AZ54

I don't think DeLaPuente is the center of our future because I think we are over-rating his abilities. If the Bears felt that way they could have given him a longer contract with a bump in salary next year. The lack of interest he had in the FA market says a lot IMO. Most teams felt better seeing what they could get in the draft rather than sign him. Its likely after the draft was done some team that didn't draft a C would have offered something. He is a good 1yr option to backup Garza and rather than wait around he chose to come back to the coach who helped him become a starter in the league. Probably not a bad idea for him. For the Bears perspective I love the signing. 1) We know the team isn't that high on Boggs, confirming what most here thought anyway. 2) DeLaPuente should be sufficient enough as a backup OC that Garza can now be considered as part of our backup OG options. I think we have our top 8 for the final roster: Britton, Long, Slausson at OG Garza, DeLaPuente, at OC. Boggs on the roster to compete as well but likely a practice squad candidate. Bushrod, Mills, and Brown at OT. Joe Long on the roster as well to compete but likely a practice squad candidate. 3) We need one more body to compete at OG but this removes drafting OG/C as a need. We can still add one late in the draft if the right player is there, a UDFA, or find a vet min type to compete in camp. We have more flexibility to draft defense but really opens the door on drafting both a QB and RB in the mid-to-late rounds. I like that.

It's just one little piece of the puzzle to playing Dline and I don't think it's anything magical. Certainly not something others aren't teaching.

I remember those years but can't remember them making the type of highlight plays we we're treated to last year by Marshall, and moreso Jeffrey. Wilson appears to have gained a significant amount of muscle based on the videos on the team's website. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does in training camp.

We'd have one heck of a Dline and with Pryor patrolling the box running against us would be hard to do. Passing for that matter with our DEs and both of those Dlinemen can get after the QB too. Adding Hyde in the 3rd (doubt he'll be there) would be awesome. Quick feet, power, and can catch too. Should be able to pass protect with his size. Would give Trestman two guys he could rely on for 40 carries in a game if he ever wanted to, and most importantly a solid backup RB. That combo along with our big WRs blocking on the edge would wear down DBs late in the game.

Very true.

Donald, Gilbert, then probably Dennard. I'm not that sold on Dix. Pryor reminds me of Bob Sanders, maybe a little bigger physique, and seeing how he hits he'll probably have a similar career: Many violent highlights that shorten his career. Not that I'm against safeties that play that way but he leads with his head a lot and that won't fly in this league. Getting one CB who can handle one side of the field is a huge plus. I think either of those CBs can develop into that player for us.

http://walterfootball.com/nflrumors.php There would be "panic" in the Bears' warm room if Aaron Donald is off the board, according to Todd McShay. ------------------------------- If this were Jerry Angelo's war room I'd expect a panic move if his targeted player were off the board. We're led by Phil Emery now and Phil plans for all situations. Besides that, we have so many needs there will be several options. If one of the top 3 LTs fell to us and we took him I'd live with that and move Bushrod to RT (likely next year). At #19 you are hoping your guy falls to you. At #14, in this draft, you will have a significant talent on the board when you pick. The other thing is that there are always 2 or 3 WTF moments in the top 13 picks.

This Lovie apple certainly doesn't appear to be falling far from the tree. http://walterfootball.com/nflrumors.php NFL Rumors - April 4: Comment on these NFL Free Agent Rumors here. "Major Wright's deal is not finalized but it's likely he will be a Buccaneer." - Rick Stroud, Tampa Bay Times

http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1...42-13b5cb17a9e8 In an "Around the League" feature posted this week, NFL.com analyst Chris Wesseling selects the Bears' Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery as the best wide receiver tandem in the NFL. "A prototypical go-to target on third downs in the red zone, Marshall is among the NFL's top handful of receivers from the past decade," Wesseling writes. "He was outplayed at times last season by Jeffery, who was a big-play machine en route to finishing second among NFL receivers with 1,521 yards from scrimmage." -------------------------------------------------- The place where receivers go to die has turned around in just 1 season. And to think, it wasn't too long ago when I'd have been happy to have just 1 Pro Bowl WR on our roster. I'm glad we re-signed Cutler. Certainly the money was more than I expected, or though we'd get to but on the other hand, I've never seen a Bears offense do what we did last year, even with a backup QB for that many games. We deserved a chance to see what can happen with the key Pro Bowl caliber players all coming back for a second year in the same offense. We've seen that continuity on defense throughout Lovie's tenure (minus the Babich experiment) but never on offense. In fact we signed a Pro Bowl DE and he can't stop talking about how hard it was to stop our offense.

Danieal Manning is now a Bengal… http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...0,6085479.story I'm curious what kind of a contract he got on that one year deal. Surely at 31 years old he'd have preferred something with more years even if it meant being a backup. Either that or he had no other phone calls in 3 days and got nervous. I'll put my money on the latter.

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/bears/post...draft-questions http://www.chicagobears.com/team/roster.html It's the offseason so it's hard to decipher what coaches are doing with players. Britton re-signed and now he is listed as an OG. Meanwhile James Brown who was kicked inside from T to G is now back listed as a OT. From an athletic standpoint Britton looked a bit slow on the edge so perhaps he's a better fit inside. We'll see how it plays out but it appears there has been a slight shuffling of the line this offseason. For sure we're going to add at least one more guy to the mix, if not two.

I think Britton has realized that working with Kromer is going to be good for his career long term. According to his (Britton's) words last year, in terms of technique he was not very good when he was with the Jaguars. He looked slow and unsure of what to do at times last year. Maybe a year later he'll be a step better.

