AZ54

I agree on that, Faneca would have been a great fit for our team. I think in the end it came down to going after him or extending Harris' contract, and even at that $8mil/yr was an incredible amount of money for a LG.

He was not on one of the main streets in Vegas so you have to ask yourself-- what's millionaire doing hanging out on a relatively quiet street in Vegas in the early hours of the morning with a lot of cash? You can pretty much get whatever you want in any of the big hotels and have lots of security around you.

Look at it this way, if Haynes is outworking you, you have serious problems.

In a way this is a positive thing to hear but on the other hand knowing we might have to rely on him as our #2 WR is kinda scary. My hope is that he's good enough to win the slot role only because somebody else beats him out for the #2 WR. I'm assuming Booker takes the #1 WR role.

I always loved Ruben, thought he played well for us. He was the only Oline player who was any good at pulling, and that's amazing considering his age. I have no problem bringing him back if he's healthy and I agree that he'd still be our starting LG. That's actually something I'd love to see because his experience and leadership could really help Williams at LT.

At least he scored over 30 on his Wonderlic test so we can have hope he's a quick study.

Thanks for the update. I too am a big fan of Peanut.

Bentley has been injured the past two seasons with ZERO games played. How do you know he's an instant starter? Just because Ruben Brown played for us with one arm and Metcalf played for us with one hand, doesn't mean Bentley can play for us with one leg. He might be able to play but the lack of interest in him indicates how serious his injuries were. How much damage was done in the surgeries to cure his staph infection? Three surgeries to cure an infection, as far as I know that's only done to remove infected tissue. I'm not ruling him out as a possibility but we must be realistic in knowing he's not the same player that he was two years ago.

Which brings up the question of how bad was the 2005 draft class? That's 7/10 top picks that haven't done much, not nearly enough to warrant their contracts. I don't know the exact number but I bet in combined signing bonuses they garnered over $100 million. That's just bad for business. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...,1243940.column 6. I know that the 2005 draft already included nearly as many busts as the foyer at the Pro Football Hall of Fame before Benson joined the list. The group of misses among the top 10 picks includes Pacman Jones (No. 6, Titans), Troy Williamson (No. 7, Vikings) and Mike Williams (No. 10, Lions). The running backs sandwiched around Benson at No. 2 (Ronnie Brown, Dolphins) and No. 5 ( Cadillac Williams, Buccaneers) haven't done enough lately for various reasons to justify their high selections either. Throw in the No. 1 overall pick, shaky quarterback Alex Smith of San Francisco, and the top half of the first round in 2005 serves as Exhibit A in proving how inexact the science of the NFL draft is.

Bob Sanders equals Mike Brown. Key players for their respective defenses both hurt all the time. One difference, they had Sanders for the Super Bowl and we didn't have Brown.

He'd be a great fit for our team and I'm not so sure the Cards wouldn't deal him. I just don't think we'd be willing to pay the price.

For me the most important part of this whole process (watching high draft picks bust) is the fact the league absolutely must change the salary structure for rookies. There's absolutely zero incentive to work if your first contract is so high there's little financial incentive to work for the second one. Top ten picks should not be among the highest paid players in the game.

Pretty damning stuff but probably won't shock anyone on this board. http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/be...SPT-bear15.stng ''Cedric has always been lazy,'' Haynes said. ''Cedric was lazy when he first got to Chicago, and I guarantee you he is lazy now. It's the work ethic that a lot of teammates didn't like. When I was there and things didn't work out, I always showed up and I always worked hard. I tried really hard, and I never complained.'' --------------------- For the first time publicly, Haynes acknowledged he was the source of a Sun-Times story in August 2006 that revealed Benson had left Soldier Field at the beginning of a preseason game against the Chargers. The story was confirmed independently with a second player still active in the league. It was the first time feelings about Benson inside the locker room leaked out. The common belief was he was a coddled player used to preferential treatment and he always would be protected by the club. ''That's the way it was,'' Haynes said. ''As an organization, I realized they had a lot of money invested in Ced, and they couldn't get rid of him right away. You knew he wasn't going to change. Everyone thought I was being too judgmental too early. I'm like, 'Look, people don't change. They are who they are.''' ------------- The proof, according to Haynes, can be found not only in Benson's body of work, but also in his body. ''He was cutting a lot of corners in the weight room, and guys notice that,'' Haynes said. ''He was never cut, and that was one of those things that surprised a lot of people when he first got there. You expect someone to be cut up a little bit, but the fact that he wasn't came to show you, at least us, that there was an issue here. Running backs, you're supposed to be cut.''

In reading through all this the common theme is how bad we were last year yet still managed to win 7 games.

I would love for one of the young OGs to step up and earn the LG starting spot but in the end I want the 5 best Oline players on the field. If that means St Clair starts at LG so be it.

Maybe Sayers wants a new contract?

I think it's common for defensive players to "send a message" to an offensive player. I have no problem with a guy having to earn his starting spot which is likely all that the defense was doing to Ced. He cried about it and I think that's where it became something bigger than what it should have been. Ced is more than big enough to dish out a solid hit on a defensive player too.

Hunter is pretty good in his own right. It would be very tough for JWilliams to unseat him. I do like the fact that we finally seem to have some depth at LB especially after what Url went through last year. And you never know when Briggs will have another accident.

Let's see if he can run first.

Teams are going to look at Ced's performance on the field like this: The Bears offense sucked, really hasn't done much in his first 3 years. They have never had a good QB and a consistent passing game to take the pressure off the running game. With TJ there they never really let him be the man so he couldn't get into a groove running. Last year their Oline was absolutely horrible and couldn't have opened a hole in a pinata. Given all that, it's hard to really evaluate Ced, let's bring him in and see what he's got. The risk is minimal, if we're wrong we can cut with no cap hit. Expect Ced to get signed by someone although I think teams would like to see him exonerated in this recent DUI case first. I just don't think they'll be able to wait that long if they want him off the waiver wire.

Halas never paid anyone the kind of signing bonus that Ced got, nor did he have to work within a salary cap nor Free Agency. He drafted a player and he owned the player and they didn't get so much money with their first paycheck (before they even set foot on the field) that they could walk away and never work another day in their life. Times have changed but I think if the league can get their hands around these ridiculous signing bonuses and get a better salary structure for draftees things could improve. Sayers also said that the players back then wouldn't have tolerated his selfishness either. That's another aspect of our culture that has changed.

Somebody will be calling Benson to play this year. First they may want to get a feel for what the league might do to him but he'll end up on a roster.

Wolfe isn't big enough to carry the load and given the weakness of our WR corps, and QB situation, starting off with him as the primary back won't work very well IMO. We're going to go with the mix of Forte and AP and Wolfe picking up perhaps 5-7 carries/game. Once the passing game settles in a bit I can see Wolfe picking up a bigger role but he can't be the focus of the offense in game one when nobody will respect our passing game. I don't see why Forte can't start for us. He's a running back find the hole and run through it. With our Oline finding the hole might be a problem but that wouldn't be his fault and AP and Wolfe would have the same issues. I certainly can see AP and Wolfe taking turns as our 3rd down back.

The player running the reverse needs to be the guy opposite of Hester. Hester attracts a crowd, let him go deep and draw defenders with him, then run the reverse into that hole. But what do I know.

Insane, he's the next Reggie Bush. A nice versatile player to have on your team but based on his stats he would never get the same contract he just got as a rookie.