bradjock

What team couldn't name 3-4 positions where they could use a big name or legitimate depth? Don't forget last year at this time JA was going around saying they wouldn't make a big splash in free agency. He wisely lied. Nobody expected us to get the jump on Julius Peppers. I'm just saying you have to take everything they are saying with a grain of salt. Lovie defending his WR's could mean the exact opposite (although I doubt it . . . )

I meant safety. Although it wouldn't hurt us to add another corner . . .

We're going to need a 3rd CB. Chris Harris was pretty good overall this year but he's terrible in pass coverage. Majori Wright has potential, but he's young, unproven, and can't stay on the field. We're going to have to have a 3rd decent whether it's Sanders, Otogwe, or D Manning. I can't see us drafting a safety high or spending big money on one. I have no idea what Sanders is worth at this point, but it appears that Otogwe is going to get paid.

Hester is not only fast but VERY elusive. Disagree. When has he been elusive as a WR? I've argued this before. Hell make a guy miss once in a while as a WR, but not often. Not many big plays as a WR. Knox has pure and raw speed. Just needs to fight more for the ball and complete his routes. Agreed. He'll get even better. But with his size he'll never be the "go-to" guy. "And Bennett is a true clutch receiver. Lacks speed but has some pretty strong will. How many times this last year did we see, after he caught the ball, Bennett continue upfield while bouncing off defenders like a pinball then drag one or two for another yard?" I REALLY agree. Bennett doesn't get nearly enough love here. If we need a 1st down, he's our guy. He reminds me of Deion Branch when he was first with the Patriots. He's not great at anything, but he does everything pretty damn good and he'll get the job done. I'd say the core receivers are pretty good but with the "need" and "want" filled could be exceptional. If there's a guy we think could be a #1 when we pick at 29, we'd better jump all over him. Take the best player available. But we're not bad at WR.

Who would you rather have? Harvin, Rice & Berrian or Bennett, Hester, & Knox? If all 6 are healthy, nobody is choosing our 3.

I don't think we've got a clue what we want to do with the o-line. Martz likes quick o-line who can pass block while Tice wants maulers better suited for run-blocking. We need to make a decision quickly on what type of player we want & stick with it. I've never seen a position more messed up then our o-line. When you consider: 1. Chris Williams is touted as a top-shelf LT. He looks bad. He's moved to guard where he looks worse. What the hell do we do with him? 2. For months we hear how good Louis & Asiata are. Tice says he doesn't want to sign another guard because he's taught these 2 the right techniques and they're ready. Nobody believed this, but what we didn't expect was to sign Edwin Williams, who was cut by Washington. We sign Williams before week 3 & he starts week 5. 3. At RT the battle was Omiyale vs. Shaffer. Omiyale gets moved to LT & J'Marcus Webb starts. I find it incredibly hard to believe that a 7th round pick is the answer. While I applaud the staff for admitting mistakes, how could their evaluations be so effed up? How do we believe a thing they tell us about the o-line this off-season? I don't know much about Harris, but we'd better figure out what the hell we want to do.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...,4048044.column Interesting article. I agree with parts of it. To me it comes down to o-line & d-line being more of a priority. That and he doesn't mention Greg Olsen who is technically a TE, but he's a big contributor in the receiving department. Two things I disagree with: 1. "I have heard so much bashing about the Bears receivers that I started to question my own judgment. So I went to a pro scout I respect from another team who has studied them extensively. Here's his assessment: 'They are all different, and it's an above-average group. They are difficult to defend and probably second in the NFC North after the Packers.'" That's WAY off. Assuming the Vikings bring all three back, I'd MUCH rather have Percy Harvin, Sydney Rice & Bernard Berrian over our 3. As for Detroit, I'd take Mega-Tron and anybody else over our guys. 2. Pompei really likes Knox. I lost confidence in him after he disappeared at the end of the season and caused more harm then good. Hopefully he'll bounce back, but I'm not optimistic.

