AZ54

He only had a lot of carries last year, prior to that he wasn't used as much. That's why he wasn't on the radar for a lot of teams at the start of the college season. Even after all his rushing yards he still wasn't taken very seriously until his performance at the senior bowl and the combine.

I wonder if he's done or if the injury is so bad it will take a full year to recover. Of course that would mean he's not able to play this year at all and in that case you can't cut him unless you come to an agreement on an injury settlement. Would the Bears do that or put him back on IR and see what he's got next year?

I actually like Rex. I'm not sold he can be a starter in the league until he stops the boneheaded mistakes. He needs to improve but the way he played in his last 4 games is what I expected from him after seeing him play in his rookie year. If you took a few seconds to read the full post you'd see that Hanie "has a compact and quick release, throws a tight spiral and has a strong arm. He's a drop back passer and not a scrambler". Doesn't that sound similar to Rex? How is that downplaying his strengths?

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/be...forte04.article excerpt: "As much as Toledo is going to miss the player, he's going to miss the person. A day after being drafted, Forte attended the Tulane football banquet last Sunday with his parents. ''You know, he didn't have to do that,'' Toledo said. The next day he was at the school to work out -- twice. Forte went through conditioning exercises in the morning and was back in the afternoon to take part in drills with former teammates."

There's not a lot of info about Hanie's abilities so I thought I'd post this from the Bears' website. Sounds a little like the next Rex Grossman but 2in taller. However, despite those INTs, if he did have that much of a lack of talent around him then completing 64% of his passes is pretty good depending of course on the system they ran at Col State. http://www.chicagobears.com/news/ChalkTalkStory.asp?story_id=4660 During the draft I heard Mel Kiper Jr. say that Caleb Hanie had the second strongest arm of the quarterbacks this year next to Joe Flacco. What is the scouting report on Caleb and what were his college statistics? Brent S. Lombard, Illinois Caleb Hanie does have a strong arm and a quick release and he throws a very tight spiral. All of those attributes were certainly evident Friday during the first practice of rookie minicamp. He’s a drop-back passer and not a scrambler, but he’s athletic enough to keep plays alive with his feet. In terms of weaknesses, Hanie has been known to try to force passes into coverage. But that may have to do more with trying to do too much while not having a very strong supporting cast around him at Colorado State. As a senior last year, Hanie completed 64.2 percent of his passes for 2,455 yards with 18 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.

I'm sure that's what Archuletta is thinking. Hopefully Metcalf too.

You can't tell how a guy will run until defenses are trying to tackle him but the fact Forte caught the ball well is a good start. Just one of the pieces needed to be a 3-down RB.

http://www.pinktaco.com/

Look at how Earl Bennett covers up the ball after that catch. Nice to see some sound fundamentals in a rookie. How big is Mr. Hanie? Maybe it's just the photo but he makes that football look like a little nerf ball.

Keep Ced on the roster but don't put him on the active list? I guarantee the McCaskey's have an issue with that since they'd still be writing the checks for a player we know isn't going to play. We have a lot of cap space remaining and Harris and Hester aren't jumping in to take it up. So Ced has to earn a roster spot or we can stop cutting checks for him and take the salary cap hit this year. Having said that I still think Ced has the talent to succeed in this league and I'd love to see him come out and fight for a spot. It would be great to have Ced playing well with Forte backing him p and Wolfe as the occasional change of pace back.

Everyone would have had more TD passes if Moose knew how to catch. All he was good at was blocking and Ced rarely made it to the second level to take advantage of it.

Lloyd certainly gets to compete and I'm fine if he earns a roster spot it's just my opinion that if Monk is not on IR LLoyd won't make the roster.

Guys like Romo don't come around every draft...no kidding but first round busts come around all the time.

If Jake Long doesn't cut it at LT he will be a Pro Bowl RT IMO. He's not the most mobile guy so I can see his career starting out on the left side but after about 5-7 years seeing him switch to the right side. I liked Albert and wouldn't have been upset at all if he was our pick but as stated Williams fits our needs now and that's critical to me because I still feel our D is Superbowl ready. So is our special teams.

