AZ54

Not sure where you found his forty time at 4.58, everywhere I checked he was around 4.8. Given his size 6'6" and previous weight around 275lbs I'd say he fits the tweener role Tucker is now looking for. In other words he will have a shot at DE from either 3-4 or 4-3 alignments. I enjoyed his article so best of luck to him because we certainly need Dline help.

I thought D.J. Moore was in Lovie's doghouse. I'm also surprised to see him sign Maneri so perhaps he is gong to revise his "Run First" offense in Tampa. I'd say this indicates he'll make a strong push to sign Tillman. If the price is high I think we let him go. ------------------------ http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/rumors The Buccaneers have signed former Bears D.J. Moore and Steve Maneri. The team announced the moves. ------------------------

A scan of the rumors on Walterfootball indicates franchise tags will be placed on: Michael Bennett, Greg Hardy, and Brian Orakpo. I could see the Redskins making that call but Seattle and Carolina both had cap issues so it won't happen without some other decisions.

I like this. Kromer is a perfectionist (or "picky" if using Kyle Long's words). If this coach came in from the CFL and in one season got settled into coaching Kromer's system well enough to get the Oline job full-time I think that means he doing very well. I don't think they'd do this just for show as the guy would have likely stuck around anyway. Having two guys on the staff who can successfully teach Olinemen how to block is a very good thing compared to years past. Key word there being successfully.

Too early, need to see who is putting in the work first. If I had to guess right now it'll be Marquess Wilson. He has the natural talent and has already committed to working out with Marshall, Jeffrey, and Cutler. On top of that he will be in the same scheme as last year with the same players and coaches, On defense we are A) getting a new scheme and likely getting new players at all 3 levels of the defense. I just don't see how that comes together early enough in the season for Bostic to standout. Hopefully in the second half of the season we'll see it. Bostic needs to learn how to stay in his lane. Should be an easy fix and it would be great to see

I stand with you Jason, although I dared to step out and say I disagree with Sam's media blitz approach to something that, in his own words from the Senior Bowl "everybody knew". If everybody knew but nobody cared one way or the other why the problem? I don't know why we are supposed to welcome diversity yet as soon as you disagree with something someone of one group or another does you have turned into a racist or bigot of some sort. I disagree with my wife everyday on something, sometimes on many things. We're still together after 25 years AND I don't hate women. If I didn't want to read diverse opinions of topics, Bears related of course, I wouldn't visit this board daily. If I want to hear nothing but my opinion I'd go talk to myself but it's really hard to get an appreciation and respect for other people and their beliefs when you live in an echo chamber. Unless you are outright harming other people, I can accept those who are different but can't accept those who demand others subscribe only to their way of thinking. If I really don't like what you promote or how you promote it I won't associate with you. That's my freedom of choice and yours as well. Yet it's through the debate over time where an understanding of the other side's views allow one to accept the other, even if they still disagree. Silence the debate through misguided assumptions of motives, harsh rhetoric, and personal attacks and you lose that.

I will add a few thoughts. Last year when I said I didn't want Tebow because of the media circus the word bigot never came up. I know and count among my friends and coworkers many who have a variety of lifestyles ranging active swingers to lesbians and devout religious couples who want nothing to do with either. All visit my house regularly. To my knowledge none of them want their personal lifestyle to be considered as a factor in their employment. I was not against Tim Tebow having and exercising his beliefs anymore than I am against Michael Sam having and exercising his. I just don't think either belong in discussion about how well either can perform on a football field yet that's what this will be as witnessed in the discussions in this thread.

Back to the field and his ability to play and help the Bears…right where the conversation belongs.

