LT2_3

Where he was drafted is irrelevant. The best possible comp pick is after the 3rd round. The formula is based on how big a contract the guy you lost signed with some variance for productivity and playing time. Then, that is offset based on the contracts of FAs signed the same offseason. We may not get much of anything because of Meriweather/Williams/Okoye/Barber. I wouldn't count on much. Maybe a 5th at best.

Prepare to be shocked. The coaching staff (and Angelo) are one season from lame duck status. That would make it really hard to lure anyone of any quality. We've been down that road before when we ended up with Shoop. So, while I'm not really impressed with Martz, the combo of probably having trouble replacing him and the benefit of continuity makes me think bringing him back makes sense.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id...-bowl-questions The point is that with 1/3 of the selection process subject to ballot box stuffing, and the other 2/3 by players and coaches voting before the season is over having only faced and studied film on 11 teams (roughly 1/3 of the league), the system is extremely flawed. The top vote getting OT hasn't played in 2 months? That's proof that the system doesn't actually identify the best players and many get the honor based on reputation.

Missed 2 games due to injury in 2008? Really? My main point is that if it were such a huge red flag as has been suggested, then headlines after the draft would have read "ANGELO DRAFTS ANOTHER INJURY RISK IN 1ST ROUND!" We didn't see anything like that AT ALL. In fact, there was nothing mentioned like that at all at the time or the Angelo haters would have jumped all over it both then AND when he got injured.

Who had Carimi red flagged due to his knee? This sounds like revisionist history (or confusion with Williams' back) Please provide links.

I think that Nicks and Jackson will be either re-signed before FA or franchised and Orton as a backup would only be if he can't get a gig where he has a shot at starting - which should happen. Nice pipedream, but tha's all it is.

Ashkum is right. It's too late to apply new paper to this year's cap. That being said, I think nothing got done before the deadline because Forte was asking for more than they wanted to pay him by a big margin - including no big discounts in future years.

How are the Bears supposed to be able to collect more information than law enforcement when most of their info comes from law enforcement? Do you think that they are supposed to be able to get more info from people that might know someone's secrets than the police? Another point here (and I'm not saying this to excuse anything Hurd did, but perhaps explain why there was nothing for the Bears front office to find) is that there is no evidence that Hurd ever did any actual drug dealing - just that he was looking to get into it. The information suggesting that he's a big time dealer is based on what he said to undercover operatives that he believed were also criminals that he may have been trying to impress to get a better price on product. I don't have any real salary history on Hurd, but I don't think he had the cash flow to really go big time before he signed his contract with the Bears. His buddy got busted in Texas a couple of days before he signed his contract with the Bears that gave him a million plus signing bonus. I think prior to that, he probably had a buddy that was a small time drug dealer who kept telling him something like "If we had some REAL money to start with, we could go BIG TIME and make LOTS of money." I think that prior to that, it was the other guy's ball game and Hurd might have helped with some cash flow here and there for a small profit. When the prospect of going big time is a possibility, Hurd wants to get more "hands on" and gets himself busted on his first time out.. I really don't know what was going on, but the timing of Hurd getting his first big contract and this being his first series of run-ins with law enforcement seems a bit more than coincidental to me.

I've made my points. I'm done. Yours Truly, Professor Zippy Pinhead

I agree that it's a clear indicator that decision making at the higher echelons of Halas Hall are a bit wonky. I think Angelo restructured things because he had no choice. I envision a situation in the war room where the scouts are saying "pick this guy" (and it could have been over James Starks from what I've inferred from reading things said by DePaul or Gabriel) and the coaching staff was saying "No, pick this guy". Then Angelo is stuck with having to piss someone off and the coaching staff doesn't report to him. So, while I'm sure that many (myself included) were sorry to see those guys go, it probably came to a head because Angelo was the GM in name only - which weakened the positions of the guys that were paid to scout the players. They were probably asking the simple question "Why do we spend all this time scouting these players if our recommendations keep getting overruled by the coach?" It's a valid question for them to ask. Next question is where should the Bears go from here? Another excellent question. If they can get rid of Lovie and let the personnel department make the personnel decisions again, then I say let Angelo stay. If they're determined to make a change and keep Lovie, they need to bring in someone as VP of football operations instead of a GM. That way they get back to the right top down structure with the coach reporting to someone other than Ted Phillips. And Happy Holidays to you too.

I realize this isn't what you meant, but as long as Cutler can come back for next year (16 days away and before the end of the season!!) then Yes! I want them to go to the playoffs!