For Wright he's no longer on the team and as far as I know is currently unemployed. He will find work but it won't be as a starter and he certainly was far from a highly sought after FA. For a 3rd Rd pick he should have been an adequate starter, he was not. Conte is about 1 year behind Wright although I hope he turns it around. Again, as a 3rd Rd pick he should have been an adequate starter and at this point the majority of the board here doesn't even want to keep him around for depth. Paea has not done nearly enough to justify his 2nd Rd selection. I hope he too turns it around but can no longer be optimistic due to the fact he always seems to be injured. Unless he has a big turnaround this is likely his last year on the team. JA had some hits but it's the large amount of misses on players that didn't even turn out to be solid starters or depth players. Unless we had that great year with very few injuries, that lack of depth is what ended our seasons year after year under JA. We overpaid for Peppers in FA but I have no regrets as he played great for us his first 3 seasons. Garza was a great FA acquisition.

I view Lynch as a UDFA candidate. I really don't think he'll ever be a good NFL QB simply because I don't think he has enough arm to make it in the NFL. I love how he plays the game. He doesn't have enough size or speed to make me think he can convert to another position. For that matter, he doesn't have that much size for the QB position. He said he did some RB workouts at the combine and at his Pro Day he did some DB workouts. Is he being looked at as a SS? H-back? RB?

There is no loyalty anymore.

Don't take a DT because he won't start? We will use a 3-man rotation as we always have and as all teams do. Who will someone like Aaron Donald not be ahead of: Paea? Collins? From there he follows up that logicby saying we could draft an OG in Rd 1. This after we signed Slausson long term and have Long at the other spot. So that guy won't be a starter either Last year drafting an OG in Rd 1 was not a surprise. Drafting Kyle Long at #19 was. So what we really know is that Emery will draft needs and he's not afraid to go get his guy earlier than we think. It was the same when he drafted SMC. DE was a need at that time it's just nobody thought we'd go after SMC that early (if at all given our scheme). The better advice might be to look at the players ranked or expected to go in the first half of Rd 2 at one of our positions of need and expect one of them to be our pick at #14. I wouldn't rule out Ebron but I highly doubt we go that route. If we wanted to add a purely WR-type TE we can likely do that later in the draft.

More than anything his presence replaces the leadership gap we had on defense last year. Add in Ratliff as well and you have two veterans who know how to work and are willing to speak up and help the younger guys. From a talent standpoint he is the speed rusher we haven't had for years even if he's lost a little bit of the burst. I would love to add Aaron Donald to the inside pass rush with these guys.

I don't think we're done in FA at all. I expect we'll see a couple more additions with the most likely being a DT. It might not happen until after the draft. Backup OT is also on the needs list. We have $8mil in cap space so there's room to do both. Beyond that we might see one or two more brought in on vet min salaries to compete for a roster spot at any of the positions. Have we cut Eric Weems yet? We asked him to take a pay cut and he said no.

From your list De La Puente is the one that most surprises me. Usually young linemen get snapped up pretty quickly but I'd say his salary demands don't match his ability. It seems that his performance has been assisted greatly by playing next to true Pro Bowl talent and when that wasn't there he wasn't nearly as good. He'll find work but his price is likely dropping.

Regarding Shea…Emery said he wouldn't consider the undersized guy for DE again as he did with SMC. He has said as much before in that undersized guys need to have elite athletic ability to overcome the gap. SMC is not elite but he is a good athlete. I have not said so yet, but Tuitt's ability has always intrigued me based on the initial draft profiles I read in January. In some ways I've been surprised by the fact he seems to have fallen off the radar down toward the 2nd Rd. He seemed like a perfect fit for what Emery wants on our Dline now in terms of versatility. I understand the injury affected him during the season but I think he'd have been rising instead of falling as the draft workouts progressed if he were in shape now. Back to what I said about SMC above: Emery feels undersized players need to be elite athletes if he's going to pick them. Aaron Donald is an elite athlete for the DT position. He'd be a DE if he had the length for the position otherwise his stats match up with the best DEs. He also has the character Emery wants. He belongs on that list.

I think we have done an excellent job upgrading our DEs. I look at it this way: For $14mil we had Julius Peppers. We cut him. For $3mil (Allen 2014) + $2.66mil (Young) + $5mil (Houston) = $10.6mil we have two young and still improving players who are good, but not great, against both the run and pass. We added a speed rusher that is better than anything we had last year, or in any recent years. That's one heck of a trade and is some damn good business by Emery IMO. Even if we were talking about the Peppers of two years ago I'd still make this deal. We're carrying $8mil in dead money (14 - 8 meant we had 6 to spend so we added 4 from Cutler's deal) but it's all worth it. Next year when that $8mil cap hit rolls off the books it goes right into Jared Allen's bank account, plus a little more to thank him for his patience (2015 cap hit $12.5mil). Emery has a slew of young players and one savvy veteran in the locker room ready to compete for the 4th (and maybe 5th) DE position. With improved team culture and coaching if either Young or Houston take the next step and develop into 9-12 sacks/yr players then we're in very good shape for the next couple years.

Brian is not standing up for his team, he is standing up for certain players (past players). Big difference.

No real change up the middle of the line (yet) but the DE situation is much better.

I don't see that given that we have the record setting PR/KR from the CFL on our roster. Before we jump up and down saying that's the CFL, how will that be different or worse than drafting a KR/PR? I wouldn't mind having someone like Gilbert as an option on some returns. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=chris+...D3AE85533C90670