azbearsfan

One WR I am starting to like alot is Robiskie. I wouldn't mind if we traded down in the first round or even took him at 18. He would be a reach as far as the experts were concerned, but I think he will be better than some of the guys that would go ahead of him.

I thought Fred Miller was the turnstyle.

And that analogy about the dinner should sum it up for everybody else. Nice work.

Another message board all star bites the dust. Nice job LT

Doesn't matter. He will be a Bill.

Sorry man. He is nowhere close to Larry Fitzgerald.

You know what? Lets get him. I miss picking in the top five in the draft...... You guys slay me with this nonsense. If he is such a SB guarantee, tell me what was Dallas' playoff record with him.

double post

Yeah, but this is about people getting all upset that JA isn't spending the bucks in FA. I agree that JA is a draft and keep guy, so it is to be expected.

Aww sweet. I didn't know we had Rudy Burgess from ASU. That guy is a fun to watch. I hope he can get some run.

I think you are right and that if we get St Clair we go WR 1st and then maybe OL 2nd.

Agreed. I think that he will go WR if St Clair comes to us.

Holt is good, Harrison is done.

No to TO. The guy drops more balls than Moose and throws more people under the bus. Contrary to what some believe, signing him would not guarantee a SB win.

If if and buts were candy and nuts, it would be christmas all year long. Always laughed at that saying. You say, "if" we won this game or that game, we would be in the playoffs. Great. But many teams could say the same thing. The reality is, we have missed the last two playoffs. Further, while we did better than expected last year, would you truly argue we were a good team? Our defense stunk. Our offense was mediocre at best. Somehow, we won 9 games, but I just do not see us as a consistently good team. The "if one more game" is the difference between being "close to" a consistent playoff team and actually being a consistent playoff team. Thats why we are close. Further, I have argued that sneaking in the backdoor of the playoffs is not something we should strive for. In this day and age of mediocrity, the vast majority of the league is in the playoff hunt every year. To me, that is just not a good enough way to consider yourself as being close. Being close, to me, is being of such a level that each year, you are considered in the hunt to go deep in the playoffs or to go to the SB. That doesn't mean you go to the SB every year, much less win it, but simply that you are on such a level as to compete on that level. I don't see us as being close to that. The goal should be to get to the playoffs. Once you are there anything can happen. Its easy to get hot. Turnovers. Breaks. So many things can happen that if you can just get to the playoffs you are in a good place. Its nice to be the juggernaught every year, but normally that doesn't happen. There are exceptions (Patriots), but even that does not guarantee a ring, because some team that barely got into the playoffs and got hot in the playoffs might beat you. Regarding scheme, I'll try to avoid a novel in my response Thanks I do recall you calling at the staff some for holding players accountable, etc. I would argue this though. That is usually the job of the HC. Well, that has not changed, so I wonder how much we will really see a change in that area. My issue w/ coaching was far more about playcalling, which we are more likely to see a change, but that is not an area I recall you questioning the staff as much. The players watch film and get called out at position meetings, so mostly its the position coaches and perhaps the coordinators that do the butt chewing. If the HC has to do it, then those guys are not getting the job done. I hold the whole defensive staff accountable for this, including HC, the players, and the defensive captains. Again, I watched our defenders go half a** and take lazy routes too many times. It killed the defense. Shoot those last two games, it wouldn't have mattered if Bobo the clown called plays the way our defense lacked fire. For the record, I do believe coaching changes made will be a big factor. I have actually argued we do not need to see a major overhaul on defense, as I believe coaching more than talent held up back. The only area on defense I think we flat out lack talent, and thus coaching is not going to help, is at FS, which I think you actually agree with. Again I think if Roddy Roddy M. can get the dline fixed, then we will be fine. It will allow us not to try and blitz so much (which I dont think our players are good at anyway) which should fix our coverage. Dare I say the defense is "close". On offense though, we do not have the coaching changes to rely on, like on defense, and that is also where I simply feel we truly lack the talent. I think we are still in dire need of OT, OG (not to mention depth) and WR. That also does not even factor depth at QB and RB. I dont think we need coaching changes. I think Turner is doing fine. I thought the offense was much better last year. I think if Lloyd and Orton dont get hurt, then our passing game would have been that much better(I thought the Orton to Lloyd connection was just starting to blossom and then after his injury Lloyd was terrible. Plus Orton was just not the same after his injury. I think it bothered him alot more than he let on.) I thought Hester improved as the year went on (at WR not KR). Forte and Olsen were good. Again I think if we can improve the line and get 1 more good receiver so I never have to watch R Davis, our offense will be good. I am not upset, like some others, that we did not go after CB, DE, DT or SLB in FA thus far. These are positions I feel we have talent, and changed in coaching, as well as health, can provide significant improved results. FS, OL and WR are another story, and these are positions I am most upset we have seen so little action, and no, I do not consider adding a guy who started one game in 4 years, w/ two teams, as the solution. I agree. We need OL, FS, and WR in that order. One, while I did want to blitz more, I screamed all year long at how we blitzed. When you blitz, if your DB is playing deep off the LOS, you too often negate the blitz as you provide the QB an easy out. Further, I didn't like how we seemed to nearly always blitz from the same angle, which made us too predictable. Further still, I screamed at the combo of blitzing when (a) the DB was playing so off and ( Urlacher was playing so close to the LOS. What this did was allow easy slants, as the DB was too off to get into the play and the LB was out of position to cut off the slant. It is one thing to blitz a ton. It is another to blitz effectively, which I do not feel we did. Two, as for the stunts, I still did not often see them. When I did, most later in the season, they showed more effectiveness than when we simply rushed straight up. Personally, i think we will see a ton more stunt, as that was a key aspect of the scheme when Marinelli was in charge of the DL in TB. Sapp stunted about as much as any DT I have seen. I can only hope we see more of that next year. I think we will sit in the cover 2, be aggressive on the Dline to get pressure, get back to a defense that might give up yardage, but will force turnovers and score points.

