Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are the Bears all-in on Caleb Williams now?

Episode Date: February 15, 2026

Continuing our NFC North Check In series, Lorin Cox of Locked on Bears joins the show to discuss Chicago's season, where they stand on Caleb Williams, and the biggest offseason needs for the Bears. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here. And returning to the show from Locked on Bears, Lauren Cox, we've had a lot of great episodes through the years. But Lauren, here's something's a little different about this one. The bears are good. This is the first time you and I have been doing podcasts forever. This is the first time that we can truly say the bears are pretty scary in the National

Football League right now. it's usually been kind of me making fun of the Bears and you being like, maybe it'll work, but it worked. It works. So how was how was your year covering the Chicago Bears? Yeah, there's a lot of like built in PTSD of like you're not going to trust it. I'm not going to trust this. Like they're winning some games, but this isn't fully real.

Right. Like this is still coming together. Like yeah, they're beating some bad teams and winning late in some of these games. And it's fun and we're going to enjoy it. But like, we're not. really buying in. And then all of a sudden, you know, you beat the Green Bay Packers in overtime, the regular season.

Oh, it starts to feel a little bit real. And you go at least toe to toe with the 49ers and feel like, oh, you were right there with them. And you kind of look around and you're the two seed in the NFC all of a sudden. It's like, okay, great. And then, you know, you get a playoff win over Green Bay. And that was really the Super Bowl this year for the Bears and everything else was just gravely at that point.

So I think really, really fun season, but also I think some real acknowledgement that like, it's not just going to be easy to just repeat this and do it exactly the same way next year. Like they got lucky in some ways. And so they need to be even better. next year if they want to be anywhere close to the same spot. Yeah, that's a very interesting subject and a great place to begin because throughout the season, I as a numbers enjoyer, was looking at a lot of their results and saying, I don't know, man, you know, a blocked kick versus the Raiders or a last second win there, a kick

return against the Minnesota Vikings that sets them up for a game winning kick. There were a lot of games that came down to the last second. And I do think when you have a quarterback like Caleb Williams with his skill set, you can't just go, oh, it's totally random. Well, it's not when you could throw the ball like that and you can run the ball like that. At the same time, they got away with a lot of stuff. But as the season went along, it felt like, no, actually, there are games in here. The Philadelphia one, really to me is a, oh, the Chicago Bears have arrived where it felt like they were getting stronger as the season went along with Ben, Johnson, understanding his offense, better, running the football really well.

And then Caleb Williams becoming a quarterback who executes an offense to some extent. We'll get into detail on that. But I feel like what people love to do with teams is just say the word fraud. It's so fun. It's so fun to see a team be like fraud. I think that it's true that they got away with a lot of stuff throughout the season. But I also think it's true that the team that we saw lose and the very last day was not the team that we saw play the Las Vegas Raiders and barely escape earlier in the season.

Yeah, and I think that gives Bears fans some real optimism for next year as well, because the word fraud gets thrown around a lot and the word that follows fraud in the next sentence is usually the word regression, right? We heard this a lot with those Vikings teams that were winning a bunch of one score games. And they were frauds also and they were going to lose a bunch of those one score games the following year. And I think the pushback for the Bears is that, well, yes, they're not going to win as many one score games the following year.

think the idea is that some of those one score wins will be two score wins instead, that like this Bears team found a way to win 11 games and be the two seed, never really playing like their best football. You know, like we've not seen the best version of Ben Johnson or Caleb Williams in this offense. Like sometimes those teams that are frauds and regression candidates are the teams that are like, everything is firing in all cylinders and everything is going right for them. And everything went right for the Bears in the fourth quarter of those games for

sure, but so much went wrong in the first three quarters that you feel like, well, if they can get better at the things that were causing them problems for the first three quarters, all these mistakes that were holding them back and putting them in those positions to need fourth quarter comebacks, then there's a reasonable feeling like that they just won't need as much luck because they can be better in some of those areas. Like defense was never that great this season. Offense was consistently getting off to slow starts. Like they put themselves in these holes and dug themselves out of it and still got to 11 wins.

So if they can stop putting themselves in some of those holes, you can see a path towards still being a good team next year, although it's going to be a very different style of good team than they proved to be this year. I also think that the one score game thing, I'm done with it. I'm not done with it because it worked for the Bears or that, you know, the Vikings regression was a lot based on a complete roster overhaul. And okay, I guess if that same version, that same team played a thousand games, but that's not how actually works.

teams have a lot of turnover. But when you watch on a weekly basis, that red zone guy, he has a heck of a job because every game seems to come down to one score. I mean, this is just happening a lot throughout a season. And I think we can look at it in a smarter way. And there was an old 538 article that sort of suggested it doing those random games more by looking at win probability in the fourth quarter. was it really a coin flip like late into the fourth quarter and those are hard to repeat.

