selection7

Wasn't Carmi something like the #2 best run blocker on the Bears according to that metric that was posted here many months ago? I would call that something. Carimi isn't exactly some guy who's been given opportunity after opportunity and done nothing with it. Why be so cynical? I heard a rumor once that it's very hard to succeed at the NFL level.

Carimi is still very young and missed a huge chunk of time due to injury. It would be foolish to cut the guy unless there's something in his personality that the coaches don't like (i.e., don't think will make him coachable and get anywhere near his potential). As Jason mentioned, this reeks of Columbo, except Columbo got more opportunity to prove himself. These coaches better have a lot more going on with our other OL depth players than it seems if they're going to cut a young, first rounder they barely know.

While I'm first to say stats can be misleading, it's not true that the article's entire argument is based on time to thow. "Cutler averaged the second-highest total of air yards per attempt in the NFL last season according to ESPN Stats & Information." That just seems crazy with our lack of offensive line protection, yet it apparently happened anyway. It's worth raising an eyebrow to at least.

I want him to retire. Watching him play against us at some point would just be silly. And he's got nothing left to prove, other than being on a Super Bowl winner, so unless one those handful want him, I can't see why he wouldn't.

You seem confused about the difference between it being moronic to thow away opportunity to substance abuse and taking things for granted...and it being (not, in truth) moronic to say you're not going to do that anymore. I say this based on the words you're writing, since I have nothing else to go on. Are you high right now?

That's a load of foolishness, as is many of the other comments on here. #1 He is not acting like he's addicted to heroin. He is acting like he has abused substances in the past that are addictive and he's scared that if he continues down that road he'll suffer the consequences and will have thrown away some great opportunities. While not focusing on being a twitter icon and complaining is a good goal, I seriously doubt that would have led his troubled career/personal life issues to have "already blown past: Webb even suggests he's not just worried about improving his track record with substance abuse, but himself as a person in general as well. That Webb is trying to learn to be successful at his at-risk position, unlike the more comfortable Jay Cutler, disproves, not proves, that he is a fool for looking to cut the substance abuse out of his life, listen to those wiser than him, and re-dedicate himself...so that was an especially strange argument. Now...Webb may be a moron, but he certainly isn't a moron for anything he said in this article. There is a big difference.

Granted, this is his dad I'm quoting, but... ’I kind of felt like — and I won’t share the two or three teams that were picking after Chicago — but I felt like it was a really good opportunity that Kyle would go between 20-28, 29, without tipping my hand,” Howie Long said at Halas Hall. “But he would have been off the board. ... I’ve heard people say they should have traded down and got him in the second round. He wouldn’t have been there.” http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/be...ting-guard.html

I say give him even more and don't be cheapskates. Pay through the nose, baby.

Well, according to the metric that tries to compare apples to apples, we had the #1 defense in the league last year (I had another post about it but it's been awhile). I'm actually quite pessimistic about where our D is headed myself, but we can't know the future. We do know our D was great just last year.

There's a big difference between every time and 20% of the time. I find that humorous. Why not just say "coach says do it right every time...once every few dozen times isn't good enough".

There's nothing that Hester once had that he couldn't get back once again. Whether he will or not has more to do with what's going on in his head and what our coaches do with with him.

Brandon Marshall is the second most productive receiver in the NFL over the last half-decade and he didn't crack the top 5. For that matter, Welker, who is #1 over that time--if not NFL history for a 5 year period, didn't crack the top 20. At some point actual results have to factor into the equation. The fella who wrote that article had a little too much "fantasy" in his "football".

The obvious thing that jumps out at me is that "5-year starter" was a bad choice, or at least not the best, for a useful metric. Everyone knows the highest picks get the most opportunities without having to prove anything (Cedric Benson anyone?). Tom Brady, for example, wouldn't count as a 5-year starter because he didn't start his first year. So a metric that misses a Tom Brady could stand to be improved. They should have gone with something like "Players that by the end of their fifth year...had started at least years 3-5". If you're starting your third-through-fifth years, you are a quality NFL player with likely a full-length career ahead of you, regardless of what happened your rookie year. It follows, then, that the chances of finding a quality player in the highest positions is actually lower than advertised by the OP's referenced stats. Tom Brady is just an extreme example of it...Tim Jennings would be a more typical case.

After what Romo got, Cutler could be worth darned near anything. There's no explaining it. Cutler's worth whatever the Bears feel like paying him, ultimately.

We're going to learn a lot about Emery and Trestman this draft. For now, we're really just guessing about what kind of management we've got.

Keep in mind we have several new players on D and a totally new DC. Regardless of what their skills are on paper, this is a rebuilding year. We got younger though, and that was the point, along with starting the process of letting Trestman & Tucker build this D in their image.

