bradjock

It's easy to blast her, but seriously, aren't you guys all wondering the same thing she is??? Since the Super Bowl, we've had bad defense, bad o-line, bad running-backs, bad quarterbacks, and bad receivers . . . DO YOU GENUINELY BELIEVE THIS IS ALL FIXED??? Christ I hope it is, but I'm skeptical. Personally I've been thinking all day that I wish it was Sunday cause I can't wait to find out if this was a fluke or not. If we can do that week in and week out, we'll quickly be up there with Dallas as the team most likely to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Honestly, I was shocked as hell Sunday night watching Briggs, Urlacher, Payne & our defensive ends constantly shifting and switching on the line. Weren't you guys surprised with that? Did anyone think we'd make Manning look confused as hell? More importantly, now that we've shown our hand, can other teams adjust to that and expose us? "Sleeze-Ak" asks tons of questions like this in her article. I'm flat out giddy we kicked the crap out of Indy on Sunday. But it's WAY to early for high expectations. I'll feel much better after we get done thumping Carolina.

Hell no!!! I'm happy as hell to be eating crow today. Watching our linebackers move all over the place reminded me of our defense in the 80's. Outstanding game planning!!! I just hope he doesn't need 6 months to prepare for a team and that this will continue. But for right now I'm thrilled with the guy.

I have to agree with what Grizzly said. I happened to catch this live when it happened on the SCORE (I'm assuming this is the same interview) during the Chicago Bears "All Access." If I remember correctly, they were doing the broadcast live from a bar. It was basically Briggs, Doug Bafone, and I think Zac Zaidman. It wasn't Briggs going off on a reporter, it was just more matter-of-factly "here's what I think." I didn't think it was a big deal when I heard it, and when you sit a guy in front of the microphone for an hour or two, he might say something that could be viewed as controversial. After Briggs made his point on Benson, Doug Baffone went off on how he knew Benson was bad when he starting complaining about being hit in practice. Baffone's point was that you earn your teammates respect, and complaining doesn't get it done. I hate how with the media players can't have an opinion without it being scruitinized. Benson's gone. Jones is gone. Lance said, "Here's what I think . . . " I can't believe we're even discussing this.

I love Bill Simmons, find him funny as hell, and agree with everything he says below about the Bears. This was from "12 NFL predictions" page at ESPN. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...=simmons/080904 "Prediction No. 3: Everyone will hail Chicago's yearly attempt to breathe life into a passing game that hasn't shown life since the Willie Gault era. "Wait a second," you're saying, "didn't they let Bernard Berrian and Muhsin Muhammad leave? And didn't they just have a Kyle Orton/Rex Grossman battle for the starting QB spot? And didn't they just make a kick returner their No. 1 receiver? How are these good things?" OK, let's say you just bought a new house, only you got soaked on your mortgage and had to go with a 75-25 instead of an 80-20. You're short on funds, so you decide, "We're going to spend most of our time in the kitchen, TV room and bedroom" and spend all your remaining funds to make those rooms nice: Maybe a 52-inch plasma, comfy sofa, kitchen table, king-sized bed, a few framed pictures, some homey knick-knacks and so on. By the time you're done, every room in the house looks great except for the dining room. Instead of half-assing it and putting a cheap-looking table and chairs in there, or even worse, splurging on a nice table and crappy chairs, you decided to sacrifice that room for 12 months, leave it empty and use that extra money on the rest of the house. It's the right move. And when friends visit and see an empty dining room, you just explain, "Yeah, we haven't gotten around to that room yet." They will understand, especially when they see the rest of your kick-ass house. Well, that's exactly what the Bears did. Last year's passing game sucked because their quarterbacks sucked. Instead of spending money to patch together another inevitably disappointing passing game, they basically said, "Screw it, we'll leave the dining room empty and spend money everywhere else!" What's the point of spending 10 to 15 percent of your cap to upgrade your passing game from an "F" to a "D?" If Chicago's defense, running game and special teams can carry them like in 2006, maybe the Bears could play four straight months of ugly, low-scoring games and eke out a 10-6 record or something. (Would I bet on this? Of course not! Not in a million years! But splurging on the likes of Chad Pennington, Berrian and Donte' Stallworth wouldn't have changed anything other than hurting their cap in 2010. You have to admit.)

In one spot I have Ryan Grant (who will probably suck against the Vikings, but I'll go with him anyway) In the other spot I have to choose between: Ricky Williams Senior (I'd planned to start him until Miami hinted Brown may get more carries) DeAngelo Williams Fred Taylor Ahman Green Kenny Watson Thankfully I'm loaded at WR.