But if you were winning for most of the game almost like the bears and the Vikings, they're mostly controlling that game. McCarthy is not playing well. They give up a drive kind of at the end and maybe there was a punt return mixed in or maybe that was a different game. But, you know, one of those games, like the bears controlled the game. They were winning the entire game and it was almost random that the Vikings were back in it at the end and the right team won the football game. So how often did the right team win for the

Chicago Bears this year is really the question. And then how can you stave off regression by your improvements to your roster? I will talk about that with you, of course. But Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson is really the story of 2025. I would like to know your perspective on what happened there for Caleb Williams to look, I did not think that much different actually throwing balls that he dropped back and through. I thought Caleb Williams looked most different in his demeanor and his confidence and his leadership of that team, which I did not see at all in the first year. And then I also thought that, you know, he looks like he understood what the goals were

of the offense, even if he was not always throwing accurately. And he didn't take as many sacks because of it. So what did you see for like what caused those things to happen? Yeah. So I think right away Ben Johnson made it clear that a, he's going to coach Caleb really hard and push him and that they're not going to be best friends. They're not going to be enemies, but they're not going to be best friends and that they're going to put a lot on his plate.

And, you know, not let him drown, but maybe let him splash around in the water a little bit and figure out how to float. Right. And and so there was always going to be a little bit of a slower start there in terms of like there is so much on the quarterback's plate and on receivers plates too in terms of like precision and timing that you're making your cut at this route depth and you're turning at this angle to get to this landmark at this part of the field as soon as the quarterback is at his

fifth stop step in his drop back and if you're late or the quarterback's late you're getting an incomplete pass and there was a lot of growing pains of that throughout the season that they never really got fully over the hump there I think they got to a certain point of like mostly on the same page, but the bear season ended on one of those miscommunication plays in the playoffs when DJ Moore is running around across the field and Caleb throws an interception to a spot that he thinks DJ Moore is going to be breaking too. And there's DJ more effort questions about that. But for the most part, they both have said, hey, miscommunication and chalk it up with that. And like, you're frustrated when you're, what is that, 19 games in the season for the divisional round and you're still

having miscommunications between quarterback and wide receiver, but also like, that's the precision that this offense requires. So I think that's a lot of why you see the, he's ups and downs over the course of the season. And Caleb with a low completion percentage and missing guys. And sometimes it's a mechanical thing too where he's not setting his feet properly and he's kind of rushing throws and not really following through all the way. But you felt like over the course of the season for all of the easy misses that he has that you're like, oh man, you really would have to have those.

He makes enough of those special fourth down falling away, floats it up there, miracle passes that like was a net positive for sure that the big plays outweighed the tough misses because usually the tough. misses weren't interceptions or massive turnovers, except at the very end against the ramps. Yeah. DJ Moore is supposed to flatten that route out, or at least he thinks, right? Is that what happened? Because, I mean, the guy's been playing the entire game is in overtime.

It's so worn down. And people expect him to look like he's running the 40 yard dash at the combine or something. Like, yeah, I think if you looked at any wide receiver, they're not hitting peak speed at that point. And it's really cold. It was probably more just, uh, he's expecting him to come underneath and he's going. over the top. But that did seem to happen quite a few times, even in the game, the opener against the Vikings. I remember a few times where it was like, oh, if those two were on the same page, that

might have been a 40-yard gain. And instead, it ends up in the wrong spot, which was pervasive throughout the season. But my thing with Caleb and why Vikings fans should be pretty concerned about Caleb Williams is that we have seen players like this improve in their accuracy. improve in their command of the offense, chemistry with receivers, all those things, and build on seasons like this. What you haven't seen is quarterbacks who have no command whatsoever, no leadership whatsoever, lose locker rooms, stuff like that. You don't usually see them succeed.

Like, you need to see that next step. And having seen that from him in the confidence, the late game confidence that he had, that's where this isn't anywhere close to over with his development. and now they can continue to build chemistry with him and Colston Loveland, who I made fun of the pick a little bit on draft night, but I will say I was wrong as heck, because usually tight ends all average 9.8 yards per reception, but not that guy. So I think that there is a lot of space there if Caleb Williams builds on this confidence. And now the whole world's not telling him he's a bust anymore, which of course we have to judge every quarterback instantly.

And to your point about like the demeanor and the leadership stuff, like so much of that is just from getting what you would say like adults in the room, right? Like the coaching staff that Caleb Williams came into in Mad Eberfuse's final season started with Shane Waldron as a disaster of an offensive coordinator who's fired. I don't remember what it was six or eight games into the season. And there were pretty credible reports that like they weren't giving Caleb Williams a ton of direction in film meetings. And even the passing concepts, like, they weren't, like the route depths weren't tied to his footwork. Like they gave him a play. And it wasn't like, hey, this play is a three step drop and throw. They say, well, just feel it out.

And like how, you know, if you're ready to pull the trigger at three steps, that's fine. If you want to go to five, that's fine. If you want to hitch, that's like. And just like not giving him a ton of like structure and direction. So he would just break structure constantly and try and make all these hero throws because there wasn't really a lot of rules for him to even follow in the first place. And then the head coach kind of loses the locker room. And then players are kind of complaining behind their back. So there wasn't very much of a like an ecosystem for Caleb Williams to grow and be a leader as a rookie in a room that, you know,

he's kind of coming in and trying to see all sees all these veterans not really happy with what's going on there. And so I'm willing to give him some excuse or pass for like, that was a tough thing to come in as a first year player and take charge of a broken locker room and hold that whole ship together when a lot of things were going wrong that were. outside of his control. But you come in now and Ben Johnson cracks the whip a little bit. And you've got a coaching staff of guys that all knew each other, or most of them knew each other in Detroit and can kind of kick that structure of the offense and just how communication is going to go and how Ben Johnson likes it a certain way. And Caleb can kind of fall into that and then work from that as a leader and keep everybody

