Would THIS be a bold move for the Chicago Bears?

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Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger. For the ones who get it done. ESPN's just did a story on bold moves for all 32 teams. One bold move. We're going to get to, like, let me give you the Panthers bold move first.

Which, you be the judge, is this bold? Sign a top wide receiver in free agency. Oh, I thought you were going to say get rid of David Tepper. No, that's not a bold move.

Fire the owner. That's a practical move. How is, they desperately need a wide receiver. How is that bold? That's a duh move.

Of course they should do that. Here's the bold move for the Chicago Bears. Draft Caleb Williams and keep Justin Fields speaking to me.

Dan Wieder covers the Bears for the Chicago Tribune, and he joins us on the Adam Gold Show. Does that sound like a plan worth exploring to you? No, no way. No how.

Not in. Totally veto it. Look, like, I've had conversations about this with folks around the league. There are some that say, I could see why you would do it.

Practically, it makes zero sense. You're talking about having to, one, on the field, divide up practice time and practice reps and figure out who you're going to be dumping your resources into and balancing that. Inside the locker room, you're going to have to manage locker room loyalties, which isn't going to go over very well.

And then you're going to have a media circus that you better have the strongest tent poles in the history of the universe to hold up that big top because it would be certainly a show and a spectacle every single day for the foreseeable future. I don't disagree with any of those things, but from a football standpoint, in terms of managing your roster and maximizing the value of Justin Fields, because my guess is right now, he commands a second round pick in return, which certainly isn't terrible. And the Bears have pretty good draft capital right now, so it's not a huge need. But if you kept him and let him play, maybe he has another good year and you build his value to the point where he's a first round.

He gets you a first round pick and you gave Caleb Williams some time like Patrick Mahomes to just kind of watch and deal with it. Wouldn't that be in the best interest of the football team in terms of building the team? Nope. No way. No how. I'm not setting up for it.

I'm going to push back on this as vehemently as I can. There was Patrick Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith, who was an accomplished longtime NFL veteran who had things that he could show Patrick Mahomes. Justin Fields will be a guy in the final year of his rookie deal fighting for his life with absolutely zero incentive to show Caleb Williams anything nor give him any of his time whatsoever because he's working to secure his own future. The other problem is, is that the Bears have rebooted on offense. They just introduced Shane Waldron yesterday at House Hall is the new offensive coordinator. You'd be asking Justin Fields to quickly get up to speed with a new system with a new coordinator with a new set of dynamics while being pressured by a rookie behind him and trying to salvage his career in a way that I don't know that would be betting that he would have the type of year that would improve his draft stock under those circumstances. Uh, look like I don't know that the market right now for Justin Fields of services are that robust when you do the exercise and actually go team by team division by division and ask who would be lining up to get Justin Fields right now. It kind of is a sobering reality that there may not be major demand. Uh, so if you're Ryan polls and you're trying to do something here, I think you get in your hotel room next week and you entertain conversations with anybody who's interested in Justin and you try to find one that meets your needs and you turn the page if you are indeed convinced that Caleb Williams or one of these other rookie quarterbacks is your guy going forward. Dan waiter recovers the Bears for the Chicago Tribune and he's great at it. Uh, and I appreciate you gave the exact same answer.

I think you might have even just hit record, hit record the first time and then hit play the second time. No, no, no, no, no. And I look, I don't, I'm not necessarily thinking that the move is to keep fields. Uh, but I understand the argument and I'm, I'm all about making it so that the next guy, the, the real quarterback of the future has every chance to succeed. And I have always been of the mind that the longer you can make him wait and watch and learn, the better your chances are. Patrick Mahomes, you're right. It was a perfect storm. Alex Smith even knew years before they were going to draft Patrick Mahomes that they were interested in him and he knew when they traded up that Smith was only going to keep that gig for one more year.

But he was already secure in who he was. And you're right. Justin Fields is not. Um, what happened over the year? Cause I, my, my memory tells me that in last off season, we were, we were thinking that Fields was still going to be the guy, uh, long term. Um, and that he definitely showed flashes of really good. What was the year like? You saw him every snap.

