nfoligno

They may cut it, but I just do not like that we are not providing Forte with solid competition for the job. Sorry, but AP is not a NFL starting RB, and thus should not be deemed legit competition for the guy you hope will be.

Brutal schedule? I think our schedule was fairly weak. SD was a good team, but not very good when we played them. KC among the worst in football last year. Dal was a very good team. Phi was a .500 team, and not that good of one. Oak was the worst team in football Sea was good, not great. Den was a sub .500 team. NYJ were SB champs. Wash was average. NO was not every good, and sub .500 In our division, GB was good. Det was bad. Minny was pretty good, but we made them look great. I would not say this was a brutal schedule. I agree Bensonw as a problem, but far from the key. Even when AP carried the ball, little difference was seen. Our OL was a killer on offense, and I still say that, even w/ all the injuries, our defense played far worse than their talent. Teams w/ less talent than what we had healthy on the field did better. Let's not forget, this team was good enough to go to the SB year before last. That wasn't a fluke. THAT team was real and THIS team, if healthy is better. I don't like to say "fluke" but I am not sure how "real" that team was either. Many breaks went our way, especially on offense. Our DC from that year is gone, and IMHO, Babich was a big part of our being bad last year. On offense, OL got old fast since the SB, and we have done little more than tweak that unit. And while Forte may be good/great, the combo of TJ/Benson proved very good that SB year, and now both are gone. I am not saying the SB year was a fluke, but I am not sure how "real" it was either.

The only knock I would have w/ your analogy is this. The low level guy who is promoted is not some highly sought after individual. He is just a guy getting a promotion. You can argue a rookie is getting a promotion, but IMHO, it is on a different level. I would make this comparison. A kid graduates Harvard Law at the top of his class. He is a highly sought after individual, and is going to command far more than most any other graduate. He is also going to command more than many more seasoned attorneys. But this example also shows where the current NFL system fails. As highly touted as this player is, whatever big firm hires him, he is not going to make more than the senior partners, much less more than the best attorneys in the country. I understand top picks getting a boat load of cash. But no way that contract should come w/in spitting distance of the elite of the league.

I agree. Most fans I think agree. Most owners seem to agree. Many players are coming out saying they agree. It seems like the only ones who strongly disagrees (at least among those who have a say in the matter) are the head of the players union and the agents. I have a feeling we will see a change in the next CBA on this issue. While the head of the union may not want a change, when players are speaking out against the status quo, it seems to me change is inevitable. I see this as a bargaining chip for the union. They know change is on the horizon, but will not simply make a change w/o the owners giving up something as well. Most likely, IMHO, is the owner agree to raise the "floor" minimum spending limit, and the union agrees to restructure how top picks are paid. I do not think the entire draft will be effected, but the 1st round, particularly, the top half of the 1st round, will see a pay structure put into place. Top picks will still make more than many/most veterans, but the amount will not be so ridiculous that a top pick rookie QB will come close to the likes of Manning, Brady, etc.

I thought about Alex Smith too, but (a) he is still in the NFL, w/ the same team, and I think even set to start this year. He has not been the success they hoped for, but I guess the reason I put Vick over him is, IMHO, Vick has hurt his team far more than Alex Smith has, and Smith still has the potential to improve, while Vick only has the potential to give us a new Mean Machine movie.

The Merriweather rumor is just that. A rumor. He was spraying w/ champaign, I guess, but I question how much that has to do w/ all this. What it could be more about is money. How much did he spend on all those bottles of Dom? When you throw money around like that, you are advertising to all. I agree w/ the comments that it is not just all pure bad luck. At some point, players have to realize that when they put themselves in certain situations, the odds of something bad happening go up. I have heard so many players talk about how, when they go into a bar, too often others want to prove how tough they are by bowing up to a NFL football player. Personally, I think that is stupid as hell, but those patrons are likely drunk. Heck, isn't that what happened w/ Tank the night his friend was shot. I am not saying players need to skip the clubs and stick to late night church services, but when they live the party life, I simply would say the odds of something bad happening does go up. They need to understand this, and protect themselves.

Also why the Jets signed him. NY still believe Brickshaw Ferguson can become a very good or even great LT. Similar thoughts w/ Mangold at center. By putting Faneca between the two, the Jets believe Faneca's veteran leadership can elevate the play of their LT and C to the point of having an elite tier left side.

