Lucky Luciano

i just don't believe that our corners are good enough to play man coverage with any consistancy no matter what scheme they are in. i don't know how anyone can say that after seeing them actually play up and get beat time and again. it has been tried and failed. if the talent really is there, can you name a single DB on our defense that another team would give us a first round pick for? or even a 2nd round pick? a 3rd? how can i explain us playing off slower receivers? that i can't and it does fall on our coaches whether they don't have the confidence to play anyone up or just plain never practice doing so. believe me i am not defending our coaching staff but still have to call it like i see it and that is lack of real talent at these positions. next... i certainly don't understand your thinking that a corner wouldn't be happy in a cover 2 like we run. just for curiosities sake, don't you think we play man coverage of some sort nearly every time we blitz? last season we were one of the top blitzing teams in the nfl. plus, even you conceded that we only play the cover 2 in the 'area' of 40% of the time. what are we playing the other 60+%? how could drastically improving our pass defense be a waste of money? it is the weakest link in a defense that has gotten shelled by even BAD quarterbacks!!! it is the main 'DEFENSIVE' reason we will not sniff a superbowl win in the near future in my opinion. as far as free agents unwilling to come here... remember p. daniels? moose - this is the place where "wide receivers go to die"? remember tait? wale? t. washington? k. traylor? r. brown? finally, you ask if our coaches would utilize great talent if they had it? i believe they would. they would have to be completely stupid to stand on that tight rope without a net. if not then they are just taking up space in chicago until they are eventually fired and we have no hope until they are distant memories. in that case our new coaches next season will have a real threat in house for our pass defense.

i'm not sure i understand your reasoning. you concede that if we had an all-pro defensive line we couldn't stop these quick 8 yard passes to TE's. with that i agree (although most of these passes are to the wr's rather than TE's). there is a reason why we are so open on these plays and why they consistantly work. it's because our corners are playing so soft that these zones are always open. we are basically playing in a deep prevent with our DB's. so no matter how good your DL is they just don't have a chance to get to the qb before he releases the ball into these cleared out zones for uncontested receptions. how do you counter this? by having corners GOOD enough to play up and tight taking away these empty zones for 5-10 yard receptions!! so i disagree that it's not the players. we have no talent at safety, especially at free safety, and average/poor talent at corner. not a single cb on this team is good enough to play man up on the LOS without getting beat by more than 3/4's of the receivers in the entire nfl and there is no safety help to compensate for their lack of talent. "getting back to where we were" as you say is not a solution because we were bad defending the pass then also!! picking up this free agent cb from oakland brings respectability to our defensive backfield. we now can, if they are smart enough, move tillman or even try out vasher at free safety, a position we need desperately. this gives us good to great players at 2 positions that are the weakest links on our defense. this takes away that short passing give-a-way, not to mention deep passing attacks, and gives our DL time to reach the qb in passing situations. it free's up our free safety to give help and support to our #2 CB, free's up linebackers if the front four are putting pressure on qb's by not blitzing (thus helping our run defense), and also opens up our strong safety to move in the zones either in run support or defending the short zone passes with our LB's. ADD to this the real depth we now have in nickle and dime packages and gives teeth to any blitz packages we run. how can we afford this high priced player and still get a FA offensive guy? last season alone we tied up $7-8? million dollars on a practice squad quality cornerback which now rolls over into this season. so that takes a lot of heat off the intitial bonus money giving us still enough to bring in a top offensive free agent whether it's a wide receiver or offensive lineman. it also opens up our draft to get whatever first day players we want. if we want another wideout we can go for him. if we want to draft offensive linemen no problem there. we could even look at a safety, strongside linebacker or a replacement for url. this would be critical for the health of our franchises future which you agree needs to be built around the draft.

