To stop the hemorrhaging, we have to stop trading away and trading for players

[PappyMay]

2 minutes ago, Bear Hands said:

I may be on my own here, but his shipping off is honestly what gets me the most riled up over anything in recent years.

He's pretty much the king of the mountain in respect to playmakers league-wide alongside JJ and Hill, and is on the best team right now. We sent him off because he quietly wanted off.  He's clearly an outlier at his position and a top-15 overall player in the league, position regardless.

We couldn't build around one of the best players in the league with any combination of Hurney, Rivera, Rhule, & Fitt.  Couldn't find an innovative coach, couldn't find a serviceable QB.  Neglecting to build around him and acting like he was hamstringing what our crappy coaches wanted to bring is arguably our biggest fail of the last 5-6 years and the one I hate the most. 

We had a situation with Cam phasing out and a new center of the offense actualized in CMC.  Perennial OPOY contender, stuck with coaching who couldn't use him and GMs who couldn't create around him.  And we ship him for mid-rounders.  

 

agree 100%. We cant afford $16 million for the best back in football but can afford $30 for a sack specialist.  Half our salary cap issues the last 2-3years is just Dead Cap because we can't get out of our own way.

[LinvilleGorge]

4 minutes ago, Bear Hands said:

I may be on my own here, but his shipping off is honestly what gets me the most riled up over anything in recent years.

He's pretty much the king of the mountain in respect to playmakers league-wide alongside JJ and Hill, and is on the best team right now. We sent him off because he quietly wanted off.  He's clearly an outlier at his position and a top-15 overall player in the league, position regardless.

We couldn't build around one of the best players in the league with any combination of Hurney, Rivera, Rhule, & Fitt.  Couldn't find an innovative coach, couldn't find a serviceable QB.  Neglecting to build around him and acting like he was hamstringing what our crappy coaches wanted to bring is arguably our biggest fail of the last 5-6 years and the one I hate the most. 

We had a situation with Cam phasing out and a new center of the offense actualized in CMC.  Perennial OPOY contender, stuck with coaching who couldn't use him and GMs who couldn't create around him.  And we ship him for mid-rounders.  

 

I supported trading CMC since he was doing nothing for us at the time and honestly, I wanted to see what he could do with a contender. We were just wasting him.

[SOJA]

IMO the biggest FO mistakes we've had the last few years are in order:

1- Trading for Darnold. We vastly overpaid at the time and even one year later looking what we got Baker for showed how bad we did. 

2- Letting Reddick walk. There has been speculation he did not want to re-sign and really wanted to go home to Philly. Regardless it seems like we were content letting him go and using some of that money to re-sign Donte

3- Letting Gilmore walk. Still a Pro Bowl caliber player and he wanted to be here. Would much rather have him mentoring Jaycee anyway. 

4- Signing Teddy Bridgewater. We were in a perfect position to just suck ass and tank for Trevor but unfortunately we had to get a semi competent player in

5- Not re-signing Brian Burns. This one could get erased but if he does somehow walk and we passed up all that draft capital it would vault to one, so for now I'm putting it on the list to monitor 

[ForJimmy]

2 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I supported trading CMC since he was doing nothing for us at the time and honestly, I wanted to see what he could do with a contender. We were just wasting him.

It also freed up some future money for the salary cap plus helped up trade up to 1. 

[mrcompletely11]

30 minutes ago, Stingray3030 said:

Gotta love posting a cherry picked list of transactions like that is all he has done

Should we ignore the Free Agent signings that have been good?  Thielen, Hekker, Riddick, Chark, Sanders, Luvu, Bell, Damien Williams, Bozeman

We also traded Robbie Anderson for 2 picks - wasn't worth $20, and traded Arnold and a 5th rounder for Henderson - we won that deal with Arnold doing nothing and CJ at least a starter at the nickel

Our drafts were trash for a decade outside of Round 1 - that wasn't all Fitterer either.  Clearly he hasn't been the best, but he has done alot of good.  Unfair to act like this falls on him - especially when he has a non-football owner and a moron head coach until this year to appease.  

Hey mrs fitterer how you doing today?

[LinvilleGorge]

2 minutes ago, ForJimmy said:

It also freed up some future money for the salary cap plus helped up trade up to 1. 

Yep. 

Ultimately if Bryce pans out we're going to be fine. If he doesn't we're going to flounder for more years to come. It is what it is.

[top dawg]

I guess I'm the contrarian here. I think that if you can get value by trading for a player, and all you're losing is a day three pick, then you should definitely consider it. It's the day one and two picks that should cause a pause, but, even then, it's ultimately about value. 

As for trading, it's a part of doing business. Many times, trading is a good thing. Again, it's ultimately about value. Sometimes it's a great thing to trade, sometimes not. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by top dawg

[Bear Hands]

2 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I supported trading CMC since he was doing nothing for us at the time and honestly, I wanted to see what he could do with a contender. We were just wasting him.

