selection7

Most of you obviously have made up your minds what you think about it and can't be swayed by anything Brian actually says...because it's otherwise almost like you heard a different interview than I did. That's your choice I guess, but I thought this interview made Brian look great. Very, very reasonable on literally all counts. He actually said, shockingly, he'd have played for that pittance offer (possibly even with some younger guy hypothetically brought in starting instead of him), if Emery/Stein had just told him that they only had that amount available to pay him based on what they felt he was worth from the get-go. He even outright said he could've accepted Emery not seeing Brian in his plan for the Bears' future if Emery had just been forthcoming about it. That's some serious humility and love for Bears football right there. Then he admitted he didn't get much interest from other teams, but didn't want to play for any other team than the Bears anyway...mentioning his kids and wanting to retire a Bear. Again, humility & love of Bear ball. Then he pointed out that they never initiated any talks, even the preliminary kind, about extending Brian nearly all offseason long, and eventually only made one offer period, non-negotiable, and that the Bears were so geared to end his time with the Bears that they had the announcement ready to go literally within seconds after getting Brian's agent's final offer (all of which corroborate exactly what I've been saying all along...that the new management didn't want him here anymore and were trying to get him to leave). Brian suggested that the limbo hurt his ability to train with his full heart in it and that he didn't want to go into a new season without meeting that standard that he always had met in the past (which shows character and a respect for the game). All the while, he seemed very calm and at peace with his retirement, laughing comfortably at times, while still showing reasonable concern over how things went down. He finishes by discussing how he's always maintained that he wants his legacy to be "a great teammate" and that he's proud he still gets calls from teammates looking for advice or football knowledge, and how his knee was finally feeling great after bothering him for most of last year. Are you guys kidding me?

There is a female on this board who actually posts? Just curious.

Remember, he's a 7th round draft pick. It's only now he's finally being treated like it. He hasn't been overpaid in his short career nor has he underperformed. If he wants to prove he's not just a career backup, at least he's still on the team. If he'd been cut, teams aren't lining up around the block to pick up 7th round draft picks from bad offensive lines who just got cut.

From an article posted back in April (which I copied from our talkbears archives): Emery and the Bears rely on a metric he referred to as the "Athletic Index Score," which measures players "where they are as athletes," he said. According to Emery, Long earned the highest ranking of any offensive guard over the past 12 draft classes. Indeed, Long ran the best 40 time (4.94 seconds) of any guard at the NFL scouting combine. That's pretty quick for a 6-foot-6, 313-pound man. I won't pretend to know what else goes into the "Athletic Index Score" or how relevant it is for an interior lineman. Emery said Long's lateral agility and feet make his every movement during a play impressive. I'm usually one of the first to downplay measurables. NFL evaluaters have a tendency to overrely on them because they're so convenient, IMO. The only position I don't feel that way about is OL with respect to athleticism. I watch these behemoths in the NFL and I could swear that a third of my high school team would've been more athletic than some modern NFL O-linemen. The dropoff is that huge between all the other positions and the O-line, probably because big guys with agility get funneled to D-line in high school and college. My point is that, just as the NFL was 13 years ago at linebacker, I see the NFL as ripe for having an O-lineman come in and change the game with his athleticism and quickness. ...and just like Urlacher, Long is huge to boot, so he's kind of a freak. Not to put Long on a pedestal or anything; my thoughts are more driven by the nature of O-line in the NFL in general than Long, though obviously I hope he does turn into a perennial all-pro.

I would almost say that Brown's whiff was worse because tackles are supposed to let their guys get behind them some (though not quite as much as Webb did)...just enough to push them behind the QB as the QB steps up. But what happened next was Webb's man adjusted to Cutler's step-up by juking back towards the LoS and Webb was so slow to react that he kept running backwards, letting his man get back in front of him, even though Webb had perfect position to prevent that. So it was a double whammy. It made him look slow, both physically and mentally.

I would actually say this is the one time of the year where you want to be a little gunslinger some of the time. This is when you test, and find, your limits...when it doesn't count. Every pick is a lesson learned. It's one of the advantages of being named the unconditional #1 QB early. Of course Cutler also needs to learn to excercise self-control for extended periods of time, but both can be practiced, albeit not at the same time.

The NFL released their top 100 as voted by the players recently. I only skimmed it.

I heard he already released his first report to the team. It was just a single page on Bears letterhead with the line "Daayum, the O-line sucks!*" *see Appendices for the specifics of the statistical analysis"

I'm down with that

Why, whatever do you mean? Don't all gridiron fans' messageboards regularly post wedding pictures?

If you go over to the Broncos boards, you'll find fans who are pretty much ingrates when it comes to the successes they've had on O and specifically at the QB position over the years, because they've come to expect it. From time to time I notice Bears fans have some of the same thing going on with respect to D, though not as bad, IMO.

Are you kidding me? I didn't want to beat a dead horse because this would be maybe the third time I've mentioned it, but that metric that compares apples to apples ranked the Bears as the #1 D in the league last year. Throw in that 3rd and 5th in yards and (the even more important) points somehow doesn't even qualify as great to you and I know you said oh "that's my prejudice", and there's the question of semantics, but what I can't help but thinking is that, as a fan, you don't take a D like that for granted, and I'm going to go ahead and assume that's exactly what you're doing. Come back in 5 to 10 years and tell me what you think.

