'Donnell
DeAndre Houston-Carson

Then these Bears are FAs that remain unsigned...aside from Acho it's addition by subtraction:
Dion Sims
Sam Acho
Marcus Williams

They had the least draft capital to work with (5 picks total, 4/5 on Day 3, none in the top 70).

Eh, they didn't have as many picks as other teams or as high as other teams, but one could argue from a value standpoint, they did better than a lot of other teams with the picks they did have.

They lost a high quality coordinator

They also gained a high quality coordinator. But I'll give you this one. Fangio was ostensibly the best DC in football, so loosing him was probably the biggest hit to the team. But again, it's not like he was replaced by some unknown or chump.

Bear fans are counting heavily on “2nd year together and in the offensive system” improvements

As they should, because progression within a well designed system is a real thing.

+1 to wab.

Improvements to this Bears team will mostly need to come from the young players getting better, but that's the same story for the other 31 teams too.

Agree mostly with Wab but I'm hard pressed not to think that Callahan and Amos for Skrine and Clinton-Dix isn't a downgrade. Maybe not as much as some think, and I'll be very happy to be proven wrong and I'm glad we didn't pay Amos that money but, in 2019, those two are downgrades.

Luckily it would be borderline impossible for me to have less respect for John Fox’s football thoughts.

Fox's comments should go in one ear and out the other.

My personal thoughts are a load of sour grapes.

We didn't do a lot...but we didn't need to do a lot.

Yeah the kicking thing sucks...all honesty I would have preferred to grab a bunch of undrafted college guys and give them tryouts. Any "pro" we get will be a FA for a reason.

Hopefully Piniero is worth it.

I don't see anyone mentioning our WR's being healthy in this analysis. Robinson alone being healthy is a huge upgrade. He started to show some more at the end of the season, but you know he's chomping at the bit. Miller with "2 arms now" has to be better right?
just the total number of things the Bears can do with different personnel makes us a better as defenses can't key on any one player to take away. Nagy will just use someone else who's got a mismatch.

He isn't really wrong, but not right either. We can fan boy lots of things. However on paper they are on a net negative. I personally dont agree, and think some of those unknowns/different personel will work out.

Big loss Fangio. Pagano though a good replacement on paper is a loss. Pagano has 1 year as DC, in 2011, with a great team. He is essentially an unknown compared to Fangio.

On paper losses. Howard, Callahan on paper are losses. Though I dont agree. I think Callahan is better but Skrine is good. Callahan misses games and if skrine remains healthy it's a push. Howard on paper is better but I think Montgomery will be better in this scheme.

Uncertainty at kicker. It's not a great thing guys. I think the Radiers guy will be good though.

mmmc_35 wrote:He isn't really wrong, but not right either.

John Fox's Bears coaching tenure in a nutshell.

Meh. I think his biggest gripe is that the Bears let his buddy Vic go. I mean... what was the alternative? It's not like they parted badly.

The kicker thing is laughable, if the Bears had gone out and resigned Connor Barth, Fox would've said they did the right thing...

And as far as DC goes, it's not like Pagano is the next Mel Tucker. The guy has a history of winning. The guy's biggest issue in Indy would seem to be that the talent coming in was getting worse and worse the longer he was there. Was that his fault? Maybe some but obviously you can't put that all on a coach. At any rate, it won't be the issue here in his position as DC. And his history has very much proven that when given talent, he CAN and DOES coach well and effectively.

Will the defense be the same? No. Will it be as good? Hopefully. Does it NEED to be as good? I think we all doubt that.

Would John Fox be the kind of guy who 'poo-poos' an effective style just because it doesn't match his? Sounds like YEP.

Bears Whiskey Nut wrote:

With sexy results!

One of the worse Bears coaches in my lifetime and Fox criticizes the Bears offseason? He has no leg to stand on... Why would he even be on TV he has the worse personality and has proven himself to be the type of person that thinks he's above the fans of the NFL. He treated fans in Chicago like they were infants. Out of all the coaches the Bears had since 1970 he's the only one that I never listened to after the game. He always came across as an asshole.

Worse offseason lol... Guess he forgot we got Mack and Miller with picks from this year. It doesn't surprise me because the guy couldn't even get a challenge flag right once as a Bears HC.

I wasn’t a fan of the Fox hire but understood why they did it. It made sense at the time and honestly Fox did what we needed him to do and that was correct the culture, cut the bad apples out and eventually be the fall guy to buy Pace more time. Fox’s time here went about as well as I personally expected/hoped it would and I definitely didn’t want Pace taking the bullet as i’ve been a Pace fan since day one. I always saw Fox as an average coach who kinda got lucky in Carolina and then got way too much credit in Denver when all he really did was have one of the luckiest few months in football with Tebow and then ride Peyton Manning.