I really have to agree with Madlith. Why is everyone so high on Ronnie Brown??? He sucked his first two years, had two TERRIBLE games to start off the season, put a string of 4 or 5 great games together & then he was done. When he was successful was when they tried to use him like LT. That being said, it's a pretty equal deal. I don't see any side gaining much. How many teams are in your league? Hell, Bryan Johnson aren't even owned in most leagues. And you two are swapping them??? Ronnie Brown & Stewart are fairly equal IMO and are will both be inconsistent. Is it the Jets or the Giants? That being said, I learned last year that drafting a top defense (Bears) doesn't mean crap. They gave me negative points the first few weeks. IMO, this deal comes down to giving up the suck-fest, inconsistent duo of Brown & Evans for Welker. Welker should be a huge upgrade. For me that puts this deal over the top.

Did he bang your old lady or what??? Hey, we're all just bored Bear's fans here. Please do tell.

I'm sort of disappointed in the Bears. First off, they draft Zach Bowman, who was a very a high risk/high reward type of player, in a position that we were fairly deep at. I was all excited about him developing into what we envisioned to become. To end up wasting that draft pick is why i'm disappointed. We could of grabbed G Roy Schuening who was taken at pick 157 by Stl (15 picks after Bowman) or even Carl Nicks OT who was taken at pick 164. If we end up with Bowman after he clears waivers, I'll be alright, but I don't see Bowman wanting to stay with us. He'll have a better chance elsewhere since he won't have to be behind Tillman, Vasher, McBride, Manning, and Graham. Plus he has sleeper written all over him, ask the Patriots who were setting there sights on him. Agreed all around. From what I saw in Bourbannais, Bowman looked big, strong, & fast, yet kind of lost. But he's a rookie. I thought he'd make one helluva a FS (of course I thought that about D-Manning also.) Either way, I think he'll get picked up fairly quickly if we don't re-activate him soon. I like what this new Guard can bring, I like his cap management. I'd have been much happier if we'd brought him in 2 months ago. Terrance Metcalf's a former 3rd round pick, he's supposed to be a "road-grater," he's still fairly young, started a bunch of games, and struggled with injuries. He'd look damn good on paper to another team. How's this new guy any different? I would of rather we cut Metcalf who is personally a jackazz in public and hasn't done one positive thing on the football field in 6 years. What's he done in public that was bad? Hopefully all ends up as planned, we get a LG with starting experience and sign Bowman to the PS. Agreed.

I heard that on the SCORE. That's disappointing as hell IMO. The guy was big & fast and touted as a 1st round talent who dropped because of injuries. They said we hope to add him on the practice squad but I'm sure other teams will be interested. The way we go through secondary players, I'm sure we'll need him. I'm glad that Angelo repeatedly traded down on draft day to add picks . . . so all of the extra players could be cut. When he was adding players at the time my thought was, "With all the veterans we have signed, we don't need this many guys." That pisses me off.

Agreed 100%.

Willie Anderson is a 33 year old RT that lost his job, refused to take a pay-cut, and was dumped. Gosh, he doesn't sound at all like Fred Miller. At this point I'd be thrilled to get either of them for the minimum. But neither of them will have an impact on this team unless injuries kill us.

Supposedly Ron Rivera & Lovie disagreed often, which is why Rivera was let go. So we bring in Lovie's guy. So the defense sucked last year. Injuries were the excuse. In pre-season we've been close to 100% healthy: 1. In 4 pre-season games has our #1 defense seen a 4 & out? Have we had a turn-over? 2. Every team that we have played in the pre-season has used misdirection plays. All four games we've over-pursued in the wrong direction & gotten burned. Whatever happened to "staying in our gaps." I rarely here the players say that any more. 3. Under Babbich, we do seem to get to the quarterback more often, but for some reason it tends to leave our secondary more open. Quarterbacks simply do not make mistakes when the pressure is coming. I know that doesn't make sense. When other teams bring the house on us, bad things happen. When we bring the house, good things happen to the other team. 4. Tonight Cleveland's #1 o-linemen flat-out man-handled our defense. It's easy to make the argument that it just pre-season, but Bear's radio reported the defensive players were pissed at being scored on in consecutive drives. Something ain't working. More often then not, what works or doesn't work in pre-season, does carry over. Lovie's under contract for 4 more years. Most of our defensive starters are under contract. Something needs to change.

Yes but Booker has a two year deal while Lloyd has just one. All things being equal, the guy with the two year, minimal cap-hit contract gets the deal. I get the feeling that Lloyd's getting the Chris Harris/Ricky Manning Jr. treatment. In other words, he's fallen out of favor with the coaching staff, with no specific reason.