The main problem with your analysis is that it's horribly incomplete. You chose SB teams over the last 10 years - which doesn't even equal the total number of teams in the league. So that doesn't give a complete analysis. What if there are teams that have a higher percentage of starters and ones taken in the first 3 rounds, but never made the SB? In other words, you haven't included any data that might disprove your theories - you've simply cherry picked info that supports your point and left everything else out. If this were a school assignment, you would get an "incomplete". As such, it's hardly persuasive. This is another set of stats that I think are useless without comparative measures. How many All-pro players are there per year? If you're talking just the first team, there is only 1 QB per year out of 32 teams that gets the award. It's too exclusive a measure and also tends to go to the most successful teams. That means it only has a tangential relation to quality. The same goes for Pro-bowls. You don't count special teams players (I'm guessing because it doesn't support your point) so do you count alternates? Also, it's tough to take seriously an accolade that is 1/3 voted by fans, and 2/3 by players and coaches that haven't even played against 1/2 the league in the year in which they are voting. See above. If you were to expand your analysis to include every team every year, you would see that even in years where they don't make the playoffs, teams that play in the AFC East and NFC East have a disproportionate number of players that make All-pro/pro-bowl honors simply because they get more coverage by the press. Similarly, you will see that most players from the midwest and west that get those honors, either get them on reputation some years, or only in years that their teams do well on the field. In other words, it's a piss poor way to measure the quality of individual players. Which sounds about right since only 2 teams make the SB each year. The odds of something rare happening means it won't happen very often and doesn't add significance to the event. Oooooo Prater kicked a 50+ yarder to send the game to overtime AND a 50+ yarder to win it. He MUST be the BEST kicker of all time because it's never happened before. (Now think of everything you can to point out about how ridiculous that statement is and apply it to the relevance of the Bears missing the playoffs 3 consecutive years after appearing in a SB. (and BTW - I attribute that drop in production to Lovie hiring "his guys" after he got his contract extension after the SB. He totally messed up the chemistry on the defensive side with more or less the same players.) You wrote "this season we got rid of these angelo first day pick starters… greg olsen our starting TE, marcus harrison our previous starting RDT" The usage of the time sensitive descriptors of "This season" and "our previous starting RDT" implies that we got rid of a recently valuable player. I mean gee whiz. Do you really want to refer to Harrison as a starter when after several years he only started 9 games in one season when the regular starter was injured? Why don't you give Tommie Harris the same level of accolade since he's started MANY more games than Harrison, was a previous starter, and left the roster the same year? I think it's because it didn't make the point you were after at the time as well. Dude - we've been down this road before. You come up with a premise, and then think of ways to cobble together a few stats that support your premise, and then claim that actually doing the analysis properly would take too much time. I seriously have no problem with anyone simply saying "I don't like Angelo or the way he drafts and we haven't won enough in the playoffs for my liking so I think he should be fired." That's fine. Just don't insult our intelligence with non-comparative data analysis and spin doctoring to try and make your point. I mean really? You mention Harrison as if it's a big deal but leave out Tommie Harris? Really?

Interesting data. Although you seem to ignore that some teams had won SBs with fewer drafted players and starters as the Bears have had all along. That points to coaching issues to me. However, I do have to question your observational skills if you think that at any point Marcus Harrison was a starter in 2010. That's kind of a credibility killer when asking someone to believe your conclusions.

I'll agree that there have been some boneheaded moves made while Angelo has been here, but I believe it's a solid and valid question who those moves belonged to and whether Angelo had the juice to block them at the time. I disagree that Angelo "tweeked the roster to help the coach". In fact, I would suggest that Angelo purposely denied Jauron a bunch of veterans that he would have preferred to keep. Let's start on the defensive line. Gone were starters Flanigan and Wells along with Van Tuinei, Troy Wilson, Brad Culpepper, and Clyde Simmons. The LB corps lost veterans Sean Harris and Barry Minter. Also cut loose were previous high picks Enis and McNown along with vet guard Todd Perry and vet receivers Bobby Engram and Eddie Kennison. Now to me, that sounds like a new GM cutting deadwood that the previous brain trust had kept around. I think that we also have to look at what happened to the coaching staff after Lovie got his big new contract. The most obvious and talked about was Lovie's decision to let Ron Rivera go and promote Bob Babich in his place. Also let go were QB coach Wade Wilson, DL coach Don Johnson, Asst. OL coach Harold Goodwin, and Off. QC coach Mike Bajakian. So, how drastically different were the 13-3 2006 team and the 7-9 2007 team? Was Thomas Jones personally responsible for a 5 win difference? Was Darwin Walker so much worse than Tank Johnson that the team tanked? It makes sense to me that the new DC and DL coach made the biggest difference - and that's not on the GM. All this has to do with is that I think Angelo's getting all the blame when it's what I see as a structural problem. I'm a firm believer in a top down structure where the coach reports to the GM. I hated the setup when Jauron and Hatley shared power, loved it when Angelo got the juice back after hiring Lovie, and hated it again after Lovie got his extension. Just think how it might change the dynamics. With a top down structure, Angelo is in charge. He has personnel people on one side of the table, and coaches on the other - they all report to him. Now after Lovie gets his extension and makes somewhere between 8 to 10 times as much as Angelo, it works completely differently. Did Angelo retain final say on draft day? I think he probably did - but with the understanding that if he completely went against Lovie's wishes, he could be replaced FAR more cheaply than Lovie. It's just my impression that Angelo does a fine job when he's actually in charge.