WOW, my mistake. i don't follow the raiders at all and i was obviously reading dated material. al davis really IS nuts. well i guess that opens up a whole new train of thought on whether the raiders can afford to give him a big contract.

huh??? are you saying hall isn't worth it or asomugha? if you mean asomugha i disagree. we fill 2 positions on defense with one high end contract and an excellent cover corner helps our defense more than any other type of player against the pass happy nfl.

this is the #1 free agent i go for this offseason. since ASHKUM BEAR brought this guys attention to the board i have argued that this is the premier free agent that will help our entire team for the same reasons i argued for charles woodson 3-4 years ago. so angie gets a redo if he is even reasonably smart. asomugha is an unrestricted free agent and the only way the raiders can hope to keep him is either offer him a huge contract or franchise him for BIG money. although it's hard to outguess a quite mad al davis, in a sane world i say they can't afford to do either. the raiders need some serious upgrades to personnel and tying that much money up for a pair of all-pro corners would not help them. they just aquired d. hall last season for a huge *contract and couldn't cut him if they wanted to. if angie offered similar to what hall got we could still get another premium FA (WR or OT) if we wanted to. our team would immediately be better next season especially if this marinelli is half the dog all claim. a cover corner would give our d-line added time to get to the qb not to mention we would have either tillman or possibly vasher move over to FS. a double win situation get it done ANGELO!!! *A source told ESPN's Chris Mortensen that the deal is for seven years and worth $70 million. The amount of guaranteed money and bonuses in the contract have not been finalized. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3300199

