Lucky Luciano

in the 14 game past, the regular season usually ended within the first or second week of december. with a 16 game schedule which includes, a bye week, we are now ending regular season play around the 1st week of january. with an 18 game schedule and the extra bye week you suggest we are now extending the regular season nearly into february. that means post season playoffs will just about fill february up (with the wildcard game which i believe was included in the 16 game season). this leaves the superbowl very close to happening in march. this extended period of time leaves little window if/when players have offseason surgery or concussions to recover from before they start camp and prepare again for the coming regular season. this plus the normal wear and tear on the bodies, especially joint wear, of added regular/post season games leaves little time for the body to heal. the quality of play on the field is surely going to suffer both from an injury standpoint and if, as you suggest, an extension of the number of players on each roster. right now because of league expansion we are extended to the point that many players starting in the nfl today would not have even quality wise been backups thirty years ago. this is ESPECIALLY true of the skill positions such as qb which even before league expansion of the 70', 80's etc. (not EVEN mentioning the addition of the AFC in the 1960's) was a drastically low pool base for average + players. next: if you raise the rosters by 7 players to 60 as you suggest this subtracts 224 players from the market, which already is low to nonexistent in quality ball players, to fill your roster needs from other teams cuts as it stands today with a 53 man roster. the reality of the matter is there is just so much physical talent to go around. the only area nfl teams are drawing talent from has NOT expanded since the modern era of football came into being and probably long before that. this is one reason teams are drawing a lot of players out of 2nd and 3rd tier schools in the draft.

i don't agree. although the risk for a player can be extensive, pre-season or not, your premium players usually are only working a game and a half to two games max during pre-season play when you count up the actual time in. also in this time they are 'supposedly' getting into game shape where they are adjusting to actual blocking and tackling to hopefully reduce their chance of injury. i also believe you are really upping the chances to burn your players out physically sooner over the life of their career playing this many games. their chances of injury are escalated as the season wears on from the natural wear and tear on their bodies for this long of a period of time. take url's calf injury for instance. he would be nearly forced to come back sooner from injury to play in the regular season. i do agree with you there should be some kind of rookie salary decline. it's just getting way out of hand. in a perfect world i would like to see them cut the pre-season to 3 games and the regular season to 14 again. i would also like to see a lock on the number of teams in the nfl. it is already watered down talent we are seeing play with this many franchises in the league.

how many center prospective offensive linemen do we currently have on our roster? i count 4 - kreutz, beekman, tim walter and pat mannely. here are a couple questions for any offensive line guru's out there... since there is not any competition for starting center but only in a backup situation to replace kreutz (and we've already seen that crap from beekman) why do none of these considered centers practice at special teams long snapping especially since our ONLY longsnapper is THIRTY FIVE freaking years old? wouldn't it be nice if we had someone, who actually is a center, at least practicing to replace our special teams center if something happened to him (which i'm sure would never happen) instead of relying on a 33 year old TE/HB? just wondering.

to me... it looked real bad. if my memory serves me correctly, they had guys coming off both left and right ends without being touched at times. at other times they were running over the designated blocker/s. it seemed hanie (i never saw the cutler series) was continually scrambling around or taking hits after a quick throw to get rid of the ball. the other qb was as bad or worse. i don't think we were prepared to stop blitz packages which after the first one or two we should have been in that mode. some has to do with hanie's reads and missing the blitzes. some on our RB's/TE's or even WR's not getting some chips or even recognizing the blitz coming. in any case this is on the coaches too for not preparing them or making critical gametime adjustments and it cost us our #2 qb by failing to doing so.

i can live with either theory. my statements about angelo to balta was in regards as to why lovie might have stated what he did and is really not worth the time we are spending arguing about it as either, both or even neither could be the truth. as far as the running getting off the bus statements by lovie in shays tenure... that was one strange time indeed. whether lovie was meddling or giving misinformation to the press or whatever, it was an odd situation to say the least and i agree wholeheartedly.

