lemonej

I agree DBF and think this is a game that they should start to step up in since the G-men are banged up on the d-line.

If you saw the Dallas game that catch was similar and his adjustment to stay in bounds was also a testament to him being improved at the WR position. With that being said I still beliieve that Hester changes the game dramatically field position-wise when it comes to returns and if you are a field position,defensive and turnover based team( Lovie I hope you're listening)he is worth every penny doing what he was drafted to do return kicks. Me thinks he should be the primary returner again and create havoc on offense with 15 bto 20 plays where the defense has to figure out where he is on the field and he becomes an even bigger asset. With rumors swirling that the Giants have instructed their punter to not kick to Hester he has a team game planning for him again and that is a good thing.

This is the first game this year that I am cautiously optimistic about because prior to this week I was worried sick. With Uminora(sp?) and Kiwanuka ailing or out this should be a game that the offensive starts to asert its self. I would like to see Forte and Taylor to total 40 carries and Cutler to have no more than 25 attempts.This should be a bruising game as we know the Giants will try to run it down the Bears throats and so far that has been a strong suit of the defense. We need the defensive line to take advantage of a struggling pass protection for the Giants and the turnover campaign needs to continue since the Giants have been very generous leading up to this game. Keep an eye on Tillman,Harris,Bowman,Briggs and Urlacher for turnover forcing and Peppers for continuing his disruptive presence. Robbie Gould has a 3 FG game and Bowman bounces back and gets a game sealing pick as the Bears eek out a 23-20 victory.

So someone like myself who did watch all 3 games this season is probably more incline to give a true assessment of his football playing ability and could care less about whether he has class or not because I don't socialize in his circle or as a matter of fact any professional athlete's circle because I don't have their life style. If I started to go over every player's lifestyle with a fine-toothed comb, I wouldn't be able to watch my favorite sport. This is my opinion and I respect your right to not care for Urlacher because that is personal to you. I just watch the games to see these guys entertain me as a release from the daily work grind. When any Bears player makes plays I'm happy their interviews and lives outside of the game are not too important to me unless it stops them from making plays in the next game. These guys are humans who in most cases are half my age so why should I act like I don't remember what it was like to be cocky at their age.

Singletary's fate is tied to the number one overall bust Alex Smith. He did a lot better with Shaun Hill as his starter than he has done with Smith. Smith has not lived up to the hype of his draft status and he is an OC killer and a HC killer. If I'm not mistaken he was taken ahead of Aaron Rogers and that has turned out to be a big mistake now is that Singetary's fault? The only thing wrong with Singletary is he is coaching in the wrong decade and can't motivate these young guys with his tactics.Also according to Mike Nolan he felt that Singletary's one big fault is that he doesn't know how to"Take his feet off the gas"at times. So its not surprising that two of the staunchest disciplinarians(Coughlin and Singletary) have teams that are struggling this year.

I like your honesty about being an Urlacher critic and I agree that in the past two seasons he has been limited but I'm not sure I agree with the team wouldn't lose much if he were not in there. Who on our roster would be better right now? The team record has reflected his absence the last two seasons and by his absence I mean the defense has been sub-par and now they are playing at a level that is comparable to 2006. With Hillenmeyer on IR and Roach on the mend that leaves an injured Iwuh. I see Briggs on the same level as Urlacher when it comes to making plays this season but Pisa hasn't made the same impact as those two.

I don't know if it was the play calling or if it was Cutler's decision making but on several occassions the Bears seemed to have a one man route and Cutler kept trying to thread the needle between more than one defender. I remember Hester on one play and Knox and Bennett on several plays actually going up against more than one defender for a reception. This may be one of the things that they need to address in the film room. About DA from what I've been hearing its not just his play in that game that has determined his recent fate but his lack of willingness to block has also put him in the dog house. That coupled with his lack of special teams play are why he is not being active.

I'm not sure but isn't that field turf? If so then longer cleats wouldn't help and maybe better balance and better play recognition would help in Tillman's case. Most of the time when DBs are slipping is because they are peeking in the backfield and react too late.

Upon further review Tillman had a hand in 2 of the turnovers and DJ Moore is the love child of Nate Vasher and Mike Brown. His hands and tackling reminds me of both guys.

Listening to a clip from an interview with Jay Cutler on the Waddle and Silvy show on WMVP AM 1000(ESPN Radio) DA was held out of most of the action because he was held out of practice during the week because he had some knee issues and general soreness. He then went on to say that if you are not on the field in practice you can't be expected to contribute much in the game. The reporter Jeff Dickerson who is this station's Bears beat reporter and has been covering the team since camp began threw in his two cents and said that he felt that he thought that his crucial drops in the previous game had something to do with his receiving only one snap this week. I for one think that has some merit but also think that since all the other WRs are draft picks that it comes down to Rashied Davis and DA as the last two options and if Forte and Olsen are being used to create mismatches in the passing game those last two options are not needed. When you have 4 TEs, 2 RBs and 5 WRs active on game day somebody is going to be left out and this week it was Clark and DA. The other thing that I remember is that Hester was an after thought last week. This week he performed the perfect Az Akim role of Martz's offense and thats what he is. If he has to have a numerical value it should be a number 3 which is still good enough to garner 100 yards and some importance in this offense. If Hester cathes that deep sideline pass its an easy 100 yd and 2 TD game for him but he was not able to secure the catch so 4 for 71 says number 3. Right now the number one WR on the Bears is Knox just because of his production for both games. The Bears don't have a number two if you keep Forte out of the equation. Do I smell another tweak in this offense when Taylor and Forte are both in the game and Forte is split out wide? Stay Tuned.