We were wasting him because we were never truly building around him. We had a GUY and just didn't do sh*t with him other than overuse relentlessly to the point of 2 sequential dings, once healthy, overused him again for trade showcase and sent him off.  

It was like Rivera and Rhule never even knew what they had at their disposal and forced us into that dead end with CMC where we were wasting him.  Should have never gotten to that point and honestly, if he was getting irked behind the scenes, maybe it was indicative of poor coaching and team building around him.  

Not firing both Hurney and Rivera at the get-go and then not hiring a coach with a legit vision for the stars we had in place was our undoing.  That's my perspective anyhow...it sent us down this spiral. Could have recovered from the end of Cam in short order but the ownership change occurred at the worst possible time.  

So we drove ourselves into the CMC dead end and took mid-round picks.  Zero proven commodities for a perennial OPOY/MVP candidate.  That was such a miss from my POV.  

[SmokinwithWilly]

2 hours ago, TheBigKat said:

Fitt needs to hit the pause button on this ‘in every deal’ mantra. This team is lacking talent and draft capital

 Gilmore- draft capital for a one year rental

 McGlassfrey- we got DJ and Mingo for him, ouch

 Young- no comment

 Henderson- ouch

 Darnold- ouch

 

 just stop…. We’re not one player away, we’re a head coach and half a roster away. Draft well and fill in with free agency, stop trying to be Ric Flair with all your wheeling dealing

All of these moves have issues after the fact but at the time, they made sense to a degree. 

Gilmore - a DPOY in a young CB room. I remember an interview with him and he was talking about how coaches can only teach so much, but it's on the field that you see what some of these receivers do, how to look for it and how to recognize it. That's a very good presence to have in the locker room, especially with young CBs. We should have re-signed him, but Tepper wanted Watson, team be damned. 

CMC - Good haul for his durability issues over the 2 years prior. Of course, CMC was also pretty much done here. You couldn't realistically expect him to lay his future health and career on the line for the process. We weren't buying Rhule's BS, do you really think he did? He was done in Carolina. 

Young - too soon to tell but Fitts will be forever tied to this trade and pick

Henderson - a 3rd round pick and JAG TE for a top 10 draft pick who was considered a very talented college CB in Urban Meyer's dog house in the shitshow that was Jax. Made sense for a trade. Scenery change can have significant impact, look at CMC in SF.

Darnold - We had no bargaining leverage here, even as the only ones inquiring about Darnold. T2G was gone, we had no capable backup, much less a starter on our roster. We needed Darnold and the Jets knew it. You can't play poker with your cards face up on the table. We overpaid because we had already played our hand with Bridgewater. 

I'm not defending Fitts as a GM. I think he's done a rather piss poor job, especially this offseason without Rhule. He's made some major mistakes that have hurt the team that weren't too difficult to point out at the time by just a regular Sunday GM. He should be done after this season is over. Unless something seriously changes, so should Frank. I don't think Fitts is the guy.  

He's actually made more egregious errors, with Young yet TBD.

Panicking to trade up for Corral - 3rd and 4th for a project cut in 1 year

Panicking to trade up for DJ Johnson - 26 yr old project edge rusher that can't get on the field on game day. Not a good sign.

Firing Rhule when he did - We all wanted Rhule poo canned. He should have been after year 2. There was no need to do it 5 games into year 3 when this team was tanking without a future at QB on the roster. We were going to need a QB in the draft. Keep Rhule, send this team to a top 2 pick and don't trade away your WR1 and future picks you need to build around your rookie QB. 

He's shown he doesn't have the ability to make good decisions under pressure. How much Tepper is involved in some of this, who knows. But Fitts is the face we see and it's ultimately gonna be his ass on the line. Personally, I'm ready to cut our losses and be done. 

 

[*FreeFua*]

5 minutes ago, Stingray3030 said:

100% - you guys act like there were 100 Pro Bowlers available and we just suck at signing them....like injuries to draft picks can be predicted.  

You mentioned Miles Sanders being a good FA pickup? How? The Eagles replaced his production for peanuts. Sanders has a 8 million dollar cap hit next year. A RB is only has good as the line he runs behind unless they’re incredibly special which Miles is not.

You said Damien Williams was a good FA pickup… um what? 

Fitterer got 2 picks for Robbie whoop dee do. Are you putting any blame on Scott for Robbie’s dumb contract in the first place? That’s 9 mill in dead money this year. 

Other than Jaycee being injured which I agree was impossible to predict with him that’s the only pick you can make an injury excuse for. He can’t draft worth a damn 

Scott is literally terrible at his job. 

[Bear Hands]

We just have a bunch of people who still don't know what they're doing.

Fitt isn't a Roseman type and we can't keep hoping we find his magic pairing.  You need a duo that works together with established roles.  It still seems like a place with no framework or FO structure.