i agree with that statement to a certain point and have in fact argued it myself in the past. a good defensive coach SHOULD understand how an offense is run and be able to at the least make educated suggestions on what direction it should take and what it's pitfalls are and at least generally how to change them. my problem with lovie is that i really don't think he does know much about an offense or if he does he hides it very well. the problems we have consistantly faced in the offenses run since lovie arrived is a testimonial of how he either does not want to get involved or doesn't have the qualifications to do so even being a DC by profession. that is the only conclusion i can come up with as to why shay was flying us into the hard turf from 10,000 feet or that turner performed as poorly as he did for so long a period of time. in truth i don't think lovie is a very good DC either. i think he is like the proverbial one trick pony who just doesn't move beyond past success into the nfl future through innovation and change. seemingly very much like dick jauron. if it looks good on paper that is the way it stays whether reality on the field dictates change or not. again, a good HC with a defensive background (or visa-versa) SHOULD be able to make directional changes in how his opposite is performing his duties. i just can't explain with any conviction why he has not done so in the past.

of course it is more critical for 1st round picks because that is where the combined lot of the best college talent is funneled into. but i seriously disagree with your contention that 2nd and 3rd round talent doesn't effect the quality of your team AND financially hinder a club in a very big way. if a GM continuously misses drafting quality first day players here are the results.... they have wasted a year to three trying to develop a player that will contribute little or nothing to the goal of winning a superbowl. this means that to acquire a player to now fill this starting roster spot they will either have to draft another OR bring in a free agent whose salary is at the maximum for one of his caliber talent. in the salary cap era this is financial suicide for a club to continuously do this. sure he may get credit for bringing free agents into the fold and in fact he has done fairly well at it. but does that NOT emphasise his failure at providing this team with quality players through the draft? that is the financial lifeblood of a franchise. let's look at DA. if angelo hadn't wasted a 2nd round pick on bazuin, d. manning or mark bradley for instance and had chosen a good quality receiver instead would he have even had to? if he didn't pick a receiver in those instances but a quality offensive lineman would we be in the situation we find ourselves at this very moment where we are hoping a 7th round draft pick MAY be good enough to even start at RG (let alone go to a pro-bowl) and not kill our franchise qb? or a safety or a linebacker or a defensive tackle or a defensive end and so on and so on we could have filled numerous roster spots with quality ball players. i realize no GM will hit every player on every draft but when you look at the starting quality player draft record we are faced with we have after 9 first round picks tommy harris and MAYBE chris williams and MAYBE greg olson who nobody would even give us a second round pick for. after 9 second round picks we have charles tillman a #2 CB who was drafted 7 years ago. after 12 third round picks we have lance briggs who was drafted 7 years ago. that is not just bad that is criminally bad. wins and losses relate to the quality starting players you field PLUS the depth behind them and throw in good coaching on top of that (which angelo hasn't provided either). it couldn't be done like the FA skins of the 70's under george allen and it certainly can't be done with exclusive quality FA's in the salary cap era. 1. then you see no need for a GM to draft well to keep his job? 2. if you don't agree angelo is pushing certain players like hester who are the key to his GM survial then who do you think is making hesters case and downplaying the only person qualified (martz) to even understand how an offense is run? is it lovie the offensive genius when he isn't the defensive genius who thinks hester is the best WR on our roster? who?

sure. the question he asked was "Can anyone tell me why Smith would be so insistent on Hester being a #1 starting WR even if Martz wants him in the slot?". don't you believe it's angelo calling the shots on hester's status/position to the media? or do you think it's lovie? i personally don't think lovie knows enough about offense to force a situation like this with martz (and for that matter i don't think angelo knows much more than lovie but would set the conditions anyway if it helped his agenda). for six years? how long does it take in your estimation to decide whether your qb is a franchise quality player and dependable? was it lovie's or angelo's decision to keep the merry-go-round going for that long? yes. but again, isn't this a perfect example of what i was talking about? you could be right but didn't angelo just give him a new contract? he must be onboard to at least some degree. it wouldn't surprise me either if he did. but... if he is a walk-on does he even get a second look? if we cut him does any other team jump at the chance to pick him up and put him on their final 53 man roster? i don't believe i ripped angelo at all. i just explained my theory of why hester may have been pushed ahead of more deserving players for the starting role. angelo is on the hot seat for his job (or at least if this organization was competent he would be). he has failed in the most important duties a GM can perform. he has failed to hire a good coaching staff and has failed over the last 8 years to draft quality ball players to fill his roster. every chance he gets he is wanting to push what few draft picks did turn out whether they deserve it or not just to keep his job. do you disagree with that?

