balta1701-A

One other little issue...if they sign Hester, they may well structure the deal in such a way that it eats up most of their remaining cap room this year (And thus puts as much as possible on this year, leaving space for the future.) That's exactly what they did with Tillman and Vasher last year, and for the month of October the Bears had the least amount of cap room in the league until you could sign people on to the 08 cap starting in November. While this is an excellent strategy...it has one flaw...if you use up all of your cap room by July, August, or even early September, you've left yourself little room to sign a player somewhere should someone get hurt in training camp or should there be an unexpected cut from another team that fills a hole on your roster. In other words, I think you go back in September or early October and that's the time we might expect to see Hester extended.

They drafted Mendenhall and have Mwelde Moore also in their backfield in addition to Parker. There wasn't going to be room for him if they'd held on to him. I'd presume there was a roster bonus coming up soon that they cut him to avoid paying. He did run for nearly 500 yards last year. Right now, there appears to be a glut of FA running backs out there with very few teams actually showing interest (Jones, Benson, Davenport, Alexander, Henry). It's starting to approach that point where it's silly not to sign one for this team. Davenport might actually be the best option for this group if the Bears aren't thrilled about Jones.

Love could well go as high as #3, depending on how things shake out. Some team around 9 or 10 would be pretty darn happy if he fell to them right now.

NFL Live has been successively breaking down how they feel about each division in the league, here's the NFC North. Always fun to see what the CW is coming in to a season.

Part of the reason he did that though was, as NFO said, he has a slow release and isn't that mobile...this led to him taking a ton of shots and essentially always being banged up. Before thinking of him as a savior...this was a guy who couldn't beat out Harrington for the Falcons job last year. Bringing him in isn't the worst idea I've ever heard, and who knows, you could strike gold, but I'd still keep the Orton/Grossman competition for my top 2 slots and tell Leftwich he's my #3 guy going in to camp and he has to earn anything beyond that.

If everyone is healthy and no one has an off year, yes. But what are the odds of that?

At WR, we've already thrown so much depth at the position that adding more people for tryouts will just hurt the chances of the ones already there. I'm not convinced we've dumped nearly as much depth in to the O-Line. If he could be had cheaply, then he's an option.

Here's my problem with the idea. Let's say hypothetically that Eric Parker would come in and be the best of the bunch. Right now, the Bears have Lloyd, Hester, Bradley, Davis, Hass, at least one draft pick who's name I can't remember, Booker, and probably another guy I'm forgetting somewhere along the line. On top of that, the Bears are holding 3-4 tight ends, and a couple of running backs at least one of whom we'd really like to involve in the passing game. So, let's say they sign Parker tomorrow. When exactly is he going to get playing time in training camp? When are the Bears even going to have time to check him out? They've thrown a ton of sort-of-marginal guys at the WR position already in the hopes that some of them will catch on, which with that number of guys is entirely possible. But at some point, you're throwing so many guys in to the vat that they're going to get in each other's way. Parker needs reps, so Hester gets fewer, or Bradley gets fewer, one of the developmental guys gets less work, and it just isn't going to work. If you're talking about Randy Moss level talent, ok, we can talk because the potential rewards would be so great. But Eric Parker? Do you expect him to come in and catch 100 balls and be the best WR in the league next year? Unless you expect that, another body is just overkill.

Well, that was a well balanced, rehearsed, logical argument with solid and clearly made points. Anyway...the only kool-aid here is named Chris Williams. It's a flavor I've never tasted yet. If it's pretty good, then it's going to fuel our running game better than Gatorade. If it's a bad flavor, then the offense is going to struggle again.

See, this is one spot where I simply disagree with you, because of the nature of a capped league. Ideally, it would be nice for a team to be able to field a roster where there's a veteran mentor to a young guy at every position, where the young guy never has to be relied upon to do anything, but I'd say that the reality in this league is that you live and die by your draft. The only way to really build a genuine champion in a capped league is to win with your youth. You don't have to rely on it at every spot and no championship team does. But the teams that do win don't hesitate to put in young guys as their key people, as a top wideout, or as a top RB, or thrown straight in to their O-Line, etc. Back up the positions where you can and where the added depth or quality of players you have makes sense (i.e. for the Bears, safety). If you can find a bargain veteran, you take him (i.e. the Bears and WR). If the Bears find a RB that they're happy with, who's cheap enough that it's reasonable to grab them, then go ahead. But if you try to enforce veteran depth at every position, you're going to blow out your cap & miss the playoffs every year.

