AZ54

We have to give some credit to Emery (and in the past JA) because we don't get these deals done by being cheap. Cliff does a great job of assessing the market and we pay a little above average. I know the slots are all bracketed but there is still some wiggle room and there are quite a few teams the try to squeeze all they can out of that.

After thinking about this some more I'm in agreement...he's gone. The real clue for me is the recent talk of the coaches about how high they are on Mills and (more key) that he can also play OG. I think the club is looking at (look the other way Jason): OTs as Webb, Scott, Bushrod...with Webb or Scott being the backup OT. OGs as Slauson, Long, Mills. Garza is our C and EWilliams backs him up that's the 8 in the box. Competing for backup roles at OG (with some flexibility to play OT) are Brown, Carimi. Toss in Lonergan the UDFA who I believe will give EWilliams serious competition for the backup OC role. Toss in the fact that Kyle Long is being put at RG and Slauson is clearly LG. Carimi flipped back and forth in practices before the draft but look who he rotated with .... http://www.chicagobears.com/news/chalk-tal...d5-70b4159de8fa "Gabe Carimi has been working with the second team at both guard positions, flip-flopping with Derek Dennis" "The No. 1 offensive line Tuesday was comprised of Slauson and James Brown flip-flopping between the two guard positions" The writing was on the wall before the draft. Now add Kyle Long and Mills to that OG mix and you see where Carimi is in the eyes of this coaching staff. If all Carimi is going to be is a bottom of the depth chart Oline player then I'd say we should go after a trade. That assumes we like the long term upside of Jordan Mills more than Carimi, which appears to be the case after Emery's comments http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1...07-a034439135c2 "...and Jordan Mills from Louisiana Tech who we like a bunch both as a guard and a tackle." Thus Mill's make the roster because I don't think he would make it to the practice squad before getting picked up by another team. Carimi's best decision is to not risk any injury in practice at all to maximize his trade value and Emery's best decision is to talk him up.

Yes, your statement is correct with respect to Carimi's perspective. But when you consider the team's perspective there is no way this is the ideal situation for Carimi. If his knee were 100% he'd be at camp learning the new offense because that would be what is best for him when he knows he has to compete to earn a roster spot. If what is best for him at this point in the offseason is to rehab the knee then that is not a good sign, but you are correct it may well be what is best for him personally because in his perspective his career is longer than just this upcoming season. Right now with the Bears his career might be no longer than 3 months even if he were at minicamp.

The stat you want to see is average time to QB pressure. The new coaches are focused on making sure we don't give up early pressure on the QB. That should help him get set, read the defense, and find the target.

Or to nobody being able to catch a pass. Cutler does hold onto the ball too long at times but he also had to take his eyes off the WR too early due to pass rush. We can't know now (without watching all the game tape) if he'd have thrown the ball at the 2sec point but had to pull it down and move around the pocket and then pick a secondary target or force it to Marshall as he did far too often. Again, lots of factors and simplifying down to just one or two data points won't tell the whole story.

I would say that is a possibility however, if you are the Bears and are trying to trade why publicize that he is still rehabbing a knee injury from two seasons ago? That makes no sense so I think the whole rehab story is legit and I think Carimi does feel his best chance to get the knee right is here in Arizona (for whatever reason). In other words at this point Carimi is more concerned with the health of his knee than he is with learning the Bears new offense likely because he feels his future is going to be with another team. Not sure if the team feels that way as well but they certainly went out of their way to put new talent at every position on the line except OC.

At the moment he has not been handed a starting job and I like that as I prefer all rookies earn it including Kyle Long. Quotes from the last couple days indicate Bostic is going to compete for a starting job but there's no reason he can't start learning some special teams as well. Charles Tillman plays a lot of special teams for us. Julius Peppers plays a little bit too. I'm certain if Bostic earns a starting role his special teams duties will get reduced.