on that same page. There's just a unified direction for him to then step into and be the leader of an otherwise pretty darn young offense that needed that voice to be there. There's not a lot of other big time veteran names that we're going to to step in and be that voice. It's like him and Joe Tuny are the guys on offense that everyone listens when they speak. And there were a lot of things that came out in the massive Tyler Dunn mini book about Caleb Williams that people on Chicago side may have had questions about this or that or made the aggregation a little bit more. But I think if you actually did the

homework, what you saw was a coaching staff that was trying to sort of put in USC's stuff for him because he knew it. And then like also try to integrate some NFL stuff. And And here's the reality. You have to run an NFL offense or you ain't going to win. That just does not. There's a reason. There's a level to this. There's a reason that guys like Matt Ruhl show up in the NFL.

And then they're like the Abe Simpson meme where they just go right back out of the NFL. Like, sorry, your level of detail is not at this. And with Caleb Williams, it was pretty much having a new person with new power there was more or less you're going to do it his way or this ain't going to work with your NFL career. you have to figure out how to play at this level. You cannot just be 2004 Madden Michael Vic and scramble around and make every single play. I thought that was vital, but I also thought, you know, Ben Johnson, as much of a loon as he kind of came off in training camp with some of those reports, this guy understands something that if you can have that run game to always rest on, it gives you kind of a baseline for your

offense. I think Seattle's this way too, where even if it's not the most spectacular, it's not Derek Henry last year, Sequin Barclay. But it just gives you something that's always kind of there for you in your back pocket. It makes life easier on your quarterback, bootlegs, play actions, which they're great at, goes out and gets Joe Tooney. I don't know how they only got a fourth round pick or whatever for Joe Tuny. What the heck is that?

The offensive alignment of the year. So they go get him, the run blocking center. Jackson turned out to be way better than I thought he was going to be. That was a very questionable move. And now you've got this beast offensive line. And all of a sudden, it kind of all comes together. And when you look at what a team like Seattle does, what the Rams did this year with bigger personnel. And now Ben Johnson's doing it there.

It looks like what is working in the NFL right now is in Chicago. Yeah. It's a cool way where like it's not just the running game setting up the passing game, but the passing game setting up the running game too. And that symbiotic relationship where, you know, he'll put DJ Moore at fullback and have him run a route. to the flat away from the run that they're still just handing it off to DeAndre Swift, but the defense knows, oh, he could grab that,

throw that quick to DJ more. Like they're, it's like reverse play action where they're like, they're faking the pass and handing off the run sometimes that that just just, like the window dressing isn't just to get blockers going elsewhere, but like they're setting up other plays or they'll have a receiver, like Robino has a motion in behind the guard and insert. And sometimes he won't block anybody.

He'll run a vertical route up the seam. And they haven't pulled it and thrown that yet. But you know in the back of their mind, I think in the back of the defensive mind, they're watching that on a film going, oh, crap, we got to make sure we cover that guy because that could be an RPO that they got to pull and throw. So there's just so many things going inside the minds of defensive coordinators and linebackers and safeties, especially guys in the middle of the field trying to read, run or pass, play action or RPO. And man, for the offense, every offensive alignment just knows, hey, this is outside zone.

I don't have to do anything different. Like, no one on offense has to think very hard about what they're doing, but the defense is constantly trying to figure out what's going on. And it's really masterful to watch when you sit and slow it down and look at all the different variations of the same inside and outside zone runs. They do with all the different tags they'll throw on them. And they just find a way to get matchups that I don't know how Ben Johnson does it, but it's it's pretty miraculous to see. Well, and then when you see the results in Detroit, not looking like they did a year

or two ago, you kind of can put two and two together there, but also with the Detroit's offensive line. Like that is where it all starts for this. Now, I can already see in the comment section of people, you love the bears so much. Why don't you marry the bears? Why don't you just become a bear? give me the skeptics version of Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams because as we know from Jaden Daniels and look I I mean I thought this I and we couldn't have predicted he would get

hurt but I thought Jane Daniels next year like watch out that year two jump is often been very big year two to year three for Caleb Williams it's often been very big for these elite players what is what is the skeptics version what's the the Bears fan that's been around since 1942, the last time they had a good quarterback before

Caleb. And he's like, I've seen many in these. They're not the 85 bears. Tell you that. What's that person

saying? Yeah, that 1942 Bears fan would be 84 years old now. So they've seen a lot of that's how long we're talking here. Yeah,

I think it's really easy to sit here and assume that like, oh, all those miscommunications and stuff, that'll all be fixed next year. Like,

oh, now that they've had a full year, they're not going to have any more of those. And receivers aren't going to drop any more passes, you know, and that it's not always that simple because it's not just like the bears are just going to run everything exactly the same way they did it last year. Like, there's going to be new concepts and new plays and new responsibilities and new terminology for them that they will have to learn and adjust on the fly.