With that said, at this point Fox really should have known better than saying anything. Right or not it’s a bad look based on how badly he did in Chicago and then how well the team did after he was fired. Even if he objectively truly believes Chicago had the worst offseason he should have picked a different team. It just makes him look like a bitter old man. And since I never liked the guy ill finish this post with a ‘screw you john fox’

“What I find refreshing, I liked John Fox, but John Fox didn’t treat fans with respect. And I’m a [Bears] fan. I’m a season ticket holder. And it was kind of like, ‘You don’t deserve to know,’ or ‘I’m not going to give you a lot of information.’ What I really like about Matt [Nagy] is I think he recognizes and respects that the fans aren’t idiots.” ~ Gary Fencik

For someone to say we did the worst job of improving our team without indicating why we were more cap limited (Kahlil Mack) and why we didn't have a #1 pick (Kahlil Mack) and why we didn't have a R2 pick (Anthony Miller) who were both clearly productive players is simply telling half the story. Technically, he's right. But if that's all you're looking at then you're either ignorant (he's not), foolish (he's not) or flat out negatively biased. He's also right about the kicker thing. But wab deftly pointed out the incredible irony in that.

He picks the Bears who have one issue and it started when he was the coach. Cutting Gould. Yes, the Bears have not found a replacement in the following 3 years, but they also didnt fire their GM after the draft like Houston, the mega mess the Jets are at GM and all, or the Giants making nonsensical moves. Great job Fox, dumbass.

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wab wrote:

UOK wrote:https://chicago.suntimes.com/bears/2019 ... n-nfl-espn

“I think when you’re going to play defense, you’re going to lean on takeaways to help a young offense, and you don’t have a kicker, a reliable kicker, that you’re going to need those points from after some of those turnovers,” Fox said on ESPN’s “NFL Live,” where he serves as an analyst. “I think the kicking question is really big right now in Chicago. And I think that might be a problem for them in the season.”

Says the guy that was largely responsible for pushing Robbie Gould out the door.

sour grapes because he was then pushed out the door?

and just wtf does he know about how the kicking situation is going to turn out? he suddenly pull a crystal ball out of his butt to see into the future?

Knuckles wrote:One of the worse Bears coaches in my lifetime and Fox criticizes the Bears offseason? He has no leg to stand on... Why would he even be on TV he has the worse personality and has proven himself to be the type of person that thinks he's above the fans of the NFL. He treated fans in Chicago like they were infants. Out of all the coaches the Bears had since 1970 he's the only one that I never listened to after the game. He always came across as an asshole.

Worse offseason lol... Guess he forgot we got Mack and Miller with picks from this year. It doesn't surprise me because the guy couldn't even get a challenge flag right once as a Bears HC.

LOL. I was just thinking about the time he challenged a goal line call (Benny Cunningham, I think?) and ended up losing the ball as a touchback.

Mikefive wrote:For someone to say we did the worst job of improving our team without indicating why we were more cap limited (Kahlil Mack) and why we didn't have a #1 pick (Kahlil Mack) and why we didn't have a R2 pick (Anthony Miller) who were both clearly productive players is simply telling half the story. Technically, he's right. But if that's all you're looking at then you're either ignorant (he's not), foolish (he's not) or flat out negatively biased. He's also right about the kicker thing. But wab deftly pointed out the incredible irony in that.

i was making the jackoff motion so hard at fox's comments i broke my damn wrist.

we are exactly where we should be. the roster has been radically made over. we have rookies competing with draft picks. we have one issue we're working to fix (kicker) and because everything exists in a vacuum it's being magnified. this is, i'd argue, the most complete rosters we've ever had, and THE most complete roster we've had since the 85 team.

fox is a clown who the game passed by. fuck him.

Fuack Faux..

Idiot..inept..

AZ_Bearfan wrote:“What I find refreshing, I liked John Fox, but John Fox didn’t treat fans with respect. And I’m a [Bears] fan. I’m a season ticket holder. And it was kind of like, ‘You don’t deserve to know,’ or ‘I’m not going to give you a lot of information.’ What I really like about Matt [Nagy] is I think he recognizes and respects that the fans aren’t idiots.” ~ Gary Fencik

To be fair - some fans absolutely are idots. Legitimately football stupid. But I don't think those are the fans Fencik is talking about.