balta1701-A

I wonder if it's worth bringing up the PED question in relation to a guy like this who falls off a cliff when he should still be in his prime years, like age 28-29.

Or a team scripts their first 15 plays and practices them before a game. Or you see a substitution that you saw in practice so you have an idea of the coverage/blitz package. Or you just get a better handle of the things that a team does than you get from game time film.

The amount guards have been getting has been related in no small part to their age as well. Hutch, for example, was about 28 when he signed with the Vikings. Anyway, its' an NFL contract. The total amount and total length don't matter. What matters is the guaranteed money and the cap hit. Offer him 8/80 for all I care, if the cap hit and guarantee is small. Look at your cap situation for the next 2 years, one of which is uncapped, and be smart about it and it will work.

Marvin Lewis again insists that 85 isn't going anywhere.

Well, if this gets picked up, this should add some fun to the NFL.

Fixed that for you.

Btw, the Bears led the league last year in average starting field position. And in points scored on special teams.

For those wondering about the Hester effect...the Bears had the best average starting field position in the NFL last year.

Anything but the first rounder which they'd be sure to ask for.

There's still bound to be a couple other cap casualties in the next few weeks before the FA period officially starts. Booker is one option. Walker is another. Holding on to Moose but reworking his contract is another. There will probably be a few more.

The Johnson situation has all the hallmarks of one that could last well past the draft and in to summer workouts and training camp. It's ok to have some patience over the next couple weeks, but if Berrian does walk and Moose is cut, the Bears can't afford to wait very long and have the best couple options on the WR market pass them by because they're waiting on the Bengals to drop their asking price. The Bears can go ahead and put in the call, see if there's any hope if they make a solid offer like one of their DE's or a draft pick. But if the Bengals are going to hold out for a monster package, then waiting to see if he'll hold out and force them to cut the price will keep the Bears from upgrading at a position of need.

It's also worth considering that we still really have no idea what Hester's ceiling is. If Hester's ceiling is "The best kick returner in the history of the NFL", then that's a solid guy to have. Top 10 value as others have said. But what happens if he finally starts picking up some of the WR stuff? What happens if he's not only the best kick returner in the history of the NFL but he starts giving your team 5-10 touchdowns a season out of the WR slot? Hester in the WR role is pretty much as unproven as any draft pick right now. In a couple years, he could be very good at 2 slots, and then what is he worth?

Feb. 21.

I think you'd be overstating the case there a lot unless a couple guys stepped up big time, but on paper it'd at least be significantly better than last year's. If Hester suddenly turned in to Steve Smith then you could be right, but I think the Bears have every right to be happy with "Adequate" from their receiving corps right now, if they could get to that point.

With the rate the cap is going up and the lack of receivers on this year's market...I think he'll likely get more than that. Randle El got 7/$31 from the Redskins a few years ago, with $11.5 mil in the signing bonus, for comparison.

On this case, I agree. If you bring Grossman back, with his solid deep arm, and decide to try to play to win now and not rebuild, Walker is a potentially excellent option for the Bears. He might not want to play there for whatever reason and there's nothing you could do about that, but it's worth a shot. Walker, Hester, and Some combination of Bradley/Davis/Hass is a much better WR corps than what the Bears are sitting on right now.

That makes sense. That's one big cap hit for a team to take in order to just trade a guy.

Whichever of these guys we think looks best...I think the Bears have to make a move for someone, even if it's just Berrian. Looking at the Bears WR's, if Berrian walks, next year they're basically looking at Hester, Davis, Bradley if he's kept, and Hass, with potentially 2 good tight ends but no obvious receiving threat out of the backfield unless Benson or Wolfe dramatically improves over last year. In other words, the Bears receiving corps is, on paper, a disaster without someone else added. It could be better than it looks obviously, if Hester steps up, Olsen steps up, someone else steps up, etc., but on paper, that's a really weak group.

There's a good chance you're right, but the problem is...if the Bears' receiving corps next year consists of Hester, Davis, and Bradley, with Olsen/Clarke at the TE slot and Benson still in the backfield...Hester could be Jerry Rice in his prime and still struggle. There's no one there at all to take any pressure off of him in the passing game except maybe the TE's, and we still don't know what we have there. It could work if there's a solid running game and the O-line is rebuilt, but it's not going to light the league on fire by any measure unless Bradley or someone like that steps up big time.

Or, perhaps more importantly, because for the last year they were doing so while 3/4 of the way down on the ground. Even Brady couldn't win a game from his back side.

So, can we all just agree that Hester needs to be used more next year than this year, and that at this point it's a crapshoot as to what he'll be effective at other than returning kicks?

The worry with Stallworth before this season has always, always been injuries, and I think the simple fact that Berrian doesn't have the track record of getting hurt as much will make Berrian more valuable.

SI says the Pats have an option on him.

Well, you know as well as the rest of us that them saying they're not trading him is not the same thing as not trading him. If he was really apt to force a trade he could easily do so with a holdout, he could push the team a lot harder, things could deteriorate over the next few months for whatever reason, the team could realize that pumping all their assets into offense hasn't worked for them and decide to do a trade for some defense anyway, who knows. Right now you're correct, and you're probably correct in the long run. But there's no guarantee things won't change at some point.

Why would the Bengals want to spend big money on Berrian in the first place? Especially if they're already paying Johnson basically the same kind of money Berrian will probably want.