Yeah. Well, when Ryan pulls got here in 2022, the first year that he was with Justin Fields, he said he wanted to see the flashes to, to make sure that there was a, um, big time playmaking capable quarterback in there. And he saw the flashes enough so that they traded the number one pick last year, let the Panthers use it on a quarterback and decided to, uh, see it through with Justin. And then 2023 became all about consistency. They wanted to see consistency from the quarterback and guess what? Consistency wasn't quite there. Justin had a couple of really good performances, uh, one in a win over the commanders in October, the following Sunday and a loss.

Uh, that they, they blew to the Denver Broncos and you thought, okay, it's here. And then he got hurt and he was up and down and inconsistent and still struggling with flaws that have been there really since he entered the league and the consistency piece hasn't been there. His fourth quarter rating is abysmal. I think last year among, uh, quarterbacks in the league that threw at least 50 passes in the fourth quarter, he ranked 38 out of 39 quarterbacks with only Bailey Zappi behind him in the fourth quarter. Uh, he's had 19 fourth quarter turnovers in his career, including nine this last year, he gets sacked too much.

He doesn't see things that he should see. And so, um, look, like I've had this conversation with people around the league. If you're just casually, uh, watching the NFL and you get your Fox NFL game break on Sunday and you see the highlight of the most recent Justin Fields touchdown, you go, man, this dude is an absolute star plays that he's making. And then you watch all four quarters of, you know, 38 starts and you go, man, those don't happen quite frequently enough to offset some of the basic plays that are being missed. And then some of the game losing, uh, turnovers or game on the line mistakes that make you 10 and 28 as a starter through three years.

Now, albeit he hasn't had the greatest supporting cast of the greatest setup for his first three seasons. But you know, one of the stats that consistently comes up is the bears have played 51 games since they drafted Justin Fields. He's missed 11 of those games due to injury and he's won Ken. So it's been more likely that he's going to miss a start due to injury than it is that he's going to win one. He would fit right in, in Carolina, Dan Wieder covers the bears for the Chicago Tribune. Uh, and it's funny, some, uh, we had, uh, Evan Cohen on from ESPN.

Uh, it's his impression that the bears and the Panthers are like linked and maybe they are, but they're, uh, you know, both, both franchises have, uh, in many ways struggled to gain traction, even though the bears have been around forever since the earth cooled. Uh, but that quarterback has been a hard one for Chicago to figure out. Uh, do you think they're set on Caleb or could they trade back a spot or even two and just take, just take the quarterback that's left. For the ones who get it done at Grainger.

We're here for you with professional grade industrial supplies, count on real time product availability and fast delivery call click Grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Well, first of all, when you were talking about bold moves, I thought that the biggest bold move for Carolina would be to petition the NFL to veto last year's trade and get the number one pick and DJ more back to that would be bold. It would be really bold as far as where the bear stand with this quarterback class. I think obviously this next stretch starting at the combine, um, going through the pro days and the visits on campus and that their own facility are going to be all about doing the homework on the wiring of the kid. And, and, and does he have the thick skin? Does he have the mental makeup to be the guy in this type of environment? Look, there's pressure here. There's impatience there. There's a lot of spotlight on your performance every single day.

And it takes a special kind of individual to be able to handle that in a way that that allows you to hold up through that. Justin has done a much better job of it than Mr. Biscay did. You got to figure out what Caleb Williams is made of. And so I think talent wise, I think they're sold. I think now it's all about, okay, can we get with him?

Feel him out, try to get his understanding of who he is and what makes him tick and what makes him talk and then try to figure out does it fit here? That's the next part of the equation. If you start to have some serious reservations about that, well, then it's all about having that second binder of contingency plans and figuring out what you think of of other quarterbacks and obviously some other players that are at the top of that draft to try to get you on a position where you can sustain success, which has obviously been the problem here forever. Using mock drafts is always problematic to kind of gauge what the real value is. But almost all mock drafts now have Williams, May and Jayden Dan, Jake, Drake made from Carolina and Jayden Daniels going one, two, three.

Williams almost always won. May and Daniels kind of they jockey for position. So if do the Bears have an idea about those other two guys or is that going to also be found out this week?

