DABEARSDABOMB

I expect we will see what happens relatively quickly (by the end of next week) in terms of if Ron will be back or not. I do think we will see the Bears make chances at a couple coaching positions (which has been consistent with what they have done in the past couple seasons) and one of those changes will surely be related to the offensive line coach (and you may see some different assistants at other offensive positions as well). With Kyle/Rex probably sticking around, I'd say it makes it more likely that Ron's system or a similar system will be in place.

I will admit that I fully give Turner an A for the last two games play calling. My question is where was this playcalling the prior 14 games. I also have to say that the oline did a much better job blocking and picking up there assignments which really helped. Going back to what Pix said, I think if the offense line played decent all season we wouldn't even be talking about Ron being fired and this is coming from one of the people that has ripped him more than anyone this year. I like a lot of things Ron does and I think he's a pretty smart offensive guy but the thing that bothered me was this teams inability to make any sort of adjustments (That and I was disgusted at the lack of deep balls called in Rex's first 3 games this season). I must admit though, after these past two weeks, Turner may stick around and it could turn into a blessing in disguise. Also, the more I think about Martz, while I think he's smart, I do agree with LT that come playoff time the team would have a lot of trouble because it wouldn't be set to handle the cold weather conditions to at times make it out of the NFC.

I would absolutely love Martz to come to Chicago. When the Lions were having there resurrection early in the season (6-2 start) I thought for sure Martz was going to be leaving Detroit (but to become a head coach). Now it appears he will be getting an OC job somewhere and I see no reason why Chicago couldn't be the place. Martz is an offensive genius who seems to have learned from his failures late in his tenure in St. Louis (where he went away from the run as people forget he had a balanced offense early in his tenure in St. Louis). He did a nice job sticking with the run as best he could in Detroit but bottom line he didn't have any RB's and had to go away from it. His schemes have proven to be excellent and while I don't know if the Bears have the personell (we certainly do not have the WR's that the Lions had) but I think we have better backs (and no we don't have good backs) and what I think are potentially better QB's (sorry, but I can't stand one Jon Kitna, although I admit he battled his butt off this season). Lovie is also the type of guy that wouldn't have much of a problem handing over the reigns of the offense to another guy and there aren't many other guys I'd rather have the hands of our offense in. Give me Martz, Mularckey, or Sporano.

1st Crayton signs, now Sanders. Thats good money for a safety and quietly this may turn into a blessing for the Bears given Sanders injury history. Still, its no secret the Bears are going to have to sign and probably draft a safety.

I'll be pulling for a win and another great performance out of the defense (I want momentum for next year).

I could see Berrian getting damn near double the money on the open market. Crayton wouldn't get that much but he could have definitely gotten a lot more. Berrian has put up better numbers without having the ability to be more open (due to playing opposite Owens) and not having consistent QB play (Romo has been one of the best this year). Berrian is hands down a better WR than Crayton, although if the Bears lost Berrian I would have wanted the team to go after Crayton.

I think Woodson is a poor man version of Jamarcus Russel. Ie, he is more raw than the typical QB, but he has a lot of good tools and could end turn into one of the best picks in the draft (In Woodson's case he doesn't have quite the ridiculous measurables so he won't go #1 overall, which is good because I would never ever actually use a #1 pick cause it is assinine to tie up that much money to one guy who hasn't proven jack shit). In fact, unless Long is there, if the Bears end up picking top 10 I would trade down for a mid range 1st and a 2nd round pick (financially it is a smart thing to do and could be the difference in being able to resign or sign an extra one of our guys). David Haugh has an article in the Tribune which talks a bit more about all the money that ends up going into top 10 picks. The key is there would have to be a player on the board that other teams would want and be willing to trade up for.

What exactly was the point of signing Riddeau if he wasn't going to play this season (or is there some benefit to having him on your roster for next season?).

That doesn't seem like that bad of a contract. I'd be totally down with giving Berrian similar money. He'd probably ask for a lot more though.

There were a couple more than that left on the field, IIRC. I know Berrian had at least a couple early in the season as well. Either way the Bears completely failed to make plays when they had the chance and that is one of the major reasons there record isn't flipped right now (with the team playing with a shot at 10 wins). As far as passes dropped, I know the Bears are ranked dead last in drops (the Giants are the next worse and the Bears/Giants have been flip-flopping back and forth all season as to who is dead last).

I've never seen anything like that Bears/Niners game. In fact, IIRC, the Niners had like 7 yards of passing offense and only attempted like 5 or 6 passes.

I wish Bush would have played cause I'd like to see the Bears defense lay the smack down on him. I hate no player in the league more than Reggie for the way he show-boated in last seasons NFC Championship game.

Plus, if the Bears upgrade at the safety position it could take a little more pressure off of Williams or whomever stepped in as the MLB as right now I think the MLB has a lot more pressure due to the poor help the team gets over the middle of the field from its safeties. But I really dont' know how scheming and everything works so Noots I appreciate your post. Gave me a much better understanding of the different duties bestowed upon Mike/Wil/SLB.

I got to admit, I like the idea of Urlacher as a OLB. I think it would better utilize his speed, but he is the captain on the defense (ie calls the plays and all that stuff) and we would be asking an awful lot to have someone like Williams take over in that capacity (could an OLB still call the the plays???). Either way I got to admit, as someone who is a huge Briggs fan, I was very impressed with Williams play against the Packers and I'm going to be looking forward to seeing him against the Saints (I really hope Lance doesn't play because having Williams play helps the Bears much more).

Welcome aboard...good to have you here!!!!