No question that is a lot of money, but look at the secondary positive affects he would have. (1) He would have gone a long way toward stabalizing our OL simply inserting him at LG. (2) Pairing him w/ our 1st round pick LT would (a) further improve our OL and ( help develop our rookie (3) Adding him, plus adding Williams at LT and moving Tait, would boost the OL dramatically. Further, significant improvement like this in the OL could boost the development and play of other positions. How much better might Forte look? Rex or Orton could even look good w/ the time in the pocket they would have (not to mention a run game to protect them) and this would lead to improved development and play by our young WRs We do not have an expensive QB, RB or WR on the team. Why not spend the money on an OG? Water under the bridge, but I simply can not help but wonder how much better our OL, and offense, might be this year if we had Faneca lining up between Williams and Kreutz, rather than possibly Metcalf.

PFW did a piece looking at the players drafted at each slot in the top 10 in the last 10 years, and throwing in their two cents on who the top bust was. Hey, its a slow time of the year. Drafted 10th Basically between Jamal Reynolds and Mike Williams, w/ the edge going to Reynolds. Agree w/ this. As bad as Mike Williams has been, Reynolds was worse. Reynolds was never productive, and is now all but out of football. Drafted 9th. They give it to Ted Ginn. Disagree w/ this one. While this was not a bad group of players, I simply have an issue w/ declaring a guy a bust of any sort after only his rookie year, particularly a WR in an inept offense. My vote would be reggie williams, who has been a bust at WR for Jax. Writer says the light seemed to go on for him last year, but his 38 catches puts that into question, IMHO. Ginn had 34 as a rookie, only 4 less than Williams in his 4th season, so I do not see the logic of putting Ginn over Williams. Drafted 8th Between Boston and David Terrell. They go w/ Boston, which I do not understand. No question Boston was a disappointment, but he did have two 1,000+ seasons, including a whopping 1,600 yard season. Compare that to David Terrell, who has 1,600 yards for his entire career, and has caught one ball in the last 3 years. Sorry, but I can not see how Boston is a bigger bust than Terrell. Drafted 7th Troy Williamson. Some others on the list didn't live up to expectations, but none close to the level of Williamson. Drafted 6th Between Ryan Sims, Pac Man and Johathan Sullivan. They give the edge to Sullivan. I would go w/ PacMan. No argument Sullivan was a bust, but at the same time, what PacMan put Tenn through is far worse, IMHO. Drafted 5th Enis all the way. Frankly, this is a pretty solid class. They say an argument can be made for Ricky Williams, and while he ultimately failed, four seasons over 1,000 yards, including one 1,850 yard season, removes him from the list IMHO. Drafted 4th Here's Cedric Benson. Peter Warrick comes in 2nd, but doesn't touch the bust status of Benson. the only other pick I would say is close is Dwayne Robertson, who we nearly drafted too. While he has been a "tad" more productive, I would say he is close, very close, for the fact that NYJs gave up 2 1st round picks to move up to draft him. Drafted 3rd Akili Smith. Several candidates: Harrington, Gerald Warren and Wadsworth, but Smith runs away w/ the top bust choice. Drafted 2nd Ryan Leaf, and it is not even close. Drafted 1st Can you say Michael Vick. Some might go w/ Charles Rogers, but what Vick did to destory Atlanta can not be ignored. Looking over the list, the truly sad thing is, we have two players drafted top ten who ranks as the worst busts, and IMHO, David Terrell should be a 3rd. Talk about pathetic.

That is one of my biggest issues w/ our situation at LG heading into the 2008 season. We have a rookie LT who we hope is a franchise LT. While Williams may well develop on his own, we are doing him no favors lining him up next to Metcalf (who sucks), St. Clair (who may not be awful, but is not a seasoned OG) or one of the younger OL (who are little more experienced than Williams). As great as it is to draft talent, I think you also need to support that talent. If you draft a RB w/o an OL, how well do you help his development. QB w/o WRs. DE w/o a DT. Adding Brown, if healthy, I think would not only be good in general for our OL, but good specifically to Williams development.

I agree that if the OL is improved, all aspects of the game too would improve. My question is, how much is the OL improved. No argument we upgraded at RT, but I wonder if we (short term) downgraded at LT. I know Tait was far from great last year, but at the same time, not many rookies step in and play well at LT. Most take time to develop. Then there is LG. Last year, I remember when Metcalf came in for Brown, and everyone was saying we could only improve, but that wasn't the case. So while we may be better on the right side, we may not have improved on the left, and may have even downgraded. Again, that is short term, but if we are talking about how we will be this year, short term is what we are talking about. One final point. IMHO, possibly more than any other unit, the OL is a group where players need time to form chemistry, and w/o that chemistry, players do not often look good. I have hope for our OL in the future, but I question how long before that real improvement is seen, as I think the rookie is the key, and simply feel he will take time.