Mad L we have always been allies for the most part and what I'm getting at is that the Bears have gone the way of the Cubs and have fielded a team that peaks interest but they really care about the bottom line. Maybe the empty seats recently at Wrigley will spur Bear fans into a similar mindset. This is simply saying that if we continue to show up and avert blackouts locally in complete contrast to Teddy's salvo it will be business as usual. I just think at this point in my life there are more things to get excited about like like lemonej III celebrating his first B-day this Sunday and I have told my son that I hope his wife doesn't get offended if we are cheerin' for the Bears at the begininng of the partty? Since my daughter-in law is Antwon Randle El's first cousin I think some negative comments about the Steelers is appropriate for the occassion even thoug the focus should and will be on the youngest lemon.

LT you'll like this one my brother had a friend who played in his band who preferred to go as Luetienant in staead of his given name Luciuos.

I have decided to take a more laid back approach to all Chicago teams and that is watch the games cheer for our teams and if they lose don't take it as if its the end of the world. Which takes me to another point. I feel like I'm not as passionate as I was in 86 when I was taping evey game and editing any down time by pushing the pause button on my VCR once the play was over. It was real tough for me when halftime came and I had to re pause the tape every 2 minutes. That was tough for bevarage removal that we typically save for halftime when we are younger and during official timeouts when we are middle-aged like now.

Now that I think about it for a minute there was a QB who had a stellar college career for West Va. that had the same name who did not make it in the NFL. Is that who you were thinking of ?

LT I got to mess with you about the name Major Harris being a former disc jockey on the Chi-town bar circuit Major Harris had a song entitled "Love Won't Let Me Wait" back in the day. I know you meant Major Wright but I think we alll need to have a sense of humor this year. That song wouldn't be on your I-pod would it ?

Lucky I did a little looking to back up your post. Ja has drafted 11 OL since he came on board. 5 OTs and 6 OGs. 6 in rd 7 ,1 in rd 6, 1in rd 3 and 2 in rd 1. Contrary to what I thought he has actually drafted 7 of them since 2007, the problem is that only Chris Williams and Josh Beekman have been drafted before the 7th rd. The other problem is the quality of players he drafted at the position. Check out this list. Josh Beekman rd 4 2007 Aaron Brandt rd 7 2007 Chris Williams rd 1 2008 Kirk Barton rd 7 2008 Chester Adams rd 2008 Lance Louis rd 7 2009 J'Marcus Webb rd 7 2010

I have read some post stating that the Bears don't have a WR that is worth any praise but, I'm on the other side when it comes to Knox who I believe is going to have a breakout season. I have latched on to this kid since I saw him working out at the Combine and believe he has the potential to be a game breaker so you fantasy drafters should add him to your squads in late rounds.

I thought Angelo's first draft was Marco Columbo,Roe Williams, Terrence Metcalf, Alex Brown, Bobby Gray , Bryan Knight ,AP, JUamin Elliott and Bryan Fletcher.

DADB I'm not sure about who was drafting but I do know that Tillman and Briggs were in the same draft with Ian Scott,Todd Johnson,Tron LaFavour(Henry Melton) Joe Odom(Brian Iwuh), Brock Forsey( Garrette Wolfe) and Bryan Anderson(Ja Marcus Webb).

Dan Bazuin was drafted in what round? He was an early pick also.

I agree with you about the blitz pickup and I did see the Cutler series and he got sacked once and hit hard on the sideline trying to scramble away from the blitz on his last play of the night. On the sack a normally reliable Forte got beat by a DB which is uncharacteristic for him since he has been excellent at blitz pickup since day one. Usually teams stay "vanilla" during the preseason but when you bring dbs on blitzes in the first preseason game when it is understood that defenses are ahead of offense ,you are either sending a message or you are planning on having a complex defense if you are bringing DBs off the edge in preseason game one. Again I will say that it is good to see these looks when we will have a steady diet of 3/4 defenses this season.

According to several sources the Bears have put out feelers to Trent Green , Damon Huard and Todd Collins with the former 2(Green and Huard) basically saying they are retired and the latter(Collins) wanting the Bears to pony up a signing bonus if he is not truly going to get a shot at making the roster. Souces have indicated that Matt Gutierrez is on his way to Bears camp but it is not confirmed whether they have offered him a contract or not.

On the play that you are talking about a replay showed that Rivers froze Harris with a pump fake which allowed the WR enough time to get to the corner before Harris could recover.

The peception that a defensive oriented coach doesn't know much about offense sounds a little funny to me especially in order to attack an offense you have to know something about it to stop it. Lovie is no different than Tomlin, Cowher, Fox,De Rio, Belechick,Spagnola,Ryan,Singletary and Schwartz when it comes to all in defensive coaches becoming head coaches. The problem with Lovie is he has come full circle since his first year on offensive philosophy. His first offense was run by Terry Shea a renowned QB guru who was a disciple of the Martz style of offense. That didn't work so then he goes to a run first pass maybe offense under Turner with moderate success until the plays became predictable and teams shut it down. Now enters Martz and there is no way he can say "We get off the bus running" because with Martz and Cutler they are going to throw the ball. So I will say that he has to know something about offense in order to have been a successful defensive coordinator but when it comes to sticking to his offensive philosphy he is all over the board. Cowher was no different in the begining of his career and changed OCs like underwear.Most of these guys success is strictly tied to the success of the QB. Where would Belechick be if Bledsoe doesn't get hurt? How did Cowher do when he had O Donnell and Stewart at QB? Tomlin is not coaching the style of defense he coordinated in Minny(Tampa 2) but he does have Big Ben.

You're absolutely right and he was getting straightened up as soon as he was snapping the ball. He looked totally uncomfortable at center. The last 2 drafts have had some decent prospects at the position and JA hasn't even brought any in as undrafted FAs.