My apologies for saying what I did so poorly. The problem with what you brought up is like saying x number of defects on a manufacturing line is too many without any comparison to established norms. When I used the word "sucks", I was paraphrasing. My apologies if I was inaccurate in my assessment. I agree that he has missed on FAs and trades, but how many of those happened before Lovie's extension? There is often a conflict of interest between a GM and a HC. A HC tends to think short term immediate gain and a GM tends to think in terms of acquiring young talent for development. Put more simply, it tends to be a long term (GM) versus short term (HC) type of thing. So, in looking back and getting specific, when a HC gets a huge payday and gets more juice in the organization, his input can override the GM's sound judgement. So, when a GM trades a 2nd round pick for an underachieving former first round DE, did that come from the coaching staff or the GM that would probably like to keep the pick? When a team has a new OC with a new scheme, does the GM tend to want expensive, old and broken down players that the new OC has coached, or would it be his instinct to try and draft someone equally capable or at least try to sign someone significantly younger with fewer recent injuries? Obviously I'm referring to Manu and Gaines Adams there and my point is that those types of gaffes didn't happen before Lovie got his big new contract and the org chart changed from him reporting to Angelo to being his peer. The only player listed there that I have an issue with is Roy Williams. I think all of the rest of those were excellent additions. I think the lack of further OL additions has been justified with their improvements during the season. As for the vet WR role, I'm not sure what else could have been done in the truncated FA period and I question how much input Martz via Lovie had on the R Williams choice. How many of those guys will be back next year? I think all but R Williams. How should a GM be judged? I think he should be judged on the decisions he actually makes and not the ones that go against his better judgement but are asked for by the HC who makes roughly 10 times as much money as he does and doesn't report to him. I'm going to break this statement into 3 parts for clarity. I firmly believe that 90% of NFL coaches shouldn't have final say over the 53 man roster. That is based on the fact that most of them have no idea about the salary cap and would prefer to sign a bunch of vets instead of developing young talent unless they can obviously see a player's talent in front of them. A HC and a GM can share a similar philosophy regarding types of players and scheme, but the natural tendencies of a HC to think short term and a GM to think long term will always be there. I'm quite certain that Angelo was in favor of giving Lovie an extension, but not to change the org chart to where Lovie reports directly to Phillips instead of himself. The coach always has the power to say who starts and who rides the pine. That was Lovie's call. That was Lovie too. They all made concessions. Peppers was a no-brainer. Taylor and Manu were probably Martz' idea. My main point is that in the years where we had a proper top down structure and the HC didn't have much say in personnel matters, we had VERY successful seasons 3 out of 4 years. 2001, 2005, and 2006 we went 13-3, 11-5, and 13-3. Sure, 2004 wasn't too good, but that was Lovie's first season.

Dude - you are obviously more than welcome to your opinion. However, you are trying to use stats from past drafts to support your opinion, but those stats can't mean what you claim they do because they are similar to what are considered the best franchises. You are saying that Angelo missed on too many picks and therefore he sucks. I'm saying even the best teams missed on the same percentage of picks so if you want to show he sucks, you have to do it another way. On a side note, in the same vein of Belichick minus Pioli and Polian saddled with his son, I think that Angelo does better when the HC doesn't have much say in personnel matters. He comes in and cleans house and we go 13-3. Jauron gets a big extension and final say over the roster and we suck. Angelo brings in Lovie and we make the playoffs 2 years straight. Then Lovie gets a huge extension and no longer reports to Angelo and we suck. It comes down to brass tacks and Lovie makes concessions to keep his job, and lo and behold, we make the conference championship. IMO, we need to keep the coach out of personnel matters, but it seems that every time we have success and the coach gets more juice, things go badly.