1. just what are the parameters of the original question "Which would you rather have after 2 years, and why?"? to me that says after 2 years in chicago which type of receiver would you "rather" have with the stats provided. if you picked #1 you have a deep threat wide receiver in chicago in 2 years with the information provided. if you picked #2 you have a possession receiver in chicago with the information provided. seems pretty simple to me or you'd go nuts figuring out how X receiver (wherever he comes from) with X linemen and X qb from chicago would PROJECT to be stats wise don't ya think?? otherwise you could say anything about the receiver in question. he could be from a team with the poorest offense in the nfl or he could be one from the best. to top that off, maybe orton will play like john elway this coming season too. quiji board time. as far as grossman... what does he have to do with anything? are we now going to go back and determine whether it was grossman or the OL's fault for each and every sack? sure they sent the dogs because we had no running game, ONE average + receiver and a qb who was one of the worst qb in the pocket i have ever seen to go along with a consistent 3rd and long. incidently our stats for sacks allowed went from 22nd in 2007 to 12th best in 2008. 1. well which is it? you state you now believe hester is a deep threat receiver and later “view him as a slot guy”. plus, even you won't admit hester is even worthy of being our #2 receiver!!! being a #3 or lower receiver surely is not being a serious every down threat no matter what type of receiver you are considered in my book. 2. when have i ever argued any receiver on this entire team is even average let alone better than “nothing”? whether good, bad, or otherwise there is not a single deep threat POSSIBILITY on our entire squad other than the receiver you believe would be a slot receiver. i’m sorry but your recollection or reasoning is faulty. gault had world class speed and WAS specifically used in most instances as a receiver who burned it to pull the defensive backs with him in coverage defending the long ball (opening up our running game AND our short passing attack). in ’85 gault was the top receiver but with only 700 of the 3303 receiving yards for the entire season. our runningbacks, combined, had more rec. yards than gault!! for crying out loud, he ran poor routes and had average, AT BEST, hands and never in his career had a 1000 yd season. why else would they have put him on the field? note... aren’t we talking about a receiver who is projecting to be far BETTER than gault in this discussion anyway?? TJ over johnson in his prime? all i can say is, wow. TJ may be a very good receiver but johnson is a 5 time pro-bowl, 3 time all-pro receiver who racked up SIX straight thousand plus yard seasons!! to me that’s franchise quality. i am really confused. now you only want to debate what ‘our’ coaching staff/gm believes? they believed last season all these receivers were good enough to not only play in chicago but start. they believed our current roster of offensive linemen were just dandy to start the 2008 season etc. etc. etc. whatever orton’s accuracy is or isn’t i do believe he has a solid arm. “just for the record”, you don’t? i also believe orton CAN improve on his deep ball as it is just a matter of timing between him and his receivers (or lack thereof). you know i find it amazing that you and others are looking at orton as if he were a grizzled veteran starter and what you see is what you get. this guy has started ONE season in his entire career. in that time, and especially before he injured his ankle, the guy has shown some real promise especially considering he is playing behind an atrocious run blocking offensive line, an average pass blocking line, has not a single #1 receiver (or #2 for that matter), and relied nearly entirely on our TE’s for his passing attack and had a defense that opponents racked up serious riding time and points. am i saying he is great at this point in his career? of course not!! but i will say he does have potential at this point in his career to become a good to very good + ball player. does that mean i bet the farm he progresses into that player and do nothing at that position in our future like angie did with grossman? HELL no. do you also believe our TE’s suck? do you also believe our passing game to our RB’s sucks also? look... i agree our receiving corp is bad. but in my estimation we have in our TE’s very good possession type receivers and need someone who has the ‘ability’ to clear out the zones and stretch the field. i just don’t get your reasoning. in one breath you say it’s “a building process” with this team, and in the next you base your assumptions on our team being in stasis for the next 2 years. you think just because a receiver is a deep threat type of player that that is ALL he does is run downfield on post routes with lightning speed? that is nonsense. you don’t even NEED supersonic speed to be a deep threat. for crying out loud do you think moss is fast? or owens? or for that matter jerry rice??? all three of those mentioned are/were serious deep threat receivers and ran a 4.5 or worse 40!!! what are you talking about? so WHAT if he had more catches. who CARES if the yardage is close. the point is a possession type receiver is NOT a deep threat receiver who stretches the field and pulls more defenders from underneath to cover him. haven’t you SEEN enough our offense to make a determination? why don’t you think there was much YAC for our receivers? why don’t you think our running game was as good as it could have been without 8-9 men in the box? with a true deep threat wideout, what do you think our #2 wide receiver is making in yards? or our TE’s yardage, our RB’s passing yards, our RB’s running yards and what do you get? a better offense, that’s what!! big deal? how many deep threat +1000 yrd receivers have we had in chicago over the last 10 years? if you said TWO you win a cigar. know who and when? 1999 robinson – 1400 yds – s. matthews 2001 – booker – 1070 yds – j. miller 2002 – booker – 1189 yds – j. miller that’s SIX freakin years since we had any receiver go over 1000 yards. by the way, which of those qb’s do YOU consider to have a strong arm and great deep ball? 1. are we now talking about what old receivers are considered today? the last i heard we were comparing which TYPE of receiver you would want in chicago. 2. when did i ever say 18+ yards or whatever qualifies a receiver to be a deep threat? that is YOUR reasoning not mine. i have to add... if you don’t think ward OR mason were/are deep threat receivers you are just plain wrong. as far as booker? yea i think i would call him a deep threat type receiver in his prime. franchise player good? no. you know, i don’t recall i ever said that TJ wasn’t a deep threat type of receiver. what i DID say is i would take a johnson type of franchise caliber receiver rather than TJ. in their prime. why? because he was better at it. he had more tools than TJ. could TJ be considered a deep threat receiver today? even if you think he was/is a possession type receiver i would probably answer yes. would i still take johnson in his prime? yes. 3. again... you are taking what i stated out of context. show me where i EVER stated a deep threat wideout needs “elite” speed to be one. finally... just what is a possession type receiver in your estimation? i’m not sure you know. when i think of one, i think of a tom waddle type receiver. someone with good hands that plays a lot over the middle and can take a big hit and still hang on to the ball. someone who can catch the ball in traffic for first downs with linebackers and safeties sniffing him. basically in a 10 yard zone from the LOS who adds up yardage with consistency. rarely do you see a player of this type go more than 1000 yards in a season.

i guess you can figure it out any way you want but the fact is manning was a second round pick not a 1st round pick.

angelo's M.O. is to draft offense in the first round and defense in the second and an even mix in the third.

or maybe the colts? between him and sanders they should see a full season.