Depth hell. If he is healthy, he would be our starting LG.

Recent stories, I think from coaches, question Haynes to the point of saying he was more interested in picking out furniture than learning the playbook. If he was passive in his training, then might some blame not fall on him. Haynes may not have been ideal, but other DEs who were not perfectly suited for our system did better than him. Heck, Phillip Daniels and Boone each looked better at DE than Haynes, and neither were suited for Angelo's scheme. I also do not buy that Haynes' NFL career was ended due to the way we played him. He left us and played for another team or two, and failed w/ them too. Maybe, instead of the idea we killed his career, maybe he was simply never and NFL player. Good college player who simply was never good enough for the NFL. I agree he was mis-cast in our scheme, but even a mis-cast player I think should have looked better than Haynes. He was not even good agains the run, and could not lock down a run down specialist role. Staff questioning his comittment makes a lot of sense to me. I think the bears were plenty good to him. His bank account is evidence of that. His, per the coaches, lack of committment tells me he may not have been as good to the bears as they were to him.

Response in general, more than specific. You make light, but let me tell you, I have a feeling many rookies would fail if they went to a team that shunned them. Not all, by any means. But I think many rookies enter the NFL insecure. The NFL has many programs to try and better bring in rookies so they can adapt, because it is a huge transition. Aside from Benson, I have heard many stories of how a rookie came in, and found a leader at his position basically turn his back. I think this most often (at least reported) would be seen at QB. You have a veteran QB who is not happy a rookie QB was drafted. Many veteran QBs have the character to mentor the kid, but there have also been plenty who were flat out jerks to the kid. Think about the effect. The veteran gets all the other veterans on his side, and the rookie finds few friends on the team. Now throw this in there. The rookie was a high pick, and the veteran, who the players view as they best chance to win with, finds himself riding the pine for this unproven kid. That is a tough situation, and one in which I too would point the finger at the veterans. What has always killed me in all this is, TJ was once Benson. TJ was once the high pick in AZ who was not always the most popular. The team seemed to do better w/ the veteran Pittman, but the staff kept trying to push TJ into the mix. He flat out failed. But he was in the same situation, and IMHO, learned little. When he came to Chicago, he took on the role of Pittman, and also took on the role of the veteran who would do little to help the young prospect. That is bad enough normally, but I always thought worse for TJ, who was once in Benson's shoes, and should have better understood.

And I think you may be missing my point. For the situation of Benson, specific, I can understand much. My issue is a slippery slope one. I have seen the argument that players play the game. Players felt TJ was better, so there is no problem knocking the crap out of the guy they feel the staff is trying to promote over TJ. Fans are writing it off due to dislike of Benson, but I think that is a mistake. You talk about respect and work habbits. All that is fine and good, but respect is often as much about what they do in a game as it is in practice. If a guy sucks in practice but owns the games, I have a feeling the other players will like him. If a player works hard in practice, but sucks in games, players may respect him, but that doesn't mean they want him to start. I mention Brown and Rex in a slipperly slope contention. It may not be a direct match for this situation, but I think it is a next logical progression. At the end of the day, I really do not have a problem with an individual giving a little extra. What I do have an issue w/ is when the individual gathers other individuals and gangs up. Look, this really is a loser argument. In order to argue against the actions, you have to sort of stand on the side of Benson and against players like Brown and Urlacher. That is near impossible right now. But as wrong as Benson may have been in many regards, I simply feel it also wrong to handle it the way our defensive players REPORTEDLY did.

I would say that was an across the board problem. Let's see. How about we run Benson wide outside on sweeps, and Wolfe up the middle? How about we use Rashied Davis in an endzone jump ball situation, and sit our tall/athletic rookie TE on the bench. Want more? How about using Moose on a reverse. That one still baffles me. I still truly believe Turner is one of the worse OCs we have had in years. Sure, we have had some success w/ Turner, but he has also had more to work w/ than others. In the end, I simply look at how a coach utilizes his talent. FAR too often, we seem to ask players (and the offense as a whole) to do what they suck at, and ignore what they are good at. Rex gets flustered under pressure. I know. Let's empty the backfield. Hey, that rookie TE has talent. Lets sit him down so we can have a 3rd or 4th WR that can not catch the ball on the field. It goes on and on. Back to the original. One thing I really do not understand about Wolfe. I read how Turner mis-used him, and that if used properly, he can be effective. My question is, why is it assumed Turner will use him "properly".

