The NFL’s annual meat market kicks off this week and here are a few things to watch for:

The Quarterbacks

In case you haven’t noticed around here, this off-season is about one thing: finding a quarterback. This week is going to be the Bears first real chance to sit down and talk football with the top four guys: Deshaun Watson, DeShone Kizer, Mitch Trubisky and Pat Mahomes.

The Bears know who Brian Hoyer is, have a good feeling about Jimmy Garoppolo and are at least relatively familiar with all of the other veteran options. Their pro personnel department has done their work. They don’t know the quarterbacks in the draft simply because they haven’t had the opportunity to study them beyond their game tape.

Does Watson have enough meat on his bones? What does Kizer attribute his inconsistency to? Is Trubisky really short?  Does Mahomes have any clue when it comes to reading coverage? These are some of the questions the Bears need to ask.

The most important part is going to be the interview process. The Bears need to find out what makes these guys tick. They won’t publicly broadcast that information, but we’ll hear the buzz. The Bears could fall in love with a quarterback here and that could change everything.

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A day has now been spent digesting the RapSheet report that the Bears will not be dropping the franchise tag on Alshon Jeffery for the second straight year. My thoughts:

• Bold. The easy move for Pace would have been to overspend on a homegrown talent the fans love. The easy move would be to say, “We’ve got the cap space so why not?” But Pace doesn’t seem to be doing that. If he lets Jeffery walk, this will be the first truly bold move of of the Pace tenure because unlike letting Forte (age), Marshall (locker room) and Bennett (nuts) walk, the Bears can’t make an argument they’re better without Jeffery.
• This is not an economic decision. This is an evaluative one. I’ve argued in this space – since the moment Kevin White was drafted – the Bears do not view Jeffery as a true number one receiver for a myriad of reasons. Work ethic. Passion. Preparation. It would be easy to slap Jeffery with the tag to ensure he’s in the fold for 2017. Why don’t the Bears want him in that fold?
• Tweeted this yesterday and believe it strongly. If the Bears draft their future QB in April and don’t bring back Jeffery, 2017 will be a more difficult season to sit through than 2016.

Is the Jeffery era over? Sure seems that way.

#Bears are not expected to franchise Alshon Jeffery again at > $17M, sources say. A top WR on the market will generate lots of buzz in Indy

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 27, 2017

Editor’s Note: Andrew wrote this so we’re posting it as rumors swirl around the Bears QB position.

The best way to solve a quarterback problem is through the draft, but nobody has perfected that art. Or even come close.

Ron Wolf is probably the best there has ever been at evaluating quarterbacks. He traded a first round pick for Brett Favre, drafted Mark Brunell in the fifth round, Aaron Brooks in the fourth and Matt Hasselback in the sixth. He also drafted Jay Barker, Kyle Wachholtz and Ron McAda. The Patriots hit the jackpot with Tom Brady, but they have a long, long list of quarterbacks who didn’t pan out. The Cowboys wanted Connor Cook and Paxton Lynch over Dak Prescott.

For what it’s worth, my favorite quarterbacks the past few years have been Carson Wentz, 2016; Marcus Mariota, 2015; Derek Carr, 2014; EJ Manuel, 2013; Andrew Luck, 2012 and Jake Locker, 2011. What can I say? I like guys who have big arms and can move around.

That said, I haven’t spent anywhere near as much time on the quarterbacks in the draft in the past as I have this year. Time will tell if that’s a good thing. I can say that I like all three of the top quarterbacks more than I liked anybody in the draft last year, but not as much as either Mariota or Jameis Winston.

Before I break down the top quarterback prospects, here are a few things I’m taking into consideration.

Anonymous Scouts are Liars Or Fake

Every week somebody writes a story quoting an anonymous scout. They’re full of crap. 99% of anonymous scouts are people trying to pass off their opinion as someone else’s.

The Offense Doesn’t Matter, To An Extent

The line between a pro-style offense and a spread is more blurred than ever. Pretty much every college team runs a spread or, at least, something that used to be considered a spread. The Bears and most other NFL teams run a lot of spread concepts. The league wisely adjusted to what the colleges were giving them.

All of the top quarterbacks in the draft this year play a sort of spread system and all of them will have to have their reads simplified in the NFL. If their coaches don’t simplify it for them, the coaches will be fired. The Cowboys made things easy for Prescott, the Seahawks kept the training wheels on Russell Wilson for nearly three years and Cam Newton still runs a college offense. How did Adam Gase get Jay Cutler to limit his turnovers? He simplified the offense.

That said, there’s never been anyone who has played in the “Air Raid” offense and been a successful NFL quarterback. The player has to show at least some ability to read defenses or make adjustments.

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Took the evening to sleep on Jeff Darlington’s news break that the Bears have opened discussions around the league about trading their starting quarterback of the last eight seasons. Here are three thoughts.

• The last line of Darlington’s story is wrong: “Ultimately, the Bears have now proven willing to move on from Cutler without a replacement in place.” I don’t think this is the case at all. I believe Cutler’s fate in Chicago was sealed by Brian Hoyer’s efficiently unspectacular mid-season performances and if Hoyer had not gotten hurt, Cutler was never getting back on the field. The Bears are confident BH will be back (and probably starting in September) should they venture into the rookie pool for a QB.
• 2010-2013 and 2015. Look at those seasons for Cutler. Production was not a problem. Injuries were. Much of the current Cutler hatred is wrapped up in the travesty that was the 2014 season. For some reason, Cutler is the only person who has paid a long-term price for a year where the Bears had an historically-awful defense and a head coach with his head 3 feet below water.
• Best spot for Jay? Houston. Worst spot for Jay? The Jets. Where will he end up? I’m betting the latter.
• This now guarantees the Bears will get someone young for the QB position. Does that mean first round? Second round? Third round? Jimmy Garoppolo? Who knows. But someone is coming into the building with the potential to be the future at the position.

