Lucky Luciano

i do agree that the bears have blitzed a lot. the problem with that is the way we structured our blitzes was/is? poorly schemed by our defensive coaches. example... the linebacker blitz where our MLB is up on the OL prior to the snap is a great example of poor coaching. in fact it has taken marinelli this season to even realize it was an ignorant call that was beaten to death for THREE previous years without success and he even continues to do it to this day occasionally. they virtually neutralized a pro-bowl caliber MLB in all aspects of his play by moving him up to the LOS and trying to blitz him through the center of the line at the snap where he gets virtually swallowed up in the wash of the OL and DL, OR backpeddling him out of this tired look to cover a deep zone which made him moving BACKWARDS instead of forward at the snap of the ball. we rarely blitzed our corners or safeties which actually did have some success although the problem with this was our DB's are so poor or poorly coached they couldn't cover their own a&&'s with both hands. so i think it doesn't really tell a story about our blitzing unless you factor in it's successes and failures. 1. what we are playing is not per se' the "cover 2" as it was designed to work. this is some bastardized variation of it that lovie has incorporated either through ignorance or lack of personnel to run it correctly (in which case it needs to be adjusted to work with the players you have or else just &hit canned and move on to another scheme.). what lovie runs, and maybe the cover 2 in general, is a prevent defense that works under strict enforcement at certain times/instances in a game. 2. because of scheme our LBer's in many instances have been neutralized in pass protection where their jobs in a true cover 2 is 'usually' to cover against slants or medium deep zones up the middle while shoring up run defense. in other words the receivers/TE's being passed 'supposedly according to the definition of the cover 2', over by our corners into these middle zones is nearly non-existent. 3. our safeties are either playing so deep they are virtually out of the immediate play (and reacting) or making poor decisions on what their responsibility actually is. not to mention the fact that over the last 5+ years we have put players out of position to even give them a chance to succeed. case in point... chris harris. this is NOT a free safety but at best a strong safety. yet we continuously hear from our coaching staff that ALL safeties are interchangeable, which is pure nonsense, and see players that are considered strong safeties because of their lack of cover skills or speed put in positions to fail. it has happened time and again throughout lovies tenure. 4. our CB situation... i agree with your statements that our corners are lacking in talent and it hampers their abilities to play bump and run. what this does NOT excuse is that in lovie's scheme our CB's have virtually played so soft over the last umpteen years it is impossible for the rest of our players to do their jobs without him finding a solution to this problem. time and again i have seen our corners lined up 5+ yards off the LOS and then BACKPEDDLING even further at the snap, yards beyond the first down marker. this is where good qb's will eat you alive taking the 5 yard curl in the flats or the slants across the middle where the zone is virtually free from defenders as our LB's and corners are out of the play. in this system ALL wide receivers have a completely unimpeded, untouched route from the snap of the ball. it's like practice for these qb's. that is the reason we have made mediocre qb's look like joe montana and have career passing days against us and good ones look like HOF players. in fact it took lovie virtually 6 years to even bring our corners up to the LOS to play tight, as they occasionally have, over this season and last (since marinelli arrived). and even then they don't jam the WR to disrupt the timing of the route. do they even practice bump and run in camp? if so i have never heard of it (although if i am wrong please let anyone attending camp to set the record straight). CB quality, we are in total agreement on this subject ... getting back to the tired old chestnut of peanut. i can't emphasize strongly enough how peanut should have been moved to free safety at LEAST 4 years ago. instead of actually bringing in CB's like woodson or offering the guy in oakland good contracts to come here as we desperately need/needed a cover corner. but because 'supposedly' the cover 2 doesn't need them, us not bringing one in is ludicrous, and if any wanted to compare us to the tampa 2 system just look at barber who was a pro-bowl quality corner that could cover man when needed. agree, we are probably running the cover 2 around 1/3 of the time. but... we are still incorporating the essential weakness of a poorly orchestrated cover 2 by playing our corners extremely soft whether they play man coverage or not. every defense does not incorporate a scheme that virtually gives every team an unimpeded route by it's wide receivers on every down for 5+ yards per play. every defense does not incorporate a scheme that has no options if it's front 4 are getting no pressure on an opposing qb to make the scheme even function. let's face it...how can it NOT be x's and o's or not placing the personnel we have in a position to win when we have 2 probable HOF defensive players on this defense along with another continual pro-bowler? we virtually have the best DE playing today and the best LBing corp in football. and yet they can't come up with a change in scheme to compensate when an opponent neutralizes a portion of this defense?