I get the feeling more and more that Tepper has just been winging it all which would not happen IF HE GOT A DAMN PERSON TO RUN FOOTBALL OPERATIONS.  Not a glorified draft picker/scout team leader in Fitterer.  

We are yet again in a situation where Scott is trying to decipher what the staff wants and configure a team to work with that staff's style.  It's like they don't have a set idea on the type of team they want.  Every decision is made in isolation irrespetive of any larger framework or vision.  

It's like they don't "football"

[Waldo]

3 minutes ago, Bear Hands said:

We just have a bunch of people who still don't know what they're doing.

Fitt isn't a Roseman type and we can't keep hoping we find his magic pairing.  You need a duo that works together with established roles.  It still seems like a place with no framework or FO structure.

I get the feeling more and more that Tepper has just been winging it all which would not happen IF HE GOT A DAMN PERSON TO RUN FOOTBALL OPERATIONS.  Not a glorified draft picker/scout team leader in Fitterer.  

We are yet again in a situation where Scott is trying to decipher what the staff wants and configure a team to work with that staff's style.  It's like they don't have a set idea on the type of team they want.  Every decision is made in isolation irrespetive of any larger framework or vision.  

It's like they don't "football"

It's like they didn't talk about the roster when they hired these coaches. What kind of Oline do you have? Power running. Ok let's go zone blocking and throw more than 60% of the time. 

They very obviously don't football which is why anyone can sell them on getting the job while they have no hope of qualifying the hire due to their complete lack of football knowledge. He needs someone to run the team and manage ownerships need to meddle. Then go get a GM and HC on the same page who do not have the excuse of failing big and just blaming who was there before them. They have none of this in house at this time.

 

[gmonjimbo]

11 minutes ago, Bear Hands said:

I may be on my own here, but his shipping off is honestly what gets me the most riled up over anything in recent years.

He's pretty much the king of the mountain in respect to playmakers league-wide alongside JJ and Hill, and is on the best team right now. We sent him off because he quietly wanted off.  He's clearly an outlier at his positiotop-15 overall player in the league, position regardless.

We couldn't build around one of the best players in the league with any combination of Hurney, Rivera, Rhule, & Fitt.  Couldn't find an innovative coach, couldn't find a serviceable QB.  Neglecting to build around him and acting like he was hamstringing what our crappy coaches wanted to bring is arguably our biggest fail of the last 5-6 years and the one I hate the most. 

We had a situation with Cam phasing out and a new center of the offense actualized in CMC.  Perennial OPOY contender, stuck with coaching who couldn't use him and GMs who couldn't create around him.  And we ship him for mid-rounders.  

 

For some reason when they draft a high-level player on offense (Cam, CMC) we go cheap in surrounding them with talent. I think the year prior they traded CMC they had Cam Erving at LT, Michael Jordan at LT, Paradis at C, and John Miller at RG. All out of the league 2 years later except Jordan who is on the Packers practice squad. 

I still believe in Bryce Young. However, my hope for Young is the Panthers do everything in their power to show whether he's the guy or not. For example, the Bears have done enough to give Fields a true evaluation, they got DJ Moore, they traded for Claypool, and they drafted and signed OL, yet he still doesn't look good, time to move on and use the draft picks you got from the Panthers to reset at QB.

Every decision on trading, drafting, or signing players should be about Bryce Young and his development.

 

[Stingray3030]

9 minutes ago, *FreeFua* said:

You mentioned Miles Sanders being a good FA pickup? How? The Eagles replaced his production for peanuts. Sanders has a 8 million dollar cap hit next year. A RB is only has good as the line he runs behind unless they’re incredibly special which Miles is not.

You said Damien Williams was a good FA pickup… um what? 

Fitterer got 2 picks for Robbie whoop dee do. Are you putting any blame on Scott for Robbie’s dumb contract in the first place? That’s 9 mill in dead money this year. 

Other than Jaycee being injured which I agree was impossible to predict with him that’s the only pick you can make an injury excuse for. He can’t draft worth a damn 

Scott is literally terrible at his job. 

Miles was a Pro Bowl RB at 26yr old - we have him for a reasonable contract - not to mention we have an out after next year if needed and very low cap hits the year after if he sucks.  It is a very good contract for what he is and for our future.  He was one of the best options available.

Clearly I meant DeShawn Williams - I keep doing that for some reason

You are really blaming Fitt for Robbie's mental collapse?  The man was 27 coming off an 1100yd season - 15th in the league.  I guess we shoulda known he was going to lose his friggin mind?

You didn't mention this but the McCaffrey deal.  I agree CMC is clearly a 1st round pick, but we got 4 picks (2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th) which is almost the most a RB has been traded for in value.  And you see how the league values RB's these days.  Guys like Cook, JT, Jacobs....look at what they are worth to teams and we got 4 fairly high picks.  That is far from a bad deal.

Y'all need to get over your 20/20 hindsight - at the time most of these deals make complete sense and most GM's would do the same thing.