AZ54

I don't think these QBs are that good and they are moving up simply because they are QBs. Lynch has a lot of question marks. Wentz is coming out of nowhere. We have far too many needs right now. The right time to draft the QB is when we hit the next deep QB draft and can find a decent talent in late Rd 1.

I just asked that question (was Ragland out on 3rd and long?) in another thread. That's not what I want to see from a draft pick at #11. Plus not running hard all the time fits what I saw in some earlier games; when the play goes away from him he doesn't hustle to get in on the action. His draft stock has been dropping on Drafttek lately into the 20's. If people start thinking he's just a two down LB that'll plummet further. With Smith injured and Ragland falling Myles Jack is the last man standing in the ILB top 15 discussion.

Easy to make plays when there is no defender there as Clemson's coverage was horrible. Now we know this guy can run but have no idea if he can run routes well. Can he make contested catches? His draft stock went up a couple rounds no doubt from way back to maybe early day 3. Saban is not the type of coach not to use his talented players so his disappearing act for most of the year is concerning but it's possible the coaches just fell in love with Henry and the run. Plus Alabama had QB issues so passing wasn't exactly their strong suit this year. Speaking of which, I hope we don't draft Henry. Not that we're looking RB early anyway but he looked very pedestrian around the LOS. I know he's good at running over college DBs but I don't see 1st Rd shiftiness around the LOS that means you just need to defend the initial direction the play goes and not worry about the backside contain. I didn't see the most of game but it appeared Ragland was being taken off the field on 3rd and long plays. Since there were so many players we could be drafting I recorded the game and I'll watch it someday to focus on guys like Ragland, Robinson, Jarran Reed, Shaq Lawson, Tankersley, Kearse.

The last significant coordinator hiring from within the organization that I can recall was Bob Babich and he was in way over his head. In this case, I like the fact we have continuity. Fox statement that this is "our" system means Loggains isn't bringing in his offense. That's something I didn't want to go through all over again and it would have been that way if we'd hired someone with more experience. Fox knew there was a strong likelihood Gase would be gone this year so he's been able to keep an eye on Loggains, and other coaches, this past season to see if he had a realistic candidate for OC. We know Loggains was heavily involved in devising the game plans each week when we had so many injuries so it appears he has a good handle on adapting the system to what the players can do as opposed to those who want to adapt players to the system. It's one thing to pass that test. Up in the air is if Loggains can adapt the play calls to what the defense is doing on game day. People learn and grow over the course of their career so we might not want to put too much weight into how Loggains fared in his work as the Titans OC. We have a stud DC in Fangio who needs no help from Fox. That means Fox can slide over to the offensive side in practice and prep meetings to ensure he's getting what he wants in the game plans.

That I find to be a stunning decision and one that validates the disfunction in that organization IMO. Gase has never been a HC before. With all the new job responsibilities he has to learn what could possibly convince an owner that he can also handle personnel decisions? We've seen some outstanding experienced head coaches like Mike Holmgren fail under that mantle. I believe Miami has hired their new "GM" when they promoted a guy from within the organization. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14495393...general-manager This isn't the best quote you can find from a guy who is an executive decision maker: "I think, in this league, you can have your philosophy and how you think you should build your team, but at the end of the day, you have to be flexible in your thinking and work with what wins in the league." I'm sure he's a talented guy but that "flexibility" to bend to what other people want is why he was promoted to this role because.... ...Gase and Grier still have to deal with Mike Tannenbaum. http://www.miamidolphins.com/news/article-...23-345d822a1cff Then clearly Tannenbaum is running the show in Miami, or is he? The GM is basically the top scout running both the pro and college scouting departments. It appears Gase reports directly to the owner but he has control over the final roster decisions so that leaves Tannenbaum where as far as personnel? I wish Gase well but the day he makes a big decision Tannenbaum doesn't agree with he'll soon learn that Tannenbaum relayed that bit of information privately to the owner. Then the owner is running the show but Tannenbaum is what...his confidant? I don't think this group (Gase, Tannenbaum, Grier) makes it past 3 years together.

I got this one wrong and Gase is gone. Except I did get it right that a lesser profile club (Miami) would jump toward the less experienced candidates. I don't think that's a good situation for any new HC to be in but best of luck to him. If he thought Martellus Bennett was hard to deal with wait to see him handle Suh and his $20mil/yr deal.

Welcome to Miami Mr. Gase. Get ready for your first press conference: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-footba...ld-twitter-rant

I got this one wrong and Gase is gone. Except I did get it right that a lesser profile club (Miami) would jump toward the less experienced candidates. I don't think that's a good situation for any new HC to be in but best of luck to him. If he thought Martellus Bennett was hard to deal with wait to see him handle Suh and his $20mil/yr deal.