Give me Shoop. Now that that is settled, how about Hatley v Angelo:)

Sorry, but this is crap. We get it. You don't like Benson. Okay. But that doesn't make what happened right. How about this. Offensive play in practice, and Clark flat out steam rolls Mike Brown. Mike Brown comes away limping. Rumors surface that Clark if fed up w/ the team giving chance after chance for some guy that continually disappoints. So you would say it's okay? Hey, Mike Brown should be tougher. Defensive players are freaking fed up w/ Rex Grossman turning the ball over, forcing them to play sooner. So, they go color blind in practice and knock him on his arce. Oops. He is out. It's easy to justify when it happens to a player you do not like, but tends to get more difficult when it happens to a guy you do like.

Again, don't get me wrong. I understand cutting him. I simply do not buy that we are just as well off not having him, at least not in terms of talent. His release was about his "issues" and not talent. If not for the issues, I simply do not think there would be a question of him over AP.

You like stats. Here are some to consider from this past year. AP had 46 carries in 3 WR sets and 11 in 4+. Benson had only 16 carries out of 3 WR sets, and 6 from 4+. So we spread out the defense more when we ran AP, and boxed it in more w/ Benson. Also found, looking at our stats, we did FAR better running to the right than the left. AP was 3.8 ypc from the right v 2.9 from the left. Benson was 4.9 v 2.6. Sort of makes you wonder why we didn't run to the right more than we did. Looking at the splits, the key reason why AP has ypc numbers as good or better than Benson is because he had more 2nd and long and 3rd and long (passing situation) carries, which he did better. Benson simply was not getting the ball in those passing down situations, which prevented his ypc from getting a boost. I would compare this to a DE sack stats. The guy who gets to play on passing downs is more likely to have more sacks, v the guy who simply plays run downs. You can blame Benson by saying if he were a better all around back, he would have been on the field more for passing downs, but I still blame Turner. AP was no better of a blocker than Benson, who was nothing special himself, and I saw no reason to replace Benson w/ AP on those downs. Point is though, if we used Benson more when we spread out the defense (more WR) or when it wasn't obvious we were going to run, his ypc may have risen, just like APs did. I understand cutting Benson, but I do not buy that AP is as good or better.

No question AP is a better receiver, but I would also say Benson is the better RB, and not simply based on where he was drafted. You use stats, but I am not sure how good of a source that is to use. So many times, I saw AP break off nice runs, but they were 3rd and 10 situations, where the defense is backed off. If he gets 8 yards, so what. The result is still a punt. Benson didn't get these easy carry situations. When he ran the ball, defenses knew he was running, and the box was stacked. Personally, I have never understood the love fest for AP. He is a great special teams player, but a year ago, many posters talked about how he could start for some other teams in the NFL. I didn't buy that then, or now. There is MORE than enough to question Benson, but I do believe he is the better pure runner than AP.

I think there are plenty who would add his name. It depends on what you are basing the comment on. If you take into consideration being the best over a long period of time, then he doesn't make the cut. But if you simply talk about who was the best, when they were in the field, I think you would find quite a few throw his name into the hat. While I do not believe Sayers is the best RB of all time, I do not think he is far enough down the list that it should be seen as a big deal if he says/believes that.

PacMan was an example. Point is, go back and take a look at top 10 picks who were busts, and list how many didn't get a shot w/ another team. That is going to be one short list. Look at Thomas Jones. High pick bust for AZ. Went to TB, and a nice backup, little more. Broke out w/ his 3rd team. It is examples like that which push GMs to continually give highly touted prospects more and more chances. Pacman was just an example. While he "may" have shown more on the field, and I am not even sure I agree w/ that, his off-fiels issues are FAR worse, and I mean far.

Yea, like Mike Williams Sorry, I had to.

We see this, and because how we idiolize these players, it means something, but I think we should take it w/ a grain of salt. Who recalls Sayers saying this about Tank? Who recalls Sayers talking about Briggs, our pro bowl LB, making all sorts of stink about money last year, and then the ferrari incident? Benson isn't the first Bear to get a DWI. Did Sayers talk about them? I am sure Sayers was asked about Benson, and that is why he has said this, but come on. If you apply Sayer's comments across the board, how many players would Halas have kicked off. Every player that pisses and moans about money, per Sayers, would likely have gotten the boot. That pretty much rules out every pro bowler we have.