AZ54

He's a good option.

Not surprised to hear that. My rumor mill of at least one AZ Cardinal player indicates he has been in contact with at least one team and possibly a couple about future contract offers. He's confident enough to have moved to his prospective new city to workout all summer. Based on that it seems clear many teams have contacted agents (I assume that means they didn't contact a player) to let them know of not only their interest but their salary expectations. Smart agents and players knowing this is going to be a very short FA season would likely want to have some deal in place behind the scenes so they can get signed right away. With so much uncertainty on timing, salary cap, FA rules, etc., how much risk are older players willing to take to find the best offer? I expect a lot of short term deals, thus leaving veterans open to more money as the rookie pay scale kicks in the next year or two.

Since it's so slow while we wait for players and owners to agree on how they can all be rich I decided to post this article I found on the Bears website. Great story with some great names in it. I only copied one small paragraph below http://www.chicagobears.com/tradition/hof-connor.asp During his eight years in Chicago, Connor gained the rare distinction of earning all-NFL honors at three different positions-offensive tackle, defensive tackle, and linebacker. Although George is remembered as one of the finest of the post-World War II tackles, it was as a linebacker that he enjoyed his greatest stardom in pro football. He was one of the first to become a regular linebacker and he still ranks as one of the very best!

I could see the "right to match" being agreed upon. Gives both sides a fair shot at what they want. On a positive note we have really progressed in the negotiation talks to be have rumors about what FA rules will be in place.

Let's see we could lose 3 decent players, even a solid contributor in DManning but the market opens up a lot more options for us to sign in positions of need. I'll take that. I'll also guess that both Roach and DManning return. DManning's value as a KR went down with the new rules so he might not be seeing the kind of money he was hoping for. Of course his value as a DB has been the source of much discussion on this board. In the end I think the Bears will try to match what he gets offered.

Cutler got criticized (once again) because he wasn't doing what people wanted with workouts as soon as Drew Brees was. I was on the side because I didn't think starting passing drills in May was that big of a deal but wanted to see the offense together in June. I've read the Bears offense was working out with Cutler but I figured it was more routine passing drills. After reading Bennett's comments below I am rather impressed because it appears Cutler is actively working with the WRs to expand our offensive plays. Those parts of the playbook we didn't use last year. "We meet about four days a week," Bennett said. "We go through plays, route running, coverages … just making sure we remain crisp on our routes. "We have a couple guys on offense who will step over for a Cover-2 look and things of that nature. But we don't have anybody out there pressing doing 1-on-1 drills. "We have some new stuff in. We have a lot old stuff. Some of the stuff we have, if you would see it, it's unreal. We have a lot of stuff to go off right now." http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...0,2986256.story

Saw Plax' press conference. He has certainly been humbled. He knows he has a tough road back to get the millions he's lost and time is not on his side.

I think the 2000 Ravens should be ranked higher. No offense at all on that team but an incredible D. The 85 Bears on the other hand had the incredible D and a solid offense and totally dominated teams throughout the playoffs including a massive defeat of the New England Patriots in the Superbowl.

I agree that Moss can still play at a pretty high level but I disagree that he's the type of WR we need on our roster. He's not the big physical type who hits the quick slants well, he's a soft outside type who takes some plays off and doesn't always block well. Would he make our WR corps better in terms of talent? Yes but only because our depth is so weak. Would he fit into Martz' precision offense? On that I'm not so sure and I'll leave that up to guys on the board who are better at knowing how well WR run routes.

Nice article and then he totally contradicts himself all in the last paragraph. How can they have too much power if that's what must be done to have a well-run organization? Brilliant.

This hype around practices in May is too funny. What do we normally have here....rookie minicamp. Then a few OTAs where the team basically works the rookies into the schemes and gets a view of their athleticism. No contact. Suddenly in May if you aren't out there tackling it's the end of the season for your team. In June I'd like to see Cutler out there with his WRs and to a lesser extent TEs working on their timing. They know the routes the plays, run them. It's silly to assume that if the Oline is standing in front of Cutler as he throws he'll somehow be getting better because it replicates what he'll see against GB. Drew Brees has had plenty of opportunities to pay for practices for his teammates in May over the years but never felt the need until now.

I agree with that. It might not be his ideal spot but he's better there than any of our other guys. However, I can see the logic where the club thinks he'll be rock solid at RT and can handle that spot with zero help. If that's true then you put JWebb, Williams, on the left side and tend to roll your help to the left side (i.e. TE lines up there more often than not). If you can set up the line so that you only have one weak spot (ok this doesn't resolve the OG issue) then it's easier as a team to mask that problem rather than trying to plug occasional leaks across the line.

Like him or not Cutler took his team to the NFC championship game without much of an Oline.

Yes, I'd take one of those guys over Hester but who are they on that list? To me Hester often does influence every down as a game changer because of what he can do with field position. He doesn't have to return many punts all the way just a couple for 20 yards in a game and you've changed field position enough to help both offense and defense. The two players on that list behind Hester who singlehandedly can do that IMO are Cutler and Brandon Marshall. Marshall has had more than his share of character problems but produces on the field. So grab a name off the list from that draft. Cutler, yes I'd take him before Hester. The DEs... Dumervil, he has his moments early in the season but fades quickly (Tommie Harris style). Tamba Hali? I'd still take Hester. Ray Edwards? Nope. The CBs... Jonathan Joseph, Cortland Finnegan. Good players but I don't think they influence every game the way Hester does with his returns, unless Finnegan punches someone.

