tukafan21

It's cost vs risk, not about the player himself We gave up FAR too much of a cost given the risks associated with Bryce. Do you realize how few QB's there have been in the history of the NFL who have been good enough to win without other elite talent around them? Maybe a dozen or so over the history of the NFL By giving up CMC, Moore, 2 Firsts and a Second to get Young and DJ Johnson, while simultaneously not having the first round pick the season after Bryce's rookie year, we basically bet on him to become one of those Top 12-15 QBs in the history of the NFL. All on someone who possesses no elite physical traits for the QB position and betting on their mental acumen to overcome those odds. And yes, next year's first rounder is massive, even if you don't look at it as a different QB we could have taken. People point to players like Burrow and Peyton and say, see, a bad rookie year isn't the worst as they usually are great from then on, well..... The Bengals were horrible in Burrow's rookie year, but they were so bad that it got them Chase with the draft pick because of it. The Colts were terrible in Peyton's rookie year, but they were so bad that it got them Edgerrin James with the draft pick because of it. So no, Bryce's career isn't written in stone, he could still be a good QB. But that doesn't mean it was a smart trade, and not being able to distinguish and see the difference in those two things is on you, not on me for being an irrational person/fan.

Honestly, I'd inactivate him each week until we can get a trade done at this point, can't risk him getting hurt and losing any trade value. This team is not even remotely close to being a contender, not this year and at this rate, not for a couple years. There is no point in paying Burns what we'll need to pay him, just for us to continue to be a sub .500 team when the alternative is getting a couple firsts (yes, someone will still give us that) and 2 high quality players with that 30-35 million in cap space we won't have to use on him. That's a 4 for 1 deal and as good as Burns can be, we need the 4 starter level players more right now. And I don't say this lightly, I love Burns the player and person, I was also leading the charge all offseason to just pay him what he wanted to get it done. But now that we see what this team is right now, and that we still can't get a deal done, it's just time to do what's best for the franchise right now and move him for a haul.

If I go and play Russian Roulette and survive, does that mean it was the smart decision to play? Of course not His career can work out and it still be a bad trade that ended up working for us, they're not mutually exclusive. There were just far too many risks with Young to give up everything we gave up to get him. He only has 1 elite trait and that's the mental side of things, which is also the one thing that you can coach up in anyone. You can't coach up physical traits and he doesn't posses any elite QB physical traits, and it's shown in these 2 games, badly. Like I said, I'm still going to hope his career works out for us, I'm not giving up on him as a player, he still has potential, but the trade was horrible when you take all factors into consideration. Admitting that doesn't make you a bad fan, it makes you just a person who can objectively look at a situation regardless of your fandom.

We made a bad trade and risked the franchise on the wrong QB, it's okay to admit it. Refusing to admit it won't change things and make them all better. We're here now and have to deal with it, but sticking your head in the sand and pretending you're seeing things that give you hope isn't going to help. None of that is to say Bryce can't end up as a good QB, it's still absurdly too early to say anything remotely like that. But we traded CMC, Moore, 2023 First, 2024 First, 2025 Second and all we got in return was Bryce Young, DJ Johnson and a 2024 5th round pick (and yes, that's literally all we have left from CMC, Moore and those picks, we used everything from the CMC trade to get Bryce and Johnson except for that 5th). There's no way to slice it, with how Bryce as looked so far, we gave up entirely too much to take the risk on Bryce working out.

If Tepper is the analytical person he says he is, he won't fire Fitterer unless he also plans on firing Reich, they're now tied at the hip. Analytics show that GM and HC hires that aren't made in the same season, don't work out well. The next time either gets replaced, they both will, which means Fitterer is likely around for next season as well.

The one true glimmer of hope right now is that it looks like we might be awful for a few more years. Which will set up nicely for us to get the #1 overall pick in 2026 and take Arch Manning. #WinningTheLongGame

I don't mind the waiting to snap the ball given what Bryce's skillset it supposed to be, this isn't like when we did it with Cam to let it run down while just standing around. That is by design to let Bryce do his mental side of things, which I'm fine with. The scary thing is that he kept doing his audibles, particularly on 3rd down, and they NEVER worked. Think the only time I noticed him doing his audibles at the line on 3rd down and we converted was when he ended up scrambling for the long run, which while nice, has nothing to do with his changes at the line.

There isn't defending this team and this QB right now, there just isn't. It's one thing to struggle as a rookie, but this isn't struggling, it's the equivalent of someone struggling to even doggy paddle to keep their head up above water and needing to jump in to save them. Hell, if this is how AR started his first two games, or even Levis, it wouldn't even be as big of a deal. But this was supposed to be the most pro ready QB who we traded away significant assets to get, and he looks lost out there and unable to make basic NFL level throws. It's just a fact and if you can't see it or admit it, then you're just fooling yourself.