you could be right about the contract size as a/the factor. but i also believe at this point in angelo's tenure in chicago he is on the firing line and needs to justify at least SOME of his draft picks which have been dismal to say the very least. a GM can't rely on free agency success or failure exclusively in this cap rich era of football to justify his existence. also draft status 'could' account for some of the offensive decisions like how grossman was penciled in as starter for such a long period of time without real competition. same could be said why thomas left and benson stayed or why d. manning was considered a starter at safety when his accomplishments didn't justify his status if one wanted to argue those points. if gilbert remains on this team without a fantastic amount of improvement this season it could also point to draft status rather than talent.

i think my major concern with beekman is he was getting manhandled in pass protection and got nearly no push of the LOS in running downs. he HAS to be able to hold the point of attack in pass protection as center as he is the key to the success or failure of pocket development. he literally was getting run over on pass protection against the chargers. i understand he may have been practicing as a G mostly in camp but to me it is no excuse for the collapse whether he plays G or C especially for a player starting his fourth year in the league. this does not bode well for his replacement of kreutz in the future. this is one reason last season i was hopeful that angie would have stayed put in the 2nd round and picked unger a good center prospect with size and talent who went to the seahawks.

in my opinion: hester was a high draft pick and one of the few by angelo that actually did something. although... his production in the area of returns has dropped like a rock and if he can't justify hester as a real receiver OR the CB he was drafted to be it appears to the world another poor draft choice. that is major justification by a GM when he has shot so many blanks in past drafts. that was one reason i stated the condition of frank oh-my. he was a highly paid free agent and if he couldn't even break the starting lineup in THIS group of offensive linemen would have certainly made the acquisition of frank at that price questionable to say the least.

the fact being that lovie knows nearly nothing of offense (or at least keeps it a secret if he does) speaks volumes on how much influence jerry angelo has on the effect of who is going to start or considered by him to be the premium player at X position due to who angie drafted or which free agent he pursued. example: why else would frank oh-my have been penciled in as starting LG last season and remained so until the media/fan firestorm moved him out? same with pace. can anyone truthfully say either of these players deserved to start there after a game or two?

a few problems i saw... if lance louis doesn't improve a lot in preseason we/cutler may have some serious problems at RG and our ability to hold a pocket for the qb to step up into. not even counting his lack of ability on running plays. by far he was the weakest link in the starting line and looked like he should have been playing in the 4th quarter rather than the 1st. next was beekman. although he is penciled in as a 2nd string center, from what i saw if we expect him to replace a pro-bowl caliber center in kreutz in the future we are in trouble. by now he should be showing us a lot more at the job he is supposed to fill in the future. to me he does not even come close. the center of our line was continually pushed back from the LOS in these 2 areas. frank 'oh my' our right tackle had a fair game and looked a lot better than last season at this time especially in pass protection (although he had a lot of help from our TE's and dez clark in particular) taking on blockers. with that said, he appears to be a bit slow out of his stance at the snap (although he moved into the 2nd level fairly well) but he seemed to lack the desire to knock a defenders ---- in the dirt. in other words he seems to lack a killer instinct at least at this point in preseason. overall: to me it appears we have at this time, very, very thin depth throughout the line. even if tice proves to be the messiah of the offensive line he still needs some real talent to work with. this falls directly onto angelo who did nothing to improve this situation during the offseason and especially in the draft even with the limited picks he had. EDIT: i think if you were wondering why cutler only worked a series you have to look at what happened to hanie. with all the uncertainty i would rather see cutler sit on the sideline than find out our OL is getting him killed.