Mariotti said, "To showcase your work ... you need a stellar Web site and if a newspaper doesn't have that, you can't be stuck in the 20th century with your old newspaper.'' How many people on here go to chicagosuntimes.com EVERY DAY. I know I do. And chicagosports.com. (The Tribune site.) On top of that, I subscribe to the local paper where I live the Peoria Journal Star. Not exactly top-notch, but I enjoy reading it every morning. What the hell's Mariotti talking about?

Mariotti said, "To showcase your work ... you need a stellar Web site and if a newspaper doesn't have that, you can't be stuck in the 20th century with your old newspaper.'' How many people on here go to chicagosuntimes.com EVERY DAY. I know I do. And chicagosports.com. (The Tribune site.) On top of that, I subscribe to the local paper where I live the Peoria Journal Star. Not exactly top-notch, but I enjoy reading it every morning. What the hell's Mariotti talking about?

Thanks for posting that. I'd been wondering what the Bucs were wanting to do with Miller. And the answer is: They want him to push for the starting LT job??? Are you kidding me? Miller is too damn slow to play RT, and they want to make him a LT? Wow. Good luck with that. They'd better pony up the dough. This convinces me Miller will end up back in Chicago.

One major thing I'd disagree with is that the Bears find a way to keep 6 WR's. My guess is we make room for that by IR'ing Dan Bazuin. We'll find out this weekend.

Why is that upsetting? I watched Monk for 5 minutes in training camp and quickly realized there was no way in hell he makes the team. He's tall, but his burst is terrible, and his hands aren't great. There's no way in hell he makes it with the Giants. I did think he'd have potential as a practice squad player and maybe he could improve. That's dissappointing. But I'd take Hass over him any day, and Hass seems likely to get cut also. Why do we always get mad when our bad players get signed by another team? I'm still shocked that people are pissed about losing J.T. O'Sullivan.

No. Absolutely not. The Prince was by far our best DE last season. You don't mess with what's working. Heck, Plax on this team would be Mushin Muhammed. I say we trade them Dan Bazuin . . . he's a 2nd round draft pick so we should get one in return right

Damn! I was going to make a comment like, "Rex will be working at White Castle soon" but that'd be racist. I'll make sure to say "Rex will be working at Taco Bell or Popeyes." Would that be ok? That being said, it's easy to say, "Let's sign someone else . . . " but who??? We got lucky when we signed St. Clair 3 games intot the season, but what are the odds of that happening again? Hey, I'm still pissed we didn't address the LG position. Beekman scares me. Fred Miller would give us an ok . . . not great but ok, back-up plan in case St. Clair or Tait gets hurt. He knows the system. He's not good but he's not horrible. Why wouldn't you be thrilled at signing him as a back-up for the minimum?

Agreed. At first I thought we were trying to light a fire under RMJ's ass. But apparantly we weren't messing around (did we even save any cap room by dumping him???) Heck, I thought moving D Manning to nickel would work out nice since he figures to be a huge special team's contributor. That way he doesn't need to be on the field all the time. Last year when we traded Chris Harris, my response was that we knew what we were doing. Wow. What the hell are we doing?

What shocks me about this list is how much money so many teams have. I remember LT or someone mentioning how teams liked to keep 1 million back for emergencies. Now every team in the league has that and much more. That being said, I do wonder how credible this list is. The smaller market teams, KC, GB, Buffalo, are spending less . . . but why are the Giants almost 13 million under? I don't get it.

Thanks for that Pix. Let me riddle your brain for one more question: If Miller is the back-up RT, what happens when Chris Williams returns? (and at this point, everything indicates he'll be back by mid-season.) Does Beekman get demoted for St. Clair? (Although I'm not convinced Beekman is the answer). I ask this, because Fred Miller has to be wondering the same thing. Does he get cut? If that's the case, why wouldn't he sign with Tampa Bay? I guess I'm still wondering what Ruben Brown is doing right now.

And you want your back-up offensive tackle to be . . . . ??? Dez Clark?

Yes!!! Thanks for that! I'd went to the Sun Times Sports Pages and didn't find anything. (Granted I didn't look that hard.) Either way, he was a broken record. "What will Mariotti bitch about today?" Who cares. Mike Mulligan's great. Hopefully this will pave the way for someone who actually gives a damn about Chicago sports. On a side note, I'm not nearly as happy about this as I continue to be about Mike North getting the boot. It's very easy to ignore a newspaper article. If you spend 30 minutes in your car every morning and want sport's news, your pretty much at the mercy of whatever idiot bastard they put on.