Carimi deciding to stay in Arizona (a nice play to stay IMO) and keep rehabbing his knee is a bad sign that the knee is not ever going to be right. This guy has been working on his knee since the end of the season so it seems there is more to this injury than we ever expected. I know we have new coaches and they aren't always wed to the former players but now that we can view the majority of the offseason as a whole it's obvious they moved away from Carimi very quickly. I'd say they were willing to give him a chance that the knee would be ok they most certainly weren't going to rely on that hope. Labeling him as the next Marc Columbo may well be appropriate now.

You said Kromer's opinion wasn't valued in the draft process. I disagree and feel the fact he spent so much time with Kyle Long indicates he played the key role in Oline draft decisions...not the final vote but a key role. Don't you think if Trestman was keeping this decision for himself he'd have put more time into the interview with Kyle Long? My experience has been that when managers want more input in hiring decisions they invest more time in the interview process.

Remember, we (the board) have just chosen an OG in the 1st Rd so for building our team who do you want to pick in Rd 2? I'm listing Warford because it was entirely possible Long was chosen to be an OT. As we build our team for the future which player best fits our remaining needs and/or BPA as you see fit. For me the pick is Arthur Brown. With the board having gone OG in Rd 1 I feel we must get best talent available to bring youth to our LB corps. I was against taking him in Rd 1 because I don't think he has what we need to play MLB, but at this point in the draft Brown represents very good value and fills a need.

I expected some votes for Long but based on the initial debates around the pick I felt there would have been a lot more votes for other players. I stuck with my desired pick in Ogletree. Then again it is those of us most disappointed with a pick who tend to raise the issue while those who agree may not post as much in the discussion. I did have Long on my wish list had we traded back to late 1st Rd or early 2nd Rd so he was not a huge stretch IMO. I didn't see any different names requested for the Rd 2 poll so I'm going to put up the poll now.

Gracious even in victory.

You might want to read the stories about Kyle Long's visit to Halas Hall and who he spent the most time with. I think Kromer's opinion on Oline prospects was extremely important to both Emery and Trestman.

Other than getting Marshall's name in there as a former teammate, or alum, of UCF I don't see much connection to Marshall.

Now that we're done with Rd 1 we need to setup our board for Rd 2. We will have our pick of course: Jon Bostic To start off with the board I'll list some of the more prominent names who were chosen after our 2nd Rd pick, and excluding positions we don't need like RB: David Amerson (CB) Arthur Brown (LB) Margus Hunt (DT) Jamar Taylor (CB) Aaron Dobson (WR) Robert Alford (CB) Larry Warford (OG) went 3rd Rd. Any other to put on the list? Any of the above we should remove from our list? Remember I want to target 5-7 for the vote. Again, if it's undecided we'll do a runoff vote.

Ok after a few days I'm calling it. Our official 1st Rd draft pick is: Kyle Long We hit nearly 50% for Long and any subsequent poll with the top two will have Long as the winner, because if nothing else I know I'll be voting for Long over Floyd and that would be over 50%. Next up to build the draft board for our 2nd Rd pick.

I'd like to hear that Cutler is throwing the ball in 2.0-2.5 seconds and players are in the right spot to catch it.

Rookies often sign waivers (i.e. insurance) with the team guaranteeing them to get paid something if they have a serious injury in mini-camps. Not sure how the details all work out on that but it's low risk since there is no contact, just a bunch of guys running around in shorts.

I viewed Ogletree as our SLB starter this season, giving him a year to learn our defense, the NFL game, and bulk up a bit for him to take over as our MLB next season. The Bears could sign DJ Williams to a new deal next year if he's plays well and behaves and put him at SLB.

Hard to believe anyone even considered taking Warford at 22. This was definitely not a typical draft for OG.

First time I ever setup a poll so if this doesn't work right I apologize. I will leave this up for a couple days to collect the votes. If there is not a clear winner (i.e. one player with 50% of the vote) I'll post a final poll with only the top two or three vote getters. From that the winner will be our draft choice. Pixote will be the honorary GM for this. He gets to vote as well but if we have a tie at the end, as GM he will make the final decision on who we draft. On draft day I'd have taken Alec Ogletree and that is where my vote is.