I'm sure ESPN is still reporting how self-centered he is.. http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/be...te-lockout.html In the morning, Cutler served as the grand marshal of the Holiday World Walk to Cure Diabetes. He signed every autograph request, including arms and shoes, and he posed for dozens of pictures with many of the 1,600-plus walkers. Then, he walked more than a mile through the park — mostly in pouring rain. ..........People had such a good time, the event ended about 90 minutes later than scheduled. And Cutler was among the last to leave. “I can’t remember the number of times people came up and said, ‘It was a great event. Hope you come back and do more of it,’ ” Cutler said. “It just reinforces to me how good these people are, and it makes me want to come back more and have some stuff here

One thing to add: If Hanie wants to workout so badly why isn't he making all the calls necessary to set this up? In fact he should be glad if Cutler isn't there with the WRs because he'd be getting more reps with them and shouldn't that help him secure the #2 spot? You would think some of the WR would have the same interest. Perhaps we are getting a bit of insight into why Martz wasn't too confident in Hanie last season?

I think the "manager" who wrote the article is a fool. He has clearly never built a team where you can give them the overall goals and allow them to assign the individual tasks needed to complete the job. They do exist in the real world and can be extremely successful. It's one reason our military is so successful in battle...we assign mission goals but allow more autonomy on the teams in the fight to make decisions needed to make the mission a success. In this case JA has done the same thing. Two people knew what task needed to get done but they didn't feel the need to communicate and confirm it was getting done. He is accountable for that mistake. In JAs defense somewhat is the fact that he has a lot of new faces in that draft room, many who probably have never worked together in this type of situation. Again, there he should have known to be more clear in who did what, or to at least ask for a confirmation message the phone call had been made. The guy getting a free pass on his bad management is Newsome. He had a deal with 3 min left and couldn't get it confirmed from the league. Was he really on the phone with the Bears at the two minute mark as suggested and still nobody on the Bears called the league? Sounds a bit fishy to me. IMO if he was managing his war room correctly when he got inside one minute, or inside 30 seconds he should have gone ahead and called the league stating if the deal hasn't been finalized then this is our pick. There are multiple phones in these war rooms too so at the same time he could have had the Bears on the line and told them they hadn't completed the deal and he going ahead with his original pick. End of discussion. JA deserves criticism for his staff bungling the communications but IMO Newsome was even worse in allowing his pick to slip away. I think if he didn't get his player his fans would be more focused on why he didn't react in those last 30 sec to just send in the pick. In reality they got their player and everyone focuses on why they can't get a free 4th rounder too. Fortunately we got our player too!

I don't think Cutler will do much more than setup some throwing sessions with the WRs. He said he'd do something if the lockout drags into May and I have reason to doubt that sometime in the near future we'll hear about him and the WRs getting together. I still think the whole team workout thing is overblown. There's a reason we have 18 coaches working for the Bears.

Totally disagree on Hester. He puts up points and changes field position. Via field position changes he also takes points off the board by helping keep the opponents outside of scoring range (at least FG). It takes 11 men on offense to move the ball and they often can't do half of what Hester does on one return.

Last year Cutler spent a lot of extra time working with the WRs on the new offense, leading those workouts. If you are expecting him to lead some Dline workouts you're right, he's not that guy. I don't really care about that either. At this time of year most players are all over the country working out where ever they choose. Two of the Ravens offensive leaders are right here in Mesa. McNabb is probably at his house in Chandler like he is most offseasons. Just because a players shows up at Peyton Manning's workout sessions doesn't mean he's working hard. Players are either professional in their approach or they're not. I saw nothing in Cutler's work habits and physical conditioning last year to indicate he's not professional in that aspect. Same for Urlacher, Briggs, and the vast majority of the team. It's the guys like Marcus Harrison that have problems and I just can't see any player changing the attitude of players of that type. If he won't respond to the guy who allocates playing time why would he respond to Jay Cutler? I do think as the offseason progresses and if the lockout continues you'll start seeing some effort from the players to get together for some workouts but at this point it's still early May. I still stand by my point that Manning and Brees forced the negotiations into the court house and thus the eventual 2 month delay it caused. They have more ownership of the current stalemate and the delay into early June. I know the union puts up a united front but the lower tier players, especially those who are or might be FA, have to be concerned that nobody is talking now and how that will impact their futures.

I not sure we need a #1 WR so much as we just need a bigger WR who can get off the line quickly to the same spot on a 3 step drop play after play and make the tough catches in traffic. Of the group we have Bennett is the best at this. Our smaller WRs (Hester, Knox, Davis) just can't do that consistently enough to make those plays work and their ability to get open downfield on 5 and 7 step drops is negated by the poor Oline play. I used to think Iglesias could be that guy for us but he just never got it going and I don't know why.

I"m not sure it means DManning is gone but it means we felt it necessary to at least prepare for that possibility.

Not to my knowledge but I don't really care too much. Drew Brees and Peyton are also responsible for cutting off negotiations and moving them into the court room where this process will sit until July. Maybe they feel guilty for that?

Yes, he said Enderle has the ability and was brought in to compete for the #2 spot. I have no problem with a coach telling the players they have to compete for a role. As a Bears fan it's just nice to see there is no argument over who will be the #1 QB.

It's one thing to be stupid or ignorant. It's another to prove it to the whole world.