i guess i don't understand what you are saying. you seem to be arguing one point and justifying it with information that i posted to support it. what is the difference whether you pay it out in "bonuses" or salary when your final "yearly budjet" amount is >reasonably close first... if there is a league rule that states you can't extend guaranteed salary bonus money etc. in a new acquisition to future years then obviously it couldn't be done. so why don't you state what the rule exactly states and how teams do business with this rule in effect? inquiring minds want to know. don't YOU believe what i stated about next years cap hit should be very good once most of the bonus money for these new FA's has been paid this season? second... i'm not so sure i understand how a team that gave a player a written contract, whether there is a CBA in effect or not, can permanently circumvent said contract because the CBA is being negotiated and not in effect that season. does this now mean that next season we can cut every/any player on our team that has bonus money due if there is a lockout and owe them nothing? what difference does it make what other teams have or have not done? because snyder or jones don't get active in FA is that the gold standard now we and the rest of the nfl should be forced to follow? my post was in regards to a statement by another poster, BearFan NYC, in which he stated "All of this aside, Mankins could just be looking for too much money, and all this talk of Angelo having room for a stud OL is moot because it presupposes a certain cap hit and maybe Mankins is just out of that range.". i am not "arguing" whether we have spent a huge amount of money or not. i stated the >facts i "have to admit" what exactly? i never once stated the bears were cheap or not in regards to this FA offseason as you seem to want to read into this. but now that you mention it... 1. why is lovie smith still employed in chicago as opposed to hiring shanny or cowher? 2. why is jerry angelo still employed in chicago? 3. why do we have a president of football operations who knows nearly NOTHING about football operations instead of mike holmgren or someone like him? 4. why do you think alex brown was released when he clearly would have been the 2nd best DE and arguably the 2nd best DL on our entire roster? did we make our team better by releasing him?

i forgot about vasher. here is his 2009 numbers: Nathan Vasher $4,866,666 http://blogs.suntimes.com/bears/nathan_vasher/ so that kicks the number down to $12.22 mil in difference. once you deduct what would have possibly been paid to 1st and 2nd round draft picks and the probable rise of what would have been paid for the salary cap and there is not really a huge amount of extra money spent this season in free agency above what they normally would have spent anyway. next season there should be a large drop in cap hit for this years new free agents so i really don't see why they can't pick up another quality free agent if they so desired and put his guaranteed money on next year or the year afters salary cap commitment. EDIT: also if i am not mistaken cutlers contract was laden with incentives. unless he made them, and it seems unreasonable he did, that money rolled over into this season to spend. plus add the money NOT spent last season to be used for a kicker in case of injury etc. that expired and CAN be used in this uncapped season there doesn't seem to me to be a lot of money gone out that wasn't saved already.

2010 free agents julius peppers - $20 mil - 2010 chris harris - $3.5 mil - 2010 chester taylor - $7 mil - 2010 brandon manumaleuna - $6.105 - 2010 $36.605 mil all contracts heavily front loaded players gone - 2009 salary adewale ogunleye - $6,464,056 alex brown - $2,882,514 gaines adams - $635,000 orlando pace - $5.33 jason mckie - $795,000 kevin jones - $2 mil adrian petersen - $770,000 jamar williams - $643,950 estimated total saved not counting any escalation OR reduction in 2010 contract money: $19.519 mil. the bears have spent roughly $17.086 mil more in 2010. what also needs to be taken into consideration is we had no first or second round picks to pay signing bonus money to so that softens that amount by how much? the players lised above were released or traded and whose salaries would in my estimation have been replaced by the new free agents. peppers replaces brown, gaines and ogy, manumaleuna a TE who is considered a basic lineman replaces pace and mckie, taylor replaces jones and petersen. the addition of c. harris is offset somewhat by LB j. williams and if bullocks fails to make the squad his salary will count against this addition also. josh bullocks - 2009 - $1,200,000 - 2010 - $1.226 million.

this is the reason if we had competent personnel running this bisquit bake, like a good GM or even more important a good president of football operations, we wouldn't be having this conversation. i fully don't expect lovie to take care of ANY aspect of this franchise. his system is dated and has been proven not to work (at the very least without major changes) yet in my opinion he lacks the knowledge to change it, thus a one trick pony who will live and die by his own sword. the only reason we still employ him is because of his salary obligations, certainly not because of his prowess as a football mind or a leader of men. i disagree that it's hindsight and in my opinion it is black and white right in your face in many instances. you ask "how soon is lovie supposed to step in"? example: if you have a franchise quarterback (maybe the first qb in over 25 years who truely is competent) and he is getting the ever lovin crap pounded out of him at nearly every snap how long do you put this caliber of player in jeporady of a career ending injury without making some real changes? me? after one game and i see our entire left side of the line getting blown up play after play i want to know who, why, and how to stop the bleeding right now before a guy i just gave TWO first round picks is on IR or has a career ending injury. in any case the red flags have come to full mast and i will know what the problem is NOW, not 8 games from now and certainly not in the offseason. i have a meeting and talk to our offensive coaches. is it a one game anomyly or is there something really wrong either in the scheme or the personnel? do you change the types of plays called? do you change the blocking schemes? do you max protect the qb? do you change the way your qb is attacking offenses such as rollouts, shorter routes, etc.? but certainly after 3 games and the same thing is going on i force a change into the way our offense is being run at least for the short term. that is not even coaching, it's common sense and it seems lovie possesses none. let me ask you or for that matter anyone on the board... if you watched greg olson whiff blocks as regular as he did and the players moving by him kept hitting the qb untouched, wouldn't you want to talk to your OC? your line coach or TE coach to see if anyone is trying to teach this guy how to block off the line? i would force olson to spend an entire week working on this problem if i expected a TE to help protect our qb from damage. if seeing the obvious and asking for accountability and change for major faults that are continuously being made is micromanaging then yes, i want a micromanager. i don't feel it should have taken us an entire season to discover that moving our backers up to the LOS to fake blitzes and having them drop back wasn't working after 2 games. i don't feel watching our corners play 10 yds off the LOS every down and giving up the easy first down yardage we did takes a whole season to figure out and react to. i don't feel i needed to watch frankie O for 8-10 freaking games or MORE before deciding a change was due while your franchise qb was running for his life at the snap. and if it takes lovie this long to either get it or respond then it's long past due for him to collect his last paycheck!!

