“What’s new Buenos Aires?
I’m new–I want to say I’m just a little stuck on you
You’ll be on me too!

I get out here Buenos Aires
Stand back–you ought to know what’cha gonna get in me
Just a little touch of star quality!”

– Evita, lyric by Tim Rice

What is star quality? How does one quantify it? Richard Zanuck, one of the producers of Jaws (and countless other non-shark films) tried to sum it, saying, “Star quality is one of the most difficult things to describe. It emanates from the person, and he may not even understand it himself. It’s a quality that separates the star from the rest of us.”

Star quality, when it comes to sports, is perhaps even more difficult to define than it is in Hollywood, but there are correlations. Michael Shannon and Campbell Scott and Cherry Jones are brilliant actors, but are they stars? Of course not. “I’m going to see the new Cherry Jones film” is a sentence that has never been uttered outside of my apartment. D.J. Moore and Jaylon Johnson are a brilliant wide receiver/corner combo, but how many tickets do you think the two players are responsible for selling? I would argue very, very few. If Jaylon Johnson walked into my local bar for trivia night, there’s a chance I wouldn’t even recognize him.

Brilliance does not equal stardom in sports, but it is a requirement, because stardom without brilliance is mere celebrity. The Kelce brothers are stars in the NFL not just because of pop star girlfriends, shirtless beer guzzling and a top podcast. That helps, and their personalities enable those things, but they are stars in the NFL because they complement those personalities with two of the greatest careers seen at their respective positions.

Baker Mayfield has the personality, but not the game. Justin Jefferson has the game, but not the personality. The list of those who combine both attributes is a short one and that’s what makes a Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Mike Singletary, Ray Lewis, Deion Sanders, Reggie White, Lawrence Taylor, Randy Moss, etc. so unique. Hell, Aaron Rodgers might three clubs (or more) short of a full golf bag but his stardom, and the attention it receives, are undeniable. (Joe Burrow and Cam Newton always struck me as fake stars. Great players who put on funny outfits to gain the attention they believe accompanies stardom.)

Cade McNown could have been the greatest QB to ever play but that “personality” was never going to breed stardom. Same with Rex Grossman and Mitch Trubisky. Jay Cutler had a remarkably unique personality, but he polarized the cities in which he played to such a degree that transcendent stardom seemed an impossibility. Justin Fields had electric moments on the field but offered very little elsewhere. Could you imagine Fields in these State Farm commercials Mahomes does?

Caleb already does the commercials. Dr. Pepper. Wendy’s. You name it.

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No arguments about quarterbacks.

No hand-wringing about (a lack of) pass-catchers.

No questions about the Bears’ future direction.

Instead, daily Bears conversation currently revolves around which cheap veteran EDGE/D-Lineman Ryan Poles will add to a 2024 roster that looks young, hungry, and ready to surprise.

It’s… dare I say, a comfortable time to be a Chicago fan. The Bears’ young core is exciting (on both sides of the ball!), their overall direction makes sense, and there’s enough veteran leadership across the roster to expect competitive Sundays while the rookies learn the ropes. On top of that, they’re up against the salary cap and aren’t likely to make any more major moves this offseason — their draft class will push them to within $8-$10 million dollars of the current cap ceiling, meaning that if we assume that Poles wants to keep a typical $5-10 million dollars on-hand for in-season signings next year Chicago’s cards have already been played.

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The full 2024 NFL regular season schedule is expected to be released on Wednesday, May 15th, as @BenFischerSBJ said. Teams were informed today in a memo. pic.twitter.com/0SG1ioRxCt

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) May 7, 2024

In addition to adding 5 new starters on offense this offseason, the Bears fired offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and replaced him with Shane Waldron, who spent the previous 3 years holding the same position in Seattle.

In order to better understand what Chicago’s offense might look like in 2024, I’ve been digging into data about Waldron’s offenses at his last stop. I looked at down and distance play calling tendencies yesterday, and today want to explore personnel and formation trends.

Today’s data comes from Sumer Sports, which only has information for 2022 and 2023, so nothing from Waldron’s 1st season in Seattle will be included.

