balta1701-A

Cameron goes to the Ravens as their OC.

On the other hand though, they're sure to spend another high draft pick this year on defense, and they've continually subbed in young guys at most positions on offense. The only 2 guys where you start talking about age are Harrison and Manning, and Manning's shown no signs of slowing down. Toss in another couple first rounders on that defense to fill in some holes, and bring back Freeney healthy, and they could well just keep getting better. They've managed to lock up almost all their key guys at this point, and when people do leave, they've found guys to step in almost immediately (Ugoh).

Oh give Harrison a break on his attitude issues. The steroids make him crazy!

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The one potential pitfall with that thinking is: roster spots. Specifically, it's always nice to stockpile high picks, but you still have to have somewhere to play them. Just look at the last 2 years...in order to whittle down the roster to the correct size, the Bears have made use of the IR list as a sort of redshirt year, where they hold onto a guy but he doesn't take up a roster spot. Owko, Bazuin, Dvoracek have all gone that route. At some point, especially in an era of a rising cap, it does make sense to hold onto a higher pick rather than trade down because you just don't have a place to put all the guys you're drafting. Then again, with the Bears FA losses, who knows exactly where they'll stand at the end of this year on roster numbers. Just an issue to consider. A #14 pick might be more useful than a #25 pick and a 2nd rounder if the 2nd rounder has no where to play next year.

Honestly, without seeing him behind some kind of offensive line, its hard to know. IF there's no hole for a runner to go through anywhere, then it doesn't much matter where he is on the depth chart. Behind a rebuild O-Line, I wouldn't mind risking a Benson/Wolfe 1/2 combo next year (I'm not a fan of AP as the #2 back because I don't feel he gives you anything that Benson doesn't in terms of style or performance). At least in theory, Wolfe could be the kind of guy who you'd want to be the counter-weight to Benson. Benson should be the big, straight ahead, bowl over guys as he hits the hole hard type back, while Wolfe should be the guy that the defense has to chase all over the field. Both have the ability to do that physically (if Benson ever stays healthy). But behind an O-Line where whatever you do, the running back has no hole to go through and has to shake off the first hit 2 yards behind the line of scrimmage, nothing is going to work in the running game. I for one don't want to write off either of these guys based on last season, because I think that if you put LT behind the Bears' O-Line, he might have pulled off 3.4 yards a carry if he was lucky.

Is there any chance the Patriots tag him? The question is going to be cap room, obviously. A tandem of Brown and Wilson starting the season, along with Vasher and Tillman on the outside, sounds to me like the best defensive backfield in the NFL, if Brown ever stays healthy (clearly you have to be careful in how you use him at the least). I'd probably be willing to lose Briggs and go with Williams/Okwo to free up cap room to do that. The question is going to be the rest of your cap room...is it worth signing him while at the same time failing to upgrade the O-Line (NO), is it worth signing him while risking not being able to extend Harris (with the tag around, maybe).

Put him behind an offensive line that can play football at least with some moderate level of quality.

Aside from Brown, is there anyone obvious on the FA market as a safety this offseason? Not a big money guy or anything, just a guy who could come in and give us some depth there.

The trouble with that line of thinking is that...this is also, from everything I've read, expected to be a particularly strong draft for O-Linemen, but may well be lacking at exactly those skilled positions that you say we should be drafting. There's some decent strength at RB even though we've already got a lot of cap space tied up at that spot, but QB, WR, TE etc., are supposedly fairly weak. This is a great draft to be in the top 15 and in need of drafting an O-Linemen because they should be available.

Furthermore, this is so far considered to be a very strong draft for O-Linemen, with potentially several LT's projected to go in the top 20. In other words, not only do the Bears have a need for O-Line, they should be able to grab a guy at a weak position without having to draft based on need. Unless 5 LT's go before the Bears pick, then the Bears can pick O-Line and they will literally not be stretching to take a guy at a position of weakness...they'd be taking a guy where he belongs in the draft anyway.

Who's the 2nd safety?

I think that's overestimating the problem. Chicago gave up a ton of sacks last year, 24th in the league (where 31st is the worst), but teams like the 9ers and KC were quite a bit worse in that. They were the worst in rushing YPC though, so it's not overestimating it by much.

If the Bears could somehow get Dvoracek, Brown, and Vasher all back on that defense, with another year removed from surgery for Harris next year...they're 1 safety away from being able to tear the league up on defense again if injuries don't ransack another season.

Would any of y'all have any interest in Mr. Losman?

Bengals Coach Marvin Lewis is currently insisting that the Bengals will not move Johnson and they expect him to be a "Pro".

Garret turns down both offers, elects to remain in Dallas, and sends a cryptic message to Wade Phillips...something about how he should be wary of the Ides of February or something like that.

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I dunno, simply adding in Ronnie Brown, along with probably a high level defensive draft pick or two might easily be worth a few games.

Gracias!

Small note...the original post in this thread seems like it was pulled from somewhere. Can you make an effort to include the link if it isn't all your own material? That's one of those things that some businesses will have problems with if they see a site doing it repeatedly.

Link.

Ah, the myth of the super-coach continues...

Cleveland totally overhauled their O-Line last offseason and picked 1 of their 3 QB's to trade. The key guy they got was the #3 pick last year, Joe Thomas, who probably was #2 on most people's ROY ballots last year.

Which would you prefer out of these 2 options next year (assume for the moment that no QB is drafted): Grossman, Griese, Orton Grossman, Orton, Culpepper. (Assume nothing is implied by the order there also.)