AZ54

Agreed, Hill and Wright both need to be on our list. The question on Hill is can he be a #1 WR but even if he ends up a #2 WR that's better than where we are today. Regarding Wright, I don't want another shorter WR but if we add a big target in FA (becoming harder to do) then he'd be a solid addition. We can't ignore his playmaking ability and the fact he ran slow at the combine doesn't correlate to what I've seen and heard about him on the field. He will likely run faster at his pro day. The way things are shaping up now at WR I agree with DBDB that a trade down in Rd 1 is the right thing to do unless someone like Jonathan Martin is sitting there. There are a lot of WRs stacking up in the second half of the first round to early second round. IMO Cutler has already proven he can tear up a defense with a below average WR corps. That's even without a good Oline blocking for him. Just give him time to set his feet and read a defense and we'd be hard to stop with a solid group of #2/3 WRs. NE has had lots of success with that plan for years.

I'm pretty sure we can find someone that tall who can't catch for less money. More than that, what is the point in having a WR who can't catch at any price? Use the roster spot for someone with upside.

I agree, he was a good player for us but it's time to move on with Melton and Paea and likely one more guy added to the mix this offseason.

Cliff Avril is still out there. Lions said they don't want to tag him but that doesn't mean they won't. I think his speed off the edge is exactly what we need but he's not a 3-down DE IMO. No doubt the Lions see it the same way. http://www.profootballweekly.com/2012/02/2...g-franchise-tag Posted Feb. 25, 2012 @ 2:14 p.m. ET By Mike Wilkening The Lions and DE Cliff Avril have something in common: Neither likes the idea of the franchise tag. At the NFL Scouting Combine, Lions general manager Martin Mayhew said the club wants to sign Avril to a multiyear contract and to avoid giving him the franchise tag. "I think it's the best thing for him and the best thing for us," Mayhew told reporters.

I think Colston will see this and realize he heads to the top of the FA class and that means $$$. I'd be very surprised if he didn't test the FA waters.

Finally some good news about our Oline.

Seems to me Ruben Randle should be on our short list of WR in the draft. He ran well and has posted solid numbers at LSU. His college QB wasn't that good either.

I can see it if that's the way the draft unfolds (i.e. all the LTs are gone when we pick). I don't think there is anything wrong with having the vet WR anchor the corps now with the young guy developed to be that anchor in the future. Todays 40 times of Floyd and Wright may shake things up a bit.

$!5 million for 2yrs that's awesome. Glad to see the Packers reward him for that key play in the Packers playoff win.

But but but Hester is a #1 WR. What a horrible assessment Lovie and the organization made with that assumption. I truly believe they felt they had the next Steve Smith and that kept us from investing what we should have at the WR position. Hester is Az Hakim (sp?) who was good at filling the big gaps between Tory Holt and Isaac Bruce's routes. Take away those outside WRs (which we never had) and he disappears when coverage tightens up. Add those outside WRs and I think we'll all be happier with Hester at WR.

Is he awful at evaluating WRs or is he awful at expressing himself on TV? I'm thinking he understands a few things about what it takes to play WR in the NFL and can see that on film. If he can't express his reasoning in a straightforward manner I'll just take the list. Again, he is not the only one I've heard critique Bowe. Let me be clear Bowe would instantly be the best WR on the Bears if we signed him and I'd be very happy with that.

I might be the only one on the forum who gets that joke.

I think Louis was ahead of Williams at times and behind him in others at least through the first 5 games. I wish he'd have had a full season at RG so we could better compare, or at least lasted longer before moving to RT but it is what it is. IIRC Louis had more pancake blocks early on but he also had more whiffs. It's still a bottom line business and if you needed the cap space to add a top FA WR plus a good second tier FA WR (or FA CB) would you take Louis over Williams? I don't think there is that big of a difference between the two OGs and we have to start looking at net gain for the team overall.

Biggs numbers include Omiyale at $2.8mil and Anthony Adams at $2.7mil. I cant' see Omiyale staying around at that salary (or any salary) and really don't see a reason to pay a backup like Adams that much either. Let's just stick to Oline budgeting. Omiyale $2.8 mil Chris Williams $2.5mil Chris Spencer $4.2mil Edwin Williams $700k Lance Louis $1.2mil Carl Nicks wants at least 7 years $60mil (or in his words a lot more than Jahri Evans got which was 7 yr $56mil) but figure a typical structured deal puts his cap hit this season around $7-8mil. Among Chris Williams, Chris Spencer, and Edwin Williams someone can go. Cut Spencer and with Omiyale gone we have opened up $7mil in cap space. That leaves us with a starting lineup of Webb, Nicks, Garza, Louis, Carimi Then what do we do with Chris Williams? Kick him back out to LT? I don't like the idea of Webb protecting Cutler's left side again, he just didn't progress the way you'd like to see during the season. We have to assume Tice is not going to put Chris Williams back at LT since he's the one who moved him inside. I figure he competes with Edwin Williams for a backup role which he should win but then we have no backup C on the roster and I can't see the Bears doing that. The other scenario is the Bears asking Chris Spencer to sign a longer term deal dropping his cap hit and then trading or cutting Chris Williams. Spencer might not want to go along with that if he wants to start again. Then you go after a LT in the draft and kick Webb to backup OT. Our starting lineup could be Mike Adams, Nicks, Garza, Louis, Carimi with only a few more million of a cap hit than we have today. This week we'll find out if Mike Adams has good enough feet to play the left side but reports coming out of the Senior Bowl were positive and he seemed to improve as the week went on. In mock drafts he is shooting up the boards and Kiper now has him as our first round pick. Pull this off and we'd have plenty of cap space to go after the FA WRs we want and CB.

