Lucky Luciano

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.....

you could be right. angelo is in the market for a goalie.

i think it was a different 'type' of pad he was referring to.

the stuff that comes out of our GM's mouth is simply mindboggling. it "behooves" them to keep a player because we "paid him his money" already? what the hell does that mean? this is vashers 7th year in the nfl. he should have been healed from any injury he suffered in 2007 last season if it was going to happen. does his play warrant even a backup slot on your roster and especially at nearly $3 mil against the cap with what we witnessed on the field? at this point in his career i can't even see potential anymore yet we not only pay out that kind of money but have to keep a spot on our roster and cut someone else to keep him. if he thinks vasher played "OK" from what he saw then why did our coaching staff keep him on the bench even when we were desperate for corner play? is that a dig on lovie and his ship of fools?

he looked OK to you? vasher has a base salary of $2.95 million in 2010. not bad for someone how far down the list from a starting position at CB? yup angie, it is business as usual.

i agree. i don't understand anyone saying peanut is undersized for a safety. in fact he is pro-typical. even to argue he needs more weight, to put on 5-10 lbs for someone who is 6'1" is nothing. 1. peanut has good to very good speed for a FS vs. average at BEST for a corner. his biggest weakness is playing man off the LOS with quicker faster corners. playing free safety eliminates that problem. he is already playing back and instead of him backpeddling 5-10 yds every snap he is in position to start with and moving forward instead of back. it should give him a lot more time to react to the qb's/wr's which in turn should increase his interceptions and his chances at stripping the ball (which he excels at) increases. 2. it's said he won't be able to take the physical abuse. i disagree. in the tampa/lovie cover 2 a corner plays a lot of run defense off the ends. it's in his job description and peanut does a lot of it. as a free safety this limits a lot of the rb/fb/te tackles near the LOS he normally has to make including taking on some TE, FB and even offensive linemen BLOCKS which saves a lot of wear and tear on his body. he also is usually not making the initial contact taking on these bigger players. it stands to reason tackling WR's in open space is less wear and tear on your body over your career. 3. instead of shortening his career, playing FS should increase his years in the league as per #2 above. he should be able to play a very productive 3-5 years at FS and do it very well. let's face it, when a player hits 30 he loses more speed every year. at FS he doesn't have nearly the problem with speed as he does at playing corner especially when peanut would be considered having very good speed for a FS at his size. look how well mike brown played FS and consider his speed vs peanuts. peanut is also a very smart player which again makes this move superb. 4. some say we should keep him at CB because he is our best corner. i totally disagree. why would you want a player to play a position he is average at at best rather than play one he could excel in or at the least haver real potential to be better at than where he is? it makes no sense. it would be like taking a pro-bowl caliber DE and playing him at nose tackle because he would be better than the nose tackle you currently have. you just dumbed down TWO positions instead of one!! below are some FS's/safeties for comparison: CHARLES TILLMAN - 61" - 198 - 29 years old FS nick collins - packers - 5'11" - 207 FS michael griffin - titans - 6.0' 202 FS ed reed - ravens - 5'11" - 200 FS kerry rhodes - jets - 6'3" - 214 FS ryan clark - steelers - 5'11" - 205 brian dawkins - eagles - 6'0" - 210 rod woodson - 6'0" - 205 ronnie lott - 6'0" - 203

1. believe me, there is a reason certain candidates initially get paid lots more than others. by your set standard of lowballing unknown candidates you exclude every and all real top notch candidates, PERIOD. this seems what you are happy with... the unproven bottom of the barrel candidates we always hire and hope we find lightning in a bottle. if this is right then why do you even complain about the lovies and jaurons. it should be standard procedure for your way to run a franchise and business. i will have to get back with you on the articles for lovies and angelo's salaries as i am out of town. i gave them to you or others in the past but obviously you seem to have forgotten. you could try doing some research yourself, it's not that hard, and post it on here. 2. as far as his current salary... yes i believe he IS making a high salary at this point. but again you and others always seem to fail to take into account that time is money and interest on money you do or don't get is income or lack thereof. so money promised in the future is worth less than if you got it today. so add the average to this equasion and what do you get?

