AZ54

I'll take Bennett. If I understood the question correctly it was posed as to who will be our stud from among the later round picks, not necessarily this year. I still think Bennett is going to contribute this year but may not have an exceptional year. I see him doing some good things in the slot. I'll guess that Hester and Davis split time at the 2 spot, expect Davis to move inside to the slot position when Hester is on the field. That means Bennett gets slot time when Hester sits. This leaves Bradley, Lloyd, and Booker to fight for the #1 spot. Right now it appears Lloyd has the upper hand but it's early, very early and no games have been played. This whole mess could turn in any direction if there's an injury. Harrison is another player I like but he's fighting for time against a lot better competition. Forte should be our main RB threat so I'll leave him out of this discussion. Bowman? Again he has a lot of tough competition and I don't think his knees are ready for a full NFL season. I see him on the roster but staying on the bench this year.

I don't mind bringing in Simms but only to compete for the 3rd spot. I'm also not totally sold that he'll beat out Hanie although I think it's likely. Make no promises and let them compete for the roster spot.

Nothing will open up until we find something we can hang our hat on. This offense does not have any bread and butter formation/play that it can rely on. I'm not suggesting we need to be predictable just that there needs to be some aspect of the offense that we can execute consistently well, well enough that a D needs to respect it. Any single aspect (i.e. runs up the middle) can help others that are weaker. At this point I can't say we have anything we do well.

We can still save money by cutting RMJ (or trading him) and I think that's going to happen. My other vote for being cut after last year was Metcalf but since he's being listed as our starter at LG. However, if we use the money to sign a better LG I'm still ok cutting Metcalf at least until he proves he belongs on our oline.

Anyone have an idea how much cap space we have left? I'd like to know if we'll be able to do something to help the Oline if a decent vet gets cut.

I agree with that.

Even if he's our 4th DE we always use 3 DEs during a game. If one goes down we need that fourth guy to get on the field. I hope he shows something this preseason. I liked Idonije's versatility but he never did much at DE for us.

From what I've seen in the videos Mullen is too slow to make it in this league. As I see it he can either get faster or he can get taller if he wants to stick around. Monk...in the You Tube highlights Monk was very lazy coming inside on a crossing route and gator armed a pass allowing RMJ to knock the ball down. For his size he needs to be lot tougher going after the ball than that. Welcome to the practice squad Mr. Monk. Lloyd...if he can get over his fear of getting hit he'll be a good WR for us. Maybe the fear of losing millions of dollars in potential salary will be greater than the fear of getting hit? In some of the highlights I've seen him laying out to make a catch which is a good sign IMO. We'll see if that keeps up when the defense is really hitting though.

Between the two it's Hester hands down. I don't think Hester will fully replace Berrian's WR production this year (I hope so) but I think it's reasonable to see him come close next year. I say come close because he'll always be splitting time with his KR/PR duties so he should see less plays than Berrian. I think Hester's YAC will be far better than Berrian's once he settles into the offense.

Both QBs appear to just stare down their primary receiver on every play (except one I saw Rex check down). I don't know if that's something the coaches tell them to do to get passes to certain receivers but this concerns me. I like the draw plays with Wolfe. Just hand him the ball and let him find the hole. He's very quick out of the gate. Problem is this won't work very well if we're getting blitzed on every 3rd and long which is what's happened the last two years. If this play is called will our QB be able to check out of it at the LOS? I like the inside screens to Forte but we'll see how well we execute them in real games. He turns upfield much quicker than Ced.

Here you go: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...1,7867886.story "Defensive end Dan Bazuin, on injured reserve all last season with a knee injury, has looked fast to the ball."

I see Rex and Kyle both throwing off their back foot on the 3 step drops. These are quick little screens and dumpoffs but I'd prefer to see a more confident QB set that back foot and make the pass. Maybe as they get their timing down things will improve.

First Jones has to start practicing.

We don't need him. As bad as our WR corps is I'd much rather give reps to the younger guys so they can get better. Glenn at best is a one year stopgap plus I agree that he really won't add any ability that we don't already have, just some experience. We already have Booker to provide the experience to the younger guys and he enjoys doing that.

He showed up but he hasn't played.

Maybe if Kyle runs up three or four steps and heaves the ball with his long release (ala Brian Griese last year) then Kyle can throw further than Rex. Just standing in the pocket with a typical step into the throw Rex will outdo him. How fast you throw the ball doesn't matter if ends up in the wrong hands. I really don't care who wins the competition I just hope that for whoever does win the fans (and players) shutup and accept the coaches decision. I hear a lot about Rex's mistakes and Orton's mistakes. So far I can't see where one is doing better than the other but we have a lot of new WR learning their routes. Normally I don't worry much about catching preseason games but this year is going to be different for me. Too much to see with the Oline, Hester at WR, QB competition, the WR competition, Forte.

I believe his old form was being the #5 WR.

