balta1701-A

Well, the problem is that if a guy gets a ton of INT's, tackles, or whatever, that may be because he's doing a poor job of covering and so his man gets thrown to a lot.

The key part of my claim there is that they may well be mutually exclusive. In other words, if I think it's important to focus on the O-Line in round 1, then that precludes the Bears drafting a first round RB, which is what some poeple here are suggesting.

He led the league in INT's by 2. Whether it's a valid way of measuring ability or not I'll leave to you, but 10 INT's is a lot of games changed by an INT.

The problem is...for any of these guys to be effective, the Bears also need a vastly better performance from their O-Line, and these may well be mutually exclusive.

I think that the answer to this question is Thomas Jones. Specifically, you want balance for Benson, you need to look for a speedy, cut-back type runner. Benson is by design a bruiser. He should be the guy who takes a hit and goes through it, who is hard to bring down, who gets you an extra yard or two just off of momentum, who gets a hole opened for him right in front of him and nails it. The change of pace for him is a guy who can run a sweep, who can stop and cut back if a hole opens unexpectedly somewhere else. Furthermore, IMO, the Bears already have another guy who is an inside runner similar to Benson...that's the one thing I felt AP was a good guy at, running inside. I think if you stick Peterson behind a good line, he's a good change of pace for a fast or shifty running back as well, which is why Benson and AP are tragically mismatched; both fill the same role.

IMO, Cleveland's GM there is just sabotaging his chances to build a better team long term, but he's also trying to keep his job short term so it's hard to blame them. I just don't think it is the right move for a rebuilding team to hold on to a high value QB and a highly drafted QB in this league, especially not after you lost this year's first rounder. It's just a blueprint for stagnating at around 9-7.

Arthur Blank...Look at where the last 2 organizations that have hired big time college coaches who move along for the money have wound up...you and the Dolphins. STAY AWAY. He'll come up, lose for a year or two, and then be right back being worshipped by some big money college team in the SEC. And Carroll...you're out of your mind if you take that job, I don't care what the money says.

In terms of the tag, I think it's probably worth noting that last year, the franchise tag for a WR was $7.6 million. Which would eat up roughly 1/3 of the Bears' available cap space The Transition tag, FWIW, is at $3.6 million for a WR.

So, the pass-happy attack of Mike Martz might on some level be good for Alex Smith, because right now he needs someone who can organize a passing attack, if he can ever stay healthy that is. But the question I have is...the 49ers best weapon offensively has been Frank Gore. I don't care how good Smith becomes at Martz's passing attack, you can't forget Frank Gore.

Never, ever, ever count the Redskins out for cap reasons.

Link.

Detroit has already scheduled an interview with Cameron, with the 49ers, Rams, and Cowboys if someone hires Jason Garrett also potentially on the list.

Losman is not a Free Agent, nor will he be cut. If you want him, you're going to have to trade for him. I can imagine they'd ask for something similar to what they got for McGahee, a 2nd & 3rd round pick or so.

Well, what are their other options? Extend Anderson now, and wind up having 2 very, very costly QB's eating up their cap space and killing their chances of improving next year by bringing in a FA to fill any holes (especially since they're sans a first rounder this year), or pick one of the 2 that they have to deal? And if you don't extend Anderson, which one do you deal...the one you have under contract or the one who may walk within a year? IMO, their 2 most intelligent options would be to either try to swap Quinn to someone for a late first rounder or an early 2nd rounder if someone will give that up and extend Anderson now, or try to move Anderson for the same thing. When you're a team rebuilding like the Browns, just starting to get somewhere, it doesn't make any sense at all to wind up letting a guy like Anderson walk for virtually nothing when he could at least net you a player or a draft pick.

This is an example of why I argue that the draft value chart as currently presented is heavily over-weighted towards the picks at the top. Yes, in some years you can pick up a Peyton Manning at the top, but there's still a non-trivially high bust rate even for the top pick. A team going entirely off that draft chart would reject a trade that might be overwhelmingly in their favor (I.e. I'll give you my entire draft for the top slot).