I don't even care about being 0-2 and don't care about only scoring 1 TD. I care that we traded away our franchises future for the "most pro ready QB" while surrounding him by an "all star staff" and he looks like THIS. Don't say it's a new staff, don't say it's his WRs, don't say it's his OL, don't say it's because he's a rookie. CJ Stroud has a worse offensive coaching staff, with worse WRs, and a worse OL and is 4th in the league in passing. I'm not completely writing off Bryce yet, it's far too early for that, but him looking THIS bad isn't acceptable, they need to figure this out FAST.

No we didn't, we used our own 2nd for Mingo. We traded CMC for DJ Johnson so that we could use our own 2nd on Mingo. Because that's literally what we did, we used the 2nd from the CMC trade to put into the Bears trade instead of our own 2nd and then used the other 2 picks from the CMC deal to trade up for DJ Johnson. Worst series of trades imaginable

I'm sorry, but seriously?!?!?! We traded everything we got in the CMC deal except for the 2025 5th rounder as part of the trade to get Bryce and to trade up to get DJ Johnson. This is why you don't trade away the farm to get a QB just because you don't have one, you have to build up a franchise in a smart way, not giving away all your best assets on a QB who's only elite trait is his mental acumen and all his physical traits at average at best.

Defense isn’t bad, but what the hell is with this offense? I thought we put together an all star offensive staff and traded away our future for the most pro ready QB in the draft and this is what we get? And don’t tell me it’s the WR’s when Houston’s WRs are worse than ours and Stroud is 4th in the league in passing yards.

Asking Bryce to sneak is just asking for injuries. Having said that, it could end up being quite an effective play for us to pull out of our bag late in big games during his career. If we almost never do it and teams don't think we'll run it with Bryce, having it in our back pocket for future playoff games would be nice. But no, I never want to see him do it in random regular season games, not once. It's also why I never understood us not going after someone like Jamal Williams with that being his super power to get those 1 yard dives.

Lions lost a pass rusher today while their WRs are looking pretty good. How about Burns for Jameson Williams, 2024 1st, and a 2025 2nd? I doubt the Lions will trade Williams and that could be a tad too much for them to do anyways (maybe a 3rd instead of the other 2nd would work more realistically), but pairing Burns with Hutchinson would give them an insane pass rush.

Wow, this is a bad sign in regards to the strikes ending anytime soon. Can't imagine they announce a change like this if they felt there was any chance of a deal happening anytime soon.

You're still missing the point though First of all, I basically agree with you in the post that you quoted and responded to the part of my post where I was just pointing out an alternative way to go about the offseason. Right after that I said we went the other way and I was okay with it because of where I thought the team was at. So you're arguing with me despite it not even being my viewpoint on the team, kinda odd, but beyond that and the point of what started all of this..... If they felt the team as a whole was so bad that we'd be giving up a Top 10, maybe even Top 5 pick in this year's draft in that trade, then they wouldn't have made the trade. Because while us fans have been having that argument forever, this staff and front office haven't. If they felt the best path forward for this franchise was to trade off a few assets, put a few nice pieces on the board, and look to next year's draft, then they'd have done that. Fan outrage aside, their job isn't to do what is going to make the fans happy, it's to do what they think is best for the future of the franchise. But they didn't, the team didn't view this as a rebuild year and they made the moves accordingly. Thus we as fans shouldn't be accepting of a poor season "because it's year one of a rebuild" or "because it's a new system" I don't understand why that's such a hard concept to understand or agree with, but you keep wanting to fight me about this QB scenario that I haven't been advocating for. All I've been saying is that because we didn't go that scenario, we need to view the season differently and judge it based on how the team views it, because they made all their moves around those views, and that's not one of a rebuild.

