balta1701-A

(It's still an open question about whether the Bears will have a 7th, right?)

This is cool enough to share in a few places. This graphic from the Guardian shows how every team in the NFL has used its cap space, broken down by offense/defense and by position. One could waste a couple hours in this. Bears spent the 5th most on their offense in the league. Found that interesting.

And if he's traded?

Given that the Bears have an entirely new coaching staff, and some veteran guys have already made noise about how they didn't like the coaching change, I really don't like the concept of Mathieu. I think it's an obvious distraction that a first year coach who has been out of the NFL for a while does not need to deal with.

I think the Bears not only have to have a lot of the same bodies, but I think it's the right move. Webb, Carimi, Garza, and Louis is a line with some solid potential in it....but the rest of the roster becomes key there. With Louis and Carimi's injury history I don't know if I can count on them to start. If my medical staff thinks Louis will be ready, he's a reasonable starting option...but there needs to be an additional guard brought in, an improved backup guard to cover for if Louis goes down again...and there needs to be a plan for what to do if Carimi isn't any better next year...better than the complete failure that happened this year. If Louis comes back, the right way to do it might be 1 guard, 1 tackle (one of which is free agent, one of which is a first or second round pick). That fills the empty guard position and provides an additional tackle in the event that Carimi is as bad as he was last year or Webb goes down. Of course, it's also plausible that the staff is ready to cut ties with Carimi after last season, and I won't be complaining if they make that call, and its also plausible they don't think Louis will recover in a reasonable amount of time, at which point, they have Webb and Garza as the only 2 guys who can even be penciled in to next year's line. In that case, they legitimately need 4+ bodies.

Hopefully we won't find that out, because some new blood should appear on the O-Line as well.

I disagree. I think Webb was pretty darn close to average. He was just put in crappy positions, with very little help when it should have been given, and literally crap on the rest of the line. I don't think a HOF caliber O-lineman would have had much success with as little help as the Bears gave Webb...and he had a number of games where he was legitimately solid but people didn't pay attention because the right side or up the middle of the Bears line was collapsing.

After checking around, i've got Andy Levitre from the Bills and Louis Vazquez from the Charges coming up as the first names on the list for "Free agent guards under 30". Brandon Moore of the Jets appears as well but he's ~33 I think. Any other obvious names at the guard position? Those couple slots were intriguing to me...since both of them are coming from places where I'd say the teams have some weak O-Lines already. Not sure what that means about their overall effectiveness. One guy from a solid O-line who isn't under contract is 30 year old Kevin Booth from the NY GIants.

You can keep saying this all you want, but "An average O-Lineman in the best football league in the world" really is one heckuva compliment.

No, but adequate O-Line play is something the Bears have only gotten from a couple guys the last few years. Filling up the line with adequate play would be a major upgrade. Webb simply wasn't the problem last year. He wasn't a revelation, he wasn't good enough to carry the line on his own, and he wasn't good enough to overcome the situations he was being put in. So no, he wasn't "Very good", but he was definitely "Good enough".

The most important thing a guy like Webb is doing is...being paid very little. If he's able to give you ~average performance while still being on his rookie deal, that means he's significantly overplaying his contract. His rookie contract is what frees up the money to spend elsewhere on the line.

I think the Bears need to go with what they have at WR...with the exeception of finding a speedy 4th WR either in the late rounds of the draft or FA. I really want to have Marshall, Jeffrey, and Bennett as the top 3 WR's. The TE spot...could use some help, but I'm not sure what they want to do with it.

I have difficulty seeing the Bears not giving Louis another shot, he's performed well and they'll be able to keep him at a reasonable cost. Carimi...personally I'd imagine they'd give him another shot , but that's one where I can see myself being wrong since it's a new coach and a GM that didn't draft him. In both of those cases though, there needs to be depth. I'm not sure if that's Scott or not; if not, a 2nd round guard would be a solid addition.

What I keep stressing is that...a great system isn't going to take Webb his rookie year or Carimi last year and make them into good blockers, but a good QB who knows how to deal with the blitz, and a decent OC who gives his line the help he needs, can take an average blocker and get a very good performance out of him (at least against most teams). I have no problem with Bushrod, but I also think Webb is a useful asset right now. I think that the Bears did everything they possibly could to make Webb look awful last year, and I think anyone other than a HOF caliber LT would have failed in that spot. Some depth would still need to be acquired, but Bushrod-Louis-Garza-Carimi-Webb might be a workable line. I don't know that I trust Carimi, and Webb would be switching positions, and Louis is coming back from injury...so there needs to be some guys found somewhere who can actually step in midseason, but that's a plausible setup.

IMO, if Bushrod had been put in the same position as the guys the Bears have had on their O-line, asked to do what the Bears have asked their LT"s to do, he'd probably be barely hanging on in the league at this point rather than looking for a solid payday.

If he's the 18th QB on people's boards, he will be a UDFA. I have no issue with the Bears bringing in a UDFA if they like someone.

He'd also have to reliably catch the ball if it hits his hands.

...I can then name teams that struggle for a year or even a couple years while getting that personnel down. GB did, for example. Would you be willing to write off this season if that's what it took to convert to a 3-4?

If Paea was so strong, then why didn't the Bears have the league's best run defense this year?

I'd certainly hope that voters would have chosen him based on his football performance and not off-the-field stuff.

I don't buy this at all. Finding the big NT for a 3-4 scheme can be incredibly difficult. Teams that make that switch struggle all of the time because of that position.

That NT position in a 3-4 is just such a key position in that defense, in terms of stopping the run, I'm just not sold on Paea being the guy.

That number sounds reasonable and it puts the Bears as the 4th or 5th O-Lineman, which would be tolerable for them. If DE comes to the Bears, I dunno...that position is so important in this NFL I'd still hesitate to turn it down. You get a DE who could have gone in the top 10...man, that's rough. Think about trading away the pick that could have been Aldon Smith. Eek. But if a DE comes to the bears, they might have to trade it. But if a DE does drop and there's an O-line run, the Bears probably are best trading down. But I'm glad I don't have to make that decision. Imagine being the guy who traded away a 15 sack DE. Eek.

I haven't seen an update recently, but the last I saw was that the early run was going to be on DE's, this was going to be a big draft on outside pass rushers. If there's an early run on OT's, then DE's could be a bargain late in the first.

Isn't it the case though that looking at the available guys in January is very, very different from looking at the available guys in March?