Pixote

He showed, weighed in, but chose to not work out announcing he had just begun working out about 10 days ago because he was looking for an agent. This did not sit well with some of the team reps. Then, without telling anyone, he decided he would return to prepare for his pro day by taking a flight at 6am this morning. Some are heavily criticizing him for the lack of communication with the team reps and the powers to be that run the combine. So, it may not effect him at all, but some might begin to question his intelligence for the mistakes he made, the comment he made when he did not participate in the weight lifting, and his lack of work ethics. Small stuff when you consider how talented he is, but when you are investing the money teams have to pay for a top 10 selection, it might cause him to slip some, but how far?

I doubt Crabtree will drop much at all. However, my "wishfull thinking" would be OT A Smith, thought to be the best OT in the draft, may very well drop big time do to his statements and "no show without notification". Could he drop to 18?

Very interesting. I do not see the Bears going after him but who knows? If we were to spend big bucks in FA I would prefer OL but only time will tell what JA has in mind.

1st, I do not see Boldin going anywhere. 2nd, Until our O schemes change, a top Tier WR FA or Trade, IMO, very unlikely. I think we will see mid level WR FAs brought in and a 1st day WR draftee.

I am not ready to write off Williams as a wasted pick.

When St Clair played OG 2 years ago, I thought he looked very good. I think he would accept the role.

Assuming we resign ST Clair LOT = Williams LOG = Beekman (maybe Buenning) OC = Olin K ROG = St Clair (possibly ROT if we go High in FA or Draft for OG instead of OT). ROT = Draft or FA Now if Buenning is healthy, he stays, and may start. Garza stays. Metcalf needs to go, perios. Reed & Balogh will have a hard time making the roster. It will be a numbers game.

I do not see them being an upgrade. We got our upgrade when we got a new DLC. It never hurts to add more players into the mix, but I do not see any of the 3 you mentioned bing a player JA would go after.

Call me crazy. Call me stupid. Criticize me all you want. I am a big boy, I can take it. I would like to see Hanie as our #2 so he can further develop and pick up another Rookie QB as our #3. I do not care if Hanie was an UDFA. I like the kid. He impressed the hell out of me in preseason last year. Yes, I know he was playing with the 3's. I want him to get a chance in preseason to get some quality playing time to see what he can give us. I think he has a chance to be a darn good qb. I like his size, arm strength, mobility, and he seemed very calm and collected in the pocket.

Depth at WR? Insurance against injury? Rookie WRs in most cases take 2-3 years to develop.

I like Nate Washington from PIT. I also would not mind taking a look at Devery Henderson from NOS or Jabar Gaffney from NEP. Heck, even Shaun McDonald from DET might be an improvement over some WRs we have. Hopefully Hester can continue to develop, Bennett gets up to speed, and we draft a WR high in the draft. I sincerely hope they give Rideau a shot. I am still disappointed they let Haas be snagged from the PS. I love TJH but I would rather see us use the $$$ in FA for OL, S, DE, or CB.

We resigned players during the combine last year, a lot of signings come during that period. I think I read that Grossman & Orton were both resigned during that period last year.

I suspect when we break camp in August Vasher, Hilly, & Garza will be on our roster.

Last year the cuts you are talking about occurred on Feb 19th http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2008/02/19/bears-c...nd-fred-miller/

Exactly right, we do not have to spend big bucks to keep any of our players turning free agents this year, some of those teams with more cap space will have to spend big bucks to resign their own free agents. If they do not sign them, it increases the depth of FA for us.

I am unaware of Turner's comments. After his first year with the Bears everyone made the same assumption about Beekman. Now, you could be absolutely correct. However, I will reserve my opinion on him until I see what happens this year.

Please tell me how you came to this conclusion.

I like Furrey, he would be an improvement over Booker yet as lot cheaper. Should be interesting to see who else becomes available. Let's face it, many WRs that will be available in FA would be an upgrade over several we carried on the roster this year.

Feb. 18-24—NFL scouting combine, Indianapolis. Feb. 19—Deadline for clubs to designate franchise and transition players. Feb. 27—Free agency begins; trading period begins. March 22-25—Annual owners meeting, Dana Point, Calif. April 17—Signing period ends for restricted free agents. April 24—Deadline for old club to exercise right of first refusal to restricted free agents. April 25-26—NFL draft, New York. May 18-20—Spring meeting, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. June 1—Deadline for old clubs to send tender to unsigned unrestricted free agents to receive exclusive negotiating rights for rest of season if player is not signed by another club by July 22. Deadline for old clubs to send tender to unsigned restricted free agents or to extend qualifying offer to retain exclusive negotiating rights. June 15—Deadline for old clubs to withdraw original qualifying offer to unsigned restricted free agents and still retain exclusive negotiating rights by substituting tender of 110 percent of previous years salary. July 22—— Signing period ends at 4 p.m. EDT for unrestricted free agents who received June 1 tender. Aug. 9—Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, Canton, Ohio. Aug. 13-17—First preseason weekend. Sept. 1—Roster cutdown to maximum of 75 players. Sept. 5—Roster cutdown to maximum of 53 players. Sept. 10—Season opener.

It seems Carolina's quandry will come to a head on Feb 19th, when they will have to decide what to do about the Gross/Peppers problem if Peppers continues to demand to be traded and Gross does not sign a long term deal. I would love to have Gross added to our roster. Peppers is wanting to go to a 3-4 defense so that would be out of our area. Article about Carolina's FA decisions with Peppers & Gross

I think this year I have HUGE interest in FA. I strongly believe we will be very active in search of WRs and possibly a DB. OL & DE are also not out of question. QB??? Who the hell knows, LOL. So we go out and get TJH & either Devry Henderson or Nate Washington to beef up our WRs. We sign a veteran OLman to shore up the OL. Bring in a lock down cover 2 corner. Bring in a DE to push AB & AO. Get an aging Vet QB as an insurance policy. Yep, as you get older your ability to dream improves.

I agree, I also enjoyed the article. The fact that veteran minicamp is being moved up because they want to get free agent pickups accustomed to the system tells me they look to be active in free agency. The fact that he is putting his foot down and interrupting the players R&R tells me that it will not be the same country club atmosphere this summer in camp. Both are refreshing changes.

Conspiracy theory #1 Lovie and Angelo get together and decide that enough is enough, we need to go in a different direction at OC, but out of loyalty to Turner they decide to allow him to try and find a position that he would like to leave to take, thus allowing him to save face and leave without the stigma of being fired. Hey, give me a break, I still throw my money away buying lottery tickets thinking one day I will win, LOL

My guess is it is a contract with little or no signing money and minimum salary which means he will be an extra arm for camp which is normal for all teams. I doubt if he will even make the team coming out of camp this August.

Rice aiming to make comeback, could Bears figure in?