balta1701-A

I voted for every O-Lineman possible. Picked Clady in round 1. And threw in the safety in round 3.

They may seem impossible now. But as a person with 25000+ posts over at the Soxtalk mother ship in less than 3 years, I can testify to you it's only a matter of time. And if we could actually get a few people to stumble in to other forums for some NBA chat or politics chat or something like that, it would close in even faster.

Ok, so based on the feedback we've gotten in this thread...here's the suggestion it seems like a couple of the admins here are starting to lean towards. Bears forum: Anything NFL related allowed in here. General sports forum: Anything else, from college football to the NCAA tourney to Ontario League Hockey. Forum for everything else. News, politics, random comments, whatever. Would that setup make people happier, and equally important...would people actually ever frequent the other 2 forums? Even if it was just in college football season or whatever.

Right now, here's the list. Hopefully no one wanted this kept secret for any reason. College Graduate 25 Unsigned free agent 50 Camp invitee 100 Practice Squad 250 53 man roster 500 Special Teamer 1000 Key back up 2000 Platoon starter 5000 Starter 7500 Pro Bowler 10000 MVP 15000 Hall of Famer 20000

I know it's not a zero sum game, but if I had a choice between the Bears spending their cap space on re-upping with their own guys and going out and spending on new guys, I'd prefer the former, given that they have guys like Harris, Briggs, Hester who are important to hang on to and still have 4 picks coming in the top 3 rounds. But they still need a couple new O-Linemen.

Fixed that for you

In terms of Chad Johnson...the Bengals would have to take an $8.03 million cap hit this season in order to trade him, and that's worth remembering. With that kind of cap hit, I doubt they'd give him up even for a mid first rounder +.

Could you name for me a running back who put up solid numbers last year with a poorly performing O-Line?

With Alexander presumably available shortly.

No one will give you anything for Benson.

That depends on how you define "Good". Then again, you could probably have said that about the RB's who started off in the class.

I don't think you make that deal until draft day to see how things roll out as you approach 11...someone is bound to drop. But I think that's a sensible move for both the Bills and the Bears.

I honestly have no idea how far he'll fall. If he does fall in to the 2nd, I think that's an acceptable risk for the Bears. There's no reason this should be a career ending injury, but there's also no reason why I'd want to spend my first rounder on a RB who might not be ready for training camp this year, especially if I was drafting in the latter part of the first round (And hence, had a winning team last year). If he was projected to be a late first rounder, he might drop to early 2nd, Dunno. If he's there at mid-second and the Bears are satisfied his injury isn't serious, then that's a reasonable gamble.

Based on our discussion in the poll thread I opened, I think it's safe to say that I won't be moving threads like this in the future. We may attempt some format changes in the near future also, but if the majority of the site wants everything NFL related to just sit in the Bears forum, we're happy to oblige.

On this I'm going to sort of 1/2 disagree with you, on the grounds that I don't think you can build a successful team by spending a lot of cap space and multiple high draft picks on RB's in year after year. The Bears have invested so much already in their RB spot that unless they're getting great value at that position (i.e. Mendenhall falls) then I think they need to focus on the area of the team that's been by far the most neglected, the O-Line. Unless some top 5 projected RB or WR falls (Is there a top WR this year?), I would even tolerate the Bears stretching a bit for an O-Line pick because I think that's by far their greatest need.

I think they might have done more with O-Line, but overall, once Faneca got away, I think it's hard to justify giving the money being spent on these guys to the people on the market. Remember this little, I think correct, blurb from Peter King about the first weekend of FA last season. You don't win in this league based on big FA signings. You win with the value signing and with solid drafting.

And a Corrollary I'll add to that statement is...if the Bears have an opportunity to pick up another person in FA at what should be below his real value, a-la Jackson, LLoyd, etc., I think they'll take that option first, because they have the cap room to do it and because they're trying to win now instead of trying to develop everyone. And I wouldn't be surprised if Angelo would be happier using his 3rd and 4th rounders or so on defense anyway, so if he could fill a couple roles on offense with guys like this, I think he will...and I think that's what he's tried to do so far with Booker and Lloyd.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if a WR was picked, but I don't think the Bears will go there in round 1, and might not do so in round 2 either.