How weird is it that one of the worst o-lines in the league has their o-line coach getting interest from other teams? While it's just one year, it's interesting that Tice got an extension, but Lovie, Martz, and Marinelli have not. We constantly shuffled pieces looking for an answer, we admitted to our mistakes (we didn't stick with Louis & Asiata as promised, we moved Chris Williams, and we cut Beekman) and most importantly, we showed improvement. Tice believes in huge space-filling o-linemen. Martz like quick mobile guys who can pass protect. I don't see how this marriage will work for much longer . . .

While it's good we saved cap space in an uncapped year, financially, what motivation did he have last season? He received the majority of his money in year one. If we cut him today, some team would likely pay him more then 1.25 million, just based on his past performance. Hell, I'd bet Minny would LOVE to have him back. If he is let go it would be during the Labor Day cuts (assuming the labor lock-out is not still on . . . )

We've had moderate success signing offensive linemen and defensive linemen. We haven't bothered to draft o-line and we've demonstrated ineptitude drafting d-line year after year. D-linemen Angelo drafted in the first 4 rounds: BUSTS: Michael Haynes (1st round) Dan Bazuin (2nd round) Tank Johnson (2nd round) Dusty Dvoracek (3rd round) Marcus Harrison (3rd round) Jarron Gilbert (3rd round) Marcus Harrison (3rd round) HITS: Tommie Harris (1st round) Alex Brown (4th round) Ian Scott (4th round) THE JURY IS STILL OUT: Corey Wooton (4th round) Henry Melton (4th round) Mark Anderson was a nice pick in the 5th, but you can counter that with Claude Herriot and Tron LeFor That's a whole lot of wasted picks.

True, but we see this all the time. Guys want to be near their family. Then they pack up for slightly more money and a slightly better opportunity. It's not football related, but the most classic example is Jordan quitting basketball to spend more time with his family, only to play baseball. Then quitting basketball to spend time with his family, only to travel to various golf tournaments. I'm in no way comparing Tice to Jordan, but it's just common.

We've treated the d-line the way you wanted us to treat the o-line. We target the d-line high every year. The remainders of these picks: Tommie Harris--good pick but he might be done. Too expensive to keep Marcus Harrison--Regularly inactive Henry Melton--He looked real good at times Corey Wooton--knock out Favre. Needs to get bigger. We've done way better picking up free agents like Peppers & Adams while picking up guys off the heep like Toenia & Idonije. I have no reason to believe our o-line would be any better if we'd drafted the position often.

We have no reason to believe the Bears would be interested if he was available. Jerry Angelo has always believed that you can find good guards fairly cheap. I'm anxious to see what we want to do with Chris Williams.

I'm assuming a deal will get done around August 1st. There's too much at stake to cancel games and there's too much at stake for either side to flinch too soon. Neither side will get particularly uncomfortable until we're near September.

Outstanding!!! Thank you for that. Which my reaction, I had the same "Noooooo . . . " except I was sobbing like a 3 year old girl with a skinned knee.

Sorry I failed to mention that. If you're like me, about half your projections are really good and the other half are really bad. Heck, if anyone wants to go back to the bearstalk board, I was a huge fan of drafting Cedric Benson. Hell, I probably said he'd be the next Walter Payton. Ouch.

Nice blast from the past! That's funnier then hell reading those old posts. Best Prediction Connor: "New tackle is Matt Toeaina. I like what he brought to the table and brought that up in another thread." Worst Prediction AZ: "If we go QB I'd rather see us take Woodson." (this was for Woodson over Matt Ryan . . . Woodson dropped to the bottom of the draft and was quickly out of the league) It's particularly funny to read how many on here hated Ryan and declared him to be a bum. I'm avoiding all draft talk until after the combine, but that was a fun read.

This guy is nothing more than a project at this point. You figure we'll had into training camp with 10 WR's on the roster and he'll be one of them. I do wonder if we're going to go after bigger WR's which is what Cutler prefers. Although that's not what Martz prefers. Will we continue to see more changes in the Martz philosophy?

There's no way in hell that's enough. For 2 reasons: 1. When there's a new CBA, the one thing that seems certain is there will be a rookie wage scale. Without having to spend 100 million, those top 10 picks will be golden. Previously, teams would have been happy with the #29 so they'd get a first round talent at a bargain price. Not anymore. Why would AZ settle for the #29? 2. What's Knox worth? He looks like he's 5-5, he's not a precise route runner, and he causes interceptions. In the NFC championsip game, the CB intercepts the pass, gets up and runs, and Knox is standing there with his arms held up. He has the ability to be a great slot WR. No more, no less. He ain't that valuable.

