AZ54

If Lovie pulls for his buddy Babich to stick around then JA may very well tell him that if it doesn't work out next year he'll be gone too. Now that would make me smile but getting through next season with Babich will be emotionally difficult. As they say, no pain no gain.

Our best player on blitzes was DManning and we just fired his coach. Unless you count the fact that Lovie had to personally mentor him all year. We play a cover 2 style of D with the personnel to go with that, lighter quicker DTs, lighter quicker DEs. We should not need to blitz like we do to get pressure. Behind that we're playing our DBs way back off the WRs so it's a QBs dream. LB are in tight blitzing or faking a blitz we leave the quick slant open all day. I'll gladly take that job. Point is if this style of defense is broken up front nothing behind the front four is going to save it. I'm on board with firing Babich and I'm beginning to suspect that Marinelli was offered more than just a Dline coaching job.

Maclin has speed but he's not a one trick pony. He's much bigger than a guy like Desean Jackson and he makes tough catches in traffic.

Tell me why Mike Holmgren wouldn't accept a job as a draft consultant just evaluating QBs? He still loves the game and this is a low stress way for him to keep in touch with things while still enjoying his retirement.

Before the season started Arizona stated they were going to redo Boldin's contract this year. I believe they will make an effort to do that. The bigger problem is that they gave Fitzgerald $10 mil and if Boldin wants that and holds out for it he won't get it. I can see him getting $7-8/yr. If they can't get a deal done then I believe they'll try to work out a trade for him. However, given that they'll try to rework the contract I wouldn't be surprised if that trade happens well after the draft so instead of thinking about 2009 picks it's more likely we'd be trading 2010 picks. If we've picked up good players to fill our voids at S, Oline, DE through either draft or FA this offseason then we might get in the hunt.

I like Maclin a lot and he's a great kick returner. You know how JA feels about guys who play special teams.

Of course I'd love to have either guy running our offense. For now I'm just looking for a guy to help evaluate QB talent because we can't do that very well. I'd gladly pay Shanahan to evaluate the FA QBs, second string QBs (ala the Matt Shaub's out there) and the draft.

The Bears have proven over and over they cannot evaluate QB talent. Mike Holmgren has retired here to Arizona but I think the Bears should pay him to be a QB consultant for them in the upcoming draft and/or FA. Holmgren's track record finding QBs. Or if there's anyone else out there with similar credentials get him to help. We shouldn't sit back and keep hoping we make a good decision.

Like I said when the trade was made, we already had Rex Grossman on our team to throw INTs so we didn't need Favre. He (Favre) backed up my prediction with his outstandingly bad play at the end of the year. Two Jet's players have thrown him under the bus, he won't return to the NFL and he won't get that $20 million from Green Bay to sit at home.

If it was the head coach who allowed it to happen all season long can we fire him too? Urlacher is being flat out stupid with his comments. His play is clearly not at the level where it used to be no matter what scheme or position he is used in. I haven't talked to anyone nor read anything putting the blame for our defenses woes solely at his feet. It would be nice for him, as a captain, to at least take blame for things he could have done better. Other players such as Mike Brown, Alex Brown have done this, Lance Briggs, Tommie Harris have not. Briggs continues to believe he's playing on the best defense in the league thus proving that lots of money can make you stupid.

We got to go up against Detroit twice, the 49ers played Seattle twice, StL twice, and Arizona twice. None of them have a defense worth a damn.

Lining up and concepts like formation are the job of the DC, Babich. If Wilkes was making those calls then Babich should have been fired halfway through the season. I'm thinking Wilkes should be teaching techniques needed within that system. Things like...there's only 9 seconds left and they need to complete a 20 yard pass and get out of bounds, just drop deep at the snap and keep everything in front and inside of you.

I'll stay in the crazy category. I don't see the value of giving up Turner's 26th ranked offense for Martz's 23rd ranked offense. Kurt Warner is NOT coming to Chicago, if he doesn't retire he will resign with the Cardinals because even he knows that is where he has the most value. Warner is also smart enough to know that throwing to Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, and Steve Breaston is a hell of a lot better than throwing to ... we don't even know who he'd be throwing to. Shanahan I'd take in a heartbeat but he's not coming here to be an OC, he'll be a headcoach somewhere. Not to mention that the Bears will not fire Lovie after this season if for no other reason the money they'd lose.

No way do I want Mike Martz in here as OC. We cannot run a pass happy offense in December much less in home playoff games in January.