How many playoff teams in recent years have come in to seasons with even less than that and still had their running game perform? Denver seemingly every year. The Giants last year despite Barber's retirement. The Packers last year pulling Ryan Grant out of no where. The Steelers pulling Willie Parker out of no where. The lesson I've gotten from watching how these teams do it is that I don't care whether or not you have an unproven RB, it all starts with the O-Line. If the O-Line doesn't perform well, LT can look like crap. If your O-Line performs well, your RB will at least not look bad even if they're bad at what they do. And if they perform well, then that gives the RB a chance to learn or to be really good if he's actually good at what he does.

Well, aside from Hester, who's left to extend?

At some level...something tells me "Luck" isn't the biggest factor.

If the O-Line is genuinely improved and solid...the Bears will not be in trouble on that side of the ball. They won't be the Patriots, but they don't need to be. A solid O-Line can make everyone better.

We spent a top 15 pick on the key position there, allowing us to move Tait back to RT. Moving tait to RT makes the whole line better. I can live with average performing guards if the tackles and C do their job. The answer to that question is...therefore..."Chris Williams". He does the job of a #14 pick, and the Bears are a VASTLY better team this year. He struggles, and the Bears struggle. If you asked me to rank the top 5 most important players to the Bears success this year/guys they can least afford to lose or have struggle, my rankings go: Urlacher Williams Hester Brown Harris I know what the team can do without guys like Brown and Harris. I know they're just bad without Urlacher. Hester is self explanatory. But the offense, especially on a running team with QB's like Grossman and Orton who aren't exactly stellar at making people miss is so dependent on the O-Line...Williams is seriously the key to the season IMO.

The answer to the question "Are the Bears better than last year" will be the same as the answer to the question "Is the Bears' offensive line better than it was last year". The disastrous performance from the offense came down, entirely, in my eyes, to the shoddy performance of the O-Line. Spread around what blame you want, playcalling, Benson, Moose, Grossman, Griese...even if they'd wanted to be better, they can't do that when they're lying on the ground.

MOCK DRAFT! MOCK DRAFT! JOIN US! JOIN US!

Our solution to the RB spot before Benson was to throw depth at it and hope it works out during training camp. Our solution to the WR spot was to throw depth at it and hope it works out in training camp. Our solution to the QB Spot was to throw depth at it and hope it works out during training camp. I see no reason why throwing depth at the guard position is a bad idea.

On that, we totally agree. It is by definition a reach. It's entirely possible it'll be a bad reach. If I hear crap about people not wanting to come to practice or not respecting the coach Boylan-style this year, then I'll want the Pax era over. That's one thing I NEVER want to see again is a team implode on its coaching staff like it did with Boylan last year. That's where I draw the line in the sand this year. Other than that, now we'll see how well a reach works.

I totally buy the Canseco comparison, because it's entirely possible he's telling the truth, and because it's virtually impossible to trust him. But 2 points. First, if you watched the infamous Lakers/Sacto game 6, did you not think that the fix was in? And second, if you were a crooked ref trying to make up a story to cover your tail, and you had watched that game 6, wouldn't you pick that game to point to as one that had been fixed because it was such a one sided game with the officiating, whether or not you knew anything about it?

I think everyone agrees the 2006 version of the team wasn't thrilled with Benson getting playing time over Jones. Everyone out here, even the ones who thought Benson had a chance of showing something positive this season, would agree with that. The question was going to be the attitude of the 08 Benson.

On top of that though...the O-Line also needs to perform, so that he has a shot to either get outside or to get through the D-Line where his speed might actually matter.

Except... maybe he also has more of an interest in defense. THe stuff out there suggests that Del Negro was in particular unhappy about D'Antoni's rotations and his refusal to go more than 8 people deep or give playing time to any of their young guys on Phoenix other than the ones already in his rotation, which I consider to be a positive sign. He also has that mid 90's spurs background where he might be able to pull off pairing a higher paced, youthful offense with a solid defense. On paper this makes sense. I have no idea if it will happen in practice.

At least to me, "Veteran mentor" is not the kind of thing that comes to my mind when I think of my current impressions of Alexander. He may have changed personally, but I never got the impression that he's the kind of guy I wanted other people to emulate.

FYI, I really don't think it bothers any of us if people take threads off topic.