I'm with you, not sure why he'd be one of the hottest candidates, or maybe the hottest. He's only been an OC for 3 years, one of which was very average. If Gase leaves I wish him well. Right now word is he is getting his 2nd interview with Miami.

Unless he screws up like Shane Ray did last year right before the draft I believe Nkemdiche is gone before we pick. The draft process is all about athleticism and his will be off the charts. Just like Clowney did despite concerns on his game performance and how hard he worked. Clowney did not have similar character concerns but we're talking about a guy going #1 overall versus picks 5-10. Somebody will fall in love with Nkemdiche's athletic freakishness, his ability to move around to multiple spots along the Dline, and they will take him in the top 10. I bet his agent does all he can to lock him away for the next four months, just make sure there isn't a window to jump out of. I agree he is not the type of player Fox or Pace prefer with such an early pick. Just looking at the character of last year's picks and it's clear what they value. If we are going DE at #11 and both are available I think we'd take Buckner before Nkemdiche, and I'd agree with that.

That's awesome for a guy who played a bit more than half a season in his return from an ACL injury. Yes, he was available early on but clearly not moving as well as he did later. Some of that may have been him taking to the coaching and the position change back to OLB but we still have to be pleased with that performance. Get someone else besides Goldman with pressure up the middle and we'll be seeing even more from these outside rushers.

I feel bad for Gase. The worst job openings have him as top candidate. Neither Philly nor Miami have their front office act together and that's a big problem IMO when the HC is being hired first. Gase might think it helps him have more control but I feel it's a recipe for disaster once egos collide. The fact both teams have come out so quickly and publicly going after him indicates just that kind of mess in the front office. These are meddling owners who want the hot young candidate to sell optimism to their fans. I wish him well. I'm so glad the Bears did it the right way last year and while we were a bit slow and some names rolled off the availability list it paid off. I watched Fox and Pace at the season end press conference. It was clear they are both on the same page as far as what needs to be done to improve things. The flip side of the Gase show was reporters asking Fox what happens if we lose Gase. Fox nonchalantly says (paraphrasing) "look, our systems are our systems. They don't leave or change when one guy goes out the door." Pace backed him up 100% stating that while they wish Gase best of luck, their job is to hire the best coaches and there are other quality coaches available. Translation, we have a plan in place and Fox is not worried one bit, Pace is right there in his corner.

I'm in this camp more than the pay Forte $5 or 6mil/yr. I think we'll survive just fine with Langford and Carey especially if I take the $5-6mil for Forte and spend it on the Oline in front of those two guys. For 2 years I have not been enamored with Forte's pass protection and have said so here. He fairly often misses blocks completely or he gets pushed around so quickly that Cutler has to adjust almost immediately. He does not have long speed, never really did. He is great at reading the plays and setting up blocks and he's great at versatility as far as being able to split out at WR. I'd like to have him back but my calculation says that his money spent on fixing the Oline makes Langford and Carey better, plus it makes Cutler better, which makes any WR we can manage to get on the field better. There isn't a whole lot out there in Free Agency at RG but at LG there is a young stud named Keleche Osemele from Baltimore (the fact he's a Cyclone doesn't hurt either). Ravens don't have a lot of cap space right now and he's going to get a lot of interest around the league. He also reportedly played at LT when needed this past season and did well enough, which is great versatility to have on your roster when your starter will likely be Leno. He played at RT in his career as well so he's been on both sides. I'd gladly sign him and put him at RG next to Kyle Long. We grabbed McPhee from Baltimore last year why not double dip? http://espn.go.com/blog/baltimore-ravens/p...-agent-rankings We have a lot of cap space so it's possible we could come back and sign Forte as well but he is not my priority FA heading into the offseason. I much prefer to go after someone like Osemele early and hard with a lot of guaranteed money. In the meantime, I'd tell Forte to shop around and let us know what he's got and we'll see what we can do.

Jack hasn't played much LB inside so at the moment he will need time to learn the position but he has the strength and quickness to get off blocks from lineman. There is no doubt it will be a learning curve for him but his upside on coverage is better than either of the other two 1st Rd LBs. If all 3 LBs are available when we pick, and if we pick one, it will be interesting to see who we go with because that will let us know which trait the coaches viewed as more valuable at this time.

We have a GM who is smart enough not to burn bridges. Not sure if Bennett falls into that category.