i agree. although in my opinion it is STILL the standard M.O. that it was in the past people don't seem to see the light even when it's shining in their collective eyes. 1. people point to lovie as an example of how we have changed and pay our employees above standard. it is not true if you look closely at how we operate. we lowball the initial candidates, per lovie who was one of the lowest paid HC's in the entire nfl (the same can be said with angie), and in the same breath HAVE to lowball his assistants otherwise they would make more than the HC/GM. if the HC performs even reasonably well we then give him a raise and extension. in the meantime the costs of coaching salaries has risen over the years our coaches were getting paid a pittance. this in itself dumbs down the amount of the raise. so you have to average the salaries these coaches get over their entire tenure in chicago which gives you the true salary base of what you pay your employees. it's an old business accounting trick that makes you seem like you are really in the upper echelon in salary scale when at best you are average or below when enticing current/future employees. 2. again and yet again i will point out that the nfl pays ALL salaries and bonus's out of the salary cap allotment. the difference would be to be considered SUPER cheap like bidwell in arizona was some time ago when he basically was at or below the minimum that the nfl agreement forced teams to pay out in salary. what you pay players in salary and bonus's means nearly nothing in considering the owners of any franchise being considered cheap or not unless they pull the bidwell trick to it's fullest extent. finally... unless you as a president and GM are complete morons (not only in nfl football operations but even in accounting) by threatening the HC with termination upon set conditions because he is a failure (and if you expect to hire good new assistants to work with him after firing the previous ones) YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY THEM MORE MONEY than you normally might have to pay assistants whose job security is not a factor!!! it's basic common sense!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to lowball anyone when the candidates hold the trump cards is plain out ridiculous yet again we plod on with business as usual for this cheap arced franchise run by fools.

ask butkus about former bear medical staffs. seems like a pattern.

i am sure this is what you were referring to but just to clarify a bit of history: plank's career lasted from 1975 through 1982 so not involved realistically with the superbowl team. a fair to good team during his era but not great. you are correct though that he was a buddy ryan coached player and was one of the most feared hard hitting safeties in the entire nfl during the 70's. this was doug plank during his career... super hard hitting safety who led with his helmet a lot and played like a madman. he would literally try to run through a player and put a hurt on them. plank hit like a ton of bricks but did not wrap up the player or was a very good tackler. they usually fell over at impact but if not they went by him and this is where gary fencik came in as a perfect compliment to plank. fencik was one of the best open field tacklers (and blitzers also) i have ever seen play. if plank didn't knock em down fencik would make the sure tackle. it was a fantastic combo to watch. as far as rivera and buddy ryan... rivera was a rookie in '85. buddy had not much use for rookies and if i remember right rivera hated buddy ryan and mentioned this later in his career and coaching life. how much he learned about coaching from buddy in that one season i don't know but it was a pretty short time and if he did learn a lot ryan must have really put a lasting impression on him. most of rivera's career came under tobin who was maybe the luckiest knucklehead to ever fall into a good thing and not completely destroy it (although he tried). he will always be fondly remembered by me for trying to take an attack defense that was the best in the nfl and turn them into a "read and react" defense. wat an idiot.

here is the problem we face doing this... we have virtually wasted, yes WASTED, 1-3 years by keeping our president, GM, and head coach in place. unless the mccaskey's really truly believe that lovie will win us a superbowl in the next 2 or 3 years they are just hurting the franchise in a big way. even if they do think this the case then their judgment is in serious question. people want to talk about the lockout year and how it's smart to keep the people in charge during this turmoil. i say it's a fantastic mistake doing so. with new key people in charge we are years ahead of turning this franchise around. they would have found their future HC this year, they could have retooled their scouting department and by the time the lockout year was over we would be ready to contend for a superbowl with our coaching staff set, our offensive and defensive schemes learned and familiar with by our players. everyone would be ready to hit the ground running. as it stands it will take at least 2 years in a new system to be real contenders in the playoffs to get into the superbowl so where does that leave us now? in the same boat we had keeping dick jauron or wanny for that extra year.

i'm not being facetious when i ask this... who on the colts or saints is a realistic candidate for either coordinator position in chicago? how do these supposed SB coaching candidates compare in quality to the names that were thrown out here like fewell, zampese, jackson, or chud? it seems we blew off chud (a pregnant wife is near meaningless when the stakes are this high) and we certainly have blown off zampese. we supposedly lost jackson to the oakland raiders which in itself is mindboggling and now even lowly martz is rumored to have lost interest. quite frankly tice may or may not have been a good hire as line coach but realistically does he qualify as offensive coordinator material? what i have read on this board is his forte' is running game smashmouth football? if so how can that possibly be a good piece of the missing puzzle to our offense after giving up the moon for an elite qb? and doug plank for DC? whether that works or not it is a serious gamble to put a failing defense into someone with so little experiences hands and expect miracles especially when our HC is tying his hands to start with. he wouldn't have the experience to even tell lovie to FO if he wanted to.

maybe he likes airplane rides. you ever think of that?

i just don't understand what their thinking is on stuff like this. lovie seems to protect his players to a fault yet when he needs to do so legitimately this 'possibility' comes up of failing miserably to protect a young players psyche. mindboggling.

agreed. in fact is not reporting, if they knew, a serious disservice to forte? he took a lot of heat from the media and people questioning his abilities. not good for only a 2nd year players confidence.

whatever. yawwwwn... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

could be age is becoming a factor in 2008 till now although he made the pro-bowl in 2008. in 2009 the pack changed his position by going with the 3-4 plus his season ending injury in wk 11. still at 9.5 sks a season, 2008, for a LDE is a good prospect in my book as it's over a 50% advantage over ogys 6. it would all depend upon the injury and how it plays out.