ParkerBear7

Glad to see your Mock Draft has come back down to earth a little. Overall nice job with FA signings and Draft. Assuming we signed Faneca would you consider trading down into the late 1st and picking up an additional pick or would you consider a LB like Rivers / Connor , RB such as Mendenhall / Jones or a DE like Phillip Merling if they are sitting there at 14? Other Prospects that I am intringued with are: CB: Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie -- could possible allow Tillman to move to S in future RB: deep position in draft with several prospects who are fast i.e. Charles, Choice, Slaton, Johnson all worth a look WR: Devin Thomas / Andre Caldwell FB: Peyton Hillis / Own Schmitt DE: Chris Ellis S: Quentin Demps LB: Ezra Butler / Jordon Dizon -- could enhance ST if BA is not resigned

I love the draft because it so unpredicatble and exciting! my opinion the NFL draft really sets this league apart from the other pro leagues because every year there is that rookie who makes a huge impact (not necesarily on the Bears) and infuses life into a team! I really enjoy the arm chair GM FA & draft banter as well.

I would have to say NO to trading Hester (his scoring production makes him the Bears best offensive threat and only player teams currently have to account for from a Def stanpoint). Although I understand your thinking but I doubt there is a team willing to pull off a H. Walker or even R. Williams multiple draft pick trade. Atleast HESTER 3:16 did not propose that JA get with KW and trade Devin Hester to the White Sox in return for a QB of the Future (current Sox 3B of the present) & former College WR and current CF/ 4th OF Jerry Owens! Owens has good size and speed. This would give the whitesox a leadoff hitter and center fielder in Hester while Josh Fields would imediatley battle for the starting QB!

NO to Woodson!

That certainly would be exciting!

I live in Denver and watched a few CU games on tv and would agree Dizon plays with good instincts, technique and with a high motor! Do not remember CU's LB coaches name but he is a former LB with the CHI Bears! The only nock on Dizon is he is not very fast and is a little undersized for a LB. But that does not mean he could not make an impact on ST!

NYG's & INDY's OL is not that shabby either. Their Bears certainly had trouble pressuring their QB's!

One problem --- Oakland has QB J. Russell

I second that!

You are right--- "Could" rival is more appropriate especially since we can't assume OL, RB were addressed!

Very good points. I would say that is the reason Hester was not on the field early in the season and looking back the coaches were not going to put a player on the field before he was ready which is exactly the approach they took with Hester, Olsen & Wolfe (also refer to how slowly Benson was introduced into the lineup). I would say all have shown flashes with their limited PT that should be cause for optomism. I would be very pleased if Hester learned enough to be used 10-15 plays by the first 1/4 of next season with hopes he continues to grow into his new position!

You are absolutely right -- there is no guarantee that Devin will develop into a legit WR and could easily be a freak of an athlete without a real position. But as talent evaluators often do is place a huge emphasis on players with a huge ceiling when drafting which is the reason why there are so many boom or bust picks every year. So far DH has been all boom! I feel Devin was making solid progress as he was slowly used more as the season went along considering his lack of experience at WR. I am sure the Bears will spend tremedous amount of time helping him learn the offense during the both the offseason & preseason. That may even be why the team decided to retain Turner for consistency's sake and to not undermine any retention Hester may have of the current offense. I have already posted Hester's 1st yr production compared to BB and I would bet it is even better than Bradley's 1st 3 seasons for someone who is so new to the WR position and recieving his batism by fire at the NFL level is the reason for my optomism. I do not question Hester's work ethic nor his desire to be successful which will be key for him to pull this off!

I would also like the addition of Bryant Johnson who could make Moose expendable or force a major paycut to stay. I really would like to keep BB but not if the price gets out of hand. In BB defense I don't think he drops any more passes than the next WR on other teams. TO, MOSS, and PLAX all have their fair share of Drops. BB is just not a physical WR and probably never will be but when he maintians his concentration he has been very good within his skill set of stretching the field vertically, quick slants, curl and the deep in route but over the middle not so much. The OC needs to find a way to creatively call plays which maximize the talent of each WR individual strengths without putting them in a postion for failure in any given play.