1. to me a thousand yard deep threat receiver far outweighs a possession type receiver and especially in our offense. it only stands to reason if we had a deep threat wideout with over a thousand yard season that our other aspects of a passing game are also going to get a lot more work underneath with MORE success. defenses aren't going to be playing entirely in a 10 yard zone defending our passing game, where not only are our receivers bunched up, in but also our good receiving TE's. again, this scenario listed is pretty sketchy without any details, but i have to assume this guy has speed to be a deep threat along with some decent hands. we already have an entire receiving corp who are SUPPOSED to be possession type receivers with the exception of hester. most people, including yourself, consider hester barely a #2 let alone a #1. 2. i think you could even look at the 85 bears as a prime example. we had gault as a stretch receiver. in my opinion he wasn't that good of a receiver, BUT... what he DID do was extend the field to give our possession receivers, TE's, RB's a lot more room to make plays. he had to be accounted for because he had the speed to break the game open. i guess it would come down to this... if you had a choice for a wide receiver in his prime, would you choose chad johnson or housawhatever? a moss or burlson? me i take a johnson or moss deep threat without even blinking. first of all i am not even sold that hester is even #2 quality at this point in his career. but even considering if you do, how many post or go routes has hester been successful at? is it orton (the egg) or hester (the chicken)? the fact is he has done much better on slants and curls getting his yards after catch. i can only assume a legitimate deep threat is going to improve our passing attack by making those thousand yard + seasons in this scenario. i would also like to answer your 1st down pickup point. isn't that what our possession receivers, TE's and runningbacks are supposed to do? right now all our receivers have the same M.O. again you want to build an entire team before picking up any key players. that is fine and good but does this mean we pass on real prospects until we have an all-pro offensive line? in fact, our OL has been much better at pass protection than run blocking. i can only assume (right angie?) our first round tackle improves that since that is what he was projected to excel at. is that to say we don't need improvement? a-b-s-o-l-t-e-l-y not!!! this whole model scenario is based on the production that was initially listed at the start of this thread so how can i or anyone converse about this without the assumption the receiver we got actually put up the numbers stated initially? again, you are assuming hester either IS or will become a #1 wideout so you have decided to pass on a deep threat type receiver. this is clearly not the case as he has proved nothing yet in regards to a franchise quality receiver. yet again i will state that possession receivers are a dime a dozen compared to deep threat thousand yard wideouts. if you can get a projected thousand yard per season wideout you plain and simple do it. i have to also comment on your flawed logic in regards to mason or ward: both of these receivers are/were #1 receivers. in their prime if they garnered less than a thousand yard season they wouldn't even have been considered as a #1. they both in their prime did have reasonably good speed and WERE considered deep threats. forget flacco, mcnair certainly was a deep ball qb and if you were to tell me ward wasn't an 18+ yard threat downfield i would have to disagree with you.

i agree. although this poll lacks a lot of info such as speed/size i too take the LEGITIMATE deep threat. especially in todays nfl it is important to be able to stretch the field and get the safeties out of the box. this not only helps your #2 wideout (who SHOULD be a possession receiver with good hands) but in our case seriously helps our TE's AND running back passing options. to add to the benefit of this, our running game should improve drastically. it is also, in my opinion, MUCH harder to find a real deep threat receiver than a possession type of player.

i have to disagree with your disagreement. angie hasn't spent a FIRST DAY pick at CB in 5 years!! and that was peanut in 2003 at the #2 spot. prior to that the only first day pick he EVER drafted was roosevelt williams (CB?) in 2002 as a 3rd round pick. let's face it, while peanut and vasher's misguided payday came last year their salaries don't compare to elite CB's in the nfl today. again you and i disagree about why our corners play off the LOS. i actually can say i WATCHED peanut, vasher and all the other CB's play tight on the LOS. they were toasted nearly every play and in the past were crucified in the media for getting beat for long gains or TD's. they were getting juked at the LOS and missing even getting a hand on them resulting in follow up coverage 5+ yds in the trail because they DON'T have the speed to make it up. the only time peanut was effective was early in his career before any serious leg/knee injury when he played moss (with the vikings) tight along with the large receivers in green bay's receiving corp. since that time the nfl has changed and gone more with the s. smith/galloway type receivers which he plain CAN'T play bump and run with. even this last season we played both our corners up at times and had poor, to say the least, results. smith would be nuts to give our corners assignments that they couldn't handle. his best hope is giving up the smaller chunks of yardage to compensate for big gains and HOPE the d-line can pressure the qb. the only problem with that is our line CAN'T and we CONSISTENTLY give up chunks of yardage like this keeping our D on the field for extended periods of time because offenses have it figured out and we have NO counter. a cover corner would make this particular defense a lot harder to play against than another defensive end in my opinion. especially when we could move one corner to FS and have great depth for our nickle packages.

