jason

I don't think that's necessarily true. They run football teams, but you imply that they all run teams well. they do not. Connections, career path, and nepotism goes a long way. I honestly beleive we could run the bears better as a board than the actual Bears front office runs the team. There are plenty of retread scrubs running teams and doing a poor job year after year. Peter principle. It's just that the other scenario (i.e. us running a team) is not something that can be tested or proven. It's an unknown. For all we know, if you had chosen to pursue a career as a GM the Bears would have won the last three Super Bowls.

Just FYI-I completely understand and completely agree. All the other talk, aside from the comment about ST play, is nonsense. OchoCinco on crutches is better as a receiver than Weems. And a number four or five WR on the Bears is not going to get a Ron of time or snaps to develop anyway.

You don't watch the show that often if you believe that. His stubbornness when negotiating, and screwing people over, is the reason for the meme.

This stupid argument again. What if the 12 executives are for 12 of the worst teams? Their opinion is untouchable, right? Because they've been killing it for years. Right? Unless he says which executives agreed, the comment is pointless in a league with about a 50% success rate. Sometimes worse. Remember, clowns like Matt Milllen have been executives in this league, and nobody can convince me otherwise that just about anyone on this board couldn't have done as good as him...much less JA and his picks.

Fixed that for you.

Read the entire post, especially the word "beginning." Urlacher is solidly linked to Lovie and his relative defensive success in Chicago, where as Melton has only been around a few years.

I don't like it with a pass-first QB who has a great arm. If the Bears had someone like Vick or RGIII I'd be more inclined to think it was a good move.

I can't believe the overwhelming support for this guy considering how opposed most have been in the past to signing anyone who was not a Boy Scout (e.g. Moss, TO, Burfict). And before anyone says anything, I'm talking way back when they were available the first time. I don't mind the signing; it makes sense. But I've always been consistent about getting players with upside and some character issues.

What I hope happens: LT - Bushrod LG - Rookie/Brown C - Garza/Rookie RG - Louis/Brown RT - Carimi/Webb The rookie starting at LG is obviously Warmack or Cooper. I prefer Warmack. The center could be Schwenke, Jones, or Cave. I prefer Jones.

The same reason the NFL draft provides NFL-unknowns with millions of dollars even when it's a 50/50 crapshoot. The same reason the NFL managed to put in a rookie pay-scale system because the salaries were getting out of hand with unknown quantities. The NFL Owners have their hands firmly in a bucket of "what if," and a known quantity with some upside and years left in the league is about a sure a bet as they can expect to see.

Kind of what I said up-thread. We already had the read-option. Read - Did Webb and co. block their opponents? Option - Oh shit! Better run!

Excellent post! This was a "get Urlacher out of town because he's a Lovie-player from the beginning"-move. This was exactly as I said, a move made by new managers wishing to put their stamp on the team.

Precisely.

Very well said. The move didn't make a lot of sense for a variety of reasons. It would have been better to keep him as a stop-gap since he was a lot better than people are trying to pretend, let him train the pups, and end his glorious career as a Bear.

The negative effect is where veterans look at how the Bears "negotiated" with Urlacher and decide the reputation of "cheap Bears" is probably accurate, and the franchise isn't a positive one that will build a team. I'm cool with that if the Bears can turn into an NFC version of the Patriots, picking up mercenary players all over the place, but I just don't see that happening.

No. One of the stipulations of the bet was that he played for the Bears next year. Go check it out.

Wrong. In your scenario the leadership would have started at 2m because they want to get a cheap deal, and eventually settled on 3m with a, "Seriously, this is all we can do." Nobody starts with their final offer except this guy:

I expect a kick-back.

All the stuff you mentioned still leaves their superstar QB out of harms way. It still has other guys flying around, and the QBs standing where they should be. As for why other teams are doing it? Well, they're trying to trick the defense. Easy. But the key word is: trying. It will work for a while, but then it will die off because things like this have been tried before, and the end result was hurt QBs. QBs being the most important player on offense and all, well, sorta makes the decision to minimize the use pretty easy. The athletic prowess of some players today is just incredible, and they're "trying" to maximize that ability. The problem is - IMHO - they are trying to structure what should be dynamic, and they are jeopardizing their franchise player. The other aspect is, they don't know yet if it will be beneficial. It's like cooking; sometimes you just have to try a new spice. Might make you puke, might make you smile. I just don't think it's a smart move to jeopardize a franchise QB like that, particularly one who has been injury prone and never really known as a traditional "running QB."

4) Yes, hindered. The Bears' hand is now forced. Before they could have done just about anything, with most believing they'd grab a TE, OG, and LB at some point. But how they are almost obligated to grab a LB in the first or second. 5) I stand by it. I've read more message board traffic over the past few days than ever before. The Facebook page as well. It's overwhelmingly in support of Urlacher. 6) True. Nobody restructured. But they probably figured, like Urlacher did, the team was going to negotiate and there were no problems. 8) The end result was pretty good though, eh? 9) Kind of my main point. He was better than league average, or maybe even average if someone wanted to downgrade him somewhat. What is league average worth? I don't feel like crunching the numbers, but I'm guessing $3m fits well into the range.

I don't live too far from where he's from. I might have to stop over there and see what type of Hill stuff they have.

That's genuinely surprising. If you've been watching that long I have no clue how you can be so optimistic. You must be one of those people who skips into work on Monday morning.

I don't know what you're getting at with the Tillman and Marshall comments...they just don't make any sense. Apples and hammers. I wonder if you're willing to backtrack on the rest. The Bears NEVER offered Urlacher another offer. It was the 1yr/2m offer. Period. As for the hamstring, you point out exactly why they are hamstrung. Before they could have filled the hole with a FA or a mid-rounder. Then grabbed an UDFA and hoped he was a good backup. Now they don't have that flexibility. They'd be dumb if they didn't draft a LB in either the 1st or the 2nd.

Yeah, because the Chiefs and their horrible offense and miserable team are the bastion of intelligent coaching decisions. Correlation Causation

What are their creative trademarks? Other than the Saints - who use a lot of pistol - they are just juggernaut offenses who use a passing pack to destroy opposing defenses.