There is a big difference between asking players to wait around until we're "ready" to draft that guy as you put it, and building an NFL franchise in a smart way, which is something players do understand. The NFL isn't the NBA, you can't be bad for one season with upcoming cap budget, get a superstar in the draft and sign another max player to completely turnaround a franchise in one offseason. Our roster was in a place where we could go either direction, a complete rebuild or decide to build up the team from where it was to try and contend with this base unit. We could have chose the former, traded away Burns for picks, kept all our picks as is and draft say a pass rusher at #9, a CB with the other 2nd we gave away, not signed guys like Hurst, Thielen, or Sanders, vets on sizable contracts over the next 2 years. Signed someone like Brissett to be our QB for the year and be like the Cardinals this year, be pretty open that we're in a total rebuild and be okay with it because we'll get a stud QB with our draft pick next year. Other than Burns, there are no other players that could have walked away this offseason or next that would have been a huge loss. So going with that strategy wouldn't have risked us upsetting any players we wouldn't have then been able to agree to a new deal. Players would be able to see what was coming in next year's draft and understand why the team did it. They wouldn't have tried any less hard to win and they wouldn't be upset with the franchise, it's not like the Cardinals players walked out on the team this year when they did it. But we chose the latter Which I have absolutely no issue with as I liked the base of our team coming out of last year. We went out and got the #1 pick in the draft to get the QB. We upgraded literally every single starting position on the field with the exception of there #1 WR (while upgrading the overall WR room instead). We built a staff of half seriously successful NFL experience and half "the next HC candidate" type of guys. Everything the team said and did, screamed "this is not a rebuild", particularly giving up our 1st round pick next year. Doing all of that signaled that we had no intention of rebuilding, that we were looking to compete right now. After all that, to try and excuse away an unsuccessful season as "it's year one of a rebuild" is just utter and complete crap. That's my original point in all this, just that people need to stop trying to look at and call this year a rebuild, that's unacceptable way to look at the season with how the team operated this offseason. When you improve the roster of a 7-9 team as much as this team did, particularly at QB, and improve the coaching staff as much as we did (and that's an absurd amount), then the whole "they're playing a new system and he's a rookie QB" excuse is just unbelievably weak.

You're looking at it in terms of absolutes. I think there are VERY few people here who actually want to trade him in general, I know I sure as hell don't. But when it is very possibly the decision between trading him or paying him $35 million a season, with what this team still needs, I don't think we can pay him that. I'm 100% on board with giving him $28-30 million to keep him, he's that good of a player. And honestly, in a vacuum, I probably wouldn't be against paying him that $35 a year either. But when the alternative to paying the $35 would be to get 2 firsts (yes, someone will still give us that, even if they end up being picks in the 20's) that can get us good talent on cheap deals. And then also getting to use that $35 a year to go sign say, a $20/year WR and a $15/year pass rusher, on top of the firsts, then I think that's a hard thing to ignore. Your point of "filling in the pieces" is correct, the problem is that it will be very hard to fill in those pieces if we have to make Burns the highest paid defensive player in league history. This one is 100% on Fitterer for not paying him before the season started, as that was a deal that could have been done at $28-30 a year, for sure. But he bluffed a hand he didn't have and Burns called him on it and very well may put up video game numbers this year.

Nowhere did I say that we had to be the absolute worst team in the league to do that. I said you either trade up when you have a better roster in place (which I'm not even saying is the case here anyways, I personally think we have the better roster in place, but remember this whole thing started in regards to the point of whether this year is the first of a "rebuild" or not). OR You take the QB with your own pick, which doesn't have to be the #1 pick in the draft, ESPECIALLY with what next year's QB draft class is going to look like. There is a very real chance that next year's class has 4 or 5 QB's that would have gone #1 overall in most drafts. There is a good chance some of them will fall to the 7-10 region of the draft, and even if they don't, it would have been easier to trade up from say 8 to 4 next year than it was to go from 9 to 1 this past year. And I have to say this again, the whole point of this that it's just asinine to excuse away a bad year as "it's the first year of a rebuild" as that's not how the staff handled this offseason. That's the point in all this that you seem to not want to admit for some strange reason. This isn't the first time I've seen you call this year a rebuild and using that as a reason people need to lower their expectations. It's like you're just trying to get people to be okay with having a bad season because it's the first year of the staff and QB, but you can't look at the season in a vacuum based on only those two factors. You have to look at the totality of the moves we made to get here and the fact that we gave up next year's first, in a stupid good QB class, to draft Bryce. Once they did that, they lost the ability to call this a rebuild and lower expectations for this year. I was never expecting to be a SB contender this year and called those who did, idiots. But after FA and the draft, with the moves we made, I fully expected us to contend in the division and end up with somewhere between 7 and 10 wins, realistically figuring it would be 8 or 9. Which is why I view saying this season is the start of a rebuild to the point of accepting being a possible bottom of the standings team, equally as idiotic as those expecting SB contention.

I’m all for complaining about not getting a player we should have taken and they end up being great. But that line probably gets drab at the end of the second round, and even then, only if we passed on the player to take another. But as others have said, a guy who goes in the 5th means every team passed on him multiple times, it was just an overall scouting miss and/or him ending up on a team that is the perfect fit for his skill set.

I also have to say, again, none of my posts are meant to bash Bryce. They're all based around the thought that viewing this season as the first of a "rebuild" is just utterly moronic given the offseason moves and giving up next year's first. Everything needs to be viewed in it's totality, not in a vacuum.