And we have to develop that timing for those plays in addition to the plays from the season before. And plus, some of this is a mechanical thing from Caleb in terms of the feet largely. And even when the pockets clean, just rushing the. throw or force in a little bit or just not taken as that half beat to just follow through and transfer your weight from your back foot to your front foot properly. Like there, there's plenty of reason to think he might still miss some of these throws. And then from there, there's plenty of talk this off season about potentially trading away

DJ Moore because he's the most expensive player on the team. And you have these maybe effort questions on, is he running his routes as hard as he wanted to? And the bears have downplayed all those, but still like you feel like you got Roman Dunez and Luther Burden. So do you need to have DJ more? well, if you could get Max Crosby or somebody in a trade for him, sure, you could trade away him or Cole commenced in the same conversation. He's your number two tight end now and he's making

$12 million a year. That's a lot for a backup tight end who plays a ton. Like they could, they could break from that. Or D'Andre Swift also could be a cap casualty type player. And all of a sudden you start breaking the continuity a little bit. You bring in a new receiver or a new tight end, even as a backup. They still have to start from square one, learning the offense and getting on the same page as Caleb Williams. Plus, your left tackle, Ozzie Tripillow, Tours, but not a meniscususus, but a Patelertendin, some kind of big leg injury in the playoffs. So he might not even be ready for week one.

So you have a big question market left tackle. And then the last thing I'll throw in is like, Bears offensive line stayed remarkably healthy outside of left tackle all season. Jonah Jackson has a long injury history and played almost every game. Drew Dolman has a significant injury history played almost every game. And Darnell Wright played most of the season with one arm. So these guys were, they were out there, but you can't always trust them to be out there this way. So you could easily see next season some offensive line injuries,

some continuity on the offense changing over and still. some mechanical issues and all of a sudden, I don't think they're going to like go backwards and be some terrible offense, but you can see them plateauing a little bit more than just taking a massive leap forward. And the regression beater there is on the arm of the quarterback because if he becomes more accurate and then you can make up for whatever might be hurting the offense that worked this year. And if he can execute a little bit more of those just timely passes where you're dropping back, hitting the back foot, and then the ball is where it, it goes. The thing that is, again, concerning to Vikings fans should be that if that happens,

this can be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL very, very quickly. What do you think the odds are that Caleb Williams can be, I mean, top five's hard because you have like, we're not writing off Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, you know, so forth. But that's that, that was the expectation for Caleb Williams coming out in the draft is that he would have the ceiling to become a top five to seven quarterback. Do you think that it can get there? Or do you think that some of the accuracy stuff can never really truly be resolved? And it's always going to be a little bit scattershot with him.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think I can, I don't think I can sit here today and confidently put him in that cat. Like, you know, Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, like, that just feels unfair to like expect. Like, is it possible? I think, does he have a seal? he could reach up there? Absolutely. But am I counting on him getting to that level?

I don't, there's enough bears PTSD in me to think. The Bears can't have a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback. But a Hall of very good quarterback, that seems more reasonable. Like I think you're looking for him to get into that, that second tier of guys that aren't the truly elite of the elite type of players, but like right there up to up there next to them.

And I really, that's the big thing to try and figure out for Caleb Williams. Like, I think the bears feel confident. He's the guy that you're, you're happy to stick around with and you know you're planning on the idea that you'll give him a contract extension will be the first bears quarterback that you actually like keep around beyond his rookie deal in forever but does he get a sam darnald kind of contract does he get a jalen hertz kind of

contract does he get a jordan love you know like what tier of quarterback does he become is kind of that magical question and like yeah if he can be in that like jordan love dac prescott trevor lawrence range right now like i think that would be more than meeting the expectations of a number one overall pick, even though we put Mahomes levels on him when he was coming out. Like, that's not really fair for anybody. But if he can be like that kind of like, oh, yeah, you win because of this guy and he's absolutely capable of taking you to a Super Bowl, as long as you give him a decent amount of help and some, you know, every quarterback needs a lot of help.

Just like how, you know, Mahomes got, you know, had great coaching and some great weapons and a good defense. Like that's a big part of even the truly top tier quarterbacks get a lot of help in there, too. That's part of how Josh Allen turned around to when they gave him receivers in a defense. So like Caleb feels like somebody, you give him that he could get to that second tier. And then from there, I think that the difference between those guys, the top five guys is more results based than talent based sometimes. That if they had been winning some Super Bowls, we would talk about Prescott or love in that greater conversation. But the winning is what kind of separates them.

Oh, that's for sure because Matthew Stafford was never in that discussion for his entire career. And then he wins a Super Bowl and then he is. And then what a weird arc for him because he has become a better quarterback in Los Angeles than he was in Detroit. which just shows you how long these can go on, like these careers as a quarterback and how many different things can shape shift. Even Sam Darnold certainly shows us that. But, you know, as like, you're looking at the Packers or something, Jordan Love is a different player now than he was a couple of years ago. And where these things go is hard to figure out. And a lot of times it's, it is who's with you and can you get the most out of it. Because I kind of like the Trevor Lawrence

comp in some ways in the way that like he was. touted as being, all right, this is going to be the next Andrew luck, like level quarterback, instant megastar. And the guy struggled more than you would have expected based on his hype. But that doesn't mean he's terrible and you can never win with him, but he might be flawed into the future. There's two paths now that you've reached. It's sort of like one of those old Nintendo games where like the original Donkey Kong where you get to a level and then you get to the next level. It's like this level is, oh yeah, you can win with this guy for sure.