Personnel Groupings

Let’s start by looking at common personnel groupings, which looks solely at the listed position of players on the field and not where they are lined up. These groupings are commonly listed by 2 numbers, where the 1st is the number of running backs and the 2nd is the number of tight ends. Since teams play 5 skill position players at a time, the number of wide receivers is then implied. The 2 most common groupings are 11 (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) and 12 (1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR).

The table below shows how frequently the Seahawks and Bears used and passed out of each grouping on 1st-2nd down in 2023, along with their ranks compared to the rest of the NFL. Values in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while those in the bottom 25% are red. Seattle’s data from 2022 is included as well for comparison.

(side note: if the table gets cut off, click on it to view the full table in a new screen)

A few thoughts:

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The Bears have seen a massive changeover in offensive personnel this offseason. QB Justin Fields, RB D’Onta Foreman, WR Darnell Mooney, WR Equanimeous St. Brown, TE Robert Tonyan, IOL Cody Whitehair, and IOL Lucas Patrick, who combined to account for over 4100 offensive snaps in 2023, are no longer on the roster.

The Bears have replaced those players with QB Caleb Williams, RB D’Andre Swift, WR Keenan Allen, WR Rome Odunze, TE Gerald Everett, IOL Ryan Bates, and IOL Coleman Shelton. It’s safe to say these players are a significant net upgrade, and the Bears invested heavily (draft picks 1, 9, and 144 and $45M in salary cap spending on the veterans) to make sure that would be the case.

In addition to changing over the players, the Bears brought in a new offensive coaching staff, and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron will be tasked with turning this talent into a cohesive and effective unit. Since Waldron spent three years as the play caller in Seattle, this week I want to dig into his data to see what we can learn that might translate to Chicago. I am going to focus mostly on what his play calling tendencies were and less on how effective the offense was, because effectiveness will depend significantly on personnel and will be entirely different in Chicago.

We’ll start today by looking at Waldron’s down and distance trends, and will examine personnel groupings tomorrow.

1st down

Let’s start with examining what Waldron liked to do on 1st down. The table below shows how often Seattle called a passing play vs. a running play, how many of their passes went deep down the field (15+ yards past the line of scrimmage in the air), and how many of their runs were inside the tackles. A few quick notes:

• To remove game situation as much as possible, I only looked at plays between the 20s in the first three quarters. This is a look at what Waldron liked to do in fairly neutral situations. These same criteria will apply to all data in this article.
• I looked at Seattle for 2021, 2022, and 2023 so we could see what trends were consistent from year to year and what ones changed. This might give hints as to what Waldron will likely keep vs. what might shift depending on personnel.
• I also showed what Chicago looked like in 2023, so we can get a general idea of how things might change compared to what we saw last year.
• To put all these numbers in context, I provided the high, average, and low values for all 32 NFL teams in 2023, and where the 2023 Bears and Seahawks ranked in each category. Values in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while those in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red.
• All data comes from Pro Football Reference’s game play finder.

A few thoughts:

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I don’t know what the Jerry Angelo “project” was; his tenure was marred by a pernicious reluctance to add top receiver talent and ultimately doomed by Caleb Hanie’s inability to play the quarterback position at a high school level.

I don’t know what the Phil Emery “project” was; his tenure never got out of the starting gate, as hiring Marc Trestman (and not Bruce Arians) derailed any potential success for the organization on his watch.

I think I know what the Ryan Pace “project” was, but he learned the single most important lesson for an NFL GM: if you get the quarterback wrong your chance at success is minimal. (And he technically got it wrong twice.)

The Ryan Poles Project may sound like the name of a 70s prog rock band, but it is actually the most coherently executed management plan the Chicago Bears have displayed in forty years. It’s had a clear, definable trajectory since George McCaskey met Poles at that Blackhawks Bar in O’Hare (or something). But its legibility took form even before that meeting.