Two league sources confirm @JeffDarlington‘s report. #Bears QB Jay Cutler is on the trade market, story: https://t.co/QuV2UVCLiw

— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) February 21, 2017

While some have argued that this is a bad year to need a quarterback, I strongly disagree. Over the last few weeks, I have spent countless hours watching and breaking down all of the popular veteran options the Bears may turn to in hopes of fixing their quarterback position this off-season. Below you will find a ranking of those players, not just in terms of talent but with cost and long-term viability figured in.

9. Mike Glennon

Some are reporting that Glennon is going to get big money to start somewhere. I’m not sure I believe that. He’s not accurate, mobile or particularly smart with the ball. He was Josh McCown’s backup.

8. Matt Barkley

It’s long been forgotten but Barkley did a lot of good things with the Bears last year. He just can’t keep throwing interceptions at the rate that he has throughout his career. I can’t help but wonder what a full off-season with this offense and coaching staff could do for him. He shouldn’t be brought back as a starter, but there are a lot of teams with worse backups.

7. A.J. McCarron

Maybe the biggest problem with McCarron is the cost. The Bears would have to give up a draft pick and then sign him to a new contract. This is fine if he’s a good, starting-caliber quarterback. I just don’t think McCarron is.

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It is Sunday night, 8:32 PM ET. There is a blank WordPress screen staring back from a $180 laptop, purposefully cheap because at some point an iced coffee or Guinness will be sprinting between keyboard buttons rendering it completely useless. Across from the screen sits a man, twenty pounds lighter than he was 35 days ago, blood steam devoid of alcohol, searching for something interesting to say about the Chicago Bears.

The Bears need a quarterback.

The Bears have a decision to make on Alshon Jeffery.

They Bears need professional contributors in their secondary.

Pass rush is always welcome.

Better edge blocking a plus.

Blah.

Blah.

Fucking.

Blah.

Many people have found DaBearsBlog for the first time in the last year. Our traffic has nearly tripled. So let me state this now as clearly as possible, specifically for you newbies. I’m never going to waste a second of your time just filling space. If something hasn’t actually happened or I don’t have an interesting opinion (at least in my own head) on something Bears-related, you’ll never see posts for the sake of posting.

I don’t care about clicks.

I don’t care about traffic.

Those numbers do one thing for me: allow me to gauge the interest level of the fans at particular times. This season, for example, our site traffic did not decline in December. This was a three-win team playing out the string in front of an empty Soldier Field but our day-to-day traffic remained consistent (and substantial).

What did this tell me? Keep writing. Stay in it. The fans are.

Things will start happening soon, the NFL calendar tells me. And when they do I’ll meet the fight in the OK Corral. Until then? Poll questions, pictures and links. (Or go to my Twitter feed where all I do is waste people’s time.)

Alshon Jeffery is a very good football player. A barstool drunk with Bushmills breath and 20/80 vision could tell you Alshon Jeffery is a very good football player. But NFL personnel people are paid duffels of ducats to decide whether a player is bad or okay, okay or good, good or very good, very good or great. They are paid to decipher where to slot a particular talent within the structure of the NFL’s rigid salary cap.

Is Jeffery a great player? That’s the question currently wallpapering the offices in Lake Forest. The more important question may be…does it matter?

From the one and only Adam L. Jahns of the Sun-Times:

“I think Alshon expects more,” Pace said during the Bears’ season-ending news conference Jan.  4. “I think he’s a good player. And that’s a big decision for us.”

But how good is he really?

It’s actually a complex question, considering that the Bears are rebuilding, that the team will have their third receivers coach in three years and that a new quarterback could be coming to town.

The better question might be: Do Jeffery’s talents transcend change?

He had mixed results last season with three quarterbacks. According to Pro Football Reference, Brian Hoyer’s passer rating of 83.3 when throwing to Jeffery was better than Cutler’s (74.3) and Matt Barkley’s (50.9).

On the other side, the argument can be made that the Bears desperately need Jeffery, especially with uncertainty surrounding Kevin White after his second surgery. (White and Jeffery share the same agent.)

Being pragmatic about this decision, there are three options.

• TAG HIM. With the copious amount of cap space and Jay Cutler most likely coming off the books, Jeffery’s tag hit will be somewhere in the $17-18M range and give the Bears an opportunity to either (a) work out a long-term extensions or (b) use 2017 as a second evaluative year.
• SIGN HIM. The Bears want to lock up Jeffery long-term but they are not going to pay him like he’s one of the five best receivers in the sport. Why? Because he’s not one of the five best receivers in the sport. And, from my reporting, it’s clear the organization is concerned about Jeffery’s work ethic, how that work ethic has influenced his health and what to make of the four-game suspension he served in 2016.
• SAY GOODBYE. An old fashioned adios. Pretty simply stuff. Shake his hand, make sure his car is on-time to O’Hare and tell him that both Pat’s and Geno’s are overrated in Philly. (Let’s be honest, the whole concept of the Philly cheesesteak is wildly overrated. It’s fucking beef and cheese. I’ve had better versions of that combination in probably seven other cities. Stick cheese on a Mr. Beef in Chicago or a Chap’s Pit in Baltimore or…okay, enough.)

The latter two options come with significant risk.

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