balta1701-A

Here's your game thread for this weekend folks. Enjoy it.

This is the 2nd post in this thread where people have seemed to use Reggie Bush as a positive example. Right now, there are 41 running backs considered qualified for the rushing stat lists (averaging 6.25+ attempts per game). Reggie Bush is 39th out of 41 guys (Benson is not on that list presumably due to injury) in yards per attempt, beating only Lendale White and Thomas Jones. Bush has also fumbled 7 times this year. Reggie Bush has put up a terrible season as a running back, and right now, given his draft hype, isn't looking all that much better than Benson in terms of living up to the promise.

IMO, missing out on Parcells is better than getting him. He's not Jesus. If the Falcons picked him up for any position, they might be tempted to try to "Win now" again while Parcells is around, and that'll just destroy them. They need to commit to rebuild from the ground up on that team, and it starts with bringing in a fresh, new system and new set of faces and letting them all grow together for a couple years. There's always that legend of the super-coach who's just going to fix everything, and for the most part in the NFL it just doesn't happen. You fix everything by getting a decent coach who's actually going to stick with it through a rebuildling process, and sticking with him for a while unless he turns out to be a complete dope.

Right now, Bush isn't looking like the hottest player in the world like he was coming out of USC. And I still am less than convinced that Peterson can stay healthy.

It kinda depends on what you mean by 1st day QB. A top pick basically leaves us with no reason to try Grossman for another year, because all Grossman would do would prevent him from playing and maybe prevent us from getting a better pick next year. A 3rd round pick might work, but might not be as valuable of a player, and it might hurt our ability to fill in other roles, like the O-Line. I just look at it and see 2 options...sign Grossman and focus on the O-Line, or let Grossman walk and commit to 2 years of rebuilding with a new QB.

I like some of these ideas and am not a fan of others. 1. I agree, let Briggs go. We've drafted 2 LB's in the last 2 years, we may as well use them. 2. I just don't see how trading Dez Clark gets us back anything in terms of draft position that is more valuable than what Dez Clark provides. He's solid, but he's not one of those guys that the rest of the league drools over because he doesn't put up huge numbers or make a big deal out of himself like some of the other tight ends. Dangle him fine, but make sure you get a surprising amount for him if you deal him. 3. I could certainly see how moving Brown or Ogun would provide much more draft value than Clark. And I continue to say that the only way to win in the NFL is to win with your draft picks, and we've drafted 2 D Linemen in the last 2 drafts. Whether we like Bazuin doesn't matter...to win in the NFL you have to win with guys you drafted, and so Bazuin needs to play next year. 4. I am ok with those O-Line moves. 5. If you trade Kreutz, I want to get a large haul for him, like a lower first round pick, which I'm not sure anyone would give up He may be declining, but if we're in the process of rebuilding that line, he's a key guy in the middle, he's still about as good as we'll get at those positions, and he'd probably be vastly better alongside a couple of younger people. On the WR's...I would be happy with anything. I'll take whatever we can get right now as long as the O-Line is fixed. In terms of signing a FA lineman, I would take a veteran if he was good enough Faneca's age might actually push his cost down, that's one reason why I might be interested in him. And if we sign 1, I could deal with only drafting 2.

Unless someone expected to go high drops, you have to go O-Line

Rex Grossman couldn't stay healthy until he led the Bears to the Super Bowl. I have no idea if Benson can stay healthy. Thus far he hasn't been able to do so. The injury prone label certainly does apply to him at this point in his career. Can anyone tell me what the cap implications of dumping Benson this offseason would be? I still think the correct solution at this point is to focus like a laser on fixing the O-Line this offseason and give him one more shot next year as the starting back.

He does have a decent eye for football type personnel, so I guess it would make sense to put him in the Marv Levy role with the Falcons. The thing you'd have to worry about is that it could make whatever coach they hire spend half his time looking over his shoulder in case Parcells would try to be Riley to that coach's Van Gundy. That might hurt their coaching search.

