Ogunjobi’s AAV of $13.5 million would put him in 10th among defensive tackles.

First-wave free agent?

Yeah, I’d say so https://t.co/YUEgsFhYtp

— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) March 14, 2022

Here are the targets of choice, from Twitter followers of DBB:

From @JMora88:

DJ Chark is Big

DJ Chark is Very Fast

DJ Chark is Young

From @ExecCoachChris:

Kmet ain’t enough

Mo-Alie Cox: sneaky good!

And it’s fun to say

From @dieselDC3:

If I’m getting creative, I’m staying away from FA and making minor moves to get guys like Miles Boykin, Denzel Mims, Andy Isabella and Scott Miller. These guys all fit profiles that work in the Getsy offense and could be nearly free. They also are free to cut.

From @JDBrownWrites:

As much as I think we should prioritize offensive spending, if we think we have a great chance to use both second rounders on WR/OL, then I would say Charvarius Ward. We desperately need CB help and he probably won’t break the bank.

From @lstanczyksports:

JuJu: it would help Justin’s intermediate game to have a really good slot guy. While JuJu has injury history, we know he’s a really productive slot guy when he’s out there. Could be someone you get on a prove-it deal, and if he stays healthy and gels with JF, he can stick around

From @EBnFlusB3rD0wn:

UFA – Christian Kirk Slot Wr. Explosive slot Wr, can stretch the field, underneath routes, out routes, can take a slat to the house as well as fade routes, takes hits underneath and holds on to the ball (1 Career fumble), 25 will grow with JF1.

From @JerradWyche:

Justin Reid. I think he compliments Bojack well and is a solid fit in Eberflus’ system with his range and experience.

From @aYoung_24:

I’d really like them to go get someone like Ryan Jensen. I feel that he’ll not only protect JF, but he’ll also be able to teach the young guys on the team a lot of different things based on his experience.

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These will be a bunch of random thoughts about a host of things happening around the Chicago Bears.

• Virginia McCaskey is not well. And things inside the McCaskeys are not either. The family has rarely been in this much turmoil over the last thirty years and there are some close to the organization who believe a sale might actually be on the table once Virginia passes. (Reminds of Michael not killing Fredo until after his mother is dead in Godfather Part II.)
• One of the major issues facing George is replacing Ted Phillips, who is set to retire in 2023. George doesn’t have to plan to do it and is ill-equipped to handle any of the duties currently performed by Ted. (He’s also not particularly interested in doing that much work.) Bears fans have never understood that the team’s connections around the league are Ted’s, not George’s, and ultimately, it’ll be Ted that leads the process of finding his replacement inside Halas Hall. (Also look for Cliff Stein to be an internal frontrunner.)
• Listen, I don’t know if the new CHGO Sports will be successful or not, but I do like many of the people involved. I do know it’s continuing a movement in sports media away from the written word and almost exclusively to the podcast format. That depresses me. I got into this game because of the work of Mike Lupica in the Daily News and Jerry Izenberg in the Newark Star-Ledger. I came to love writing about movies because of Roger Ebert in the Sun-Times. As I grew older and discovered the likes of Hamill, Breslin and Royko, I found there was a place for a unique style in an old medium. Newspapers may not be what they used to be but it’s sad to think their legacy is being lost, especially in the sports genre.
• James Daniels has been a focal point of #BearsTwitter but Ryan Poles was less than impressed with the guard in his initial evaluations of the roster. It’s not that he doesn’t think Daniels is a good player. He does. But the inconsistency is alarming.
• “What if the Bears let Daniels walk and broke the bank for Terron Armstead at tackle?” Armstead will be 31 this season and has never played 16 games. I don’t see a rookie GM taking that financial risk.

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I like Ron Rivera.

I root for Ron Rivera.

I greatly respect Ron Rivera as a human being and a leader of men.

But my respect for Ron Rivera as the CEO of a professional football team no longer exists.