When the Bears were interviewing general manager candidates to replace Pace, no candidate was more honest than Poles. He looked George and Ted in the eyes and told them, in no uncertain terms, that the roster was crap. He told them he would have to burn the entire thing to the ground, collapse it like one of those Vegas casinos that can no longer survive an endless series of minor renovations. He told them what he envisioned was not a quick fix, but instead a multi-year project that would end with the Bears being consistent contenders. He needed them to commit to that vision, that project. And they did.

Flus brought in.

But say goodbye

to Khalil, Bob Quinn

and some Roquan guy.

Loss after loss,

Fans head for the hills.

But hold up, hoss.

It’s Davis Mills!

Like healing a leper,

They’ve got the first pick.

And here comes Dave Tepper,

the des-per-ate prick.

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Following Kevin Warren and the Bears releasing renderings of a new Chicago lakefront stadium last week, Governer Pritzker’s office responded with a statement yesterday that called the Bears’ proposal a “non starter for the state”. Full quote in the tweet below:

Not shocking to see Gov. Pritzker’s office call the Bears’ current stadium proposal a “non starter for the state.”

Secretary Alex Gough to @nbcchicago.

"In order to subsidize a brand new stadium for a privately owned sports team, the Governor would need to see a demonstrable… https://t.co/53Mul9S4Z1

— Josh Schrock (@Schrock_And_Awe) May 1, 2024

How will the Bears’ stadium project proceed? What are they going to do with their purchased Arlington Heights lot? We’ll have to wait and see.

Your Turn: What do you think about the Bears’ Stadium debacle?

This quote from a 670 The Score interview with Will Hewlett struck me yesterday — seems as if the Bears used the assurance that came from the #1 overall pick to give Chicago’s signal-caller a head start compared to most rookies.

Will Hewlett has "pieces" of the Bears' plays, Shane Waldron's "terminology" and the "basic route concepts in terms of depth and timing" of the Bears as he has been training Caleb Williams for the past 6 weeks.

— 670 The Score (@670TheScore) April 30, 2024

Given that he’ll need to be a leader in offensive meetings as soon as possible, I love hearing that the Bears are doing everything they can to help him hit the ground running. That extra time with the offense’s basics should make initial installs that much more effective.

Also, early reports from Bears’ throwing sessions are that Caleb Williams is throwing with anticipation during early work with his receivers. DJ Moore expands below:

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Nick and I discussed the Bears’ draft in-depth on our latest episode of Bear With Us — I’ll have a fresh set of comprehensive draft grades done by the end of the week, but if you’re looking for analysis in the meantime feel free to check this out!

Your Turn: What did you think of the 2024 Draft Class?

Quick Disclaimer: I hate Draft Grades.

These flimsy ‘grades’ are built far too quickly and rely entirely on the grader’s (my) priors, ultimately boiling down to questions like these:

• Did I like the players Ryan Poles drafted before we entered draft week?
• Do I agree with Poles’ teambuilding philosophy or do I want to hold it against him?
• Do I think Poles ‘over-drafted’ any of the players he selected? Or did he ‘steal’ a few of his players instead?

These questions leave far too much room for subjectivity and ask the grader to make too many judgement calls, often resulting in guesses and good vibes that include some context while leaving out others. Take for instance the grades handed out to Ryan Pace’s 2019 Draft, arguably the worst Bears draft in recent memory — would it surprise you that a draft without a 1st or 2nd round pick still received multiple ‘A’s and quite a few ‘B’s? What does any of that mean?

Maybe it’s my engineering background, but I want to measure Ryan Poles’ latest draft against something a bit more firm — I want to assess the ‘value’ he got out of the 2024 draft, and I believe that requires a new set of questions to measure Poles against:

• Do Ryan Poles’ 2024 selections make sense within the Bears’ current contention timeframe?
• Which positions did Ryan Poles target? How difficult is replacing/upgrading each selection’s position outside of the draft?
• Does each chosen player fill a role within Chicago’s big picture? If so, how important is that role?
• How much success does each chosen player need to achieve to justify their selection?
• Finally, what do I think of the player?

With our criteria set, I think we can properly assess Poles’ 2024 Draft Class. Let’s dive right in with…

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