DABEARSDABOMB

Floyd is absolutely a long-term solution, however, I think to have a dominant defense you want two dominant rushers and that could come with 2 dominant OLB's or you can have an edge rusher in the 3-4. To me, adding a real high quality OLB who can attack the QB and go all over the field would be tremendous for this defense. Real impact player. If we were to draw out htis draft, I would say my ideal position to land would be a stud pass rusher followed by a stud LT. There isn't a stud LT in the draft (at least based upon current draft position), however, there could be some pretty good OLB's. Chubb is a guy I love...even if he isn't the "perfect" fit. Not only tremendous athlete / football player, but from the little I've seen of him on the ESPN show that is following him, seems to have good character. I think its highly possible that our draft goes OLB / ILB in the 1st two drafts. I could also see us moving down in the 2nd round, accumulating picks, and taking a wideout. I quietly wonder if we will take Fitzpatick. Have heard so little about "DB's" it makes me wonder if that is actually where we will go in the draft.

Howard has always responded well to "doubters" and with everyone "doubting" his pass catching ability, I expect to see a more complete Howard next year. That will be scary for the league. The only thing I could see getting in the way of Howard having a monster season is injuries (always possible in the NFL).

I’m very disappointed. This was mismanaged. Meredith has a chance to be a good receiver and we aren’t going to get to make that evaluation. Thought the same thing with Jeffrey a year ago and the whole Gould fiasco.

Its interesting some of the pieces coming out of the trib have been kind of vague on Meredith. I wonder if those are leaks by Bears front office to start prepping people for the inevitable loss of Meredith. I think it would be a massive mistake, mainly because I like Cam and see no downside to guaranteeing him $5M this year (to invest in having him locked up next year at a reasonable rate). If he struggles to get back, he's gone and he really hasn't gotten in anyone's way. I don't see us investing at wideout early this year (given the money spent on Robinson) and I can't imagine you want to just hand the keys over to some 4th round pick, but maybe they want to go that route and see Meredith "getting in the way".

In general though, having meredith locked up for two years is nice. Gives more time to evaluate him post injury. I think he’s going to be a good one.

Terms update: Saints signing Bears’ RFA WR Cameron Meredith to a 2-year offer sheet, per source. Expecting money to be about $5 million per year - 2 years, roughly $10 million.

Saints sign Meredith to an offer sheet Per Schaffer

Unrelated, but no way would Howard and the 8 pick be enough to move up to the Giants pick. I would actually make that trade 100 times over and I love Howard. But it would purely be to flip the pick again with the Bills or Broncos to accumulate more assets.

I did a little digging and it turns out Howard also deleted all of his high school and college picks. Additionally, the deletions happened 4 days ago (i.e., before he came to Halas Hall on Tuesday). Bottom line, this now feels a lot more like "nothing".

Their was the previous rumors about Landry for Howard. More recently I've seen a lot of fans (more fans) speculating Howard to Colts with our pick to move up for Barkley. In general, it seems like a lot of outsiders think Howard is on the move. I really am a Howard fan so I'd rather we maintain the strength at RB and use our pick to address another need (just my 2 cents). After the Landry reports were out there, I felt like the Chicago media made a strong push that management had zero desire to move Howard and those leaks were coming from the Dolphins (who very much wanted Howard). I think the rub is, people assume Howard isn't a good fit in Nagy's system given some of the limitations in his receiving. All that said, hard to ignore when someone removes all Bear images. Not a good feeling. Maybe its a pure matter of "not feeling the love".

In general, I really don't like idea of us moving up, unless we think Chubb is that guy. I do see the thought for Barkley though, given his pass catching ability, but I think everyone is sleeping on how freaking good Howard is. Howard is putting in work in the catching game and I think we'll see him make improvements there. I do recognize that we will be using the back as a receiver a lot in this system though, but I think our coaching staff is dynamic and creative enough to make it work. What I want more than anything is a monster pass rusher...Chubb could be that guy and if we think he fits the system and can be that guy, I support moving up. Otherwise, I still think we have a lot of needs and I'd accumulate more picks, especially since I tend to think Pace has been a quality picker.

I could very much see a scenario where Pace moves up to grab Chubb or Nelson. I don't think it would be for anyone else, however, I suppose their is always the Barkley wildcard. Pace has proven in the past he isn't afraid to go up and grab his guy.

Bears Sign Earl Watford Solid depth moves. Swing lineman who can play tackle, guard or center. Very nice.

I presume the Buffalo chart is a pretty high trade value that they are giving up vs. what we are giving back (based upon the old Jimmy Johnson draft pick value chart). For the AZ one, while I would do it, I would probably add a future pick on top of that. I'm historically a huge proponent of trading down.

I don't see any scenario that Buffalo gives us scenario 2, but if they would, I would be all over it.

If we get Lorenzo Carter, I will be absolutely stoked. That would be amazing!

He is also a quality special teams player.

Thisi s good. Not too much money and he really is a nice weapon on 3rd down. Really does a nice job on screen / draw plays. I only see us using more of those with Nagy.

Can you send me the clean image. I wasn't able to find it.

I’m confused. Why did the Raiders cut him? I’d be all over him. Like you I never understood the Gould move, but it seems like we finally have a good kicker again. O’Donnell is ok but I think he still has some upside.

Agreed. I like Fitzpatrick a lot because of his fit at safety. My preference is Nelson if he is there. Otherwise top pass rusher or DB. If Nelson isn’t there, I am ok moving down as many as five spots as well because I don’t think there is a major drop off in the linebackers. All of them expected to be there around the bears pick have various strengths and weaknesses. If we want a dB, I do see a distinct drop off after Fitzpatrick and Ward. Jackson from Iowa is good but Fitz and Ward are at another level (prospect wise). Ultimately I think we either move up for Chubb or move down and take another linebacker. This is because I expect Nelson to be gone.

I like this draft a lot. I think Lazard is one of those guys who might not have the speed, but the guy just produced. Knows how to get open and knows how to high point the ball. Ward has shot to be a real playmaker and while we spent money on our 2 primary DB's, its a passing league and injuries, etc. happen, and Ward can cover and looks like the type of guy who will force turnovers.

Alright, the site is officially back online. No more expected outages. Software is on the latest and greatest and I'll send a board note out. Will take a week or two until we can get the color scheme and stuff fixed (so it looks like a Bears site vs. a Raiders site haha).

You should see a button at the bottom, with an arrow that says "go to topic listing" and than another that says "Bearstalk" both of those should take you where you indicate. When we customize the look and feel, we'll see if we can make it bigger with an image.

Tomorrow is when I intend to do the last step of the upgrade. Will likely be down a good part of the day, but I'll have a link up to a temporary board for people to post. Once the new site is up, we'll get back to making this thing look pretty. I'm hoping to add some relevant twitter feeds when you first access the site (on the right hand side) so that there is a good news feed that people can pick up breaking news. If people have other things they'd like to see, let me know.