We know that. If things go right, if you have the right pieces, if, you know, etc. He comes through with some clutch plays. You can win this guy. The next question is, is this going a Josh Allen way where he correct some of the mechanics and then, oh, my God. Or is this going in the way that like Trevor Lawrence has where some years it's going to be good and some years it's not going to be as good and you don't really know.

And then when he becomes expensive, it's a huge challenge. But for now, the defense can. can be rebuilt with the money. I think. So explain to me where they sit with that because what usually happens is once you realize we can win with a quarterback on a rookie contract, it's like find every single red sent underneath the couch cushion to spend on whoever you need to come in to your franchise. Do you think that that is the defense approach to roster building for Ryan Poles?

So, I mean, I think that's what you want to be doing, but I think they kind of jumped the gun a little bit on that and tried to say like, we've got Ben Johnson and they're confident up that Caleb Williams is going to be the guy. So they started making the beginning stages of those moves, not like the big splash, you know, Michael Parsons trade like the Packers did, but like the, they're like trying to get that core of putting some money to that. I mean, they signed Grady Jarrett and Dio O'Dangbo in free agency last year to fairly significant contracts, you know, $18 million. was a year, I think is what O'Dangbo's ends up averaging out to. And Grady Jarrett was, I think, a little less than that, but in that same kind of range. And both those guys were terrible, both dealing with injuries, but even when they were supposedly healthy, not great. Now you're locked into them for another year for sure of guaranteed money that you don't have

a lot of flexibility to go sign Trey Hendrickson in free agency. And they've got, you know, Jalen Johnson's on a big contract extension. And Kyler Gordon is on a big contract extension. Like, they've got a decent amount of money tied up into a defense that isn't good enough. And it's talent that's not good enough. I mean, Dennis Allen has his flaws as a coach, but did a decent enough job trying to squeeze talent out of a super injured secondary on a defensive line on a passwash that was giving you close to nothing there.

So like they've got a lot of eggs in a lot of baskets already. And it's kind of hard to empty those baskets right now when you really want to. Like they'll make Tremaine Edmonds probably a salary cap casualty this year, free up like $15 million a year there. But like both of their safeties, Jekwon Bristker and Kevin Byard are free agents this off season. So you got to resign at least one of those. And if not both, then find a replacement for one of those.

and all of a sudden you got to get a replacement linebacker for Edmonds and you're looking around, you don't have that money left to go get that big pass rusher to go sign Hendrickson or trade for even Max Crosby. Like you've got to find room for him even if you're going to make a trade for one of those guys and they just can't get out of some of this money they've got in Sweat, O'Dangbo and Grady Jarrett up front and now they gave T.J. Edwards a contract extension. So you're kind of locked into him. You're locked into Jalen Johnson and Kyler Gordon.

There's just not nearly as much defensive flexibility as you would think or hope, given how poorly they played this season. So that's really the big challenge for Ryan Poll is. It feels more like an NBA team where it's like cap space isn't going to be a thing. So how can you creatively find a way to trade or move these guys to get out of salary cap space to upgrade your roster when they've got some room to restructure contracts? And this is where a DJ Moore or Cole Commet trade comes in. Like could you free up cap space from them to upgrade your defense?

But then you're sacrificing on offense. So I don't envy the front office's decisions. And it feels like it's some problems that they've gotten themselves into. Well, and here's the interesting part with the quarterback like Caleb Williams, who, I mean, it is jumping the gun. to say this is going to be a second contract guy and he's going to be, you know, their quarterback for the next 10 years. But, I mean, that's the trajectory, right?

And then you're thinking if you're Ryan Poles, like, well, I can't just completely sell off the farm for what's going to happen in 2006 just because we're really excited. Because if I do, then when we get to the point where you're signing Caleb Williams, then the rest of your cap is blowing up in your face. At the same time, it's kind of a year to year league in the NFL. where they fire GMs after winning seasons. And they fire coaches because reasons like Atlanta or, you know, even like Buffalo, right.

I mean, they win a playoff game. They're one call away from going to the AFC championship and probably the Super Bowl. And then, uh, whoop, uh, no, you're fired. So in that world, I think that everyone in the NFL has to look around and go. Well, if people are getting fired after winning seasons and in some cases, many winning seasons. There's no tomorrow for anybody. And I think that this has always existed in the NFL, of course.

I was watching the AMC documentary in the 49ers and Eddie DeBardo talked about how he fired Bill Walsh a bunch of times on flights home after losses. So everyone overreacts to football. Everyone's crazy. Always has been. But I think we've reached a point just in our universe where the reactions are so strong to everything that there is no such thing. long-term outlooks, unless you are a total tanking team, which you'll probably fire your

coach anyway, that's where I could see Ryan Paul saying, how many void years can we put on something legally to make Max Crosby happen, to make Trey Hendrickson happen? I just feel like they are going into a cap is fake offseason. You and I both know it is not fake, but it has become more fake. Now that teams can borrow against the future and win that bet every single time. And now the Amazon is like, I think I'll buy more football games and YouTube, right? And Netflix or whatever like that's not changing. Revenue's not changing.