One. If you read my posts, I said that I don't really think it is some big conscience decision to screw Lovie over. More likely, in my mind, it is a situation where Angelo goes out of his way for a coach he has faith in, yet is far more passive when he has a coach he doesn't have faith in. He didn't have faith in Jauron, and thus was not willing to go too far out of his way to stack the team for him. He had faith in Lovie when he first came to the team, and spent a crap load of money on FAs and in-house extensions. But now I think that faith has wavered, and he is less inclined to continue to spend big for Lovie. ok......I think you read way more into these things then there actually is. I think if JA read that, he would laugh. Two. You think a near playoff season is enough to offset decades are garbage? You don't think we have a right to be a tad negative? We, as bear fans, would never care to admit it, but the reality is this organization over the last two decades has been far closer to Cincy or Az (jokes of the league) than to the good or great teams. We get a couple good years here and there, but over the last two decades, this has not been a well run team/organization. I think we have more than enough right to be a tad negative, and it blows my mind that our standards have sunk to low as to expect happiness over almost making the playoffs. lol. Never said you don't have the "right" to be negative. It just gets old doesn't it? And because we have been so crappy for decades, I would think that you would be happy with the recent string of better days. Winning record in 3 out of the last four years, SB appearance, being in play for the division championship... Clearly this is better than having the number 5 pick every year, and therefore we should be happier about this, right? Is it perfect? No. But to have the same amount of negativity when things are getting better says something about those people. Three. We were "close" to sneaking into the backdoor of the playoffs last year, but I can not believe you think we are close to being a "consistent" playoff team. We lack in FAR too many areas to be considered such. Also, I have to ask you this. In the past, you have argued that our issues were neither coaching, nor scheme, but personnel. You argued that players like Urlacher have simply lost it, rather than his slip in play being due to coaching. You argued that our inability to rush the passer wasn't about scheme or coaching, but lack of talent. Ditto our pass coverage. So how exactly is our defense close if we are not upgrading our talent levels, but simply changing coaching. Further, on offense, you truly think we are close? Say we win the Atlanta game and make the playoffs. Would three years out of four in the playoffs be consistent? I would say yes. Obviously you you say no. Go figure. So we were close to the playoffs and therefore close to a consistent playoff team. And isn't it weird that we lack in so many areas, yet a game out of the playoffs. What do you attribute that to? As far as the scheme, coaching, personnel thing, I will try to nutshell it for you in fear of your usual novel. First, the only part of that you have 100% correct is the scheme thing. There is nothing wrong with our defensive and offensive schemes. Just the execution of them. Second, I actually took our coaching staff to task at the beginning of the year in a post with Mad in two areas: Player development and player accountability. I actually was happy with development part. Orton developed. Hester developed at the end of the year. Payne, Roach, Graham, Beekman, Olsen, all developed nicely. Player accountability....I was not happy with this at all. I think this is why the Rod M hire is so key. Hopefully, when A Brown just simply stops rushing the passer for no reason this year, he will be punished. We shall see. And I argued that the personnel thing was more due to lack of motivation, accountability , and leadership, than a lack of talent. The only places I find we need an infuse of pure "talent" are OL, WR, and FS. I have also gone on record saying that if we get the DL pass rush fixed, the rest of the defense will be fixed as a result. I do remember us arguing about blitzing. I said it was a gamble and the best defenses dont need to blitz. You argued for more blitzing and stunts. How did that work out last year?