Agreed. Not to mention, Major Wright finishes games about as often as Mathew Stafford. It seemed like even when he was healthy, inevitably we'd see him on the sideline limping around. Typically Angelo likes to draft a bad safety in the 6th round, insert him as starter, then dump him a year or two later. I'd prefer to avoid that scenerio. We have far too many other needs to draft a safety early.

Let me preface this by saying: 1. I live in Central Illinois where everyone is a Bear fan. I don't have to deal with a jack-ass Packer neighbor, co-workers, etc.. 2. If the Packers win it gives the Bears some credibility that they lost to the champs . . . and it's real tough for a champ to repeat which makes next slightly easier Since it appears it will be Pittsburgh, I find it impossible to root for a team that has won it twice in the last decade and are QB'ed by an alleged rapist. Aside from being the Bears #1 rivals, I have no grudge against them this time of year.

Knox will never be better than a good #2 receiver and Hester should be the #4 receiver. Bennett is your #3 so you must go get a #1 receiver. IMO, Bennett's by far the best WR of the group. We should at least consider drafting a first round talent. Upgrade both lines. Tommie can go (too much money). I wonder if we could get him to restructure. He did have a nice end of the season push and his skill-set is perfect for what the Bears are trying to do. I'm just wondering who we could replace him with . . . Get Menkins and Jackson if possible. I was shocked when the report came out that the Bears weren't even in the top 10 in spending this season. We made a huge splash and heavily front-loaded deals so we should be in good shape again.

Urlacher looked like he was thinking about beating Rogers and taking it to the house. He damn near did. After Rogers ankle grab, I thought Urlacher would recover and keep chugging. Alas, he went down. Urlacher can't do something that may cause a turnover or worry about Todd Quinn warming up.

NFC Championship game & ya put Todd Fxxxxn Collins in??????? I blame Martz for this. He begged for an experienced back-up and Collins was his hand-picked guy because he was familiar with the offense. Martz is the QB guru and Lovie defers to his judgement. I'd agree we should sack Martz, but I'm curious to see what this offense can do in year 2. For this alone you should be sacked Extension MY ASS This was disappointing but the fact we got here was a big accomplishment. We've been here twice in the last 20+ years and both under Lovie's watch. I agree we should hold off on the extension, but you don't fire a coach who takes you to the NFC championship.

Do any of you think the window is closed? I do. Did you think it was closed when we won the Super Bowl? Hell no. We had one of the youngest teams in the league. Every year in the NFL, it seems like the previous year didn't matter. Look how fast Minny sunk. Despite having a young offense, most of those young guys suck. Omiyale, Knox, Webb, and Hester all suck. IMO, Omiyale's mediocre, Know is a nice slot WR and a big play threat, Hester's the best return man to ever play the game, and I have no idea what to think of Webb. With Webb, I'll trust Tice's judgement. Cutler, Olsen, Bennett, & Forte are all good and getting better. IMO, Chris Williams will be a damn good OG with time to learn the position. It's not all gloom and doom. The defense is great, but by the time 2012 comes around (which is when the next season will be most likely) I can't imagine they'll kill the golden goose. The TV money is unreal. ESPN pays 1 billion a year for MNF. When there's that kind of money at stake, you find a way to work things out. Urlacher, Peppers, Briggs, Idonije, Tillman, and C.Harris will all be TWO years old on top of their already advanced ages. True, but look how Pittsburgh keeps rolling with an old defense. Who knows? F*** MY LIFE The great thing about football is that it's a stupid escape. At the end of the day, it's just a stupid game. No more, no less. Earlier today I jokingly told my wife she'd better have her health insurance card handy, cause if the Bear's lost, I might have to beat her into a coma and she'd be going to the hospital. That was a stupid/bad joke on my part making light of an over-hyped situation. (part of my daily schtick at home is making stupid & outrageous comments) The Bear's losing sucks for those of us who are devoted, but it's not good to take something like this too seriously.