Damn, Angelo should have known to trade up

You know, looking back at that draft, the guys who went in the first 10 really haven't shown that much at all. 1 San Francisco Alex Smith - QB 2 Miami Ronnie Brown - RB 3 Cleveland Braylon Edwards - WR 4 Chicago Cedric Benson - RB 5 Tampa Bay Carnell Williams - RB 6 Tennessee Adam Jones - CB 7 Minnesota Troy Williamson - WR 8 Arizona Antrel Rolle - CB 9 Washington Carlos Rogers - CB 10 Detroit Mike Williams - WR 11 Dallas Demarcus Ware - DE 12 San Diego Shawne Merriman - OLB 13 New Orleans Jammal Brown - OT 14 Carolina Thomas Davis - S 15 Kansas City Derrick Johnson - OLB 16 Houston Travis Johnson - DT 17 Cincinnati David Pollack - DE 18 Minnesota Erasmus James - DE 19 St. Louis Alex Barron - OT 20 Dallas Marcus Spears - DE 21 Jacksonville Matt Jones - WR 22 Baltimore Mark Clayton - WR 23 Oakland Fabian Washington - CB 24 Green Bay Aaron Rodgers - QB 25 Washington Jason Campbell - QB 26 Seattle Chris Spencer - OC 27 Atlanta Roddy White - WR 28 San Diego Luis Castillo - DT 29 Indianapolis Marlin Jackson - CB 30 Pittsburgh Heath Miller - TE 31 Philadelphia Mike Patterson - DT 32 New England Logan Mankins - OG Don't really get a pro-bowler until pick 11 -13 with Ware, Steroids, and Brown.

The way the Bears O-Line has played this year, you could have the best play written up in history for him and it would probably get stopped for a loss. It's just so bloody hard to evaluate anyone on an offense when an O-Line plays this badly.

That was coming off of Jones's first year in Chicago, and Jones still wasn't looking like a #1 back. Still had a couple fumbles that year, still didn't put up 1000 yards, still missed a couple games. His performance skyrocketed the next 2 years. Personally, I think it's hard to blame the Bears for taking a RB in what most people thought was supposed to be a strong RB draft when they were drafting really high and where they though they didn't have a 1000 yard guy in the backfield. In hindsight, it's sure looking like Benson is the wrong choice. I'll withhold saying that for certain until we see him behind a decent O-Line, but at the time it certainly seemed justified.

Well, I'll admit I did not see the game (working) so I'm only going from the stat line, but I think there are some positives to take from Orton's stat line. Before the game, I predicted a couple things. Orton would have a low completion percentage and would not be able to throw the ball down field effectively for a large yards/attempt, because the pass rush would be on him too hard with the state of the Bears O-line. Therefore, I was going to ignore things like QB Rating and Completion percentage and focus on 2 stat lines; Sacks taken and INT's. Orton threw one INT, which I'm reading was a bad throw, and that's not excuseable. But the good news is he only threw one INT. And on top of that, he only took one sack. Behind an O-Line that can't create a running game and can't keep people off of you, those aren't bad numbers to build off of. Looking back at those other numbers, he also had a completion %age of 57.9, which is not as high as Griese's but with a lower INT rate that's tolerable. His YPA was terrible, but that number is very hard to separate from the performance of the line. If nothing else, in this game he was an upgrade over both of the other QB's at feeling pressure and avoiding taking the sack, which is a helpful sign. Was Orton Tom Brady? No, but even Brady would suck behind this line. At least in the stat sheet, his performance wasn't so bad that you'd say he should never play QB again.

If you said Vasher, Brown, and Dvoracek, I probably would agree with you. Vasher himself is a difference maker, but he's not the difference between 5-9 and 8-6.

If the Bears start a rookie QB in game 1 next year, they may as well blow everything up and call it a 3 year rebuilding process. They may as well trade Harris, Urlacher, and any of the other defensive parts that someone will give them a draft pick for. Because a couple of those guys are old enough/expensive enough that if the Bears are going to throw away 1-2 seasons on developing a new QB, it makes no sense to cut into the cap space by holding onto them as they age.

Does he come with the Whizzinator or is that sold separately?

Mark Anderson out with a knee injury, return questionable.

Troy Williamson out

Orton is still behind the same O-Line as Griese and Grossman was, which means he'll be under pressure. I wouldn't be surprised at all with a poor completion percentage. The 2 things I'll look for in the stat line will be the INT's and the Sacks. Hurries, Pressures, etc., I can live with because of the line. But INT's hurt the team and are usually a sure sign of bad decision making, and the number of sacks he actually takes will be a sign of whether or not he's learning how to feel pressure and buy himself time to get rid of the ball.

