Varking

That moves up Anderson to being the best, clearly, player in this draft. If you are the Bears do you risk dropping further than 2 and missing out on him?

If Young was 6’2 and like 220 maybe. It’s not his height that concerns me. It’s his playing weight being like Pat White where average NFL hits have a much larger impact on you because even the smaller guys have like 20 pounds on him. Dline folks that get their hands on him are going to injure him.

His playing weight in the NFL is very concerning for me. I think he can get to 205 by the combine but that means he’s likely down to around 180 again as his playing weight for the NFL games. If he can’t bulk up he’s going to get hurt.

We don’t know if anyone would give up a first for Fields, but we do know the Bears aren’t accepting that.

It’s not a major scoop. Folks have been calling this since the season ended from miles away.

the bears are trading the top pick in the draft. They are keeping Fields. There was never any serious conversation about trading Fields away.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/2023-nfl-two-round-mock-draft-anthony-richardson-goes-no-1-after-bears-trade-back-derek-carr-joins-saints/ CBSSports has Richardson going #1 overall to the Colts. We move up to 5 to get Levis.

Nobody should be able to wear 15 at Florida. I agree. As a college player there were few with better resumes.

Sauce is better, younger, and more durable. Jaycee is a stud when he’s in the game. But Sauce has played more games in the NFL than Jaycee after one season.

I prefer the new slate. There’s still stuff that hasn’t been announced yet though.

With the two brothers?

He’s an assistant and he’ll likely have influence on the young guys in the locker room. Horn already tweeted he was happy about it.

I have no problem with players getting paid. My preference is pay the players who have produced in our system rather than offer up three first round draft picks and 250 million dollars only to find out he doesn’t mesh with what we have here. That’s why I prefer the rookie route or free agent route. If it was just a matter of paying Jackson, I’d do it. But you have to give the Ravens a bunch of picks plus still give him the contract and hope he’s more like the QB of 3-4 years ago than the more injury prone recent string.

I was on the Stroud bandwagon before anyone here. Well before the UGA game. I don’t just stat watch. To be clear, I’d love Lamar. There’s just a limit to how much cost I’m comfortable with giving up. We still need a TE, still need a second WR, still have holes in our dline, etc. if you get Lamar you have to pay him and the only way you get him is to give up a ton of picks. I’ll back whatever the team does and hope for the best. I just think drafting a starting QB is easier to recover from if it goes sideways. 25 million vs 250 million for one player eats up the roster money quite a bit. If it were just money or just picks I’d do it in a heartbeat. When you have to give up tons of draft capital and tons of money it’s a harder pull to swallow. Lamar is a hell of a player.

I don’t knock analysts for having a different take than me. I wasn’t fond of what I saw from Hooker in college. He had big stats but he was more of a one-read QB than any of the other guys I watched this year.

To me Hooker in the first is a reach.

I mostly agree. But a rookie QB flop sets us back just a season or 2. It’s picks and not much money. Lamar is going to cost picks plus guaranteed money. If he flops or stays injured he sets us back years. And I do believe Stroud will be a franchise guy.

At work but I don’t think you and I are far off from each other.

I’d rather just trade up and get CJ Stroud on a rookie contract vs doling out hundreds of millions of dollars and losing the picks too.

Fields threw for 17 touchdown passes this year. The entire Panthers QB room hasn’t surpassed that total since 2018 Cam Newton. And he’s done it with terrible rosters around him, where the team traded away almost all their best players, their only NFL receiver missed the end of the season, his starting running back missed significant time and his offensive line sucked. He’d still be on a rookie contract, he’s shown improvement and we’ve said if we could just get slightly better QB play we’d be a playoff team. Him here with DJ and our line and our defense? Likely a playoff team this year. Likely a playoff team next year. I don’t want retreads anymore either but the truth is at 9 if it’s Richardson or Fields it’s not even a close debate and Fields mops the floor with Richardson. You draft Richardson and you are hoping he can develop into what Fields has been developing into but tacking on another two years to three years onto that timeline that gets pushed back because most folks don’t think he’ll be ready for a few.

The difference is the Eagles already had a solid defense, had talent on their offensive line, had a good TE, had young up and coming receivers and then they made a splash trade for a true #1. But Hurts had all that the year before outside of the true #1 and didn’t look great. So the fact that Fields numbers are close to Hurts through two seasons despite the lack of talent plays in favor of Fields.

We’d still have a significantly better defense, better receiving group and better offensive line….

They got the rights to Arlington Heights yesterday. Doesn’t mean they will for sure build a new stadium but what else are they doing with 200+ acres?