Because there is no possible rationale for giving up ANYTHING, let alone MULTIPLE third round draft picks, to acquire Carson Wentz as your starting quarterback. Carson Wentz, whose signature play has become flipping the ball casually to defenders on his own goal line. Carson Wentz, who two franchises, in two years, have been desperate to ship to Anywhere That’ll Take Him, USA.

I give you three tweets from Chris Trapasso of CBS Sports:

Text from a friend: “Lol why do ppl keep trading for Wentz”

I have no clue

— Chris Trapasso (@ChrisTrapasso) March 9, 2022

Carson Wentz was pretty good in ’17. But him going No. 2 overall in ’16 is an integral part in his maintain reputation as a player *some* teams believe is capable of being a high-level QB, despite much evidence suggesting the contrary.

Draft position matters, for many reasons.

— Chris Trapasso (@ChrisTrapasso) March 9, 2022

15-minute cool off period is over for me seeing the Wentz news, and I still can’t believe it

— Chris Trapasso (@ChrisTrapasso) March 9, 2022

There is enough data around this league to prove unequivocally that NFL teams are not run by competent individuals. And NFL personnel departments are nothing more than a collection of football junkies doing educated guesswork. There is no longer reason to show deference to these individuals because moves like this one for Wentz prove they simply don’t know what they are doing. Rivera has been in the league 40 years. His personnel department have 60 years or more of experience. How on earth could they have reached this inept conclusion?

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Tyquan Thornton (4.28)

Velus Jones Jr. (4.31)

Calvin Austin III (4.32)

Danny Gray (4.33)

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Winning is important. Winning breeds more winning, creates a positive environment, and is the only way to establish the type of culture that produces sustained success. Joe Judge, in some bizarre, late-season pressers, tried to sell the cultural shift he authored in New Jersey to Giants ownership. They canned him. Why? He didn’t win enough. All reports from inside the building were positive. All results from on the field were not. The latter is all that matters, ultimately.

Football is a sport and sports are about winning and losing. That’s why they spend all that money on those fancy scoreboards. But for the new Bears leadership, 2022 should be about one thing and one thing only: finding out if Justin Fields is “the guy”. Finding that out while winning is, of course, the ideal scenario, and if he is “the guy” they will win. But the decisions made in the coming months should be geared towards the former, not the latter.

The Bears should spend money. But they should spend money on young offensive linemen and outside weapons that can grow and develop with Fields in the years to come. This isn’t the time for a 34-year-old guard or a veteran wideout on a one-year deal. The Bears are not championship contenders next season, despite what the Bengals achieved this past one. The money spent in 2022 needs to be relevant in 2023, 2024 and maybe even beyond.

And they shouldn’t spend a nickel on defense. (Hyperbole, yes, but you get the point.) The players they have rostered on defense for 2022 are plenty good enough to field a unit with a middle-of-the-pack floor, especially if Coach E is worth his salt at the top of the pyramid. Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn, Roquan Smith, Jaylon Johnson and Eddie Jackson (in this defense) are a terrific defensive core. Play Thomas Graham. Draft a corner. Find a good off-ball LB in the middle rounds. This unit is going to require significant overhaul upfront in the coming years. Adding a high-priced talent now doesn’t make any sense.

Folks like to throw around the word “rebuild” in the NFL but rebuilds don’t really exist. A team’s championship clock starts the second they decide who the quarterback of their future will be. The Bears should have made that determine the second they drafted Fields, putting the likes of Mack and Allen Robinson on the trading block moments later. They didn’t.  They self-inflated the value of their roster. They thought they could contend in 2021 with Andy Dalton. (I can’t believe that sentence is even possible to type.) And they wasted a year.

They don’t need to waste another second. Make ’22 about 1. If that project is successful, the years that follow will be too.

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The 1984 Chicago #Bears registered 72 sacks — the highest single-season team total in NFL history. pic.twitter.com/VICCPw9dIE

— Kevin Gallagher (@KevG163) February 27, 2022