i really wasn't commenting about the bennett situation just the overall consensus of lovie's coaching attributes of staying out of an area he supposedly knows nothing about, offense. he should have stepped in when shay was his OC and moved him into a different direction overall on how the offense was being utilized with the personnel he had on the team. same goes for when turner came into town. if lovie did not understand there were fundamental problems with our offensive line over the last 2 years or look at the game film and determine that frankie O plain flat out sucked at LG or that greg olson was whiffing on blocks at every opportunity and did not give turner some input then that is a major problem for a HC. referring back to the bennett situation... i really can't say without looking at film whether bennett should have been given an opportunity to start or not. although i will say that whether he had the entire system down during the season, or not, lovie should have stepped in and told turner to dumb down some plays to give bennett some real game experience just to see what kind of a 1st day player they drafted and project how he WOULD play when he did have the system worked out. it is only common sense that you want to at least see the potential of key young players before the season ends so you can determine how to proceed the following offseason. it's lovies job to see that all aspects of his team are working at maximum capacity including special teams and offense whether that is his specialty or not.

i agree. whether a head coach is offensively or defensively minded is of no consequence. good ones are able to work with their coordinators on both sides of the ball and give input especially if the problems are as plain as the nose on your face. even if they have little to do with the intricate parts of a game plan they have to have a grasp of the overall picture and if one aspect of your teams play is continually bad you have to know enough to do something about it. for lovie to have no input on offense because it is not his forte' is ridiculous. does not a defensive guru/coordinator not understand how an offense at least generally works in order to implement a successful defensive scheme week to week? if things are not working it is his duty to find out why and correct the problem if possible working with his GM. if the coaching staff is lacking to find another or bring in players that will make the system work.

this is what our glorious GM has drafted in his tenure in chicago: 3 QB's - rds 1, 4, and 5 10 OL - 2 OT's rd 1, 2 OT's rd 7; 1 OG rd 3, 1 OG rd 4, 1 OG rd 6, 3 OG rd 7 3 RB's - rds 1,2,3 1 FB - rd 6 11 WR's - 2 rd 2, 3 rd 3, 4 rd 5, 1 rd 6, 2 rd 7 3 TE's - 1 rd 1, 1 rd 5, 1 rd 6 7 DE's - 1 rd 1, 1 rd 2, 1 rd 3. 2 rd 4, 1 rd 5, 1 rd 7 6 DT's - 1 rd 1, 1 rd 2, 2 rd 3, 1 rd 4, 1 rd 5 8 LB's - 2 rd 3, 2 rd 4, 1 rd 5, 1 rd 6, 2 rd 7 15 DB's - 7 S's - 1 rd 2, 2 rd 4, 2 rd 5, 2 rd 6 8 CB's - 1 rd 2, 1 rd 3, 2 rd 4, 2 rd 5, 2 rd 7 1st round: he has traded out of or down in 50% of his entire round 1 drafts. he has picked 2 no-brainer picks in this round. one being tommy harris who along with vince wilfork (NE) were the first defensive linemen picked that year and greg olson who dropped to our slot. olsen is now regarded as not even worth the pick we made on him. that leaves one potential head case, tommy harris, as a starter along with an unknown in chris harris in nine freakin years. 2nd round: we traded out of this round once and over NINE years we have a #2 CB in tillman as a quality 2nd tier starter and he was picked SEVEN years ago. 3rd round: we have made 11 picks in this round and have given up one pick in 2005. we have ONE quality starter in briggs who was drafted SEVEN years ago. that record accumulated by angelo is not just pathetic it is criminal. first day picks are the meat and bone of your franchise and our bones are being picked over by vultures. if smith has had anything to do with our drafts it compounds HIS complete incompetence and makes keeping him on even more ludicrous if that is humanly possible.