We've been through this many times before. Occasional use of marijuana does not have long term effects. Use it daily and it's a proven medical fact it has side effects that affect judgment and the crystalline structures embedded in the brain tissues can be seen in a scan of the brain. Whether or not half the league uses it, or 90% of the NBA uses it, or any other justification one chooses to use, does not make the people doing so smarter or better players. That's what we're talking about here at the original post calling him a moron. When a players job is on the line and he was not doing all he could have done to improve it's relevant. This is how the example of Lomas Brown played the game: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.thenewsstar.com/usatoday/article/1787107 Ryen Russillo set up Brown by saying he didn't call out his quarterbacks much. But Brown did say there was something he'd do to send a message. "Just let the guy hit him. Just let the D-lineman get a shot on him," Brown said. "I'd make it look good. I had some actor in me." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No matter how bad Scott Mitchell was I would never want that jackass Lomas Brown, or anyone like him, blocking for my team. His issue was really with the head coach who was playing Mitchell over Kreig. He should have had the balls to run over the head coach himself.

A little bit off topic for this but : Has any heard rumors if Dallas traded down with SF with intentions of taking Kyle Long? That scenario makes a lot of sense given their needs, Long's abilities and draft rankings from the pundits, and who the Cowboys ended up drafting with the 31st pick. I'll say that's a typical Jerry Angelo deal there...trade back expecting your guy will be there and then someone grabs him ahead of you then reach a full round early to get some other player just to fill that need. Given what Howie Long said about him going before the 29th pick we can't assume he would have been there for the Cowboys either. I'm really just wondering if perhaps Emery is more in tune with what other teams are going to do than what we saw in the past under Angelo.

Webb has a job solely because of his potential. That's about it. Webb trying to clean up his act is a good thing. We only know his words not his actions. Going to church means nothing to me, especially his choice of one, however it is a valid indication that he is taking different actions in his life. Then again I've known many people who have used going to church as cover to making themselves appear to be better people. Which is why I first stated it means nothing to me. Knowing Webb has had his addictions, or perhaps it's better to say he has abused marijuana and alcohol, fits in well with his performance problems on the field and his attitude off it. An attitude he has been very open to publicizing on his own. What we'll probably never know is if there were signs of this on the field or in practices. It's not hard to know when someone comes to work hungover. Missed blocking assignments, lack of study or focus in meeting rooms, etc. Maybe we now have some insight into why Cutler snapped at him in the Packer game? If I kept getting run over because a guy couldn't get his head on straight enough to do his job at a basic level I'd be pissed off too. I'm going to add more to this: Tice was the head coach during the love boat saga. He always took a meat-headed approach to things like this in Minnesota, or perhaps a frat-boy acceptance of "boys will be boys" fits better. Based on his history there is reason to think Tice ignored signs of these problems with Webb instead of confronting him as he should have done.

It is simply because we are the Bears and we don't know Oline. If Belichik, or even New Orleans where they know (knew) how to grow Pro Bowl talent, had taken him this early it would be lauded as a team, one that knows what it is doing of course, targetting the player they wanted and going after him regardless. Recall the Colts trading up to reach for Dwight Freeney..... much to our dismay. They were already a playoff team so they were a "smart team" grabbing the missing piece. I don't worry about analysts because I believe exactly what someone wrote....they rank these guys and then try to find a home for them in the range they have them ranked. But it is their ranking not the teams' rankings. Long was no more reach than half the other taken except the others were ranked their by the pundits. Or the pundits moved them up to that ranking based on the rumors they heard around the league about where they'd go (best example Lane Johnson). Which means they don't stick to their own evaluations either. I like this board in part because I like the evaluations from the fans. We're not all experts but we know football. Now it's time to setup our poll and decide who the board would have chosen in the draft. I need someone who knows how to setup a poll to assist. Right now I need to get some sleep.