Yeah, I mean, both right? Like they have an idea. And then I think they obviously want to continue to further their homework and get in a room with these guys and and feel it. You know, you want to feel that because this guy is going to be asked to be the voice of your locker room, face of your franchise, the engine of everything you do. And so you want to be very, very confident because you're betting your career on this. You know, that's the next move in this is you're betting your career on what this what this pick will turn into.

And so you want to have that that assurance, you know, and so we'll see where it goes. And this will change to as we know when we get through free agency and yes, needs change a little bit. There are some intriguing quarterbacks that will will go places in free agency that will perhaps change things. You know, if the Patriots decide to sign someone in free agency, well, then they look like Marvin Harrison Jr. would be a great person to to grab it number three, which is one of those three quarterbacks that we talked about down and all of a sudden you're starting to play that game of musical chairs a little bit. Yeah, they could. I mean, just spitballing here, they could sign Russ Russell Wilson in free agency and then draft a quarterback in the second or third round as a developmental prospect.

Dan Wieder, you can follow him on Twitter at Dan Wieder. Let me ask you this. Does Mitch Trubisky's failure in Chicago impact Drake May at all? And here's why I asked that. For years we've heard, man, don't draft an Ohio State quarterback.

They don't, none of them succeed. And we see what we see what happened with CJ Strout because there are people who thought, well, no, man, Ohio State quarterbacks. They're never any good. Obviously, he's very good. Does Trubisky impact May? I haven't watched enough of Drake, so you could answer this better from your end to help me, but people I've talked to in the league say that you, I mean, there's really no comparison other than the Jersey and the helmet that you just see different levels of high level quarterbacking and Drake May and, and potential and, you know, prototypical stuff that you're seeking for in the position that was not quite there with Mitch. And so I don't think that that really will, will affect Dre Drake much at all. And it sounds like you agree that, that just, just watching them, you understand that they're two totally different types of quarterback.

They are here. My, my quick read on May is that he has occasional lapses in accuracy. So sometimes you go like, how did the ball, what, what, what was that throw? Why was that throw so far behind the receiver and some, maybe it could also be the receiver. We see that all the time where quarterbacks expecting the receiver to go here and he goes there, you know, turn and run or turn and stop all of those things.

But he has occasional lapses in accuracy, but I think many, he's trying to also force the ball in sometimes, but he is, I think he's real, absolutely real. Um, what real, real quick, what do the bears need the most? Well, here's the cool thing. And I've talked about this a bunch in the recent weeks here that in two, you know, after the Camille Mac trade, they didn't have a first round pick for two years after the trade up for Justin Fields. They didn't have a first round pick the next year. We've spent a lot of time talking about the number and overall pick.

Well, guess what? They're slated to pick at number nine also. So there is some flexibility with that pick.

That seems really, really appealing to a lot of people in that building. You're talking about potentially getting one of these top three receivers to slip down there and the idea of maybe pairing Caleb Williams with Roman Dunzay or Malik neighbors makes your eyes bug out, right? The possibility of adding a standout offensive tackle there to protect your franchise quarterback is really appealing. And so you've got options here to surround your quarterback with really good high level help in the draft. And then in free agency, I think overall he needs, I think you're going to want to have a veteran center in here to, uh, to upgrade the offensive line. And then again, if you can, if you can make some of those upgrades, uh, to the wide receiver position and potentially grab a tackle, all of a sudden you're given your guy, as you said a couple of minutes ago, a chance to have a chance. And that's what you want to do right out of the gates with one of these young quarterbacks, Dan Wiederer, you're the best man at Dan Wiederer on Twitter.

Uh, also if you're a bears fan, take the North pod. You should check that out as well. Uh, there's a YouTube channel. Uh, I appreciate your time, man. I'll talk to you soon.

I'll bug you. Always good talking to you. Dan Wiederer here on the Adam Gold show without the ones like you who work tirelessly to keep things running, everything would suddenly stop hospitals, factories, schools, and power plants.

They all depend on you. No matter the weather emergency or time of day, you're the ones who get it done at Grainger. We're here for you with professional grade industrial supplies. Count on real time product availability and fast delivery call click Grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.