Now countries are paying for football games. Like this is not going away. If I'm Chicago, I'm saying chips to the middle of the table. The question is, though, you make a Grady Jarrett move last year? I mean, that was terrible from day one. That was like, what? That guy, who's been bad for two seasons? That is really the question.

for me is can Chicago look at a mistake like that, like the ones you're talking about and say, we need to go in with a scalpel and not a chainsaw to free agency this year. I will say generally Ryan Poles has been, I won't say in every case, but in many cases, pretty good at admitting a mistake and not hanging on to it too long. You know, I think back to like the Chase Claypool trade. Like they pretty quickly were like, oh, we screwed up, get this guy out of here. Instead of like holding on and trying to make it happen. And I'm like, there's a, there's counter examples of that, like, Valus Jones, the third round, they gave him too long a release.

But like, still, there has been enough of a track record of like acknowledging mistakes and trying to clean them up that I have some confidence that they will at least recognize this as a problem. Now, whether there's an easy, clean solution to get out of those contracts, I don't know what it is at this point. But I will say generally, they have a lot of contracts on the books right now that they can fairly easily restructure. Like, there is a lot of opportunity if they want to, to push that much. money in the future and create it now, knowing that there are a lot of risks that do that. And that's part of what got Ryan Poles, the previous general manager, fired because they did all that for Khalil Mack in 2018. And it got them a first place finishing the NFC North and 12 wins.

But then everything hit the fan, Fangio leaves and everything hits the fan. And then they're in cap hell for a couple of seasons and can't get out of it. And they're an eight win team and everybody gets fired. So like it's, it's very much a real gamble. And I think if I'm Ryan Poles, I'm looking at Quasi getting fired in Minnesota going, Oh, if he got fired after all his winning, like, I'm not like, I'm not guaranteed anything. Like he got, polls got his Kevin O'Connell or what, you know, his equivalent. And he's going to look at that and say, oh, wait, ownership might side with him over me,

even though I technically hired him and I'm his boss, like just because I got the quarterback and the head coach and a good tight end of him, drafted well this year and all that stuff. Like if ownership and management sees me as the obstacle for them, they're not going to be afraid to get rid of me. I should feel that pressure. I mean, I was on this podcast with you last year, comparing Quasi and Ryan Poles and like, you know, who's the better GM?

And it was kind of a toss-up at the time. I think we were, we went back and forth kind of disagreeing on, you know, they're both close and you could make arguments for both of them. And if they were even then and now Quasi's gone, like Ryan Poles shouldn't feel like even though he had a good season, like all of a sudden,

no, I'm safe because I got the quarterback and the head coach, like not anymore. Right. Especially if the quarterback and head coach maybe decide that you're the problem. Or in Minnesota's case, maybe the head coach in the D.C. We don't really know 100%.

But if the head coach wields as much power as Ben Johnson has, if the roster deteriorates and they drop back next year with expectations that are high, one of the things that we can never, ever do in a normal scenario in early February where we're just talking ball is we can never recreate, even in our minds, how it feels in the moment and how it feels to ownership. if they regress and the players if they regress. I mean, look at like Vikings players were going to Radio Row in the Super Bowl and openly just saying, yeah, we all wanted Sam Darnel back.

It's like, oh, great. Like, this is, in that moment, it just gets so intense, I think, for everybody. And then if things go wrong, it's, all right, we have to point the finger somewhere. And this is always in forever football. And if it was normal and rational, then it wouldn't be as interesting. But it's not rational to think. about Ryan Poles on a hot seat today. But if they were six and eight next year,

I guarantee people would be picking apart every single move, every dollar spent, every extension, every player who left and saying, it's that guy. It's not, you know, whatever number of other things.

So there should be desperation on his part. But I don't know how much you've dove into yet, the free agency options for them, uh, because I was going to do that this week. But, you know, there were other things. that came up.

I've started to look into some positions for the Vikings and so forth. Safety you mentioned is one of them. I just think that when it comes to free agency, last year was a little bit of proof of the idea that if you go with the biggest names, you are putting your life in your hands. Because if they made it to free agency, there's probably a reason that their team was okay parting ways with them. And that's the role of the dice that you take.

So how do you balance that with the needs that you laid out, but also not taking because players are going to be like, yeah, I want to go play there with Caleb Williams. So do you not moth to flame when it comes to free agency? Yeah, I hope that this falls into the categories of lessons learned by Ryan Poles that like last year, the Bears had salary cap space to spend. You know, the last couple off seasons, they've been among those teams that have the most safe space. So you go in the offseason saying, all right, go grab the top eddresser, grab the top defensive tackle. just go down your wish list as, you know, the fan base and put together your mock off season, getting all the guys you'd love to see. Now that's not the case.

So you have to be a lot more, you know, a lot more judicious about a lot more specific with, with how you're, you're getting your guys here. And I hope he looks at last off season and say, hmm, my best moves were trading for Joe Tuny and then I guess training for Jonah Jackson turned out well. I agree. At the time, I was not a big fan. But trades ended up being really good value for him. And draft picks ended up being critical in Loveland and Burden and Tripillo.

those first three picks in particular. So I hope he looks at this offseason and says, okay, last year I tried to fix stuff in free agency and that didn't work with the other. My trades and my draft picks worked really well. So maybe I should count on that or lean on that a little bit more and say, yeah, instead of screwing up all my third and fourth round picks that he has consistently through his tenure,

trade those and get, you know, you're not going to get a Joe Tuny every off season, but like year before he got Keenan Allen for a fourth round pick and that worked out as well as you could hope. I mean, it wasn't perfect, but like he's found a way to get some good value on some of those trades, not all of them, Chase Claypool in particular, but like, I think there's, I hope that the approach is to get creative instead of saying, well, let's move the books around and throw a bunch

money at free agents because there was about, you know, one or two every offseason that work well across the NFL. Like, sure, if they had signed Milton William instead of Grady Jarrett, he'd be looking really smart or if they had gone out and got, you know, like Josh Sweat instead of Diobo. Dangbo, like there, yeah, if you have the 2020 hindsight to go back and look at who were actually the smartest tires, but every other free agent signing for the most part ends up at best, underwhelming, if not straight out busting like the bears. So I'm very cautious about them making drastic moves there.