But think of the RB corps we could have after we spend our 2009 1st round pick on a RB as well because Mendenhall looked bad behind this line also. We could have the best 1-2-3 set of RB's in the NFL!

I simply disagree here. I don't know that Benson is a bust, nor do I know that Grossman is a bust, nor do I know that Orton is a bust, nor do I know that Olsen is a bust right now, simply because I don't feel that you can evaluate how those players looked in a realistic sense without a quality performance from the O-Line. Just thinking back to the Giants game, I though for example Grossman didn't look that badly in the game, but he spent most of it being knocked to the ground, and thus he never had a chance to make a big play to any of his receivers. If your QB is on the ground in a second, it's hard for receivers to have a shot to get open. If your OLine isn't working well, then your running game won't work well. Benson, for example, always seemed to take his first hit behind the LOS, which is a pretty bad thing for a running game. The best skilled players in the world will look bad behind a poorly performing O-Line.

The offensive "Stars" are never O-Linemen, but without solid O-Linemen, few offensive players ever become stars (I'll exclude Peyton Manning, but other than that). Think Tom Brady would be looking that good if he was on his back half the game? Think Adrian Peterson would have put up dominant numbers last year if he wasn't running behind a couple of the league's best blockers? Over and over, if you look at the teams that are winning, they are doing so because their O-Lines perform well. Aside from Peyton, few players can make stars out of O-Linemen, but solid O-Linemen can make stars out of a lot of players.

And when he struggles due to the lack of a solid O-Line for the Bears next year, the Bears can draft another top RB next year. Drafting WR after WR has worked for the Lions right? Well, let's do the same with RB's. Whether we like Benson or not, he's what we've got right now. So fix the O-Line first until he's more moveable.

Part of the issue may be the Bears tendency lately to use the IR list as sort of a redshirt year for some of their defensive guys. Dvoracek, Bazuin, Okwo all were put on IR for some fairly minor injuries their rookie years because the Bears didn't really have spots for them in September, and therefore that's 3 guys who we've drafted pretty highly who didn't contribute their first year. You could say the same thing about guys who were blocked like Williams as well.

This is pretty much expected, with Trent Edwards taking his job. There's a few teams he could/would be an upgrade for, and he has a short contract. If I were the bills, I'd try hard to honor his trade request, maybe pick up another draft pick or a player some team wanted to discard. With a young team in need of talent, I think you do have to move him, even if you only get a mid-round pick for him or something like that.

I agree with you on the O-Line part, but just because no one signed him doesn't mean he can never play. How many stories have we heard about people turning into decent players, or even stars, from more of the scrap heap than that? If nothing else, we can always point out how Kurt Warner was bagging groceries the year before he dominated the league and won a super bowl. How come all 29 teams missed that?

Rock me Jerry Angelo?

Out of that list...the only guy I'm absolutely certain would be an upgrade over Benson is Barber. The others that have put up decent numbers have done so behind very good O-Lines or haven't been the top performer on their team or both. Turner, Lewis Ward all seemed to be playing behind O-Lines that were performing well, Jones didn't seem to do that well behind a solid O-Line, and aside from Brown the rest aren't really useful. I think Brown actually doesn't sound like a bad idea.

The Bears have spent 2 picks the last couple years on LB's. Okwo and Williams. Counting Urlacher and HH, that's 4 guys right there for 3 spots. Assuming Briggs walks, that still leaves, as far as I can tell, virtually no reason to spend another draft pick on a LB. The 3 areas I'd firmly say the Bears should stay away from this draft are LB, CB, and D-Line. I mean, ok, if there's a guy you like in the 6th round, fine, but nothing high. And I for one wouldn't mind trading down at all. The Bears tend to be pretty good at picking in the late first/second rounds as far as I'm concerned, and I think that the standard draft pick value chart seriously over-charges people for high picks.