Wallace is not worth the 1st Rd pick and the high contract. It was interesting to hear Jerry Rice rank the FA WRs: 1: Vincent Jackson 2: Desean Jackson 3: Wes Welker 4: Marques Colston 5: Dwayne Bowe I've heard other pundits say Bowe is a good WR but not someone you need to worry about when drawing up a game plan. It seems there might be more love for Bowe here on the board than there is around the league. The positive with this is that it might make it less likely for KC to use the franchise tag on him and if KC lets him hit FA then his price tag might not be as high as speculated.

I voted for Colston, not because he's my first choice but rather because I think he's the choice that makes the most sense in terms of 1) likely to be a FA 2) Salary. I think Bowe and VJack will command a higher salary by quite a bit and while I'd rather have either before Colston I don't think we lose a lot by going after Colston. He's a big target who has proven he can go up and get the ball in traffic, something we need. The more I look at it the talent at WR in the draft doesn't seem to drop off a lot going into the second round. Add in a good WR in either the first or second rd of the draft and a use the change leftover from Colston's lower contract to sign a second tier FA WR and we have a significant upgrade in the WR corps.

If he was cut by the Bucs this early in the process that tells you all you need to know. Haynesworth got his big payday from the Redskins and from that point on he has checked out.

In a copy cat league don't be surprised to see a team take him in Rd 2 thinking he can be a TE similar to what the Patriots have with Hernandez, or even Gronkowski.

No to Roy Williams. For all his experience he didn't add up to much more than what Sanzenbacher added to the team. In other words we can find his replacement with potential upside very late in the draft. Williams is all downside from here on out. We've got Earl and I like him a lot. He's not a #1 but he is the type of chain mover you must have on the roster. Hester is ok as a #3 or #4. We need to fill in the #1 WR role period.

I call it a guy doing his job and getting us some much needed Oline depth. Yes, we put Garza at C but it wasn't clear going into training camp how well he would handle that, nor was it clear how well Lance Louis would play. We needed another interior lineman and he went and got one. There were short deadlines and Kreutz knew that. He also had more than one hour, he had several days to make his decision. At the end, JA said look it's our final offer make a choice within the hour so we can move on. JA had to sign someone and the pickings were getting slim while we waited on Kreutz.

Had Brady been wearing #6 and a Bears uniform the media would be blasting him for his critical mistakes in the game that cost his team the victory. That was against a Giants team that couldn't get any consistent pass rush. Brady often had 4-5 seconds to throw. That included his first play when he intentionallly grounded the ball when he could have just escaped the pocket and threw it out of bounds. His INT was way underthrown and gave the Giants some momentum back. His pass to a wide open Welker late in the game was horribly behind and above him, nothing at all like what you'd expect from the so-called greatest QB ever. Eli on the other hand threw many passes into such tight windows I was amazed throughout the game, including the late pass to Manningham. To be fair late in the game Eli had several short passes the fell 5 yards in front of his WRs. It's all good, Tom's wife came to his defense and blamed the WRs who had 4 drops. Cutler had to smile when he heard that one and was likely thinking "and only 4 drops".

I am still ok with Hester as one of our WRs, just prefer to use him where we can take advantage of his YAC potential instead of how Martz and "he's my #1 WR" Lovie used him.

Vengeance? We needed some depth on the Oline and Kreutz refused $4mil. The he went off and quit in the middle of the season on the Saints. If that was a vengeance signing I only wish JA had wanted more vengeance.

Ocho cinco is horrible, we don't need that.

I didn't say Adams isn't a better talent than Webb. The first round pick is about getting a future Pro Bowl player, ideally at a position of need, and as it appears right now Floyd has a much better chance of doing that than Adams, especially when considering our need is at LT not RT. Some paraphrased comments I've seen from our new GM: It's a big mans game. Wants playmakers, guys who dominate their opponent. Focus on football smarts not just smart players. I don't see him using the old floor vs. ceiling analogy JA followed. JA seemed to be more concerned with the floor than the ceiling anyway, or at least he was better at finding the floor players. Emery has stated playmakers multiple times in several interviews and players who can dominate their opponent. It's too early to tell but it sounds like we're headed into more of a smash mouth style team.