i agree with your assessment. although not great by any means if this marinneli hiring is half as good as many on here reports it should improve our defensive line by leaps and bounds. if not then it's going to be the same ole, same ole this season too. IF even part of angelo's brain is working at half speed he will go after that corner in oakland (can't remember his name) and offer some picks this year and next to get him. in my estimation the most improvement on defense would be to get either a killer FS who can cover OR a cover corner who CAN play bump and run. as you stated, a corner who can play tight and shut down these quick release passing attacks WILL give our d-line time to get to the qb and make a world of difference in our overall defense. it also opens up the possibility, with a cb, that one of our current corners can move to the free safety position. this gives us 2 upgrades for one price. i know some have said lovie's scheme dictates the corners play off but i still contend the REASON they do is because they can't play bump and run to get the jam at the LOS without getting toasted. this oakland guy puts that baby to bed. that leaves angie still looking for, at the LEAST, a GOOD #1 wide receiver, who i believe we could still afford to pay, after getting the corner from oakland by using the rollover cap money from last season. then we draft a first day guard and a FS. then let buenning compete for a guard/right tackle spot and give tait the heave-ho. do i have confidence our fearless leader will do this? HELL NO!!! angie probably WILL pay big bucks for another d-lineman to compliment the wasted first day picks and other free agents he has brought in and pick up a second/third tier WR in free agency to become our umteenth #2 or #3 wide out so the wr draft picks he did make can sit on the freakin bench behind the practice squad 6th and 7th round picks he gets this year and keep our 'promising' offensive line as it stands.

although i have tried to erase this era completely from memory, there is no getting around the fact that shea was a BAD offensive coordinator. someone that made what little talent we had even worse. if memory serves me right, and it might not, shea's passing game called for a lot of 4 and 5 step drops and hitting medium/deep routes... 1. the routes were more complex than the receivers experience and/or talent dictated. 2. our qb's that year had an amazing *66 sacks and 20 fumbles to go along with 16 INT's. this means we are not getting rid of the ball quick enough to compensate for our OL's poor performance. 3. i don't believe? our qb's were not allowed to change plays at the LOS no matter how the defense lined up against them. this led to our OL unable to compensate for blitzes and stunts. there also seemed to be no gametime adjustments at all. i just used this as an example. i stated in the previous post a first or even second year coach gets 'some' slack until he gets up to speed. even so, lovie surely should have had some input on this bad of an offense.

to me this is a perfect example of when a head coach should step in. in shea's instance he kept expecting these qb's to perform according to his gameplans that simply were unrealistic considering the talent. yet we saw the same mistakes over and over with no real expectations that they would get better. that is when a HC needs to sit his offensive coaches down and come up with a solution or a different method of attack. i think you could say this was a problem not only with lovie but jauron as well. jauron never reined in crowton and within 2 years he was gone and our win loss record showed it. the same could be said of shoop's 3 yards and a cloud of dust offensive schemes. it cost jauron his coaching job. a final example, and maybe more minor than the other two, would be turner's insistence of mckie punching the ball in up the middle on the goal line when it had failed a number of times in the past. it simply did not work because we not only didn't have an offensive line good enough to get the goal line push but teams were ready and waiting for it. yet turner continued to waste redzone downs trying to change the results.

maybe i'm wrong but wasn't it reported that lovie was bumping heads with rivera before he was fired? i also think it was "time to change some of that" last season when our defense was failing and was a big part in why we missed the playoffs by one game.

we are just not communicating well on this point. no i don't think a defensive oriented head coach should be required to understand an offense well enough to take over play calling duties of an OC. what i meant was he should have enough of an understanding to see faults in philosophy, game plans or adjustments made during a game and make it clear what these differences are and what direction he wants the OC to move forward in. or if he feels the OC is not performing well he should be able to understand why and replace the OC responsibly if necessary. this could also hold true to offensive position coaches.