Urlchacher, we hardly knew ya!

Actually, jason never said idiots are running many of the league's teams (though it wouldn't shock me if some were). I think he's saying he doesn't believe enough in capitalism to say that the cream always rises to the top. I definitely can see that. I will admit it sways me some that 12 of 12 execs polled thought dropping Urlacher was the right decision, but I only take it for what it's worth. And I'm in the habit of thinking for myself. Consider that on many cases, about half of the Supreme Court is right, and half are wrong. We do know that much, even if we don't always know side was right. That's kind of scary, because they should be some of the most qualified people in the world for what they do...and that's an awful lot of "wrong" going on. But my point is, it very much informs the sort of perspective jason is taking.

There's nothing like offering to pay your future HoF, still-starting, captian of the defense middle linebacker worse than your 2nd string quarterback. For whatever reason, the Bears made him an offer they knew he couldn't accept because they didn't want him, and that's that. The Bears have a lot to prove now. I'm very hopeful, but this post-Lovie experiment could nevertheless easily go either way.

Sorry to see him go. He carried himself with Chicago Bear pride and character on and off the field ('cept for that bastard child with the prostitute incident). I'm especially sad that the best Bear since the '85 era probably won't retire a Bear like Butkus, Singletary, Payton, Sayers. The new era Bears are just another soulless quick fix team, but I guess that's par for the course these days. I also bet Trestman doesn't care that much whether the D is good these next two years because unles he 'loses the team', he can be relatively sure he won't be fired until more like years 3 and 4. I worry seeing someone like Trestman who's not known for his defensive genius, dismantling an obviously great D (I think we were the #1 or #2 rated D last year in that rating system that weights things in an effort to compare apples to apples). Whatever we've paid Urlacher over these years, it wasn't half what he's been worth to Chicago. I hope he can let it go, knowing the new guys who ran him out of towntown aren't really even Bears yet until they've been battle tested. Actually, I hope Urlacher retires. ...gives his body the rest it needs and I don't have to see him wearing the enemy's uniform.

^This exactly. Well put. I would say it's about seeing the forest for the trees, but there's really no pressing details obscuring the big picture to speak of (other than Url hurting Stinger226's feelings with his media remarks last year ). What he can contribute to leading our defense, what he probably will cost, what he'll mean to the team and our fans by retiring a Bear, allowing us to put off fixing his position right away in favor of other glaring needs, and what the Bears taking care of him will say to other FA's who might be thinking of playing for Emery in future years...every single thing leads to keeping Urlacher if we can get him for a decent deal. Not to mention he's been one of the best things to happen to Bears football over these years.

Like Cutler, Hester is another guy that I was never as high on, from the get-go, as most other fans...as a returner, even. Such a large portion of his results in any given year depended on how well Toub's blockers had solidified as a unit. If anything, at WR I think he exceeded my expectations relative to what I feared when it was announced we were switching him to O. For a couple of years there, I was even starting to think "well, guess i was wrong". But with respect to WR, I think he either needed some basic level of experience or a special knack for the position to go along with his elite physical skills, but having neither isn't good enough. Still, I felt he may have been the best returner in the league over these past years, and I value personnel stability, so I wasn't calling for him to be traded...especially without knowing what we get in return. His return to start our Super Bowl appearance is one of the highlights of my years of being a Bears fan. And the fan in me knows that Sundays would be a little less interesting without him out there.

I was one of the only ones on this forum not jumping for joy when the Bears made that trade. Not just the picks but we traded away a homegrown guy who went on to outperfrom Cutler the next two years (apples-to-oranges comparison aside), and I'm not sure Orton wouldn't today too even though he's now benchwarming for Tony Romo (I read an article last year that called him the best backup QB in the NFL--of course Kaepernick was still unproven at that point). But the fact is, as a fan, Cutler has been a fun guy to have at QB on the Bears, and to this day, he still has an intriguing upside. Also, the guy who was responsible for that trade got fired and is gone, so the way I look at it, it's time to move on. The Bears will continue on with Cutler, and I'm fine with that. At least he doesn't miss entire seasons like Grossman used to do.

Hurd was basically a real life American Gangster. That's a far cry from getting busted with 2.5oz. Still enough to get in the coaches doghouse though, true. But I, too, am hoping it's a wake-up call. Rashaan Salaam's wake-up call didn't happen until after he left the Bears...didn't do us any good. Of course, Webb is far from a 1st round draft pick.

That assumes that if a person does A, they can't also do B, which is not true in this case. Tice could have primarily focused on improving fundamentals...AND installed protection schemes. They aren't mutually exclusive, and common sense says he should have been doing at least that much. I don't really believe some non-local sports reporter could know what went on in every practice though, so I take it for what it's worth.