I believe Shanahan had control over the personnel decisions and that may have played a factor into letting him go. Word is that the owner wants to get back to a separate GM - coach setup.

If the question is can Hanie average 170 yards passing per game as Orton did in his last 7 starts then I'd be willing to bet yes. I wouldn't blame JA if he went hard after a guy like Cassel. He's had nothing but a merry-go-round between Grossman and Orton and other QB drifters that have come through town. He just watched a guy like Matt Shaub, who was a backup in Atlanta, light up his defense. I'd hate to spend all that money on a guy who's only done it in less than a full season. Is JA willing to draft another QB high and then wait for him to develop or does he now feel it's best to just go get a guy who has already done some good things in an NFL game. From his press conference he seems to be leaning toward the latter.

Turner did more with less while Babich did less with more. I'm not a big fan of Turner but he had little to work with this year yet the offense was adequate, better than anyone expected. The D was a colossal failure especially considering the money we spent in the last two years.

Tommie has another year IMO to get healthy and get his head on straight. This also gives us some time to see if Marcus Harrison can take over that spot. I agree with the issues surrounding our use of the LBs up close to the LOS. The most frustrating part of that for me was all the inside slants we gave away game after game after game. The cover 2 is all really about the front 4 and if there's no pressure from those guys on both run downs and especially passing downs then you will always be in trouble. We had no pressure up the middle all year long and occasional pressure from the outside.

Reports were that Mangini likes to call out players in front of the team for poor performance, even showing film clips of bad plays they made to everyone. Because of that I suspect there's a bit more to him getting fired than just missing the playoffs. I have no problem with accountability but some people take the negative feedback too far and put players in a position where they are playing not to make a mistake. Everyone starts playing to cover their own ass and you start to lose some of the team concept. I wonder if that's part of what's happened in the locker room. Anyway, my main point is that this coaching style does not fit in with Lovie's "everything's ok" philosophy so I don't expect Mangini to talk to anyone in the Bears organization. On the other hand you look at the way Marinelli has handled all the issues in Detroit and I can see Lovie getting some pompoms ready for him.

I agree Tommie gets his bonus next year but if he has a repeat performance in 09 look for the Bears to cut him and move on.

Again we lay out the problems with this coaching staff. We have a young guy Bennett who can't crack the lineup of nearly worthless WR we had yet we're supposed to rely on him for the future? I should go with the odds that the coaching staff is wrong once again and assume Bennett is a good WR. Regardless I'd still like to see Housh, Maclin, Hester as our top 3 WR next year with Bennett and Davis #4/5. Let Maclin learn for a few years and then take over as our #1.

Thanks for observations Nfol. Mark me down for ROT and WR in Rd 1/2, just take best available with our first pick and then the other in Rd 2. You were right about the Bears fans showing up, even the TV crew made mention of how many there were and the cheering was evident when we scored.

I agree with Hester not having the speed he showed in his first two seasons. Booker... I was one of the few who wanted to cut him in preseason. I would have preferred to see what Rideau could do during the season than what we got out of Booker. Lloyd, good feedback on the route running. Considering the fact he is one of those rare people who can piss off Lovie Smith I'd say he's gone no matter what. Davis...he dropped too many balls but because we have nobody else to speak of at WR he'll be here next year. The question is how far down the depth chart will he be? Hopefully we've upgraded enough that he's near the bottom. Bennett...he has his work cut out for him but should be on the roster next year as I expect we'll add two new WR. Housh in FA and there's an explosive WR named Maclin that we need to take a serious look at in the draft.

No dream draft yet but I'll say that if a guy name Jorvorski is going to play in the NFL it needs to be for the Bears. I actually prefer that we pickup our future ROT in Rd 1, resign St Clair and have him start at RG next year and remains our backup OT, and then let the rookie compete with Tait to start. If he sits for a year fine but I would expect him to beat out Tait. Then Tait remains our backup OT and he can backup both spots too. I let Buenning, who had promise his rookie year, see if he can't compete to start at LOG for us and at least be a better backup OG than Metcalf. We need a WR so if someone like Maclin is there for us at #16 then I'll take him and draft the RT in Rd 2. RD 3 is for QB and FS. One big need remains and that is DE. I'd survive next year with the same trio if our DTs would step and start collapsing the pocket up the middle. Expect a DE drafted in Rd 4.

I brought that up way back at midseason. Just get the guy 5-7 snaps per game.