balta1701-A

Well, I'd say that means its almost a certainty that one of him, Bradford, and Stafford will drop to 18. Maybe even lower than that if you wanted to trade down and still grab a QB.

Didn't I recall reading a couple years back that his injury was almost one-of-a-kind for NFL players?

I don't know how it reflects on DelHomme overall, but that game in particular it looked like the Cardinals just had ID'd something on film that was just telling them where he was going on every throw. If this was baseball, I'd say he was tipping his pitches.

I cleaned up a bunch of those. We're all having the same problems, it's issues beyond just this page, hopefully the annoyances will be resolved soon.

Hypothetically, let's assume one of either Bradford or Stafford fall to the Bears. Not unreasonable at all, a number of the teams ahead of the Bears have drafted QB's or signed QB's recently, and the 2nd or 3rd QB in a draft has a habit of making a stunning drop in the draft in recent years. Do you go for the QB? I think I do.

Who is out there who is a better option?

Another side of the token though...the Bears have tried and failed as well. McNown and Grossman are the 2 1st round QB busts they've had in the past decade. At some level, they may just not be the place for a QB to go to develop. If the Bears had grabbed Aaron Rogers in 05 instead of Benson, do you think Rogers would have developed for the Bears as he has for the Packers, for example? Aside from getting a top 5 pick, like all of the guys you cited there, I'm just not sure what the solution is.

For the Bears? Take the QB.

At least with a couple of them...add the word "Yet".

OK guys...the personal insults in this thread are at the line and beyond. Consider this a general warning to cool it. Either like or dislike the idea, but lay off each other.

Yes, TN has a darn fine running game. But that is also keyed by 2 areas where the Bears are no where near as strong; the O line and the D-Line. In particular, you want to make the running game as strong as theirs, you need a strong O-line. The Bears' is improving, but still has work to do. And the greatest running game in the world will struggle to win games if your defense can't get off the field without giving up 7.

That's the answer to the question "What would it take". It would take Philly letting him go.

Isn't Garza like a pro-bowl alternate this year?

Especially if your team is in the playoff hunt and you really can't afford gigantic mistakes that could lead to turnovers.

I agree he's a keeper in the sense that you can't just dump or replace him yet...but I for one would really be unhappy if the only 2 QB's on the Bears' roster next year were Hanie and Orton. That's just a disaster waiting to happen.

Even without Merriman, the Chargers still have a ton of talent on the defensive side of the ball as well. That Nose Tackle who's name I can't remember right now, Phillips, Cromartie, Jammer, etc.

If the Bears aren't sold on Hanie, I could certainly see them grabbing a QB in the 2nd or 3rd round, especially since Orton only has 1 year left on his contract, and franchising a QB by next offseason will probably cost $15 million in cap room.

The problem here is that both of y'all are right. Kyle Orton's performance at QB was in the lower 1/3 of the league this year by almost every measure. Too many picks, completion %age of 58%, too low yards per pass. But the annoying thing is, because the Bears were so weak at the other skilled positions (WR, O-Line still, although better than last year) it's just bloody hard to separate the play of the QB slot from the play of the guys around him. People complain about Orton not putting the pass perfectly on the spot on the long throws to Hester. I agree. But on the other hand, there's more than a handful of those balls that also hit Hester's hands and bounced out. And even more importantly, there's even more times that Hester was simply double-covered down field and even a perfect throw wouldn't be caught unless it was Jerry Rice doing the catching. And then on top of that, there's more than a few games where the O-Line was simply getting beat. Or when the running game just wasn't strong enough because the other team was stacking the box so much. The fact is, Orton may not be a top 5 QB ever. But with the weapons he has, even if he was a top 10 QB, he'd put up some disappointing stats. But he may also simply be a #25 in the league QB. So there are 2 choices. Either the Bears pick up another QB, blow virtually all their cap space on Cassell for example, and then see if he can come out and put together a better season than Orton with his WR Corps literally being made up of Hester, Bennett and whatever else the team finds off the scrap heap, or they can spend some money to bring in a WR and try to give Orton a shot. Personally, I think the better option is the last one, but I can understand the argument for the first. I just don't think that your quarterback can work miracles if he doesn't have the roster around him to do it.

That seems like a case where the team might have motivation to rework that contract in the near future.

I think that Anderson's use is perhaps the best possible argument that you can make against Babich, in terms of not realizing he's a very effective pass rusher but is blown up by the run. He needs to be a guy you rotate constantly in and out depending on the situation.

Depending on how far he marches through the playoffs, I don't think Collins will be signing somewhere with the intention of being a backup.

Our cap guy can chime in on this, but I think it's highly doubtful that releasing Harris will do anything other than eat up cap room given that he was just extended last summer.

Out of the group of OL there, I look at them and think that there's a bunch of decent guys, but no real huge standout. No one like Faneca last year where you might see him and think he'd be a major upgrade. At least at some level, most of the guys the Bears have played decently this year, and hopefully there's a significant upgrade coming in Williams next year. The FA OL guys don't excite me. Spending a high draft pick or two on another couple guys seems to make more sense to me.

IMO, what this means is that the Bears, correctly, will not be bringing in some high priced person (i.e. Matt Cassell) to compete with Orton at the QB slot, and it means they probably won't spend their first rounder on a QB. It also means Orton won't be extended and if he plays well enough they'll risk the franchise tag on him. Hopefully it doesn't mean that the Bears will go in to next season with Hanie as their only backup plan if Orton gets hurt or if Orton walks after next year.

The Bears have to have cap room available after all those extensions the last few years right? Their WR group IMO isn't as bad as some people seem to think it is...but they obviously lack a #1 guy, and Hester just can't fill that role.