the problem with this scenario is that most/many of our problems are related to our CB's abilities to play up in bump and run coverage even in this tampa zone system which requires it (within their zone). what has happened in the past is our corners are playing off the WR by 5 yards at the snap and then backpeddling another 3-5+ yards. this gives every receiver nearly a ten yard free zone that they can just push the bubble back and curl for an easy untouched reception time and time again with a quick 1-3 step drop and fire by opposing qb's. this bubble also leads to the many slants we have seen for easy 5-10 yard receptions as the corner is always trailing the receiver a step or two by the time he reacts and many times our middle linebacker has been cleared out up the middle covering a deep zone. last season we did play our corners up more but usually with the same results as they never got the chuck off the LOS and/or the coverage was so soft and our corners so slow to react (due to quality?) that all receivers remained untouched after 5 yds to run whatever route they wanted. having poor safeties compounded this disadvantage especially when our FS's were playing centerfield so deep trying to contain the long ball before they committed. in my opinion this failure falls directly on our coaches who never figured a counter for this and kept running their defensive schemes the same way year in and year out. we had to be nearly the easiest team in the entire nfl to game plan for. that said, i believe that us getting rid of alex brown to save a buck, if that is their purpose, is flat out ridiculous. although he is not a very good RDE, in my opinion he is our best DE with ogy gone to compliment pepper man ESPECIALLY if he can covert to LDE. it makes no sense to me to weaken further what you have in an already weak defense to pay for the only improvement you made on defense this offseason. also i'm not so sure that with bad corners an 'average' free safety aquisition really make as much of a difference in this lovie scheme as alex brown would at this particular time. it seems to me that it sets the stage for a lot of running plays and rollouts to whatever side pepper is not lining up on.

i can only make a determination on what the players on the field actually do gameday. 1. are we set at strong safety? it is an unknown to me if any currently on this roster would even be average let alone good. is it possible one might develop? sure. but is there talk right now of danniel manning being moved to SS? we have rotated payne, afalava, manning, and steltz not counting the others in the past we have gotten rid of. at this position we really have not a single solid player we could call more than depth at this position. if we were to put any safety on this team on the market for a trade how much would we expect to be compensated for it? if it was less than even a third or fourth round pick i would not call that success in fielding a quality ball player. 2. one defensive end possibly but that brings to question of alex brown. i like the guy but in reality a 6 sack average a year RDE is not a quality starter. good depth but not a quality starter. there was no real thought that i have heard that we were going to resign an aging ogy so that left anderson who has done nearly nothing since his rookie year. if we moved a. brown to the left side and he continued to play as well over there as on the right then yes, that is average or a bit above for a LDE and our need would be as you say 1 DE. if not then in my opinion we need/ed 2 defensive ends. again we only have potential on a player on the second half of his career. 3. OL: in my opinion the only real spot we have filled is our LT position by c. williams and even that is not set in stone without more playing time. both guards need to be replaced. our center is on the downward spiral and needs replacement in the near future. i don't see beekman as a top can't miss candidate if he can't even break into the lineup at guard where we were desperate for warm bodies over the last couple years after he has been on our roster for 3+ years. if his play can't beat out frank o at left guard it really makes it doubtful for me he can become that potential all-pro candidate to replace kreutz. at RT we again are only speculating that shaeffer or frank 0 will actually turn out even average. our entire OL is running strictly on potential. the potential to be good/average or the potential to get our franchise qb killed. this is where failure in the draft to prepare a good+ quality replacement falls on our gm's shaky shoulders.

