balta1701-A

I'm usually one who doesn't like big moves or believe that there's a magical coach you can hire that will fix everything, but even I'll say that snapping up Cameron as the OC would be huge for the Bears.

Can't they give him the tender but then still decide to accept a lower price if no one offers the first and the third?

It's not nearly as detailed as the look that our guys took at the Bears cap status, but here's Peter King's analysis from a few weeks ago about where teams stood in relation to the 08 cap. The 9ers have more room than the Bears. The Redskins, uh, don't.

If they believe that, then they should take the best offer they get for Anderson this offseason and run with it.

Well, if they didn't go "all out" to try to win this year, they probably wouldn't have convinced themselves that swapping their 08 pick for the Patriots' 07 pick was a good idea.

I dunno about that. I mean, things really haven't worked out poorly for the last team that had this same circumstance except with a better 1st like QB, the Chargers, have they? They will certainly field offers, but they may well decide that they're going to need to be blown away to deal Anderson. Especially if you consider that the coaching staff and front office seemed on the verge of losing their jobs coming into this season. Dealing Anderson for a first rounder might be the right decision if someone offers it, but then those guys have to go from being 8-8 to committing to developing another rookie QB in Quinn, and a 4-12 campaign next year might cost those folks their jobs, rightly or wrongly.

Actually, on that one I was casually referring to the 49ers, who spent a lot of money on a couple guys last season but wound up taking a big step backwards.

And whatever team winds up being the big spender that goes after him will probably wind up being one of those teams a lot of people thinks will surprise a lot of people next year. And, just like the team that spent a ton in FA last season, they'll implode next year for various reasons due in no small part to trying to fix problems by throwing money at them.

I could see it happeneing, and I could see it both working and not working. As far as I can tell, outside of NE, the whole idea of the "Super-coach" who comes in and turns everything around with some incredible strategy is just wrong. You could plug Cowher into a lot of teams, and it might work, or it might not. The coach usually isn't the issue. The system usually matters vastly more. You need to have a coach and GM on the same page, picking players for their system, using the cap intelligently, and maybe even getting a little lucky. It also helps to have a Brady or a P. Manning.

Sauerbrun. Not only has he been reported as using once...but he kept kicking to Hester. Clearly he has anger management issues.

Well, I think he'll play football again somewhere, so I doubt that we've seen the last of him totally...

In a league with a salary cap, you can't go 3-4 potential pro bowlers deep at a single position without sabotaging yourself. You gamble by selling on a guy, but you're guaranteed to lose by holding onto every single guy you have just because you're afraid of someone getting hurt.

Actually, I believe you are wrong about where the Bears were in the 07 cap. I don't have the link but I'm pretty sure I posted it before the site migration...after extending Vasher and Tillman, the Bears basically wound up in a spot where they literally had the least amount of cap room left of any team in the league for 07 until November when teams could start using the 08 cap space. It was less than 600k IIRC. If my memory is right, Angelo did not waste a cent of his cap space last year. He didn't even have room to go after Leftwich or someone like that had he wanted to.

And as we've all seen the past few years, teams are just getting more and more flush with cash as the salary cap/revenue for the league goes up faster than the contracts that smart teams are handing out. There will be plenty of money out there for a guy like Berrian.

I'll take the opposite side here, and say that IMO, at least one out of Brown and O-Gun needs to be traded this offseason, simply because the Bears have chosen to spend draft picks on D-Linemen the last 2 years (one low and one medium). I continue to believe the key to building a successful program in the NFL is the draft, and you either live or die based on who you draft. And therefore, if you draft a person, you have eventually no choice but to play him and move people out of his way. We've drafted Anderson and Bazuin the last 2 years, Anderson has been very good but we haven't yet seen Bazuin. But that gives the Bears 4 potential Defensive Ends, and that's too much talent to lock up in those positions. The calculation you have to make is...if you traded Brown or O-Gun, let's say you brought back a pick or a WR or an O-Linemen to fill a hole for you. Yes, you create a hole on the D-Line, but you create a hole at a spot where you have 2 recent draftees, and you use that guy to fill one of the gaping holes you already have. If you do it right, you can arrange things so that the upgrade you get from filling the hole is much more important than the hole you make by trading the guy at the position you're strong at.

I'm sure he'd be thrilled to be put in a situation without a veteran QB who may be fairly inadequate in putting the ball in his hands.

Does he have the career record yet?

Yeah, that's right. Just keep kicking to him. Just try.

JA has in the past done some dynamite work drafting on the defense and finding stars where other people didn't look. He hasn't yet done that on the offense, and his offensive picks right now have struggled. It's possible to turn that around pretty quick though if the O-Line was rebuilt. A lot of people forget when evaluating JA's drafts that the last 2 years, he's focused a lot on building up depth on the defense at positions where we had risky guys who we might lose. And when evaluating those drafts, you sort of have to remember that the Bears have used IR as almost a red shirt year...with guys like Bazuin, Okwo, and Dvoracek missing a year to sit and observe. Throw 1 more random injury into there on Dusty and Briggs coming back to block Williams for a year, and a lot of the key picks Angelo has made the last 2 years haven't played yet. If those guys come out healthy and perform next year, it gives the Bears an awful lot of options and probably puts them right back in the playoffs just from the strength of their D.

When's the last time the Bears have actually traded up in a draft? Especially within the first round? Heck, when's the last time that trading up in a draft in the first round actually seemed to work for a team?

Well, on the other hand though...a big portion of the Bears Pass defense has been out this season. Vasher's been out all year pretty much, and so has Brown. I still think the Bears have little choice but to try to bring Brown back because he's so unbelievably effective for the few games he's in there...you just don't want him signing a minimal contract with the Cowboys, Packers, Patriots, or something like that, then having him miraculously be healthy the next couple years. Even if you weakened the pass defense by moving Urlacher around, just bringing back Vasher and not playing Archuleta will help that. Clearly, the Bears have at least 1 safety hole to fill in, probably could use 2. But with the issues on offense being so much more severe, esp. with the offensive line, I don't think you can spend anything higher than a 3rd rounder on a safety, even if there's someone you really, really like. It's possible that finding a FA/trade bargain (i.e. like say, Chris Harris was for the Panthers) would be a good solution as well.

Methinks it is.

And if anyone doubted my claim that the key parts to teams that are constantly good are found through solid drafting and not through the FA Market, there you have another big piece of evidence.

You can say that about them every year. And they still give out a big contract every year. Or two.

I would not be surprised at all.