i have to disagree somewhat on this statement. if this were lovie's first and MAYBE even his second season he might get a 'bit' of slack as far as his understanding where to turn the corner on an offense. 1. i believe that when you are designated as a head coach (and not just lovie) this throws all the exclusive departmental scenarios out the window. it is now your job to understand each individual aspect of your team as a whole and have at the least a general understanding of each individual part and be able to make cognizant decisions in how each is run and if it needs modification when/if the need arises. it is HIS job to train himself to understand these basics. am i saying he should educate himself enough to take over an offenses day to day operations and in-game strategies? probably not. should he educate himself enough to change coordinator duties if he returns to the nfl in that capacity? probably not. but he SHOULD be able to understand enough to tell his underlings that what they are doing does not fit in the scheme he requires as a head coach and suggest changes that are required to do so not only in a general sense but in actual game-time conditions. 2. i have to wonder... doesn't a defensive coordinator HAVE to have at least a basic understanding of how offenses work in order to do his job effectively? otherwise how could you prepare your defense to attack an opponents offense? on a final note: if this is not true, then if you hired a special teams coach to run your team would his only duties require only an understanding of how the special teams portion work? i would think your team would be in serious trouble if this were the case.

the statement you made about angelo hits the mark. it takes the media to crucify him after a dismal season for poor drafting and misguided priorities before he finally 'gets' it? on to lovie... just what does lovie actually do as HC? just designate his coordinators complete control and sit back on cruise control until the season is over? starting out with shay as our OC it seemed shay was in over his head with play calling. yet lovie did nothing to change the offensive foremat and as a matter of fact seemed unable to even get on the same page as shay with changes lovie said needed to occur. to say shay was out of control is an understatement. is turner now in complete charge of this teams offense without any input, changes, direction or goals set by lovie? it seems quite obvious that lovie has absolutely nothing to contribute on this side of the ball other than mouthing "we need to get off the bus running" when appropriate. on defense we see the same modus operandi. babich is in over his head and yet lovie verbally throws in his complete support without action. truth be known, is lovie's understanding of defense so shallow that he really doesn't have a clue how to fix it and is relying on babich to come up with game plans and game adjustments? at season's end lovie leads us to believe this next season will change/be different because he will now provide input as to how our defense is run? strap yourselves in people, it's gonna be a long season or two.

i have to ask... with our defense crumbling before our very eyes, why didn't lovie get "more involved" last season? i would also like to note that linebacker coach 'shouldn't' be a major concern seeing as that was lovie's JOB when he started out coaching in the nfl. makes you wonder why he would appoint babich to that position after firing the previous coach, who i can only assume, lovie didn't "get more involved" with.

this was the word on the street/press and not from our organization. they seemed to think that he was a one trick pony. i heard he was not happy with the cards organization and was vocal about it. no big deal considering the owners as far as i'm concerned. but even is he was a lockerroom problem you take your shot with a player of this quality that WANTS to be in chicago. i seriously don't think with the years of experience we had on our defensive line such as ted washington and keith traylor he would have gotten away with anything detrimental before being stomped into the turf.

