AZ54

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

We need 2 DTs, not 1, and they both need to good enough to challenge for playing time or a roster spot. I'm ok with Ratliff but he's at the end of his career. Paea has never proven reliable. Collins is coming off a serious knee injury. I don't count Izzy as a DT (despite my suspicions that his versatility is the main reason he was signed). I don't count Houston as a DT either. There is no reason to take Houston, a guy that's a strength at DE against both run and pass, and make him a weakness at DT. Kicking either him or Izzy inside on occasion for pass rush is fine by me. At this point we're drafting 2 DTs unless we sign another FA DT, which is entirely possible. Even if we do sign someone, at this point to a vet min deal, I think we're likely to draft 2 DTs one early and one late. At the top of the draft our needs have to be DT, CB, and S. We've infused our DE position with two young talented players (Houston, Young) we need someone in that category at DT. Final roster likely keeps 9 Dlinemen, so figure 4 DTs, 4 DEs and one swing player in Izzy? Not that I think Izzy is a lock to make the roster. Competition for that 4th DE spot just heated up big time.

He should be able to do that with sharing some reps, and taking off on run downs to keep the legs fresher.

Agreed, makes no sense whatsoever despite what reporters are saying. We still need help at FS, CB, DT, and DE and we're not getting all of it via the draft.

ha totally jacked up that last sentence. Too many revisions on it, or too many beers.

I'm confident we will see some of that.

Atlanta will be disappointed with Hester as a WR. Let's roll the tape back a year where Hester was saying he just wanted to focus on one thing….returns. Now he says he wants to play some WR again. He only says he wants to play WR when there's a new contract involved. He was a good returner for us last year but he was not what he used to be. I think he'll have a good year returning kicks for Atlanta as well, maybe even grab a couple more TDs. I wish him the best unless it's against us. As for him being faster and quicker on the turf in Atlanta….I'm pretty sure the coverage units will be faster and quicker too.

So was Dee Milliner and he struggled a lot last year. Enough that there's plenty of talk of the Jets needing a #1 CB again this year. That's just one season and certainly Milliner can continue to improve but it highlights my concerns over players like Dix who play behind elite talent at the college level. Their mistakes are often covered up and everyone focuses on the highlight plays. Dix can take the risk on a play knowing his Those highlight plays are easier to make because taking the risk on it. It's not hard to find Dix making the same mistakes Conte makes in coverage, or just being late the ball. OTOH he will make some excellent plays closing fast on the ball. I just see the guy as a good player not elite.

I need some feedback from our resident draft gurus. I did a bit of research on safeties in the draft and was surprised to see what appears to be a very thin group this year in terms of talent. I favor the draft analysis at the links below because their player profiles seem to be very accurate when guys get to the next level. If these guys are right, there are a couple prospects at the top and then the drop off is very rapid to day 3. There just doesn't seem to be a lot to choose from between Rd 2/3. This does not seem to be the right year to be going into a draft needing help at both safety positions. Maybe that's why we threw so many bodies at the SS position. What do our draft experts think about safety talent this year especially in the mid-rounds? Give me some hope because I really don't like the idea of drafting a safety in Rd 1 unless he's an elite talent. None of these guys is an elite talent this year. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/prospectrankings/2014/FS http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/prospectrankings/2014/SS