pretend it's black and white? yet again you either don't know what you are talking about in regards to my posts or are throwing out another red herring. SHOW me the posts i have made that states anywhere that i stated my beliefs or theories on this subject are remotely >>"absolute fact" what i HAVE shown are models that any 'competent' money manager could easily use to pay out the large bonus money AND salary to players strickly from money received from the NFL in salary cap allotments. thus for anyone to state with authority or "absolute fact" that these large bonus payments or salaries to players somehow 'proves' the owners are not cheap is plain flatout ridiculous. http://www.talkbears.com/forums/index.php?...amp;#entry73524 again with your "I believe I recall you some time back saying...". instead of throwing incorrect statements or memory damaged assumptions against the wall and hoping they stick why don't you go back and look up these instances of what i really said or didn't say. in other words, SHOW me where i said this. props to ownership? credit here where it is due? 1. do you believe we have a 21st century quality president of football operations in this franchise? wouldn't it be this persons responsibility to oversee his GM, his scouting department, and the overall quality of the draft (that is the muscle and bone of every franchises health. yet it appears that management doesn't even SEE a problem in this area or just doesn't care)? or don't you believe that having professional management in this capacity is even necessary? 2. do you believe that our GM is capable of bringing this team to a higher level of quality through the draft and is the health of our franchise in jeopardy or not due to lack of drafted talent over the last EIGHT YEARS? i have stated in the past and will state it again, you CAN'T build a great team by free agents alone. it is just too expensive to do in this cap era. you HAVE to be able to draft players well especially in the first three rounds. are you happy with our GM's scouting department and the results they have shown on draft day? does it concern you that we fired our pro scout a month + ago and have not replaced him yet all of our draft scouts are still in place? here is a list of all the needs we have/had prior to free agency: 2 CB's, 2 S's, 1-2 DT's, 1-2 DE's, 4 OL, 1 RB and possibly WR's. also, in my opinion, you can throw in at least one LB to replace url who is on the definate downside of his career and who really knows what pisa is or isn't. only that our coaching staff believes he is better than any LB's currently on our roster behind him. that is near if not more than half of our entire starting players. do you believe our coaches deserved to be retained due to the quality of how well our team was being coached not only during the regular season but in training camp etc.? isn't it the GM's job to determine whether they get fired or not especially since he is the only person in our entire management capable of making a supposed educated decision to do so? 3. do you believe our coaching staff did even an average job of coaching at gametime? how would their gametime adjustments rank in your opinion? how well were our players prepared on gameday? how well in your estimation has our coaching staff brought along drafted talent and made better players out of our veterans? do you believe our team is prepared for the regular season at the end of training camp? so... if you answered no to most of the questions above why would you retain your president, GM, coaching staff? why didn't we get rid of ted the head? why wasn't angelo fired? what was the reason lovie and company weren't fired? was it because it would cost so much money to pay his salary or was it because our GM, our president, and the owners thought that lovie did a great job last season? how much does this decision hurt our franchises health? if you are not sold on our coaching staff you have put this franchise at a minimum 2 year disadvantage. PLUS we have lost out on at least one excellent coach replacement in shanny. if you were a cowher candidate we have in all probability thrown that out the window also. in truth, you don't believe that keeping the personnel above was solely a decision made in regards to dollars and cents? what other reason could it possibly be other than the owners complete and utter incompetence, ignorance and stupidity? in my opinion it is and was a money decision and it cost us a once in a decade or MORE coaching staff that could have propelled this franchise into the future for the next 8-10 years in bill cowher and mike shannahan. it cost us a good director of football operations as president in mike holmgren and whoever he decided was the best fit as a gm to run this franchise. finally... there is NO free agent player out there that can compare or compensate for the failure to address this franchise's long haul overall health by hiring key personnel to manage and run this franchise.

do i need to write the facts in my signature so you can read it at least once a day or beg the admins on here to put it in a sticky specifically for you before you finally get it instead of you retreading the same wrong BS month after month, year after year? i have stated this for you at least a dozen times over the years... there can be factors >>>>>>>>>>>>>BESIDES so once again for the umteenth time.... ALL salary is paid for within the salary cap. the exception MAY, i repeat, MAY happen during ONE uncapped strike year scenario per decade (this season isn't even close to being accounted for one way or the other by the bear franchise at this particular time). player salary and bonus money is NOT necessarily a determining factor on the cheapness, or not, of a franchise.

my bologna has a first name, it's J-E-R-R-Y.....