Rebuild Affords Some More Time

Normally tanking has been a phrase applied to teams in the middle of a season who decide they're buried and want to improve their draft plight next season by making victories, shall we say, a bit more difficult to achieve for themselves.

An NFL example was Dolphins owner Stephen Ross being accused of offering Brian Flores money to purposely lose games. This is an example, not an accusation. It is only an unsubstantiated charge at this point.

After seeing GM Ryan Poles dismantle the house that Ryan Pace built, tanking is a term being tossed around loosely in NFL circles about the Bears.

The difference here between what Poles is doing and a real tank job is the Bears GM has not set about trying to necessarily lose games. He's wrecking the mess he's been dealt in order to get better in the future.

Poles doesn't have losing as his purpose. If he winds up with the 20th pick in the draft next year it won't make it as easy to get the highest level of talent, but he'll still have draft picks and has a chance to find good players.

The end result of what he's doing might be the Bears losing due to a lack of talent in 2022 but there's no way of knowing this so far in advance. In the NBA, teams tank at season's end by playing subs and piling up losses. The Bears won't be doing this, although some will look at their starters all year and say those are subs.

There is still a chance they could win more games than people imagine, but if that's the case then Poles and assistant GM Ian Cunningham have the keenest eyes for talent in the history of the NFL, Matt Eberflus might be the next Bill Belichick or Vince Lombardi and Justin Fields might truly be the player everyone seems to think he is.

Throwing away the next season before the next draft even comes is a pre-tank or a long-term tanking project but projecting beyond a draft and the next season is too far to look in the NFL.

The Bears have the eighth easiest schedule based on opponents' winning percentage (.471) and that can work against any tank plans anyway.

What Poles has really done is achieve his goal. He has improved their available salary cap space for 2023 to $117.8 million according to Overthecap.com, the second most in the NFL. In 2023, he can go shopping for real talent necessary to supply a quicker rebuild.

Early draft pick positioning from losing a lot of games in 2022 would be a side benefit but not a necessary one.

What is more important is getting draft picks, lots of draft picks, because of all their roster holes. Getting them this year would even be better because those players would be in place already before the big shopping spree of 2023. And it's a reason trades downward are expected in this draft from the Bears.

What Pace has done was necessary.

It isn't done by every forming regime. For instance, Minnesota hasn't dismantled its team the same way the Bears have but the Vikings had a strong offense already so gutting the roster when only the defense needed reconstruction didn't make much sense.

In this case the Bears had to do take Poles' approach.

They are getting younger because their defense had played out its usefulness with five starters in their 30s and declining production over the last three seasons.
They are getting younger on defense because they need faster players to play a totally different system based more on speed than the last system was.
They are getting younger on offense to build around a young leader in Justin Fields.
They have a completely different offense because the other one never worked, and they need new players to fit this attack, just like they do with their new defense.

The key to everything is Fields. How quickly they turn this back around to become competitive in the NFC North depends on their QB. It's a quarterback-driven offense, coordinator Luke Getsy told everyone.

Here is what the Ryan Poles plan can say about Fields and the future.

1. Fields Will Need Leeway

Fields showed glimpses last year and Year 2 for quarterbacks is supposed to represent a great leap forward. Mitchell Trubisky even had a great leap forward in Year 2, then he regressed. If Fields is going to make that leap forward this year, the coaches will need to grade him on a curve because he's going to be surrounded by players without much pedigree. The line they assemble will be thrown into place without playing together in the past. The receivers are going to be all new with the exception of Darnell Mooney and Cole Kmet. So far this offseason, the talent level at receiver hasn't been improved. The offensive system might be much better than Nagy's but it will be foreign to Fields. He's still trying to learn how to read defenses.

Expectations for Fields need to be diminished as a result.

It's not going to be a free pass because he needs to produce, but there are too many restraints in place now due to a rebuild to expect the world from him.

2. Leadership Mantle

Fields expressed the feeling that it never really felt like the offense was his from the start last year. It wasn't. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been practicing with backups all of the time. It was Andy Dalton's until finally given to Fields.

Now he is the quarterback but there were plenty of other veteran leaders on the team and the quarterback should be the team's biggest leader. With all the veterans on defense gone, all eyes will look to Fields and the team can better form around him.

"I think last year was kinda weird, just me not starting the season being the starting quarterback," Fields said following the hiring of Eberflus and Poles. "It was kind of a weird leadership role–I think me and Andy would kind of switch off. But now that I am starting off the season as a starting quarterback, I think I’ll be more comfortable playing that leader role.

"There’s no more, ‘Oh, he’s a rookie, this and that’–it’s time now, so I’m excited like I said before and I can’t wait to get to work.”

3. Fields Featured

In a complete rebuild, players already in place with the most talent must shoulder the biggest burden until help arrives. No one will have more on his shoulders than Fields in 2022. Any success they achieve this year will be greatly the result of Fields' abilities and not because of a fading veteran defense with a few teeth left in it. Think of it as Fields is being forced to show everything he's got to try to get wins. And be very certain that with the leeway he is given, the coaches as well as Poles will be looking closely at how he does with this. An example: The first season Bengals coach Zac Taylor had with Joe Burrow.

4. Fields Could Be the Bridge

If all those factors are taken into account and Fields looks hopelessly lost in 2022, the tactic Poles has taken to clear cap space allows him to seek a veteran quarterback for his rebuild next year. There is enough money for this. The losing that could occur if Fields struggles too much in Year 2 also could give the Bears an opportunity in 2023 to draft another quarterback in Round 1.

Remember, Fields is not necessarily Poles' quarterback. He is to Poles what Trubisky was to Nagy. He has been deeded to Poles. The promise is there. Fields needs to deliver.

The rebuild buys Poles and Eberflus time as they try to put a team together the way they want it to look. In fact, some reporters at the owners meetings this week commented about how Eberflus spoke like someone with a great amount of time ahead to accomplish his goals.

However, the rebuild is not buying time for Fields to show what he can do.

‘We’re looking for better technique, better fundamentals, better decision-making, better timing—everything," Eberflus told reporters at the owners meetings. "He’s all on board (in) that. He’s excited about where he is, and he’s been working his tail off. That’s what we want, just that big jump from Year 1 to Year 2.’’

The clock is always ticking on that five-year first contract for quarterbacks in the NFL. It really is a three-year contract for most because of the fifth-year option being declared before the fourth season occurs. Trubisky discovered this.

With a new GM and coaching staff, the cap space coming available for 2023 and a potential early draft pick looming, it might only be a two-year window for Fields and the first year is already done.

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