I found this article and thought it worth posting. The Bears have been very quiet regarding FA and with their recent contracts have put us in a spot with no cap room. There is no way that is the long term plan so much will be happening behind the scenes starting, as the article states, at the NFL Scouting Combine. http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/How-NF...works-2784.html

The fact he had already come out means the scouts and every team already knew he was gay. Yet here we go with the media circus despite the fact it was no big deal for his teammates and coaches. For some reason simply being accepted as a good teammate and for how well he played the game, which was pretty good, was not enough for him. Just like T.O.'s annual circus act at the end of his career I'm done with it. http://www.gbnreport.com 12:01 AM): Top prospect comes out … If the 2014 draft wasn’t already interesting enough, former Missouri DE/OLB Michael Sam has announced that he is gay. Sam reportedly informed his Missouri teammates prior to the start of the season and played the year without incident. Sam had been considered either a late second or early third day prospect for the upcoming draft so it will be interesting to see what impact if any his announcement will have on his ultimate grade. At the same time, expect the league to encourage somebody - anybody - to select Sam in that range to avoid the embarrassment of having the first openly gay draft prospect to be either not selected or to have his grade fall because of his orientation.

This board is not for political discussions but I have to say it is absolutely ridiculous, and really an ignorant statement, to associate the racial bias blacks fought through to how gays are treated today.

I prefer to work with people who want to judged based solely on their performance, not on what they are. My concern is why he feels he must seek out the public spotlight for something so trivial. I think the same about guys like Chris Johnson who is so flamboyant with all his women. He didn't impress me at the draft the day he was chosen and I think despite his talent that focus has hindered him. Maybe it has maybe it hasn't, just giving my opinion. It's a point where the individual is making it more about them than about football and the team. Now if this guys falls in the draft it will be all about how he was discriminated against instead of people evaluating his abilities against other players. If he gets cut it will be discrimination. If he wants to bring this into the locker room with the media I don't want the distraction.

On that I agree except I enjoy researching beyond even the top 100 prospects. There are always players in the top 32 or top 100 I like and dislike. Then on draft day there is always the Bears with their "who" draft pick. Ultimately it's the process of sorting out the talent pool that I enjoy along with seeing how they end up performing once they are in the league. The mock drafts just give me an idea where people think players talent fits into the mix along with some insight into team's needs and draft tendencies (i.e. Raiders' Al Davis liked tall fast WRs even if they can't run routes or catch that well).

Makes sense because everyone re-writes their mocks after the workout results, including the NFL teams. We often see massive changes in players stock both up and down. There's a former Notre Dame LB playing in San Diego who can attest to that. You go with what you know until you know what you didn't know.

I may be off track here but I feel Jernigan is more of a NT type and I think he can do that very well. SCS pointed out other smaller NT (even in 3-4 schemes) who have played very well including Ratliff. If that's what the Bears feel they need most I'm ok with that because it's hard to argue with us taking any DT who IMO requires a double team. Jernigan can provide some pass rush but it's not the immediate kind of pressure, at least not what I've seen from him, but he will get off his blockers to make plays. OTOH is pass rush is the priority (this is what I believe) then we go after a guy like Donald first and find a run stuffer later. Donald will require some double team attention due to his quickness into the gap but he can be moved around whereas Jernigan is not going to move. FWIW I've watched Will Sutton the last couple seasons at ASU. He's not anything close to what I see Donald doing on the field although admittedly I've only seen highlight clips. I like Sutton as a later round pick (3rd - 5th depending on how he works out) because he's just not as explosive off the snap and will often get blocked out of the play and doesn't have much of a secondary move to get off blocks. Donald doesn't seem to quit until the whistle blows.

The turnover margin is more a result than a leading indicator. All over the league we hear coaches talking about the need to win the turnover battle every week so it's not some great secret. I will try to explain what I mean. We all know good CBs are good because they can get in position to deflect or even catch the ball. They are even better at it when there is a good pass rush and they know the clock is short for how long they have to cover. Good tacklers tend to force more fumbles than bad tacklers. OTOH good offensive players are that way in part because they protect the football, especially at the QB position. I'm not saying anything we don't already know. I think the media tends to oversimplify it as if a "good" coach gets his players to make INTs and a bad coach doesn't. Millions of people and most likely every football player from high school through college has seen Tillman punch footballs loose for years yet very few can replicate his success. If was as simple as coaching by Lovie, Jennings would be good at it too by now, or our safeties, or at least someone else on the D. For the most part you need the right players on both sides of the ball to win the turnover battle. Get a dominant D and the opponents offense will tend to take more chances late in the game to score points. Get a bad QB who throws like Schaub did last year and no matter how good your defense is you won't win the turnover battle. What I did like about Lovie though is that he actually coached one technique….rally to the ball... very well. One the runner is held up rip out the ball. That sometimes worked well other times it led to missed tackles as players focused too much on ripping out the ball. Again, we were good at it when we had out best players out there Urlacher, Briggs, Peanut, etc. and when guys like Urlacher were injured we weren't so good.