not only is lovie a poor (to say the LEAST) head coach, he is a poor coordinator. for those doubters, can the statistics of THIS season overshadow the 4 years prior to the 2010 season? 1. why was ron rivera fired/released? it was ego on lovie smiths part. he let an important coach go who had proven to be effective to replace him with a friend/crony/yes man in babich who had NO business or qualifications stepping into the DC position. for TWO years this coach held our defense in a stranglehold and was only forced to step back when lovie's own job was questioned for letting this train wreck continue. 2. after lovie 'demoted' babich he took over the reins of the defense personally. we saw little or no difference in the actual results or changes in scheme. lovie can't even justify his position as a defensive coordinator!! he is a one-trick-pony that either doesn't have the knowledge, or worse yet he is stubborn beyond stupidity, to change or adjust the defense he is implementing to the players he is forced to play and the opponents he faces!!!!! 3. even when he SHOULD have been fired in 2010, the poor management running this franchise (the JOKE of a president of football operations, ted phillips AND CEO mike mccaskey) decided the millions paid to this BAD coaching staff and inept GM were more important than winning superbowls. thus we ended up with a lame duck coach/staff who couldn't even entice fewell to become a freaking DC. so what happens? we stay in lovies comfort zone and raise a DL coach that is basically a clone of the lovie/tampa 2 system because no one in the football world is buying into lovie smith and his closed system. oh yea, i forgot... the EXACT same thing happened on the offensive side of the coaching staff when turner fell on the sword so management could justify lovie's contract and throw dust into the media/fans eyes yet again. 4. can anyone really say that lovie smith is an ASSET on game day? his stubborness and stupidity outshine any redeeming qualities he could possibly muster. his clock management is horrendous. his game-day adjustments are near non-existent. his player/coaching preparations on EITHER side of the ball are in question to say the least. how long had we seen our CB's playing so far off the receiver that any semi-pro qb could look like joe montana? at LEAST 2-3 years!! how long had we used the idiototic notion that our LB's were confusing qb's by faking a blitz up the middle only to drop back at the snap or stupidly BLITZ from that position? at LEAST 2-3 years!! 5. i don't have any facts to substanciate this but it has been floating around that lovie actually had some say during angelo's drafts after the superbowl. if this is true can anyone possibly say he is able to evaluate talent to any degree? so what are the qualities, beside MONEY, that would entice any competent owner to keep this staff around? you mean like him PERSONALLY tutoring d. manning to become a better safety last season? that worked out pretty well. this is just another compromise to mediocrity. in a world that owners know anything about football or even running a corporation it should start with a ted phillips firing first and foremost and hiring someone who is competent and understands the game of football and how it works on multiple levels. let that person with knowledge hire and fire his own GM, coaching staff and scouting department. but... since this organization is run like a complete joke the best to hope for is to hire a good GM. someone who could evaluate talent on both sides of the ball and have the cajones to USE the draft picks he has to draft quality players. not just players who he thinks can start or contribute immediately but with some forethought to the future and players who need to develop like offensive linemen and quarterbacks. the problem with that? NOBODY in this franchise would know one if his name were tatooed on their foreheads!!! how did we find the idiot we currently have? we hired a firm, for gods sake, who took FIVE MONTHS to narrow it down to angelo!!!! what happens when he leaves/is fired? do we hire the same imbeciles who gave us him? or is the guy that ruined the seahawks, angies buddy, our successor to angie? oh boy, happy days are here again.... final note...... wouldn't a good president already have had this figured out for years now?

neither *years were productive or efficient, they were both less than average. but i have to say, we regressed from a very bad '08 offensive line to basically a semi-pro, horrific, milestone bad, offensive line in '09 and '10. in these environments no qb can play well. 1. in this day and age the short dink and dunk throws without being able to go deep will not win you superbowls. you have to be able to shoot it out with qb's like manning and brees and be able to score quickly. otherwise we will end up with defenses playing us 8 and 9 in the box without fear of getting burned. this means your running game is at a clear disadvantage, not to mention your short passing game is doomed to failure. anytime you get behind 10 points or more in a game with time fading you have to be able to open up the field with a real threat that your qb can make completions 15-20 yards or more. 2. just to be clear on this subject... cutler does NOT have control over calling audibles at the LOS. he also does NOT have the ability to let his receivers get deep because he is either sacked or running for his life. and he does NOT appear to have any quality receivers to help him out in any type of pattern. here is how i see the draft which differs from your point of view... LT - usually this is the most important position on your offensive line and the hardest to find a quality player. i agree, usually if you want to draft your good+ LT you should expect to do so as high as you can get or trade up to into the top half of the 1st round. RT - i believe that generally the slots to look for these players is the bottom half of the 1st round or throughout the 2nd round. sometimes you can find them in the lower rounds and groom them over a period of time. but, a safe bet is where i have stated. also a number of RT's show up when teams draft for LT's and they don't turn out thus pushing them onto the right side kicking up the slots where they were initially drafted. john tait is a very good example of this. that said, there are always exceptions to every rule (a killer sure thing RT may go very high if the need is there for a team finishing out their OL or have extenuating circumstances like a left handed qb). G - rarely are guards, unless the need is desperate or the player is exceptional, drafted higher than the 2nd round. you should be able to find good+ starting quality guards in the 2nd, 3rd, or even the 4th round (if you plan on grooming them behind an active player). unlike us, we draft them in the 6th or 7th round and expect them to start or flat out cut them. i still believe the trade was justified for what we gave up. plus i also believe we could have filled out at the very LEAST our guard and center problems over the last 2 years drafts if angelo wasn't a complete idiot. like i said before, we pissed away TWO 2nd round draft picks over the last 2 years that could have been the difference on how this offensive line is playing in a huge way for the next 10 years. instead we ended up with players like igleasius (sp) or j. gilbert. players that not only we don't want but anyone else. hmmm... then why did they draft tebo in the 1st round? if you are happy with your young qb why would you waste a first rounder on the same position? hell our tackles aren't even recognizing potential defensive problems/blitzers right in front of them. the qb has to tell these players who to block? isn't it just common sense and their basic job to do this? how many times have our tackles let players lined up to their outside shoulder go by untouched while they are double teaming a defender with the freaking guard?? it's mindboggling. it has tons to do with there being NO place to go that our qb doesn't have rushers knocking him down. left, right, front, behind, take your pick. there is nobody or side of the line to trust that they can hold a block consistantly long enough to give him enough time to do anything. that means the clock in a qb's head is virtually useless because he can't anticipate the time to do anything. look, i know you have been an advocate for drafting offensive linemen over the years like me and think our drafts have been bad to say the least. so we are not that far off from each other. it is your belief that orton (whom i did like, just not compared to the potential talent we could get out of cutler) would have been the best option in chicago and i have no problem with that. we just have opposing view points which is cool and i can live with that. *2008 rushing attempts: 434 attempts (15th in nfl) for 1673 yds (24th in nfl) passing attempts: 528 (14th in nfl) for 3061 yds (21st in nfl) 1st downs: 264 (27th in nfl) yards per play: 4.8 yds 5 games passed for 200-299 yds 1 game passed for 300+ yds 5 games rushing 100-199 yds 1 game rushing 200+ yds 2009 rushing attempts: 373 (ranked 29th in nfl) for 1492 yds (29th in nfl) passing attempts: 563 (8th in the nfl) for 3473 yds (17th in nfl) 1st downs: 262 (25th in nfl) yards per play: 5.1 yds 7 games passed for 200-299 yrds 2 games passed for 300+ yds 7 games rushed for 100-199 yds 0 games rushed for 200+ yds

LOL, ok i will put away the hypo scenario. i too dislike favre personally more than anyone i can think of. jimmy mac? i really liked him and still like him but the truth of the matter is he was not physically built to play in the nfl with his mindset. he took a beating and was always hurt even before that scumbag martin slam dunked him. lacerated kidney etc. etc. injuries were just part of his gameplan and it (and ditka) cost us multiple superbowls.

i understand the hatred for favre at this point in his career (i'm completely on that bandwagon) but in reality, if he came here from the falcons and had the career he had in green bay in chicago i just can't believe anyone would choose orton or any qb chicago as sported in 50 years over the talent he had. it would be just mindboggling to me that anyone wouldn't want a player who never missed a game in his entire career and is going to the hall of fame over the cannon fodder we have had in this city. mcmahon is one of my favorite personalities but if favre were playing during the 85 bear era we would have had 4 rings without a doubt in my mind. no flutie. no tomzak and no harbaugh (plus the other 50 or more).

just so i got this right... you would choose to have kyle orton as he was 2 years ago to present rather than brett favre in his prime for a career in chicago? well, to each his own. i personally can't stand favre's lovefest with himself and he is a jerk as a human being but there is no way i pass up the talent that guy possessed over a 15 year span to have a dink and dunk quarterback like orton who at best gives me a whiff of the playoffs in a one and done without a stellar all-pro team behind him. i personally want, in the era of a pass oriented, pass rule qualified nfl, a killer qb who can not just manage a game and get me that once every 20-30 year trip to the superbowl but give me the real possibility and chance of WINNING a superbowl every single year. look at nfl history. how many teams with vs. teams without very good to excellent qb's have multiple superbowl wins? superbowl wins is the ONLY measuring stick for success in this league. everything else is meaningless. as far as being fond of a guy like manning? uhhh yea, who isn't. he is arguably the best quarterback ever to play in the history of the nfl. who wouldn't want him? 1. 2006 – 3rd team offense in nfl; 14th in passing, 15th in rushing 2007 – 20th team offense in nfl; 15th in passing, 30th in rushing i am assuming you are talking about 2008 when orton/turner combined for a 9-7 season with no playoffs? 2008 – 15th team offense in the nfl; 21st in passing, 24th in rushing – here is our offensive line in 2008: LT st. clair, LG beekman, C kreutz, RG garza, RT tait. orton: 58.5 completion percentage, 79.6 QB rating, 27 sacks 465 attempts, 12 INT’s forte: 3.9 yds rushing average, 7.6 yd avg receiving this was productive, efficient, and consistent? i will give you consistent, consistently worse than average. 2009 – 19th team offense in the nfl; 17th in passing, 29th in rushing offensive line: LT pace LT c. williams, LG omiyale, C kreutz, RG garza, RT c. williams RT shaffer, this was one of the worst offensive lines ever. cutler: 60.5 completion percentage, 76.8 QB rating, 35 sacks, 555 attempts, 26 INT’s, the only reason cutler didn’t have 70 sacks is because of his mobility. if you can find a times hit stat it also has to be phenominal. forte: 3.6 yds rushing avg, 8.3 yd avg receiving 3. a lot of bear fans were itching to dump our pro-bowl linebacker, briggs, 2 years ago when he wanted a big contract and talked about leaving chicago. so i wouldn’t take too much stock in what fans say about a player who wants out. a better tool to measure his popularity would be how many fans and media people wanted him out of denver the previous year? deep ball inacuracies? and you are going to compare him to orton in this aspect? really??? 4. too much emphasis on the pro-bowl? that may be true at times but when was the last time ANY bear qb was even considered in the same breath with the pro-bowl? 5. you mean like 6. the problem here is that the “guy”, angelo, COULD afford cable. even without a first round pick who most people knew angelo wouldn’t use on an OL (especially after spending a first on one the year before). he traded out of our highest pick in 2009, a 2nd rounder in which he could have drafted unger the best projected center in the draft and a good guard to boot, to get more lower round picks (3rd and 4th round picks) in which he picked again, DL. he should have drafted players to keep the player he just spent the moon to get healthy. in my opinion 2nd rd, 3rd rd, and even 4th rd picks should have been used on the OL!! then in 2009 he traded our highest pick in the ’10 draft, a 2nd rounder, for another DL veteran who couldn’t even break the starting lineup in the team we got him from and couldn’t break ours with the average players we had!! to top that off he again spent his highest pick in 2010, a 3rd rounder, on drafting yet another safety instead of the critical OL that was virtually falling apart before his eyes when he made the trade!!!! it was pure stupidity or pure insanity, take your pick. 1. turner is and was terrible. the problem was our fearless leaders decided to keep a lame duck GM and coaching staff for monetary reasons. so... A) we ended up with nobody wanting to come in to coach for this team on either side of the ball. we didn’t even address the major concerns on our offensive line that CAUSED most of the offensive problems we witnessed in 2009. 2. our OL was not good at anything including pass protection last year and has gotten worse this year. 3. if bronco fans are laughing about anything this year, being 2 and 5, they must be complete loonies. 4. with what he is working with he will never look like anything but what he looks like now. there is no S on the front of his uniform that i have seen. 5. keeeeeripes!!! what do you expect him to say? that he would never again throw in the direction of a poor cornerback? it was a STUPID media question that didn’t even deserve an answer!!! 6. unless we can put up an nfl professional quality at least average offensive line don’t look for seeing the potential ever of any qb. of course he deserves critisism. but when a team throws a quality player into the fire with nothing to protect him and expect him to perform like your payton manning it is completely unrealistic. just for sh!($ and grins, have you watched many colts games? do you know how you stop manning? you get in his face and you knock him down. you bring people from every direction and blitz the hell out of him and guess what? HE looks like crap too. i have SEEN it!!! why do you think that is? why do you think cutler should be somehow better than the golden boy manning when he is getting his #!%^ knocked in the dirt every single play??? if anybody, and i mean ANYBODY thinks manning could cope with the offensive line and the blocking cutler gets from our TE’s and RB’s and still end up in the pro-bowl they are delusional!!!!!!!!!!!! if you are expecting miracles and manna from heaven to drop down on soldier field this season you are going to be one unhappy frustrated person. it is not going to get much *better and has all the ingredients to be a complete catastrophie. this offensive line is just plain bad. it is not neccessarily the coaching or the scheme or anything else. they just don’t have the talent and no matter how you want something better to happen it just isn’t going to. *at best like i have stated in the past, you may, with a lot of luck, get 1 or 2 of these linemen to improve as the season goes on and dumbing down the offensive scheme ‘may’ help some but most are not pro talented players or way past their prime at this time and probably never will be better than what you see. put it this way... name any player on the offensive line that another team would give up a draft pick for and how high. that should be the yardstick for the real quality of this squad.

i guess i don’t understand all the flak over cutler. i REALLY don’t understand all the “if only we had orton” posts or, gasp, the if we only gave rex grossman a chance supporters who i actually have heard on the radio. orton’s ceiling is being a good qb and on a few very special days better than that. so please, lets be real about his potential. i refuse to even waste a comment on grossman if anyone really is in that corner. cutler is/was light years ahead of either of those qb’s and in reality is probably the best qb talent prospect we have ever had in chicago for 60 years. but people need a reality check with not only what this guy is and what he can do but what he can do it with. he is what 99% of bear fans have been crying for since mcmahon was cut loose and absolutely since brett favre showed up in green bay. he is a high wire act who does throw a lot of picks (sound familiar) but has the capability of still winning doing so. that is the definition of the so-called gunslinger qb. now everyone is confused and surprised at what they are seeing??? onward... 90% of a qb’s play is MENTAL. this guy has been sacked and hit more times in the last 22 games than probably in his entire life. there is not a single area on our offensive line that can stop ANYONE!!! that means there is no confidence on any play that he can feel comfortable that he won’t get hit from the front (even by his own lineman being shoved back 10 yards for a sack), behind or sideways either causing death, injury or at the least a fumble. there is no pocket, there is no reasonably safe area for him to set up to make his reads or MAKE A PLAY and even when there is, the clock that works in good qb’s head is spinning out of control. so get used to what you are seeing people because there is nothing that any coach on this team can do to get the lack of talent on this teams offensive line to play better (no matter how hard you whip a mule he ‘aint’ going to win a kentucky derby). EDIT also the lack of ANY experienced QUALITY receivers doesn't help this mess at all. to try and get on the same page with these types of receivers behind this offensive line is plain and simply ludicrous!!!!!! every bit of this goes right onto jerry angelo and moreso on TED PHILIPPS for letting angelo run the talent on this franchise into the grand canyon through his abysmal drafts. without at least an average offensive line it wouldn’t matter if we had payton manning, joe montana or johnny unitis as qb. cutler maybe will never be on the level of those guys but he CERTAINLY has the abilities to be a very good to great qb in the nfl if we don’t/haven’t destroyed him.

in all truth i would like them to sit cutler this upcoming game and give him some real time to heal both physically and mentally. this guy is our franchise ticket and to risk his well being and a long career in chicago by bringing him back this soon is bordering a criminal act by lovie just to win a football game that maybe saves his job. i say play hanie or collins this week and let the win/loss record play itself out.

dave krieg? as a chicago bear? he was in chicago for only one season and replaced an injured kramer for 13 games in '96. he NEVER threw for 300 yards in any game for chicago and ABSOLUTELY NEVER was sacked 9 times as a bear qb in one game.

in my opinion cutler was concussed or suffering from the pounding he took not only during this game but the past three in which he took a fantastic beating. nobody can take that amount of punishment for this long a period of time without consequences. to me the tell was when he was running for the sidelines and flicked the ball out at the last second. i believe there was something wrong with him at that time. it also could account for him holding the ball so long on some plays or missing open receivers and some of his decision making. i also believe that if you have people knocking you down every single time you set up to throw the ball it has a mental effect on a qb, especially when there is no single area they are coming from. one time it may be around left tackle, one time around right tackle, other times through either guard. you come to the point when you have no confidence at all that you are not going to get destroyed every play. so of COURSE it effects your game!! if you want to take anything to the bank this is it... cutler is one tough SOB and not only has he taken a beating this season, including pre-season, but last year as well and still puts it all on the field. so any talk of cutler being some kind of wimp or pussy and not wanting to get hit is pure unadulterated B.S.

got to really disagree with this statement "The best defenses never have to blitz". i consider the 85 bears and the steelers of the 70's the top defenses in modern era football and both used blitzes extensively. in my opinion it takes good/great coordinators to blend a standard rush with creative blitzing for a total package. lovie/marinelli/babich's idea of a blitz is so bad it's laughable to opposing offenses. we lock up our linebackers (like the last game, like the last FOUR years worth of games) into showing blitz at the LOS and then drop them back into some screwball coverage that when the snap of the ball takes place our LB's are out of position and moving in the wrong direction OR if they do blitz, they are caught up in the wash of the linemen blocking our tackles (who NEVER get penetration) and never progress past the pileup in the middle.

if it came to no choice but one or the other i would give it to *martz and hope he has changed/learned enough to be a good HC. i just see no redeeming factor in lovie smith to dictate any extension ever. i like the idea BrianBear came up with referring to paying martz a ton of money to stay as OC unless we shake lovie (hopefully) out and then some thought has to go into it depending upon lovie's replacement (although with shanny gone off the market, i can't really think of any very good offensive minded head coaching material at the moment who would come to chicago and be qualified to run this franchise in a great capacity). another idea came to me at the end of the '85 superbowl when i saw ryan getting lifted off the field like ditka. why not have 2 head coaches share the ticket? could it work with a coach like cowher and martz? it would be interesting to hear his view on something like that. *all talk of martz is a bit premature at this point. i do like what i am seeing but we need to let the season progress before we really anoint him as 'all that and a bag of chips'. at this point though i will say he is the best OC i have ever seen in chicago. he needs to continue to grow as the season goes on and work on consistancy.

martz... our offense actually appears to have a game plan and is able to make real gametime adjustments. he is the best offensive coordinator we have had in chicago in over 50 years and has turned our generic ball control offenses of the past into an attack offense that is a real threat to opposing teams. with that said, he has his faults also. in the packer game we did a lot of 5-7 step drops that nearly got cutler killed (in fact i am amazed at cutlers toughness, it just can't last taking that kind of a beating). we should have turned that down the same way as against the cowboys and a lot faster. he has to realize we don't have an orlando pace in his prime and am working with cannon fodder like frank oh-my and shaffer (not even counting our poor guards!!). in fact i can't believe they threw webb in at RT as he was absolutely miserable in pre-season and played no better monday night. as far as promoting martz to HC? i would PREFERABLY have martz continue as our OC even with a new coaching staff and hopefully a new GM and president. he may be like buddy ryan in that aspect, a very good to great coordinator but a liability at HC. but if it came to lovie or martz i would take martz any day of the week and roll the bones. other teams may see this the same way unless they are really desperate for a head coach.

here is where you go for it on 4th down and goal from the 1 (or in field goal range for that matter)... 1. it's your last drive of the game in regulation time and you are behind more than a field goal. 2. your kicker has a compound fracture of his kicking leg or he is mentally experiencing interplanetary travel. in nearly every other instance you ALWAYS take the points and you certainly kick a field goal to tie up a game no matter what quarter it is. it's stupid coaching not to do so for many reasons. this is another of lovie's glaring faults... stubbornness. to prove a point he will put his team at risk to lose a game to show the media, or the football world, he was smart making the same mistake in previous games.

mcmahon went there too although i believe he wore a bear jersey to the white house after the packer superbowl win. how cool is that?

if the 75th anniversary is referring to the 1995 season then #22 belonged to RB robert green.

1. i'm going to go out on a limb and say without looking it up (like i did with the offensive line) that 75% + of the starting defensive linemen in the nfl were drafted in the 5th round or higher. what does that mean? that statistics (IF you looked them up) should dictate that if you want to field starters on the defensive line your best chance to do so is by drafting from the 5th round higher with a few exceptions. does this mean you always get quality players if you do so? again as i stated in another post, about the O-line, the answer is no. it depends upon the quality of the personnel you have scouting and evaluating talent making the picks. what you stated "By this logic, we have a good defensive line because we draft so many d-lineman." does prove one thing... that the people running this organization are bad at doing their jobs and nothing more. the model for drafting quality players is still the same. 2. on offense: what this "logic" of drafting 5th round or higher dictates is that the movers and shakers in this franchise have FAILED to even give us a CHANCE of finding quality players to start on our offensive line by trading down, out, or picking another type of players (see defensive draft picks above in your own post) in the quality rounds. it's nearly impossible to draft quality players if you rarely or never try to.

another cracked packer fan on the verge of cannibalism.

could any of that have to do with the organizations abilities to judge talent and coach? anyway, if you look at it, 3 out of 32 is not a very good percentage and pretty telling as to where most of your talent is coming from. does this mean it's a sure thing drafting players in these higher rounds? absolutely not. it still requires good personnel to scout and to sift through all the information and actually pick good players in the draft. but by limiting your picks the way we have and relying on FA's to fill your OL it is a recipe for disaster.

this is the problem i have with angelo... these 6th and 7th round picks are throwaway picks. they to me look to be afterthoughts that have no or little chance to make any real impact in our starting lineup. i did some research in the other string i started and it is quite eye opening as to where real offensive line talent is generally drafted if you want starters.

here is an interesting note... only 3 teams in the entire nfl, colts, chargers, texans, had fewer than 3 starting offensive linemen that were drafted/non-drafted in the 5th round or higher. many had 4 starters and many had 5 starters drafted in these higher rounds. i think this is a pretty good indication of what rounds the quality is located for offensive linemen. so to me that says the bears (who have drafted 2 players in the 1st rd, NONE in the 2nd rd, 1 in the 3rd rd, 1 in the 4th rd, and NONE in the 5th rd in EIGHT YEARS of jerry angelo's tenure in chicago) are having to rely on free agents who are either on their last leg of nfl play, highly overpriced, or 2nd tier or less talent whose teams have not renewed their contracts due to quality concerns.

well, here are the numbers for starting linemen: falcons: 2009 3 out of 5 LT baker 1st round pick 2008 falcons LG blalock 2nd round pick 2007 falcons C mcclure 7th round pick 1999 falcons RG ojinnaka 5th round 2006 falcons RT clabo undrafted falcons 2007 3 out of 5 LT gandy 1st rd pick 1994 rams LG blalock 2nd rd pick 2007 falcons C mcclure 7th rd pick 1999 falcons RG forney 7th rd pick 2001 falcons RT weiner 2nd rd pick 1998 SH giants: 2008, 2009 3 out of 5 LT diehl 5th round pick 2003 giants LG seubert undrafted C ohara undrafted RG snee 2nd round 2004 giants RT mckenzie 3rd round 2001 jets vikings 2009 3 out of 5 LT mckinnie 1st rd pick 2002 vikings LG hutchinson 1st rd pick 2001 SH C sullivan 6th rd pick 2008 vikings RG herrera undrafted RT loadholt 2nd rd pick 2009 vikings ===== seattle 2009 5 out of 5. LT locklear 3rd rd pick 2004 SH LG sims 4th rd pick 2006 SH C spencer 1st rd pick 2005 SH RG unger 2nd rd pick 2009 SH RT willis 4th rd pick 2005 SH tampa bay 2009 4 out of 5 LT penn undrafted LG zuttah 3rd rd pick 2008 TB C faine 1st rd pick 2003 cleveland RG joseph 1st rd pick 2006 TB RT trueblood 2nd rd pick 2006 TB i am curious as to how you are determining the quality of these offensive lines? is it from personal observation? if not what are the factors you are using to determine how the bucs and seahawks lines rated against the rest of the nfl? anyway, the giants you mention have 3 out of 5 players drafted in the first 5 rounds. although i have no idea whether the falcons line is good or bad they too have 3 out of 5 drafted in the first 5 rounds. i guess what you should do is go through the nfl roster for starting offensive linemen and compare this number to the number of starters drafted/non drafted below the 5th round and compare the numbers. this would give you accurate numbers for comparison. as far as angelo's MO... do you really believe what you said that there is more to angelo's line of thinking than drafting quality offensive linemen through the draft? you have no problems of never drafting linemen higher than the 6th or 7th round or with their quality? REALLY? you don't see any conflicts with the salary cap by trying to bring in QUALITY free agent linemen who are young and not at the end of their careers (like tait type players)? do you believe, or not, that continuity is a factor involved as to how an offensive line performs?

this is what separates the men from the boys as GM's go... the draft, plain and simple. having said that, i don't have an issue adding veteran FA's under 'specific circumstances': 1. replacement due to injury. if you lose a front line starting player then you can go after these end-of-career players who may have 1-3 years left in their tanks as long as you draft their replacements high enough to give you hopefully a high quality player replacement when it's time to move the older veteran. our problem is, as you know, we never do this. 2. replacement due to the inability to sign your own FA's due to cap limitations. again you can do the same as the scenario above although good GM's should see this coming ahead of time and negotiate prior to the contract end or compensate in the draft before it comes into being. 3. your GM has missed picking a good starter in the draft. face it, this happens from time-to-time as nobody can pick gold with every pick. in this instance you can either pick up your aging player and again draft his replacement or go for a quality FA with a lengthy career still ahead of him and pay the big bucks. that said, if your draft picks are continually poor it's time to evaluate why. is it the picks you are making and the round you select them in (you or the scouting staffs choices)? is it the inability of your coaching staff to mold/coach these picks into front line players? also to continually ignore drafting potentially high quality players in the slots they dictate on draft day and expect to fill these positions on the offensive line the way he has done so, is ludicrous. so is the missmanagement of FA's you do bring in... i can't even begin to state how stupid it was to bring in tait, a high quality right tackle at a tremendous cap hit and play him at a different position (than where he was rated good in the first place) nearly his entire tenure in chicago. these are just some of the reasons angie is a poor GM. you have to have vision and long range insight. by neglecting drafting players that need time to develop you will, in this dimention of reality, never/rarely have QUALITY players to fill these slots except through free agency and quite frankly there are numerous reasons why this will NOT work in the long haul. the cost is too much and you will rarely see key players such as qb's, LT's, superb DE's and CB's who are not past the peak of their careers and starting on the downward slope. it also clearly shows the inability of having CONSISTANCY on your offensive and defensive lines that angie somehow now believes is important (only 8 years to late) but continues to do nothing about as was clearly shown in this years draft.

could anyone really wonder why our offensive line has had serious personnel problems over angelo's tenure? hmmmm

here is some of the complete nonsense from our fearless leader that every fan (and especially if we had a real president of football operations who was qualified to do his job) should note. 1. "the continuity of having five play together was critical". then why in the H E double hockey sticks do you hire semi-retired bandaids like o. pace, r. brown and fred miller to come in and finish out their careers here in which we usually get 1-2 years max play out of them before aged performances force retirement a year later than it should be. is that continuity angie? when you are changing the offensive line every year or two? by bringing in MORE free agents because you can't fill the holes with young prospects you FAIL to even waste draft picks on? 2. ''It's not like you have to have five all-stars at the position...No real household names ". are you a complete idiot or do you just think we are? just because YOU have never heard of these players does that mean the rest of us are living on another plain of existence? well let's see what their OL looks like... LT diehl age 29 - 2009 pro-bowl; C o'hara age 32 - 2008, 2009 pro-bowl; RG snee age 27 - 2008 all-pro, 2008, 2009 pro-bowl. i guess you're right angie, only THREE of them are all-stars.