And I think, you know, you resign somebody like Kevin Byard, you use a premium draft pick on the defensive line. And you can start to talk yourself into fixing these holes without sinking a bunch of guaranteed money in a free agent that you just don't know. Okay. Here's the question that I think I've probably asked you every single year about the Chicago Bears,

which is where are the fans with this team? because I tend to think that the most exciting place to be in all of sports is on the way up, that it doesn't even have to result in a championship. I mean, if it does for the Patriots and they sort of skip the line with their rebuild and got here and they win, well, you know, of course that's great. But the, we have a quarterback now. Look at him go. Before you start obsessing over all the things that are disappointing you or before you are short of

expectations. You've now beaten expectations or met them by year two of Caleb Williams. And as the year is rolling out and, you know, just covering this team, I know a lot of folks in Chicago and sort of watched from afar as the excitement built and built and built over this season. And then there's this like, all right, now you've reached, now you've set the bar. And if you don't up where you were last year, then there becomes disappointment, frustration. You know, all those things.

The honeymoon phase seems very strong with Chicago Bears fans at the moment. It is, but I think you're, I think you're reading this spot on that like, they're right on that precipice of like, okay, 11 wins this season. And this, you know, it's sort of like a, you know, Freeza from herself from Dragon Balls. Like, this is even my final form. No, it's Freeza. Freezer, like, we were good this year, but that's not even our best. Like, wait until you see them next year, right? All of a sudden, it's a next year has got to be 12 or 13 wins.

You're going to be in the playoffs and probably winning the NFC North and going to at least a division around again, if not the championship game. You're going to be disappointed if this team wins 10 games and is the sixth seed and loses at home to the two seed or loses on the road to the two seed in the first round of the playoffs. Even if they're a more well-rounded, more complete team that's set up to keep contending, but for whatever reason, you know, something goes wrong in a playoff game or somebody's hurt for half the season or whatever it is. You know, like we're coming right on the edge of that honeymoon phase where it's like,

okay, this has been great. Now we need to see even more because we were promised that this was just scratching the surface. Ben Johnson himself said like this offense, we just barely scratched the surface. You haven't seen nothing yet. And this defense, he didn't say this specifically, but this defense was 23rd in the NFL. Like they clearly have to get better. And so if the emphasis is going to be on the defense getting better and Ben Johnson essentially promises the offense is going to get better, then expectations absolutely will be higher

for next season. And that's setting yourself up for a lot of potential disappointment because it's really hard to go 11 and 6 once, let alone multiple seasons back to back. I mean, you'd mentioned Washington and Detroit this past season. Like Dan Campbell said it after they lost their playoff game. I know how hard it is to get here and it's even harder to get back. I know Ben Johnson knows that and is taking that seriously. And he already says, like, we're restarting from your square one.

We're not, we're not entering next years as an 11 win team. Like this offseason, we are zero and zero. And like we're pretending like we haven't won anything and we got to rebuild this thing from the ground floor. He's taking the right approach. But the fan base isn't listening to that and says, screw this. Best team in the NFC North.

We're going to beat the Packers again. We're going to beat the Vikings again. And we're going to do all this. And I'm like, that's a great place to be hope and optimism is fun, like you say. But I am always one to be against getting your expectations too high because disappointment easily comes. And it's impossible to predict, I think, where this goes when you get to this point.

Because as I mentioned with Washington, they just completely fall off. Their front office looks totally lost. And, you know, then they're looking for a new DC and looking at their caps. situation going, who do we spend our money on? You know, a lot of money for Debo Samuel, the catch passes from Marcus Mariotta last year. But on the other side, you have a team like the Denver Broncos who made the playoffs lost in the first

round in Bo Nix's rookie season with a strong roster. And then they are maybe an ankle away from going to the Super Bowl. So we can look at these examples all over and go, well, it happened to this team, but it didn't happen to that team. But that team was on the way up and it worked. And that team wasn't. I don't know where it's going to go. And a lot of it feels like it depends on just this off season and how they handle it.

Now, I also remember asking you a question last year as the Vikings were debating what to do with their quarterback situation. I said to you, I remember this. I said, what would the bears not want the Vikings to do? Like, not want them to do. Not what we think they're going to do or whatever else. How about the same question posed to you here as we have. quarterback uncertainty once again, uh, in Minnesota. What would the bears not want to see from the Vikings?

If the Vikings did it, they'd be like, oh, well, that's probably going to work for them. Yeah. I, it's hard for me a little bit to picture what the, so like, this is obviously like a J.J. McCarthy question. And so it's like it's J.J. McCarthy or alternative. And like it's a little bit hard to not have the direct alternative to say like, because I, it's like, for example, I don't.

