AZ54

He's put in a lot of time and effort. Not only that, I like his introspective approach toward improving those things he wasn't doing well at. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do in preseason. http://www.scout.com/nfl/bears/story/15500...te-ego-ferguson

If it's a straight up trade of Wilkerson for Bennett I'd make that deal in a heart beat. I'll figure out the money one way or another. Forte is open to a new deal that lowers his cap hit. Not sure how much lower but there is a few million potential there. Losing Bennett takes another $3.8mil off the books in 2015 and $6mil in 2016. Figure Jared Allen is gone next year but even if he is around we have $41mil in cap space for 2016. Without Allen add another $8.5mil in cap space. FWIW I doubt we'll be paying Tim Jennings $5.7mil in 2016. Willie Young might not fit in the new scheme so if cut in 2016 he frees up another $2.5mil. Without too much effort we'll have almost $60mil in cap space for 2016 and we can fit in Wilkerson along with Jeffrey and Kyle Long new contracts. The highest 3-4DT contracts are Cofield $6mil/yr and Paea $5.2mil/year both on the Redskins. If you start looking at 4-3 DTs then we're talking $10-13mil (leave out Suh of course). Wilkerson is going to slot in somewhere between those two groups and it might be a perfect swap for Allen's cap hit in 2016. I don't want to lose Marty but Wilkerson is a game changing interior Dlineman and I value that more than a good TE. In other words, although they play different positions, I think Wilkerson has more impact on a game than Bennett.

I"m glad Thibs is gone and I'm not sure why it took so long after the last loss. He's a good coach but there are better coaches. The way the team played against the Bucks and Cavs was horrible. Why was he double teaming LeBron out beyond the 3pt line with his center? All LeBron did was wait for the double team then pass to the wide open shooters who kept hitting 3's, or they'd kick it inside to big guys who had easy layups. Gasol is not nearly as good of an interior defender so leaving him to cover two players inside does not work. At some point Thibs should have realized this isn't working but he kept with it well into the 4th quarter and right to the end of the last game. LeBron was laughing at it because we just kept on doing it. Jimmy Butler was doing just fine guarding LeBron so no need to constantly leave shooters wide open like that. Other things I'm tired of is the same offensive play run over and over and over. Plus his teams never figured out how to run a pick and roll. If you are going to always do a pick and roll with your PG way up high then it's really helpful to do it with a big guy who can shoot outside. Noah is a great passer but he's not making anyone worry about his shot 20 ft from the basket. Why not run this more with Gasol? Noah is a great garbage man around the rim and needs to be setting the screens down low so he can stay where he is most effective. He's also a great interior passer giving him the ball in the post he can still be effective passing to cutting players. Derek Rose never learned how to setup the picks right either so somebody needs to get in his ear and tell him to quit leaving so early before the pick is set. That's high school basketball stuff. I don't think Thibs would get on him as he should have, or maybe Rose doesn't listen. Either way we need a new coach who can get these guys playing together on offense better than they have been the last few seasons. We've made it far to easy for other teams to play defense. Enough venting....I just think there more than can be done with the roster we had and it's time to find someone better. My only worry is that the leading candidate is Fred Hoiberg who has built my Cyclones back to an annual top 25 team.

Martellus had issues with the plays last year and not being in OTAs to learn a new playbook isn't going to help him. Don't think the new Bears brass aren't aware of his suspension during training camp last year. They aren't going to commit more money to him without seeing him work first. His issues with the plays early last year resulted in a couple INTs. Of course Cutler got the blame but IMO Bennett ran the routes wrong or read the coverage wrong. For his part, Martellus has to know we aren't throwing the ball his way as much this year as we did last year so he won't have those high numbers again. I can't say I blame him for trying but I think his strategy is the wrong one.

Not giving up next year's 4th. I'd rather just sit back and see what shakes out from the competition among the players we already have on the roster.

I think he's done. We need to get better but more importantly we need to get younger and better. We're not challenging for anything this season.

He should fire his agent. The goal should have been to get him drafted in the 1st Rd despite this issue. If not there, then the 2nd Rd or 3rd Rd. The agent is now telling us his client did nothing wrong but his goal all along was to get him to UDFA status. Nothing but sour grapes here and an agent who suddenly realizes he'll be explaining all this to potential clients next year.

I agree he started out decently but he never made that improvement you expect to see after the first year. I still think we need to temper expectations. He's a good depth signing but he'll have competition to make the final roster.

I think Acho is over-rated here by Bears fans. Can't find a single Cardinal fan here in AZ who misses him. He might make the roster but he's far from a lock to make it. Do not overlook Fabuluje at RT. The guy is a beast and he now has his weight down so his mobility should be improved. If he takes to the coaching we might have ourselves a nice player for many years to come.