When is the deadline to FRANCHISE an UFA?

Not a bad idea but overall I like your other idea better of Bringing back Rex, Berrian and signing J. Walker if he becomes available. FIX OL, Address RB Competition and Draft a QB of the future, S help etc. This way we would have less of a gamble while have the ability to add depth through Draft. The price of Anderson flopping would much greater than the cost of the resigning Rex, Berrian etc.

Don't forget about our tandem receiving TE threat of Clark & Olsen! This Recieving Corp would rival any in the league!

Stallworth = $8 million for this? REC YDS AVG LNG TD ATT YDS AVG LNG TD FUM LST 2007 46 697 15.2 69 3 1 12 12.0 12 0 0 0 NO to Stallworth!

You are right but we do not not know which BEAR FA will be resigned and can not assume that Rex & Benard won't be back. I do not disagree other than OL, S, RB which depth must be added through FA & Draft which will immediatley help this team. We need a stud QB and I have no problem drafting a QB as long as it is not #1 this year. I personal do not think Henne is anything special and we can do better @ #2 like maybe OL, WR, or RB but that is my opinion.

I would not put it past Minny. They have a history of trying to screw the Bears: remember when they signed Paul Edinger to an offer sheet which forced the Bears to overpay when they matched or how about when they signed awayWR's Marcus Robinson & Dewayne Bates.

I agree with what you are saying. Hester did well for himself last year considering he never played WR before this season. In fact he actually had a better first year than Bearrian's 1 & 2nd seasons. I am opptomistic Hester will be a really good WR in this league. BERRIAN YEAR TEAM G REC YDS AVG LNG TD FD FUM LOST 2004 CHI 16 15 225 15.0 49 2 8 0 0 2005 CHI 11 13 246 18.9 54 0 8 0 0 HESTER 2007 CHI 16 20 299 15.0 81 2 11 0 0

That would be nice!

My name is Joel, 33 and since 2000 home is Parker, CO. I grew up on the Southside of Chicago and remain to this day a loyal Bears & Sox fan living in Bronco land. By the way I can't stand the local sports talk radio. I graduted from Southern Illinois and then received my Master's from the University of New Mexico where I was lucky enough to watch the last 2 years Urlacher was a Lobo. I have been a Directv NFL Ticket holder since 1998 - cant miss a game! I found the orginal bearstalk a few years ago but hardly ever posted. I really found that website difficult to use and this new one is great! I enjoy reading the variety of post but especially enjoy the chatter during the offseason and draft time.

Agreed!