I don't feel myself particularly scared of J.J. McCarthy. I think Bears fans would say, we want them to stick with J.J. McCarthy because we don't think he's going to be any good. And the longer they waste their time on J.J. McCarthy, the longer it takes them to find their next quarterback. That being said, you could give up on J.J. McCarthy now. But like, what's your quarterback alternative? Like, is there somebody in free agency you're going to go try? Like, sure, go ahead and bring in, you know, Daniel Jones again, bring him. Like, I don't know that there's this alternative that's this big,

scary like, oh, I'm scared of the Vikings specifically doing that. And there's not a guy in the draft. So I mean, I guess I think to me, the thing I wouldn't want the Vikings do is like, I could see Kevin O'Connell taking Malik Willis from Green Bay and like making him into a great quarterback because we've seen him look pretty good in Green Bay in a good system. And like, so I don't, what I would be afraid of is is Kevin O'Connell getting his hands on one of these, you know, untapped younger quarterbacks that we really don't know what they're sitting is.

Like Daniel Jones at least, yeah, he had a great year for. Indianapolis, but I think we've kind of seen some of the limitations there, which is still good quarterback, but not like scary special quarterback. So it's one of those like gets his hands on the by low and all of a sudden he's the genius again for the next Sam Darnold, if you will, of like, oh man, how did he take Zach Wilson and make him into a Pro Bowl quarterback? Ah, crap. I hate that. Like you should have just kept trying to make J.J. McCarthy something because I don't think he has been able to, despite what he did in the fourth quarter of week one, he hasn't really struck real fear into Bears fans heart.

I think that felt more like from Chicago perspective, like the Bears screwed that one up. And McCarthy made some nice plays along the way to take advantage of it. Yeah, with the McCarthy thing, if it felt at all like the team was putting out there, we're going to stick with him. He's our guy. You know, what was it? Mike Vrable had said something about like, you know, how did you know, Drake May was going to be good?

And he was like, I got here and looked at him. Like, I don't know. There's none of, there's, there hasn't been any defensiveness. toward questions about McCarthy. I mentioned the radio row thing where they were kind of like, yep, that happened. And when it comes to any of the press conferences we've had, there hasn't been a single you media guys are too negative.

And we're going to develop him. We're going to show you. There's really been none of that. They've run to the end of a certain road where they need to win in 2026 and be back in the postseason or there's probably more consequences to come. And Quasi is just the start of that. I think the thing that the bear should be. be afraid of, Malik Willis is a great answer.

I would have had that is Kyler Murray. And the reason it's Kyla Murray is because I just want everyone to go show me their tweets when the Viking signed Sam Darnold. Did any of you say, oh, man, no, you said, he sees ghosts, good one, like you my first one to make the joke. But everybody said when they signed Sam Darnold, oh, like he'll play three weeks and then they'll go to J.J. McCarthy. And then he wins 14 games.

is Kyler Murray has played for one of the worst organizations in the National Football League with after that one year that they got DeAndre Hopkins in 2021 and Cliff seemed to have figured some things out. They've changed coaches. They have overhauled rosters. They've tanked. They've rebuilt. And he's had some injuries along the way. But there's something in common that Kyler Murray has with Sam Darnold. And that's that they were a high draft pick.

So the raw talent is there. The anticipation throwing, which Kevin O'Connell needs, it's there. The scrambling ability is insane still with Kyle Murray, or elite. So does that make it the perfect fit? Does it terrify the bears? Probably not. But would you be saying there's a world where they could get the most out of this guy that's ever happened?

That's why I've been advocating this move, even if Vikings fans are like, oh, you've got to be kidding me. We're doing this again with someone else's quarterback. Yeah, that is for sure. I hadn't considered that name until you just said it, and that's the best one I've heard yet. Like if I think about realistic quarterback options that the Vikings could acquire,

that seems like what I think of as the best case scenario for the Vikings and then therefore like worst case scenario for the Chicago Bears in the perspective. Although one caveat that I think the worst case scenario for the bears would be like Justin Fields goes to Minnesota and is great. But as far as like quarterbacks, you actually scare you that you think can do some damage there. Like, yeah, Kyler Murray in Minnesota would absolutely scare me because I think there's any coach that can make that work really well. It would be Kevin O'Connell.

So that's a really good answer. I'm not sure financially how easily that is to squeeze in. But I think for a quarterback like that, you find a way to make it work because that's the difference between the Vikings winning double digit wins and being where they at right now. They would have to release him. There's no way with his cap hit. It's just if they did the Denver Broncos Russell Wilson release and then pay his salary, that's where it makes a lot. of sense to me. Because every person who I mentioned Kyler Murray to is like, I'm not paying $50 million for that guy.

And like, and what if I had some magic that said, you don't have to. And then it's a lot more convincing, right? But no option is perfect when you're in this scenario, except for free agent Mitch Trubisky, who will be joining the Vikings and winning 13 games, lock it in. It will be very fascinating to watch these two teams off seasons as one answers of one big question, a quarterback, and the other answers a lot of questions about the roster. And, man, a 2024 draft class just sending us on twists and turns left and right. Lauren Cox from Lockdown Bears, you do a great job. I love getting together with you checking in on Chicago. And we'll definitely do it again. And I'll see you at the combine. Likewise. Thanks to having me on.

Good to see you. All right. Football.