There seems to be some lack of differentiation in the media between holding the ball and how quick a QBs release is. For example, this article specifically refers to Cutler's "long, slow release", which I don't think is true. http://www.windycitygridiron.com/2013/6/15...rs-release-time When he needs to, Cutler can get that ball out with a very efficient motion and without giving up velocity. The thing Trestman is working on is holding the ball, which is a mental thing, not a mechanical thing like release.

And on top of that, "very good" is probably underselling our D last year. Lovie wasn't let go because of D.

I suppose. I've never played in the NFL. But I've also heard many great players say that it takes a lot of time, sometimes more than a year, to gel and learn a system...to the point that I'd say it's considered conventional wisdom that it's true. I guess you could call it a coaching "failure" anyway, but it is what it is, regardless of what you call it.

You gotta love the slap in the face Trestman is giving Lovie by totally cleaning house like he was taking over the Cleveland Browns. I'm not saying I know it'll work out for the better, but you can't say Trestman doesn't have some cojones.

"Everything wouldn't be an overstatement," Wow. That is an amazingly complimentary statement from probably the best young coach in the pros. How can that not make Bear fans feel good?

I think we discussed this a long time ago once before. The idea I heard and subsequently posted about was having rookies wear the "retired" numbers. Whatever # these college kids had before, they know that upon joining the NFL, its bigger than just them. And they'll also know that upon hitting their 2nd season (or maybe 3rd, however you want to do it), they'll have to give that number up. The end effect is that those numbers get paraded around every season rather than just hung on a wall and forgotten, and with the exception of the rare high first-round draft pick, there's no worry of the rooks overshadowing the history behind the numbers. It'll give the new guys something more tangible to relate to in terms of respecting the teams' history too. But even if they don't implement something radical like that, I'm fine with ending the # retirement thing.

Did Urlacher mount some kind of smear campaign against the Bears new management and I missed it? Sometimes I go through busy periods so I may have missed it, but I didn't notice him seeking out media any more than usual, keeping in mind that "avoided the media if at all possible" is a huge exaggeration (I've seen him do all kinds of media over the years that he wasn't obligated to do by the NFL...he's no Reggie Wayne).

Although the lack of interest from other teams is true and worth noting, don't pretend to know what all other teams would have been willing to pay him had Urlacher been willing to switch teams. And don't overlook that the Bears offer to him was "an ultimatum, not a negotiation". There's only one reason you negotiate that way, and that's if you don't really want him around, even for the vet minimum. Moreso, do you really think a guy with at least $50million in the bank and assets to boot with a body that's racked up some serious mileage is going to play another year for $2million or less for some scrub team? That's what that poster on another thread meant when he said Urlacher retired the day he didn't accept the Bears offer, but didn't make it official until a few days ago. I also say all this because I saw Urlacher's play last year. Emery offered our starting MLB (and he would have been, had he signed) significantly less than our second string RB. I agree, in a sense, that was genius, because the one team to which Urlacher was most valuable offered him just little enough to get him to turn them down, but not so low that there wasn't plausible deniability to those not paying attention. Anyway, you don't have to defend the team's new leadership. It's just business.

seconded (or thirded maybe?). And while "slap in the face" was an unnecessary comment to go publilc with, I do think the current regime didn't ever really want him, just like Brian suggested. Trestman doesn't see Urlacher as part of his long term plan, but he did see Url as a link to the past regime and a lockerroom leader with the potential to undermine any new directions Trestman may try to take the team in. I've seen it happen to other vets before. The new head coach doesn't give two flying flips about the last 10 years, and isn't even that particularly concerned about the "honeymoon" period...only the future. It's the business part of sports.

Oh, and i just thought of all those early career sideline-to-sideline plays where he'd run down some speedy back back before the guy could turn the corner and the back would get up looking all flustered, and the announcers would ooh and ah. That was back when he was freakishly fast and our big uglies kept the blockers off him too, so he could just attack. Good times.

Also, let me say that, although I'm a little ashamed to say it... I know it's just stats but I didnt' realize Butkus was that good (and actually Samauri Mike's stats underwhelmed me a little more than I would have guessed). ...You know, because legend being what it often is, and especially how most old-timers' stats don't age well when making comparisons with modern times. I figured he was mostly just really mean, while also being really good, but even that probably undersells him. It's unfortunate, these later years being what they were...Brian was still very good, but it was a far cry from the first half of his career when he was so dominant. I would have said that over time, Url's trajectory went from clearly being the best LB in Bears history (on a team known for their LBs) to just being up there with the greats, which is what the stats seems to suggest. Either way, considering the freshness of his retirement, we should really be discussing what he's already done and save HoF talk for the many future years we're now going to have without him.

No exaggeration. He literally transformed the position. Nowadays it's not that rare to see players with very nearly his athleticism, size, and speed at LB, but before Url it was unheard of...save for maybe a few workout warriors types who were only on the roster for their measurables but nevertheless couldn't play ball.

That was indeed one of his most memorable. I still remember playing that video backwards and forwards over and again for my friend, making sound effect noises as Url speeds into frame, passes Hester and takes out his second would-be tackler in one play. So funny. The other things that come to mind are in his first 2 or 3 years, meeting the ball carrier in the hole and planting him on his ass, then standing just over him with a big grin...really epitomizing the kind of dominance he brought to the field. And any of you ever play Madden/NCAA a couple of years ago where the linebacker could jump up and pick passes even when they were seemingly 15 ft in the air? Url had several in his career that reminded me of that. If I remember correctly, he had a hit on a reciever that jarred a ball loose that Mike Brown returned for a last second game winning TD. It was in one of those games where Brown did it twice back to back.