While your statement in an of itself is true it is not fully descriptive of what I'll just call the weighting effect. I'll take the good front 7 over the good back 4 anytime because I believe far more often than not that will give the better result on any given play. Of course we're also talking about 7 vs. 4 so I think it's best to just say given the same LBs I'll take the dominant Dline versus the dominant DBs.

I like how he plays the game but beyond that he's light and he's not that fast IMO. Given that level of competition there are a lot of plays where his speed does not stand out, easily seen on kick coverage. No way would I cut Costanzo for this kid. Some of the blocks he "fought off" looked like high school level blocks. What does stand out is his hustle to the ball.

Sitting in the corner of the end zone where all this happened on Jan 5th 1986. It was very cold but well worth it. http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/85bears/post?id=5480230 In the long and storied history that is New York Giants football, Jan. 5, 1986 is not a date anyone in the organization cares to remember. "It was not," says former Giants center Bart Oates, "my most pleasant day." …... The result was a confused New York offense that didn't know who to block and a harried Simms, who rushed his passes. "This was before you could come to the sideline and look at [still photos] of plays," Oates said, "because I kept coming out and saying, 'Are you guys counting because I'll tell you what, it looks like there are more than 11 Bears out there.' It looked like there were 14 or 15.

Too many bigger needs to go after DAT in the 3rd Rd.

We need to add a speed element to our offense. DAT can fill that void both as a slot type WR and RB and can also replace Hester as our KR/PR. He's small so he's not going to handle many plays but our offense is set for the most part so having him out there for 5-10 plays a game is fine. He is projected to be drafted anywhere from 3rd Rd to as late as the 7th Rd. Durability concerns will likely push him back towards the third day of the draft although an outstanding forty time might move him up higher. I think his skill set is more versatile than Hester's as a WR and he can run with good vision between the tackles, enough that the occasional play inside will keep the defenses honest or catch them off-guard. If he's still on the board in the 5th Rd he should be on our list.

Just cut him and let's get going with absorbing the cap hit. Cut Peppers, sign Bennett and we still have enough change to sign a good DT.

I agree, would like to have Garza around for one more season. I also want his replacement on the roster this season.

I think finding our pass rushers is a higher priority than finding our run stuffers, despite how bad we were against the run. Pass rushers come at a premium price and are harder to find so our money should go there first. Plus I think Raji hasn't done much lately, at least nothing special, but his name is going to generate a higher contract than his play deserves. If he turned down $8mil/yr then he's a fool. I'd rather have the combination of a player like Bennett at DE plus draft a guy like McCullers in the 3rd. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/players...aniel-mccullers STRENGTHS: Despite his inexperience, McCullers' size and ability to disrupt things from the middle often made him the focus of an opponent's blocking scheme. Has been double-teamed on most snaps and has even seen triple-team blocks often. Despite the attention, McCullers' size and strength make him tough to move in the running game. He plays with better leverage than one might expect given his frame, holding up well inside and sliding off blockers to handle two-gap responsibilities when playing the 3-4 nose guard. He was equally impressive against the run when Tennessee switched to a four-man front in 2012.

I thought Peppers was pretty bad in most games. Often blocked by one OT and driven out of the play. Didn't see the hustle he displayed in years past to chase down the LOS. He had a few bright spots here and there but too many games with 0 tackles, 0 sacks, 0 hurries. We can get those zeros for a lot less money.