Actually, David Haugh explains it very well here: /sports/football/bears/cs-080204-haugh-eli-manning-rex-grossman,1,4411635.column Is there still hope for Rex? You bet Manning's rise shows that Bears QB still can succeed David Haugh On the Bears February 5, 2008 Revisiting any similarities between Eli Manning and Rex Grossman seems a tad silly the day after the New York Giants' newest legend elicited comparisons to Joe Montana, the only other quarterback to throw two fourth-quarter TD passes in a Super Bowl. But seeing Manning mature and ascend to the level he reached Sunday night in the Giants' 17-14 stunner over the Patriots left many people in Chicago wondering about their guy and their team. It's natural. Unless your team is in the Super Bowl, fans want to know how to be more like the teams that are. Manning's arrival as a franchise quarterback gives every struggling peer such as Grossman hope that, surrounded by the right people, they too can win a Super Bowl. So is that possible for Grossman with the Bears? It's not really a fair question. But if framed solely as yes-no, then the answer is yes, with the understanding that all that conspired to produce a Super Bowl title for Manning the last month happens once in a career to a NFL quarterback if he is lucky. Manning earned whatever praise, celebrity or riches that come his way with an 83-yard scoring drive in the final two minutes that contained the stuff of Super Bowl legends. He is forever stamped as a winner, a money player who justified the patience the Giants organization displayed. Manning's uncommon poise against the Patriots and throughout a playoff run in which he threw just one interception proved those of us wrong who doubted his ability to do what he did Sunday. Still, the Giants did score only 17 points, the same total Grossman and the Bears scored a year earlier in a losing Super Bowl effort against a pretty good Colts team. It was enough for the Giants mostly because they sacked Tom Brady five times and hurried him nine others—at least 14 plays when the Giants' pass rush got the best of the Patriots. It was enough because the Giants apparently forced New England to abandon a running game and hand off only 16 times for 45 yards in 69 offensive plays. That's defensive dominance. It was enough because Tom Coughlin and his staff simply outcoached the football robot in the red hoodie. The Giants also ran the ball well enough, especially early in a record-setting opening drive, to reduce the game to a 50-minute affair. The 91 rushing yards on 26 attempts—and a 60-40 pass-run distribution—provided just enough of an impact to keep the clock and chains moving as well as made the Patriots respect the play fakes. But are we having this conversation about the Eli Effect if the Patriots intercepted either of his two floaters on the final drive that could have been picked off? True, the Giants don't win without Manning making plays great quarterbacks have to make before they earn the adjective. He played like the No. 1 overall pick of a draft should play. But the help Manning received in becoming a Super Bowl-winning quarterback cannot go unnoticed when examining whether the Bears possibly could make the same step with Grossman. Fix an offensive line, find a quarterback. Devise a pass rush nobody can figure out, let alone block, and find a quarterback. Hire or draft wide receivers able to make did-you-see-that catches, find a quarterback. The Bears won't be able to find their quarterback, whether it's Grossman or someone else, until they address those other issues as well as the Giants did. Quarterback is the most important position on the field but doesn't always have the most impact on the outcome. The difference in talent between Manning and Grossman is exaggerated. The difference in their respective rosters and the level of commitment their organizations showed in them is real. The Giants started 1-2 just like the Bears. Their defense got better. Not surprisingly, eventually so did their quarterback. ... Elsewhere ... Just asking, but if that's a regular-season game, would the referees have blown the play dead during Manning's great escape, ruling he was in the grasp of a defender? ... Teams that start 18-0 don't have to worry about the blame game popping up on the schedule. The biggest reason Randy Moss steered clear of controversy probably had more to do with the Patriots' record than Moss. That was the lasting impression late Sunday night hearing Moss indict the New England coaching staff, intended or not, minutes after the loss. "The Giants just had a better game plan," Moss said. "They played heads-up football." He wasn't alone in making comments that could be construed as finger-pointing. Cornerback Ellis Hobbs, burned by Plaxico Burress on the game-winning 13-yard TD pass, wished his pass rush could have been in a bigger hurry. "If our blitz doesn't get there, all [burress] has to do is shake off of me and it's a route," Hobbs said. ... If Archie and Olivia Manning had spawned daughters, the Patriots might have two Super Bowl wins in a row. ... Draftniks, the Giants' go-ahead TD drive capped by David Tyree's 5-yard scoring catch at the start of the fourth quarter was for you. Of the Giants' six plays, five involved rookies touching the football: tight end Kevin Boss had a 45-yard catch, Ahmad Bradshaw carried three times for 13 yards and Steve Smith caught a key 17-yard pass on third down. ... This is what people who love the NFL hate about this whole spying mess. Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who stamped himself as a young genius Sunday, cannot make a comment about Brady reading his blitzes without it raising questions about how he was able to do so. Spagnuolo surely didn't mean to imply Brady or the Patriots were privy to anything they shouldn't be. But as long as reports continue to trickle in about cheating in the Patriots past, suspicion seems appropriate. "I don't know if we got to all the blitzes we had in our game plan, [but] I do know this," Spagnuolo said. "There was a time there where I thought Tom Brady was finding out where we were bringing it and he was changing the protection and we had to get out of some of the things." Was that due to good quarterbacking, good coaching or covert game-planning? Sorry, but the Patriots invited that cynicism. dhaugh@tribune.com Copyright © 2008, The Chicago Tribune

I think the concept of DraftTek is cool but it totally takes the Human element out of the draft kinda like the BCS. Why would the bears draft back to back safties especially when this is supposed to be a weak draft for that postion? I don't like Henne at #2 he just does not have "it" and especially when there are many more intriging players that would be available and a possible immediate impact on the team.