Wow, they don't have a game west of Houston. Talk about a major dissapointment, barring a trip to Chicago next football season I'm guessing I won't be seeing a Bears game in person. Tough schedule though. The Jaguars are good, but I do like the Bears chances against the Titans (I think the speed of the D should be okay against Tenn). Than again a lot can change between now and next season.

Pete Myers (Asst.) will coach them on Wednesday and after that the Bulls will name one of the assistants as the full time interim coach for the remainder of the year. My guess is that Boylan will end up getting the interim gig.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays EVERYONE!!!!!

Orton was definitely solid today. I hope he has another good game and Rex/Kyle can battle things out. The only way I wouldn't have a problem bringing in another QB is if it was McNabb and the cap cost would be equal or similar to what the Bears paid Griese/Grossman this year (because in that case you could have Mcnabb/Orton at the same price as Grossman/Griese and you could obviously make a major case for McNabb being a hell of a lot better than Rex/Griese). I still think value wise, the best bet (which allows the Bears to go after safety, resign Berrian, get a big name olineman) is resigning Grossman cheap, drafting a QB in the 3rd round, and lettting KO/Rex battle it out. See what you can do with a much improved oline, an offense that focuses heavily on the run (using its play action and TE's to give a lot of high percentage passes, plus Berrians speed on the ocassional deep route/deep crossing pattern with Hester utilized in the slot) and I think the team would have more than enough capabilities of being a CONSISTENT offense (not a great offense, but a consistently solid to good offense).

This game also made me more optimistic. The team played fantastic. They looked like the first time all season they played football and weren't play with a fear of losing or making mistakes. They just played and the result was awesome. Some of the issues did get covered up by tremendous special teams play, but all around, they couldn't have played a much better game than they did.

If Turner called games like he did today I wouldn't be calling for his firing. I'm not necessarily looking for an overly creative coach because I think that can get you in trouble, but I'd like someone who was a run oriented coach but also had the ability to throw some creative type ways to get playmakers involved in other ways, while still havinga large focus of the offense being on the run (and I think any team built around its defense should focus largely on the run). I want to say Kyle played very good given the conditions (he out played the greatest to ever play the game at his position), the Bears WR's looked good in the cold, and Turner actually stuck a bit with the run. The thing is, I wonder why Turner didn't do this style of gameplan all season (it isn't like there were many games where the Bears were behind big early). Hell, I long said I don't give a crap if we are running for 2 yards per carry, we still have to continue to run because it keeps opposing defenses semi honest, allows our defense to rest, and helps utilize play action and everything else (plus I think you just have to be able to try and run in football cause you never know what ends up happening). Hell, look at the Pack, they couldn't run to save there lives for about 8 weeks of the season, but they never quit and eventually they turned into a pretty darn good team at running the football. Bottom line I want Ron out, but I will give him credit for calling a good game plan, but I also think the weather forced him to do this (its too bad too, cause this is what I consider Bears style of football and the type of offense I like...ie relatively conservative, but throw in a couple additions wrinkles involving some deeper plays which utilize Rex when he's back as a starter as well a shitload of wrinkles to have Olsen/Clark/Hester involved a lot).

Its not an excuse. He didn't play well this season, but he was better than the other two guys that have ran the ball this season in Chicago. Plus you have to look at how the Oline did and it was horrid. I didn't see him not making plays when he had good blocks. In fact, any time the blocking was decent he looked pretty good. I also absolutely hated the play calling as it never allowed Benson to get into any sort of rhythm. Turner was horrendous this year and put Benson/Grossman and the entire offense in positions to fail rather succeed. The oline did more of the same. Every player has plenty to blame on themselves as well because aside from maybe Desmond Clark everyone on offense can say they could have done things better (maybe Olsen too cause he's been pretty solid for a rook).

Plus when you think about some of the things he did well, he was able to take advantage of his players strengths. For god sakes he was able to put an offense around Kordell that allowed him to make a probowl (I think we all remember what Stewart was like in Chicago, LOL). He than built systems around Antwaan Randle El that made him quite the special weapon as well as used Hines Ward in a lot of creative plays. I'd love to see what sort of creativy he could do for guys like Olsen (who is too fast for a LB and too big for a CB) and Hester (who is Antwaan Randle El on steroids). Plus I think my favorite thing is he's a guy who has had success with various set-ups on offense (mobile QB like Stewart...more pocket passer like Tommy Maddox). The other thing that shouldn't go unnoticed is the fact that in all of these offenses there was one other constant theme and that was a team that ran the living shit out of the ball. God I'd love to have Mike Mularckey here. Tony Sporado is my first choice, Murlackey number two, and I would settle for Fassell (who I happen to think is an exceptional OC, mediocre head coach but the man knows his offense).

This is going to be a fun game. It is snowing with winds expected to be as hard as 50MPH. This is what I'm talking about. I'm going to take great pleasure going to a Packers bar today to see the Bears find a way to sweep the season series and give themselves something positive to think about going into next season.

I really think Enis has to be seperated out from Salaam. Enis appeared to be breaking through and than had a disasterous injury to his leg/knee that he could never recover from (IIRC, he was looking towards having about 3 straight 100 yard games and had really been showing signs prior to ripping his knee). Salaam on the other hand had his strong rookie season, let the success get to his head, smoked too much dope, and turned into a turd who couldn't hold onto the football. I agree with what you said Pix, Benson definitely deserves a shot behind a decent line. Given the way the line has played this year I think Tom Brady and Ladamian Tomilson would have had trouble suceeding in Chicago.