With what paycut? Are you talking about his cap hit? I don't see that being a deciding factor since we still have a lot of cap space available. It seems clear Ced is headed to training camp so if he gets cut there the cap hit is spread out across two years. If Ced can't beat out AP he's gone.

Some folks need to go back and look at all the INTs Culpepper has thrown before jumping on his bandwagon. He hasn't played well since he played with Moss. I never liked Simms coming out of college and I see no reason to like him now. What did he do on the field that Rex or Orton haven't done? The others are all KNOWN future backups which is not what we need right now. Our 3rd QB slot needs to be someone that still has the "P" word attached to them (starter potential). For the moment we're better off with the 2 UDFA's. By next year that will change one way or another as either Rex or Orton will be gone and possibly both UDFAs.

I see Bowman listed as having chronic tendonitis in his knee (or knees) during training camp and going on IR. I just don't think his knees are ready for an NFL season, not even playing on special teams. He'll go through training camp though because that's valuable experience for him.

IIRC someone posted an article about the wonderlic scores of various positions on an NFL team. LT was very high. Clady scored a 13, Williams a 31 (or something like that). Clady also said to need at least a year to get the strength to play the position, no real surprise he came out as a junior. Not that he won't start this year but he has work to do. Athletically I don't think there's any doubt that Clady is better than Williams but who will be better at reading blitzes? Who will be better at understanding his opponent's strengths and weaknesses and taking advantage of them?

1 Marty Booker 2 Mark Bradley / Devin Hester (in on the plays he knows) 3 slot Earl Bennett / Rashied Davis 4 Monk backup to Booker if he shows enough in camp otherwise I agree he gets a redshirt year.

With all the talk about how we can't draft a QB, please tell me who can? I can think of one guy I'd trust about selecting a QB and that was Bill Walsh, and he's no longer an option. The entire NFL is littered with draft busts at the QB position in all rounds and UDFA's like Romo (who was signed because he made a good impression throwing the ball at the scouting combine) and Warner show up out of nowhere. NFL teams spend millions of dollars on the scouting process yet still fail at this. Why? I think the reasons go beyond just being able to pick a QB in the draft. You have to pick a QB who fits your system. These days teams change head coaches every 3, ,4, or 5 years. With that comes a new system. Or in our case Lovie has changed his OC bringing in a totally different system from what he started with. All that is going on behind the scenes of a job where the learning curve is widely recognized as being at least 3 years and possibly 4. Look at the Steelers and their approach to head coaches. They've had a lot of success with this model over the years. In a copy cat league why isn't this more common?

As I heard it the rumor was he had issues with his neck but there's no evidence of any injuries like that. Bears basically said they felt it was two teams spreading that rumor hoping Williams would fall to them and that they felt they knew which teams.

Why are we forced to give Ced carries this year? I could see that as it happened last year when we basically set him up to be the man but not this year.

With all the cap space we still have I see no reason not to cut Ced this year if he's not recovering from his injury well enough. Give him an injury settlement and move on or let him finish his rehab then cut him. Having said that I think we go into training camp expecting him to compete for a roster spot. Either Ced gets cut or AP gets cut. With another special teams ace just drafted (Steltz) please don't tell me we won't cut AP because of his special teams play. AP wins a spot as a RB or he's gone.

I'll agree with everything HoofHearted said about Williams. I'll pass on Mr. Hanie.

Bennett is the type of WR who becomes a QBs best friend. Always runs the route correctly, good hands, goes after the ball in traffic. As a QB you always know where he's going to be and if your throw is off he'll protect you from the INT. On top of that he has good character, solid teammate, and is willing to work hard. You are right, he's exactly what we needed. Here's Berrian's stats from the last 3 games: rec yards 2 23 2 17 3 28 Although they are different style receivers I think Bennett has the ability to match that production. If not this year then certainly next year and for a lot less than $7mil/yr.