Please read the sentence that says "you have no way to prove how a particular player's use of steroids affected the outcome of a particular game." That is totally different from the fact I believe steroids improve a players performance in the game, and does influence the outcome on the field on some plays. The discussion here is around what the Patriots fan's say: Prove it helped him or the team. Likewise, Jason's point is that we cannot tell the difference in these footballs therefore since we fans cannot tell the difference even if he did cheat it simply doesn't matter. To that I say good luck proving steroids helped someone make a tackle, or catch a particular pass, or run for a TD. We know those performance improvements affect the game even if we can discern exactly in which way. If Tom Brady, as per his own statements, prefers footballs with less air pressure, then it is logical to assume that improved his performance in those games where that was done. If nothing else it made him more comfortable in his work environment when throwing a pass, an advantage he should not have had. Whether or not it would improve my performance; whether or not I can prove it helped him and his team, or whether or not I can tell the difference in the footballs is as irrelevant to the argument as it would be if we were talking about steroids. I can no more prove how it helped Brady and his team in the game than I could prove how one player using steroids altered a game. Do you or anyone else have data about how fast that player ran without steroids? how well he could tackle before and after? No. You just know that those things do affect a game. In the same way we know, from Brady's own words, that lower air pressure improved his ability to throw. Similarly, we can't prove how a GM texting to the coaches on the field helped their team. The GM was still punished because he violated the rules. We can't prove how the Falcons use of fake crowd noise affected their games but they were punished as well. We know crowd noise can affect games but it doesn't always affect every play. Nonetheless we accept that it was wrong because it might have affected one play, and that play might have won the game. Why can't we accept that a QB who says he throws better with lower air pressure in the footballs had an advantage when the air pressure was in fact low ...even if we can't prove exactly what that advantage was?

Because to prove a theory you must have a baseline data set or at least two tests with just the one variable different. You don't have that for any particular game, or any one single player to where you can say the steroids made the difference. Can you see him defend the same offensive play in the 1st half with and 2nd half without the steroids? No, so you have no way of knowing exactly in which way his use of steroids impacted any particular play much less the final outcome of the game. The steroids are just an example where people can more easily jump to the conclusion that using them must have helped that player. Yet that is the argument the Brady supporters throw out.... "You can't prove that it impacted the game."

Not one person in that MTV video threw a pass but to be fair I only watched about 6 or 7 people before realizing they are not doing anything close to a fair test. In fact they are so smart at MTV they labeled it a weight difference. I see no evidence of professional football quarterbacks, not even college football QBs who are more expert in handling a football, maybe they asked them later in the video. In any case it does not matter because the point of this is did Brady cheat to gain an advantage for himself. It mattered nothing with tackling ability of the Colts, nothing with play calling, as so many others are apt to point out. It doesn't even matter if other QBs don't find it advantageous. We can say the same things about steroid use. Prove who gained an advantage from that on game day. GMs who send text messages down to the field during games. Any advantage there? Teams who pumped in fan noise through their loud speaker system. Can you prove that was advantageous?

Everything we've heard about McPhee is good. He's not an explosive edge rusher but he's probably more like Michael Bennet of the Seahawks, perhaps a bit more athletic. He might be what we thought, or hoped, Houston would be.

As the owner's meetings get underway in San Francisco it seems clear we're going to get a change to the extra point rules. I'm curious which option folks prefer. I like the Competition Committee plan 14b the best. If it's a competitive play IMO the defense should be equally allowed to score as the offense does. I think the Eagles plan 14b, 2 point conversion to the 1yd line, is making the 2 point conversion too easy and sort of defeats the purpose of making this a more competitive aspect of the game. I do agree that a safety, even on an extra point (try), should be 2 points as it always is. However, getting a safety on any try is extremely unlikely so it's sort of a mute point.

Back to the OP: I'm trying to figure out how all this is fun?

I really like hiring Joe Douglas from Baltimore. He's been in that organization for many years and moved up. Whatever it is that Ozzy is doing, he's the man to learn form IMO.

I'm ok with calling it something else. Any preference to Ravens model? Seahawks model? Giants model? Those teams have all won with a defense-first model followed by a strong running game and a good not great QB. I don't think anyone is fixated on a name per se it's just that is the most recent example of a team using the run first model and focusing on that via the draft to be consistently successful on offense. Had Dallas a defense somewhat close to any of the three teams listed, i.e. ranked #10, they likely would have won the Superbowl. Seattle was one play away from doing so.

Cade McClown. Not sure I spelled that correctly but it feels right.

I'm hoping Brady and the Pats go full on civilian lawsuit so we can begin the legal process of discovery.

Asking Bears' fans if they want Cutler suspended so he can't play for a season? Even without a cheating scandal you'll still get a 50/50 response on that one.

Yes, they are taking the fall in a big way.

Did they lose their jobs? I haven't seen that anywhere. Fire them and it gets interesting because then they could sue and of course provide evidence they were just doing their job as they were instructed. I think New England knows they have to protect themselves from that risk.

You are correct, Fangio cited SMC as being one of the potential core players on defense at ILB among the returning players. Doesn't mean he's the starter right now, especially because the question he answered was solely about returning players, but that he seems him having the skills to be successful at ILB.

Just because Jason can't tell the difference between an under-inflated and properly inflated football doesn't mean others can't. Back when I played basketball every day it was easy to know if a ball was slightly under-inflated a couple psi. You can do that just by squeezing it. Whether an official notices or not isn't at issue because you know how much pressure a football has when you squeeze it to throw a pass. Most officials only hold a football hard enough to place it on the ground or toss it a little ways. Big difference in how much pressure you hold the ball with versus the grip used to throw a 15 yard out pattern. Fact is an NFL linebacker knew the football was under-inflated when he started this entire investigation. We've seen quarterback after quarterback come forward and state they always made sure the game balls met their specs before the game started. Why are so many of them so picky on air pressure and feel of the ball? Kickers are too and some used to microwave footballs before the game. The NFL took that advantage away from them.

Unless there is a miracle turnaround in our offense and defense both of these guys will likely be here for at least two seasons. At this point in his career it doesn't appear Fangio is considered HC material or he'd have been in the mix the last couple years. That his Dline coach got the nod over him was surprising.