Looking over RB contracts it seems Forte will likely fall into the $4mil/yr salary range. The trick is figuring out what to guarantee. Charles avg $6.9mil/yr, 3.95 guaranteed Vereen avg $4.1mil/yr, 4.75 guaranteed Gore avg $4mil/yr, 6.5mil guaranteed Spiller avg $4mil/yr, 5.75 guaranteed Ingram avg $4mil/yr, 6.1 guaranteed Mathews avg $3.6mil/yr, 5.0 guaranteed Sproles avg $3.5mil/yr, 5.5 guaranteed Gerhart avg $3.5mil/yr, 4.5 guaranteed

The attitude problems are tough for us to evaluate but there clearly was something there. Aside from that we can't dismiss the likelihood the front office also wanted/needed some cap space in 2015, and again this year. We only gained around $4mil last year and gave $5mil to Royal so that wasn't even a wash. I think it was more for the long term plan in that Pace didn't want to be paying $10mil/yr to Brandon Marshall and $10-12mil/yr for Jeffrey starting in 2016. So in the end maybe a little of both improve the locker room and spend some money elsewhere. http://www.windycitygridiron.com/2015/4/21...contract-driven

The Bears did well mixing in young players, some off practice squads, in the last few games. Guys like SMC went out injured and Timu got a shot to start a couple games instead of Anderson/Jones. Jeffrey went down (again) and Meredith was back in on quite a few snaps against Detroit. Oline already had the backups out there: Leno, Grasu, Omameh/Ducasse. On defense we got two games out of Jones-Quartey at Safety after he struggled a bit earlier in the year. Other than Will Sutton I had no idea who was playing Dline for us against Detroit. Veterans like Houston and Young played a lot, which was fine considering they are still improving and working on things for next year.

Mariani has been ok in the slot but he's not what I want to see from our starter. I much prefer Eddie Royal, who is far quicker and a little faster, there.

That's Cleveland and likely Dallas drafting a QB. Toss in the 49ers too. Jerry Jones may have his faults but he knows to win you must have a top QB. He's drafting 4th and won't likely get back that high soon. Consider the long term success of franchises like Green Bay (Favre to Rodgers) and Indy (Manning to Luck) and it's about that continuity at the QB spot. Goff and Lynch are not in the same category as Luck but they'll go early anyway and I think one of them ends up a Cowboy.

Sadly they've played better in the 2nd half and now possibly going backwards with Chip reeks of desperation. I'm all for it...hire him.

Data on Pro Bowls vs. draft position, years as a starter vs. draft position. Data is 6 years old but I see no reason for it to have changed in the last 5 years. http://thedctimes.com/tag/nfl-draft-pick-pro-bowls/ http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.c...inebackers.html http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.c...raft-order.html If you find the chart showing Pro Bowls vs. draft slot then it is clear that top 10 picks have nearly double the amount of Pro Bowl selections for a top 10 picks and Pro Bowl selections tails off rather quickly from 10th to the 15th pick in the 1st Rd. More or less once you reach the 15th pick your odds of finding a multi-year Pro Bowl player are the same for picks 15-32. So if you want much higher chance of finding a multi-year Pro Bowler you need to be drafting top 10. For the Bears, sitting at #11 we are about twice as likely to find that player vs. drafting at #16. I'll take it.

He is a phenomenal athlete but he's also a different guy, somewhat in the Martellus Bennett mold but maybe worse, according to what I've read.

LOL. I'm actually with you, If I had to choose which coordinator to keep around it would be Fangio. I'm amazed at what he has done with so many changing pieces. How many players started at least one game on our defense? I don't know that answer off the top of my head but I'll bet it's north of 20. With Goldman out the last game every position along the Dline/OLB has seen different starters so that's at least 5. ILB has had at least 4, Safety too. Other than Cutler finally playing within the game plan, Gase's offense hasn't done much else that I can see would make people nervous about him leaving. If Cutler's improvement was more internal to him as I think it was, then we should be able to keep an average offense on the field even if Gase leaves. Build the great D with Fangio, better Oline run blocking, and you're in the playoffs.

You are correct and Walter Football is wrong. No ILB in the top 4 picks shows a glaring lack of understanding of what our defense was missing this season. Where is CB in that list of 1st four picks? We have no clue where we will spend our FA money but even if we sign an ILB and CB before the draft we will likely be still draft one of each early to add youth and depth. Although I like him I don't see Conklin worthy of a top 15 pick. I prefer any of the top 3 ILB (pending word on Jaylon Smith's knee injury) or even DeForest Buckner here who has proven he can be dominate in the run game. Then go elsewhere in the draft (Oline, CB, ILB/Dline whatever we didn't take in Rd 1) but no need to double up on Dline. Guys like Unrein, Sutton, and Jenkins have been productive enough to find a 3rd wheel in there. It's more likely the 3rd wheel come from the FA DT/DE we will sign. We still have Ego too although he was injured so early in the season only the coaches might know if he's worth counting on.