first i never stated if i already had a franchise qb in his prime i would draft another first day qb (although if the quality was there in my pick i WOULD consider it). i did state i would continue to draft qb's even if i had my franchise qb in his prime like the packers did with favre. during favre’s career in gb the packers drafted: 92 – detmer rd 9 nfl starter; 93 – brunell rd 5 franchise qb; 95 – barker rd 5; 96 – wachholtz rd 7; 98 – hasselbeck rd 6 franchise qb; 99 – brooks rd 4 starter 2002 – nall rd 5; 2005 rogers rd 1 franchise qb picked to replace favre in future; 2006 martin rd 5; POST FAVRE - 2008 brohm rd 2 as far as your unwillingness to draft a player with any intent to trade him... there are exceptions to this rule and the most prominent one is the qb position. if you draft any qb, you do so because he has to ‘potential’ to at the very least become a starter in the nfl and preferably a franchise player. you DON’T do like this ignorant franchise does, and has done in the past, of drafting a qb whose greatest potential is to become a BACKUP to an existing player or just depth. this has a two-fold advantage 1. if your franchise qb has a career ending injury you have hopefully a quality, possible franchise, qb to replace him on your team who has been groomed behind an excellent player. 2. when he does show some promise as a qb, you can TRADE him for some lucrative draft picks if your franchise player is better, in his prime and healthy. then keep doing it over and over. i am screaming about a financial conspiracy? from that statement it appears you don’t believe, as i do, the decision to keep or release lovie AND angelo has anything to do with money. here are some previous posts of yours: "Even after 2009, Lovie will still have something like $10m still owed on his contract. Don't be so quick to assume we will eat the money. If we have a bomb season, I can see it. But I am not sure 7-9 (for example) gets ownership to eat $10m.” http://www.talkbears.com/forums/index.php?...amp;#entry56040 "Regarding Lovie, I said he will likely be kept on for another year. I also said the decision would be based largely on money. At the same time, my point was this is little different from what I think most owners would do. Its one thing to talk about eating a few million, but another when you are talking $15m, or whatever the amount is. I think it is a small numbers of owners who would choke that down. I think the majory would try other moves (lower level coaches and personnel) to fix things and hope the HC worked out w/ different surrounding personnel." http://www.talkbears.com/forums/index.php?...amp;#entry53299 so who you crappin? no? i believe i posted this some time ago in a discussion with you or LT3: From the Chicago Tribune Bears name Angelo GM By Don Pierson | Tribune pro football reporter 10:17 PM EDT, June 11, 2001 “The job is expected to pay in the $600,000-$750,000 a year range, the low end for a general manager but a significant increase in what any of the finalists are now earning.” 1. if any team in the entire nfl should know better than this it should be us!!! if that was not enough shouldn’t the ravens superbowl success after the 2000 season have been the period at the end of that sentence??? 2. “Chicago Sun Times – “The Patriots had been trying to trade Bledsoe since Tom Brady, a former fourth-stringer who inherited the starting job when Bledsoe was injured in Week 2 last season, led the team to an improbable 20- 17 victory against the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl on Feb. 3.” http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1437014.html just for curiosities sake, what reason don’t you think we made a play for bledsoe? they wanted a first round pick? the size of his salary? he wasn’t good enough to play in chicago? you can’t be serious. bret favre was beating our brains out and winning the division hands down, on his own hook, for how many years and we didn’t think we needed a great qb to counter that??? dick jauron’s first OC was pass happy gary crowton (99-2000)!!!!! after that even that complete idiot shoop would have been dancing in the streets to have a pro-bowl quality qb!! 1. sorry, but i just can’t believe that this franchise even considered trading up to get the #1 pick in the draft. there certainly has never been ANY indication that angie has EVER traded up in the first round for anyone or anything let alone that high!! if we had tried it would have been eventually reported in my opinion. so i don’t believe that for a minute. 2. a good gm would trade down when he thought the player on the board when he drafted was a real possibility to be a franchise quality player and especially a qb? puuullleease. he would be a complete IDIOT to do this. as far as the forte scenario? what are you talking about? do you think runningback was a top priority in that draft??? even if it had been, which is certainly wasn’t, the number one position we needed to fill to go to a superbowl and he considered forte better than the best rated rb in the draft they yea, take him. why take a chance the best runningback in the draft is gone by trying to get cute? incidentally isn’t one our biggest bitches with angie is that he DOES draft players higher than they should go? hmmmmm. (EDIT_ FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH: PFT - Forget Rex Grossman; Green Bay consultant and former G.M. Ron Wolf believed that only Carson Palmer and Kyle Boller were worthy of the Pack's first-round pick. http://archive.profootballtalk.com/5-1to5-31archive.htm when did i ever say it would be remotely easy? when did i EVER say it would be a “sure thing”?? the fact is it won’t be. does that mean we just continue on for the NEXT 40 years doing the same thing over and over? did i say we should give up “whatever it takes” to move up in the draft? no. would i give up 2 #1’s to move up to get a player that has the best possibility