Would you have wanted Tank Johnson to still be around? Would Tank Johnson have been helping the Bears when he returned from his 8 game suspension and they were already what was it, 3-5? The Bears made the right choice in dumping Tank. Let some other team deal with that mess. The Bears started this season with what looked like an excellent setup on DT. Dvoracek and Harris would have been a nightmare for teams in the middle, and they had Walker to rotate in as a solid backup. Dusty getting hurt again blew the Bears chances with that. But that's one of those things I always try to point out; you can't keep a pro-bowler on the bench in case one of your key guys gets hurt. If the Bears let walker go this offseason, they'll certainly need to bring in another guy, but I'd be content with a similar setup going in to next season. With Harris and Dusty on that line, the middle of that line is still strong if people stay healthy.

So, what's the deal with the Bears' Linebackers?

For that money, no I didn't want Fukudome, and I'll tell you why. Even if Fukudome exactly replicated his numbers from Japan, I don't think he would have been enough to put the White Sox over the top. With the rest of our division, right now I might say the Sox have a 5% chance at the playoffs. If the Sox signed Fukudome and he was everything we hoped for, that maybe jumps to 7% (assuming none of our CF's perform now). We'd still need a lot of things to go right. We need the pitching staff to hold together with 2 kids in it, we need Contreras to find his old form, we need Vazquez and Buehrle to hold their form from last year, we need Fields to keep developing, and we need Thome, Dye, and Quentin to stay healthy. And even if all those things happened, a good run from Cleveland or Detroit could still beat us. If I thought the Sox were 1 player away, then ok, I'm willing to spend $15-$18 million a year on that gamble. But IMO, the only way the Sox are 1 player away is if everything goes right. But if one or two things go wrong, if Thome goes down for a month or Dye slumps to start the year again or Contreras doesn't find his late 05 form again, then all signing one of these big money guys does is remove our flexibility to sign a key guy when we actually do have a chance. The fastest way for the Sox to rebuild this thing is going to be to maximize the value of every single guy they have. That may well mean Trading Thome or Konerko this year if they get off to a hot start and a solid deal becomes available. Same with Dye if he can have a 2006 type season where he's fully healthy. But that also means playing as many of the kids as you can because a couple of them finding ways to succeed turns everything around. This includes Fields, Richar, Quentin, Owens, Anderson, Sweeney, Floyd, Danks, etc. Especially on the guys who are viewed skeptically; a good performance from them either in the big leauges or at AAA can boost their value back up to the level where either they can be useful pieces for the Sox or they can be useful trading chips. Example; right now, no one would give us jack squat of value for Anderson right now. But, if Anderson could have everything go right, get on a hot streak, and put up decent numbers at AAA or even better in the big leagues, then suddenly his value would go back up because he's still so cheap, and he could either be plugged in or traded for another useful chip. Right now Owens has low value because of his age, but if he got on a hot streak and hit .300 and stole 70 bases next year...that's basically the guy we traded Carlos Lee for. To rebuild the Sox, you have to maximize the value of every piece you have, and signing a FA doesn't do that. Signing a FA can put you over the top if you're close, but unless our kids come through as it is, all signing a FA would do right now is slow the rebuilding process more.

Unless Kyle Orton pulls a Derek Anderson here in these next few games, the choice for the Bears is simple. It is virtually impossible to draft a QB these days and have him come in right away and contribute. Therefore, I see 2 choices. 1: the Bears blow everything up and completely rebuild. Because if the Bears let Grossman walk and draft a QB high...then the Bears are committing to give that QB at least 1-2 years to learn the NFL game and to build around him. And with the situation the Bears are in Re: the cap and in particular re: it's key vets (read: Urlacher), I think committing to lose for 2 years is just wrong. The other alternative is to 1. Hold onto Grossman unless you really believe in Orton, because you will not win next year with a rookie QB barring a huge defensive performance, and 2. Put an O-Line in front of him and see what happens. An O-Line can be fixed rapidly through the draft and through FA, as teams like Cleveland and Minnesota have shown. Even a mediocre QB can look good if he's in front of a solid O-Line that is good enough to create a good running game. Unless Orton does something remarkable or a really nice trade becomes available for cheap (i.e. like Mcnabb for a pick or something like that), the Bears dumping Grossman is equivalent to the Bears deciding to completely rebuild, and at that point, they ought to consider moving Harris and Urlacher, because there's no reason to keep guys close to FA or with big cap numbers in that case.

I can't say I've been impressed with the play calling either, but the offspring of Charlie Weis and Albert Einstein couldn't make this offense look good with the way the O-Line has played this year. If you can't run the ball, then play action just gives the D-Line more time to be on your QB. Deep balls aren't useful for the same reason. If your QB is on his back, he can't exactly make a ton of throws.