lol Of course you dont see it. If you didn't have something to be negative about, I think you would waste away to nothing. Everyone wants to be the Steelers, but the Steelers were never consistent doormats of the league like we were. And until we change owners, we have to play with what we are dealt.

Well if you want to get to a place where we get rid of all the "Me First" players, Url is the first to go. Are you ready to do that?

Come on now. You say you dont see the closeness then say we were close to the playoffs. What? Last year: down to the last week, not the year before, two years ago :Super Bowl, three years ago: playoffs. And this year....hasn't happened yet. Again, listening to you, someone would think we are the Lions.

I also think that the "boards" tend to be a bit dramatic towards the negative. I mean, if you didn't know any better, you would think that we were the Lions. However, we had a winning record and ended up barely missing the playoffs. So I tend to agree with jason when he says we are "close". Close to what? Being a playoff team every year.

DANG IT!!!! I thought it was somebody to visit us. lol

"The rumors are always nice for the fans to hear, but if I'm a team, and in most cases an agent, I don't want the rumors out there. As for Angelo and the smokescreens, where exactly does that come from? Perhaps in his earlier days that was true, but I don't remember much of that. I do remember we never met with Cedric before drafting him, and that was considered a smokescreen, but was that even necessary? Hell, if if Cedric had went higher, we'd have gotten Ronnie Brown, Braylon Edwards, or at worst, Cadillac Williams. At this point Angelo seems to be as forthcoming as a general manager possibly can be. He told us he wasn't going to make a big splash in FA, and he hasn't/probably won't. Do you have an example of his smoke-screens? I'm honestly just curious if I'm missing something." Well by smokescreens I also mean hiding his interest in players until signed. Who even knew about Omiyale until we signed him? That sort of thing. Plus his statement that he is really looking at QB. I call BS on that. "Hell, I'd say he's worse then Mike Brown. Just more durable. What scares me is that if we sign him, he'd be a one year fix while we continue to draft more safeties." Well I disagree with that. From what I saw, Mike Brown really brought nothing this year. Plus he was supposed to be a captain and a leader on defense, so I was really disappointed when I saw the effort of the defense in those last two games. I put that lack of emotion all on the defensive "leaders". "Not to mention how it hurts the locker room." I think that the locker room and the defense have a really weird dynamic. Its like a union or a clique led by the vets. The way I see it, they tend to rest on their laurels but then get crazy angry if one of the vets gets beat out or demoted. Like when Anderson was promoted over A Brown or Bensen was starting over Jones because he had missed some off season stuff. I think they really put the screws to these younger guys until their buddies get to start again. I have nothing really to base it on except a few happenings, but I see it that way. "It's never a bad idea to "kick the tires" but with the exception of the safety position, and adding a young stud DE, our defense is pretty complete. We have great depth at cb as of right now." And I dont know all of the people on the defensive side that got let go from TB. But looking at that safety is a no brainer IMO.

I would hope not, but who knows.

Man, I have to agree here. It would be nice to at least hear something about something....

lol How many QB's are they gonna get?