balta1701-A

Supposedly Benson was gradually improving on his blocking as the last 2 years went by according to press reports, but yeah, Rex will probably miss that part of the game. But...it's not as if having Jones helped Rex look good under pressure in the 2nd part of last season. Rex needs to learn how to throw smart under pressure. The difference between Jones and Benson won't matter if he doesn't learn how to do that. And anyway...if Benson can stay healthy and put together the kind of season he should be capable of...having one of the top backs in the league running the ball can eat away at pressure on its own.

So, to bring some negativity around here, as I'm always good for, SI has a couple Bears-bashing pieces up today. Item the first: Item the 2nd, focusing on QB situations: Angry reactions?

Heckuva Job, Angelo.

That is exactly how it should be.

As good as Brown can be, the Bears would be out of their minds to let him walk for nothing. They have cap space to spare at this point right? What's the harm in gambling on holding onto Brown until you actually run into the cap. Anywho...I think the Bears, if they hold onto Brown, just made their draft day a lot easier for them. They used to have a potential need at every level in the defense. If you get Arch and hold onto Brown, you suddenly have depth in the secondary. The D-Line is still a concern in the middle with Tank probably missing 4 games to start the season, and then there's the Briggs matter. But now I think the Bears could get away with spending only 1-2 draft picks on Defense this year and focusing more effort on offense, and it shouldn't kill them too much.

Oh great, Gage signs with Tenn...I assume this page will soon close and Titantalk.com will be opening up?

Link Supposedly the pick could move up to the 5th round, but I'm not sure what it takes for that to happen.

Has anyone even heard of Antonio Garay? Peter King says he's now favored to win a spot in the tackle rotation along with Dusty.

So, anyone want to float an opinion about how useful Dusty Dvoracek will be next year given Tank's legal troubles and the loss of their other backup NT? Do the bears hope Dusty is healthy or do they draft another NT high to cover their rears?

IMO, it's a heck of a lot easier to find or develop a quality WR through Free Agency, later draft rounds, or just out of no where than it is to do the same thing with a safety, OLB, or NT.

To be totally fair, the physical needs of a running back are a little bit different than those of a D-Lineman.

Link

When he's in there, Mike Brown is just awesome. But I wouldn't be terrifically surprised if one of those 2 draft picks was spent on another safety.

Here are some of the relevant passages from Wikipedia. In short, I don't think that the position really existed with the Bears before Angelo; the power was distributed amongst different people; mainly the head coach and Michael McCaskey. Link 1 link 2

Well, in this case, that's sort of hard to evaluate. Teams out there looking for a RB had 3 options; FA, Draft, or Trade. Aside from Peterson, there's not going to be many expensive RB's taken in the draft, but there probably will be a bunch of early-mid round guys who won't cost a ton other than a draft pick. And on the other hand, there are a few guys on the FA market, like Green, the guy from SD who's name slips my mind right now, etc. Since so many teams are under the salary cap, a lot of teams probably had very little urge to give up anything in the way of picks or talent for a guy like Jones, esp. when he'd be a FA within a year if you didn't resign him. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the best offer Angelo got.

The Patriots got a late 1st rounder for Deion Branch when Branch was holding out with the Pats and refusing to play, and the Seahawks still had to sign him. I'd like to think the Bears could get more than that for a player of Briggs's caliber and age.

2 injuries in 2 years, yeah, that is probably the biggest concern, and something that does need to be dealt with. Anyway, as far as I know, the Bears should still have some $20 mil in salary cap space, 2 picks at the bottom of the first round, and the usual selection of other picks. The Bears are in excellent shape if they just make a couple of intelligent moves...all depending on what happens with Briggs, of course. Depending on the Briggs situation, this team has a chance to be even better than last year.

Showed up? Seriously, showed up? Benson got hurt on like his 2nd series. You're angry at a guy for getting hurt? I understand not liking him in general or not being happy about that fumble, but I can't see how saying "He didn't show up" works when he didn't really have much of a choice.

Applause.

Of course, even with that many teams having a potential need of a RB, it's not like there's not a good amount available on the market. Probably 4-5 will go in the first 3 rounds of the draft or so, Lewis is a Free Agent, McGahee could be traded. Ricky Williams may be back in the league, Dominic Rhodes was a FA if I recall correctly, and so on. There's enough running backs out there that teams can fill holes if they want.

Early in the season, before Harris slowed down and Brown got hurt, I disagree; the Bears were all over QB's just based on their front 4 in the first few games of the season. Offenses adjusted of course, but the front few guys on the Bears, if Healthy, can do an awful lot of damage. That said, I think there's no real good reason to not have 1 of Briggs or Urlacher heading towards the backfield on almost every play, regardless of whether it's a run or a pass. They're just so good at reacting that I think it would give a real advantage to move them up the field some of the time rather than down the field every play,a nd I hope we see more of that this year.

For the Bears, I think it would be a very bad idea to trade him indeed. However, there is nothing stopping the Bears from allowing his agent to shop him around and see if someone might be willing to give up a 2nd round or very high 3rd round pick for him, at which point the talent level might be worth making the deal. Trying to leverage a contract extension out of someone is the best move for Jones's career at this point, and its hard to blame him for working in his own interest. But, it's also entirely possible that no one will be willing to sign him for what he wants, which leaves everyone back at square one. I have a real feeling he'll be back playing with the Bears next season, simply because I don't think he's tradeable any more. Not for high enough value, not with him wanting a longer contract.

Well, this is certainly not a good thing to be seeing. I know that the agent may just be trying to gin up media time to force the Bears hand, but jeez, that was pretty quick all things considered. And this isn't one of those "a source told me" articles, it's the agent being directly quoted to ESPN. Which tells me that they're really not happy with the offer they're getting right now. The Bears can not go into this season without Lovie under contract, especially not after letting Rivera go.

From SI's Truth and Rumors summary of things that appeared in newspapers today: