Lucky Luciano

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.

don't take this to the bank but i believe we are playing up on all three downs for the most part. i really haven't focused on our corners as much as other aspects so am not sure if we are getting jams at the LOS or not. in any case it is an improvement as far as scheme goes that should have been changed 5 years ago. whether the talent and coaching can turn our past cover 0 corners and safeties into productive nfl players is yet to be seen in regular season.

well then welcome to the world of rollerball. houston, houston, houston, houston......

1, that is a possibility. when it comes to the point that the quality of the game is about the same as watching nfl europe or canadian football (no disrespect intended to those leagues or it's fans. they were/are what they were/are) then what is the point? at this space in time the game is already teetering on the brink of the abyss compared to what quality of play was performed 20-30 years ago. the lack of player and coaching talent due to expansions and the changing of the rules by outside football sources to engage the attention span of imbeciles to watch games that score as many points as basketball is destroying the game. when college football is a rougher sport physically than the nfl there are serious problems that need to be reviewed. one of the biggest problems/dangers is that the new generation of nfl viewers will have no comparrisons of quality play to hold up to scrutiny and thus in a short period of time this newer generation will not even know they are seeing a second or even third rate product anymore. that is what is really sad. 2. if i could get tickets to go to a game in the weather of 2-3 weeks ago for free, i wouldn't go. watching people have heat strokes just doesn't do it for me. 3. i already buy less merchandise. but if it comes to buying into the quality of NFLE teams i'm done buying it altogether. 4. absolutely no. i believe you are dead wrong. the nfl does NOT come out ahead, it just comes out richer.