If the team doesn't have a ton of confidence in either Hass or in Bradley, then it makes a lot of sense to dump one of those guys and try to grab this upgrade.

I'd say it's a pretty decent deal for the Falcons too. It's what they need to be doing, moving their disgruntled veterans, stockpiling draft picks, clearing out cap space, etc. They do what they need to do with this deal.

And doing a better job too. (/rimshot)

I think the reality of the NFL is that you can find 32 teams right now that have reasons to worry about next season. In a cap era, it's almost even required. You can look at a team like the Patriots...nearly won every game last year they played, and they can worry about their rapidly aging defense, their linebackers in particular, their cornerbacks now that their best one just walked, they lost one of their big 3 receivers, who knows still what they have in Moroney, etc. On the other hand, how many worries do the super bowl champs have? They lost several people, particularly on defense, and they didn't manage better than what, a 10-6 record while playing in the lesser conference? In the NFL offseason, you sort of have to do the best you can and leave a little bit up to fate. It's virtually impossible to build a roster with solid, unquestionable players at every position, and even if you could, I'll guarantee you some of them are going to get hurt, some of them will disappoint, and someone will step up on another team who you didn't think would do so. The Bears have holes. Every team has holes. The best the team can do is do their darndest to address the biggest one (I'm looking specifically at the O-Line) and hope they get lucky with a draft pick somewhere or with someone along the lines of Grossman/Orton/Hester/Booker/Benson/Wolfe stepping up, and significantly better luck with injuries than they had last year. Every team should be worried until they play the games.

After spending a #4 on Benson and a 3rd rounder on Wolfe...any option that attempts to fix the running game without requiring the Bears to spend a draft pick in the top 3 rounds on a RB is one I'll favor.

Hi folks It seems I created a bit of controversy a few days back when I moved one of the threads over to the NFL forum. As far as I was concerned, it was a signing by the Titans, it had nothing to do with the Bears, the Bears had never been rumored to be interested in the guy, and there was no reason for it to be in the Bears forum. From what I can gather, some of the people from one of the 2 sites we merged aren't used to the multiple-forum style that we've been using at TalkBears and at Soxtalk for a while, where we try to keep some sort of dividing line between the forums with posts flowing in both of them. After the complaints, I checked with some of the Mods, and now I'm going to ask you...how do you guys want the site to be run? I can't guarantee that any one of these formats will be followed exactly, but I'd like to get some input from people. Here's how I'd describe the options: 1. Move anything that doesn't directly involve the Bears into another forum. This might involve creating a rumors/FA type forum alongside the regular Bears forum, for all the trade discussion, and would keep the main forum focused solely on moves by the Bears; actual signings, actual news, actual reports of guys the Bears are interested in. This is pretty close to how Soxtalk is Run, but over there there is enough activity to keep all the forums running. 2. Keep actual Bears related rumors, items, and discussion in the Bears forum, but move stuff to the NFL forum if it doesn't directly involve the Bears or a player linked to the Bears in some way. This is the way that makes the most sense in my head and was how I was operating before...for this one, a thread about Chris Brown would stay in the Bears thread because it was rumored the Bears had some interest, but a thread about Jake Long would move to the NFL forum because the Bears were never linked to him. 3. Keep anything tangentially related to the Bears in the Bears forum. This includes anything coming from teams in the NFC North, or anyone that fits at a position where the Bears are week, etc. I.e. the Favre threads and the Jake Long threads would stay in the Bears forum here, as you could make an argument that rivals or guys who play positions where the Bears are weak are worth keeping in the Bears thread. The problem with this one, for my eyes, is it effectively kills the NFL forum until the next time Belichek is caught cheating. 4. There's no need for a separate NFL thread, just combine everything in to one forum and be done with it, regardless of how fast the threads scroll by. Feel free to use the space below for discussion/debate/comments before you vote, and try to keep it civil. We're not trying to drive anyone away from this board, or make it hard for people to use/adapt to, we just want people to be able to enjoy themselves here.

Considering they got rid of Mike Martz, and they were actually fairly effective last year when they tried to run the ball, I would expect them to try to push that a little harder htis year. I could certainly see them grabbing one of this year's RB class.