From articles I've read, the average career length is 3.7 years. That's why I brought this all up. I agree with this 100%. This is why I'm saying that the % of drafted players still on a team is a questionable stat. In your original post, you called it telling. I point out that the Pats have the same percentage and perhaps it doesn't tell us that much. So, while the Pat's have had more 1st-3rd rounders due to trade, they have also had a decent number of misses. The point is that NO team has EVERY pick turn out, and when teams are playing at a high level, it's harder for even top picks to make the team. You lose a higher pick that can't make the team and a guy at their position gets injured and letting them go makes you look bad. You shouldn't go back 20 years. My point was to bring up that looking at the number of drafted players over the past 10 years still on the team is a bit misleading when the average career length is less than 4 years. I agree with the concept, but don't think things are as bad as you are implying if you look at what other teams have done over the same period. If you want to use playoff appearances as the measure, then go ahead and do so and leave the draft out of it. The draft is an inexact science. As people have pointed out, look at the Colts recent drafts. Even the Pats realize that a draft pick is taking a prospect based on how well you think they might pan out. They've taken multiple guys in the 2nd or 3rd round that were boom or bust prospects - and many of them busted. The type of stats you're coming up with here are completely meaningless without context. As I said, if you want to complain about the lack of success in either getting to the playoffs or in winning superbowls, then please do so. However, once you bring the draft into it, there is always the question of whether it's a problem with the talent selected, or the coaching that fails to develop it. Can you honestly tell me that you think the Bears would have had the same results with the same players with Belichick as HC instead of Lovie?

The trouble with using pro-bowls is that if you draft the second best center in your conference, he's a great pick but never makes the pro-bowl. The trouble with starters is that Aaron Rogers would be a considered a bad pick until he starts - keep in mind that any analysis can only be a snapshot in time. My method of analysis would be to break players into 6 categories: 1. played out their rookie contract - 1 point 2. got an extension - 2 points 3. traded for draft pick - 1 4. let go in FA and got a comp pick for them - 1 5. released due to injury - 0 6. released due to lack of skill - (-4) points Bonus points for: 4 bonus points for All-pro 2 bonus points for Player of the month .5 bonus point for player of the week Then you add up (or subtract) all the applicable points over a given period of time and compare all 32 teams. The main issue for me is that teams aren't penalized for role players or injuries, but benefit for guys that get honors. I don't count Pro-bowl appearances because they are 1/3 from fans and 2/3 from players and coaches that only play 13 of 32 teams in a given year - and how do you count guys that are alternates or get in as alternates either? Obviously people could weight things differently, and sure, Grossman would be 2 points, but Brady would account for over 30 points all by himself.

Interesting. Not to be a smart ass or anything, but don't you need to compare that to other teams before you can draw any meaningful conclusions? One additional point though, drafts are only ONE way for teams to acquire players. Even if every player on a team was drafted, teams would have 100% turnover roughly every 7 years. Saying that 58 of 83 picks are no longer on the team (or 25 of them are on the team) doesn't mean much. It actually means that 50% of the current roster has been drafted as long as you consider that the 3 ST positions (LS, K, P) are seldom drafted. It's the 53 man roster that should put things in perspective. I mean, to take it to the extreme, if you look back over the past 20 years instead of 10, then there are even MORE guys drafted still not on the team. Sure, that doesn't account for the fact that almost no players have 20 year careers. Then again, railing against the number not on the team over 10 years doesn't account for the career average being only 3.7 years either. I think the main problem with this line of thinking is that it looks at draft picks as more than merely prospects that are there to compete for roster spots. UDFAs that had injury or character risks that beat out drafted guys are looked at as guys that made the draft picks looks bad instead of diamonds in the rough that got polished up real nice. It also assumes that FA guys like Okoye can only earn a roster spot if a drafted guy was a bad pick. Just for fun, of the 91 players drafted by the Patriots over the same span, how many do you think are still on their roster? 27. That's 64 guys drafted no longer on their roster or --- wait for it -------- 70%!!!! I'm not saying your collected stats are meaningless, but that they don't provide meaning without the context of being compared to other teams that are viewed as more successful. Check out some other teams for fun.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/C/CollTo00.htm

Techinically? No. He can refuse to report - but he wouldn't get paid and it would not be a good thing going into free agency. However, he can threaten a virtual hold out where he basically shows up and acts like Haynesworth doing the absolute minimum just to collect a paycheck. There is barely enough time left in the season for a player to come into a new team and play QB at a high level much less getting an unmotivated one up to speed. I realize that someone might be tempted to bring up Palmer, but he had the benefit of a bye week in there to work on stuff other than just the next week's gameplan.

Hester?

Dude - it's unrealistic to compare not only the stats, but the process of getting into the Hall of Fame between 40 years ago and today. For instance, a calculator that could only add, subtract, multiply and divide cost over $100 back in the early 70s. I remember my Dad's first calculator he got in 1972 was on sale for $40 and to add numbers, you had to press 3 enter 4 plus to add 3 and 4. It also didn't do decimal places. So, even back in 1977 when he was inducted into the Hall, the majority of journalists that had been on the committee for years, probably had absolutely no thoughts in their heads about stats because they probably didn't know how to work a calculator Simply put, stats were kind of irrelevant back then by comparison simply because comparing stats between players would take hours and hours and hours of work. It was, quite literally, a different world back then.

Forget the stats and watch him play.

It actually negates the supply and demand thing because there is no supply. Forte is off the market. He has no leverage.