to become a franchise qb in a decade? yes!!!! otherwise what is the alternative? wait around until WE have the overall #1 pick in the draft and hope that player is there that particular year? the only other way is to have some top quality staff that actually knows how to recognize a franchise player in later rounds and and can teach and groom them to play in the nfl!! but until you make a commitment to hire people who can give you the best chance to bring in these type players and turn them into franchise players, i just don’t see it happening the way we are going unless by sheer blind luck, you are destined to fail. you also mention the risk is too great to the team to give up more than a #1 to go for these type players. greater than what? by keeping all of our draft picks and picking at or below our allotment (trading out) how many superbowl rings have we won doing it in 44 years? how close TODAY are we of winning a superbowl next season? come on... the top five and POSSIBLY in certain years, top 10 players in the draft are considered elite players to draft. that is why it is so expensive to trade up. from then on down it is taking the best player available with the most ‘potential’ talent and need. this was so EVEN when the league of the 60’s, 70’s and possibly part of the 80’s had a LOT less teams picking!! you can disagree all you want about where franchise talent players are picked but unless it is an exceptionally RARE year of talent that is where it shakes out. always correct? no. but if you ever see a team trading DOWN more than one spot to get in their estimation a franchise quality player you are seeing a fool of an organization. i don’t know... how often are franchise qb’s drafted? certainly not every year. certainly not even in the first round every time. what i do know is it takes very good staff personnel not only to find these gems in the first that DO show up but talented enough staff to turn the gems in the rough from later rounds INTO franchise qbs. “ignore” what? am i saying you spend every draft pick on a qb? no i think not. i am not even saying spend a first round pick every year on one if the talent doesn’t stand out. your statement about putting in place the other parts before finding the qb rings hollow. sure you build as good of a team as you can until you find your franchise player. but when you do you THEN adjust, tweak and change your team to the strengths of that player. you don’t do like we always do and force feed the players into a system that does not get the most out of the talent on your team and certainly not the key components. i think the point i was making is with a holmgren you get someone who CAN see talent and who CAN teach that talent to play successfully in the nfl. do you disagree favre is/was a great talent? would you have liked to have hassellback as the leader of our offense for the last 5 years? i sure would have. that is a pretty good body of work in my opinion. in fact i will take all of his faults if we had him as our head coach because he is better than any coach in chicago that i can remember. if you disagree name the bear head coaches since 1960 you rather would have had. parcells? same scenario. who in your opinion would be a better gm or even a coach/teacher to find or groom a player than him that we have had coaching in chicago? or a talent evaluator since finks/vanisi? and i don’t even like the guy. jerry jones... as much as i dislike this egomaniac i do have to admit he will spend money to win. he is a poor gm much like snyder is a poor owner. snyders problem has been similar to jones. they both think they know more about football operations than they really do and enjoy the limelight more than is normal for an owner. but i have to admit both want to win and are not afraid of spending money or stretching the possibilities (thinking out of the box) to do it. the pulling of gibbs out of retirement was in my opinion a great move even if it didn’t work out. same with jones parcells move. in these instances they did NOT let their ego’s stand in the way of winning and in the long run did improve their franchises chances of winning. finally, if you and the mccaskey family are happy with the methods they have employed for decades then more power to you. i personally am not and want something tangible to move forward with to bring this franchise real possibilities to win superbowls more than once every 20-30 years and at the very least bring us into the last half of the 20th century let alone the 21st.

DOUBLE POST SORRY

that is like rubbing salt in an open wound. LOL i remember when rice became a FA in 2001 and stated to the press he wanted to come to chicago and would work out a reasonable contract with them. i was drooling over the prospect that a free agent de who in his PRIME who averaged 10+ sacks a season in freakin arizona would come here. i thought it would be a sure thing. but our brain trust at the time, mark hately (i believe it wasn't angie at that time yet, 2001, but could be wrong), decided rice wasn't a good fit in chicago as he was only good at rushing the qb and not as good against the run (i believe this was their reasoning at the time to the press in chicago) so he didn't even bother talking to him. or in reality was it that rice had spoken out against the cheap cardinal management and we certainly didn't want THAT in chicago. in any case, rice went to tampa and proceeded to register double digit sacks for 5 straight years!! hmmmm.... only good at sacking the qb. which is what we needed more than anything on this defense. how good would that have looked in the playoffs that year with rice our RDE? yet another major blunder by our franchise and the pretenders they had running it.

is there something wrong with the site? i keep getting errors when trying to post and then later they show up after i try and resubmit them. in any case sorry everyone for all these multiple posts.