I'd let him sit. While I would like to see Hester improve as a WR last year he didn't even know the plays. He's seen the Bears do a great job of taking care of their own players and apparently that doesn't mean much to him. No WR money until he proves he can be a consistently good WR. If he wants to be the top paid KR/PR in the league we can do that. As far as his leverage I don't' think he has a ton of it. Skipping camp will not help him to prove he can be a starting WR in this league. As far as the Bears are concerned he already knows how to return kicks so if he misses all of camp and doesn't practice returns it's no big deal. IMO missing time only hurts his bargaining power for the WR money.

Umm...they already said Jones looks great.

Great we have Wolfe in our wedge, that'll put fear into the coverage units. This single move would have to make a coach question whether it's better to do the squib kick or just go deep to Hester and try to run over our little wedge. As much as anything it's a bit of a chess match move. NOt only does Toub have to have hands guys up there he also needs blocking schemes for the short kicks. How much of this will we reveal in the preseason? I bet not much. And you won't see Hester back there for too many catches either, maybe a few fair catches just to get the feel for doing things live.

It's time to start some predictions about who steps up this year to contribute more than expected heading into training camp. Last years' defensive surprise had to be McBride who ended up getting a lot of playing time last year and did well in coverage. He was talked about quite a bit in camp. If there was an offensive surprise last year although Olson made a lot of highlight catches in camp. As a first round pick that was kinda expected. This year my picks will be: Defense/special teams - Corey Graham. This kid played well on special teams at the end of the year I think he ends up as our 3rd CB this year ahead of McBride. 3rd CB does not mean he's our nickel DB, just that he'd end up replacing Nate or Peanut if either go down. Aside from that, he becomes a key special teams player for us in the coverage units and makes everyone forget about that Brendan guy who left for more money. Offense - I'm going with the easy one..Hester. For him to be considered to have stepped up he'll have to prove that he's a legit WR run legitimate routes. No more gimicky stuff just line up and run the same plays everyone else on offense runs. While he won't be at his full potential I think we see that he's finally ready to display his talents early and often on offense.

Moose is in Carolina and they think they got a steal when they signed him. The real theft will soon be visible to all once Moose tries to catch a pass. OTOH Berrian picked up a huge amount of money which would seem to indicate he was the only weapon we had on offense.

From the Bears website: http://www.chicagobears.com/news/NewsStory.asp?story_id=4871 What were your impressions of Danieal Manning at the nickel position in offseason workouts? Danieal picked up everything at that position real quick. Now we have a guy playing underneath who has athletic ability, speed and quickness. He’s also a physical guy that we know can support the run. I’m very pleased right now the way he’s picked things up and progressed throughout OTAs. I think he’s going to be a great nickel for us. ****************************************************************** We all know the coaches aren't going to call out a guy in public nor do I want them to, but stating that DManning is a physical player and will be a great nickel DB for us is stretching things too far IMO. I have no way to know what happens in private discussions but once again statements like these make me question if this coaching staff will hold players accountable and can actually work with them to improve their performance. If DManning turns into a physical run stuffing nickel DB for us I'll gladly eat crow but his body of work at safety leads me to think my plate will stay empty all season long.

It's on the Bears page but not highlight very well sitting below the Favre photo. Somebody must have been very proud of themselves for figuring out how to use photoshop and sticking Favre inside a Bears uniform. The only interest I have in the Favre saga is how much dissension it causes in Green Bay's locker room.

Didn't we sweep the Packers, a team that was in the NFC Championship game? We lost to NY by 3 pts and we know where they ended up. It was a very up and down year for us but we won 7 games last year. Why should we be worse? We got rid of Ced, who was ID'd by many as the scurge of the offense. Got rid of Moose who couldn't do much except block well. Lost Berrian, that hurts. Lost Fred Miller, that does NOT hurt. Lost one-armed Ruben Brown and so far have replaced him with Metcalf, the same guy who replaced him last year so it's a draw there. True we still have Grossman but we had him last year too. We have Orton and his biggest claim to fame is that all he does is win. Neither is much to write home about but the fact is we've won at lot of games with both of these guys. I see all sorts of doom and gloom because of our offense but I don't see it being worse than last year. It might not be better although I think it will be in one aspect, explosiveness. We will have more long distance threats on the field this year than we had last year. Hester will get more opportunities than last year and he proved the ability to go deep. Bradley will get more time, if not him then Lloyd and both have good speed. Booker is wash vs. Moose as a deep threat but he'll be better at moving the chains. Olsen is going to be improved in his second year in the offense. Our RT will be better than last year. Our LT might not be as good as last year but the combo of LT/RT this year should be better overall than last years combo. That might not show up in the first game but I think over the course of the first few games we will be better. LG sucks but it was that way last year too. On the flip side I see our defense being much better than last year, or at least consistenly good versus last year's ups and downs. Injuries decimated the D last year. This year we'll face some tough injuries again but I think we have better depth across the board than we've ever had under Lovie. Safety depth once again is the biggest concern. Special teams lost Ayanbendejo but I don't think that's going to dramatically change the performance of the units. We still have one of the best kickers in the NFL. We have a lot of unknowns but I just can't see this team as being worse than the one that took the field at the start of last season. Unless injuries hit us as hard as last year I see us as a 9-7 team at the low end to an 11 win team at the high end. I'll say we win 10 games. 11 wins if we split with the Vikings.