That's a beyond simplistic approach to viewing the situation, plus, it's also just wrong. The only time the "first step" of a rebuild is to get the QB, is when you play bad enough to get one with your own draft pick, not when trading for one. If you're trading for that draft pick, you need the rest of the roster built out already so you can contend while on the rookie contract. THAT'S how it works Trading away your next year's first round pick (plus other significant assets) for a QB and then ending up turning over a Top 5 pick would be the epitome of failure. And if any team were to trade away the farm to get the QB before the rest of the roster, Bryce is NOT the guy to do it. Even the staff has described him as a PG, he's not the super star guy on the wing who can win by himself, like a Patrick Mahomes, a Tom Brady, the elite of the elite. Again, I'm not writing him or this season off, but Bryce just isn't the guy you make these moves for if you don't have the team around him, Caleb Williams would be the type of guy you do that for, not Bryce.

No, totally wrong take. If you want to say he should be fired for not making that trade last year, that's fair. But to not make the best move for the team given the current situation because of a decision made last year, THAT would be the fireable offense, not making the best move at the current time. It's the picture perfect definition of a sunk cost, you can't make any decision now based on the trade we turned down as that trade is irrelevant to the current situation and the one moving forward at this point, unfortunately. I'm not even saying that means we should be trading him (even though I think we should). Just like I'm saying in the other thread about why trading for Bryce is an utter failure IF the staff felt this would be a rebuilding season. Signing Burns to the biggest defensive contract in league history when we don't have a SB contending roster in place would be equally stupid. I said all offseason to pay the man what he wanted, that $28-30 million a season would look great of us in 2 years when he's an all-pro and paid like the 10th best pass rusher. Our biggest problem at that time would be the fear that he'd hold out asking for more money, but that would be a bridge to cross later. If he continues to play all year like he did in week 1, he will become the highest paid player in league history, 100%, no doubt about it (well, until Parsons then signs his extension, but he'll still top Bosa's numbers). That's what happens in this league, the next star player to sign, particularly if they're a Free Agent, breaks the previous record holder's number. If he's not willing to keep negotiating this season (and frankly, after week 1, if I'm his agents I wouldn't let him sign anything this year), then I think the best move for the franchise is to trade him for the best possible offer before the deadline. Letting him play out the year to where we have to tag him and then deal with that all next offseason is worst case scenario as it only ends with paying him $35+ million a year or him sitting out until week 10, as there is a less than 0% chance he plays next year on the tag until he's forced to come in to get the season counted for him.

Yes and no As I said, numerous times, I'm not writing him off or this season off yet, not remotely close. My point is in response to you saying, "what did you want the staff to say?" Yes, coaching staff's make public statements because they have to, but it doesn't mean they are telling themselves that behind the scenes. My point is that if inside the building, they felt and knew this would be a rebuilding year, then the trade for a QB like that is beyond stupid, it would be one of the dumbest moves a team has ever made at the top of the draft. My whole argument in this thread is that I think it's a garbage take to say this team is in a rebuild right now. Every move they made this offseason is contrary to that, there literally isn't a single move they made that I can point to that says "rebuild" From trading away what we did to get Bryce, to the staff we put together, to not trading Burns, even to the vets we brought in. None of those are "rebuild" moves, they're moves you make to try and contend this year. If you believe inside the building that it's a rebuild year, you sign young players with potential and you keep your future draft picks.

If you're expecting a total rebuild season, you do not trade away your first round pick the next year to take a 5'10" 190 lbs QB, PERIOD. Just because it's a new staff and we were picking #1, doesn't mean this is a re-build. The whole point of a total rebuild is that you then use those high draft picks to re-stock your shelves. If the front office or staff felt this was going to be a re-building season, even if they didn't say it publicly, and then they went and made that trade, then they should be fired right now, literally, I mean today. Fire them all before the game tomorrow and just let the players coach themselves, because that would be the worst case of self-sabatoge as a franchise could ever make and no decision makers deserve to be in their positions for one more day. Look, I didn't want Bryce, I'll never be afraid to admit it. I thought (and still do) he had a limited ceiling and I was never a fan of trading away the farm to take a player without the high end upside along with carrying significant injury risk. I always felt that if we were going to make a move for a QB in the draft this year, it should have been to trade up to #3 to take AR and take that risk at a lesser cost given his significantly higher potential upside compared to Bryce. But even saying that, once we made the trade, I was okay with taking him because I thought we did have a solid foundation in place and that he could be the type of QB that could be a winner with the right team around him while he plays PG. What I'm not okay with is viewing this season as a learning process and okay with gifting the Bears a draft pick that would have got us a QB with higher upside than Bryce, while we lost additional key assets in the same trade. This season's success or failure, in my mind, entirely rests on the draft pick we give to the Bears, inside the Top 10 is a failure, outside the Top 10 is acceptable, there is no middle ground for me this year, not with the QB's who will be in the 2024 draft.