BigDaddy

Oh, we could afford the CBs, it just means we need to part company with some folks. Right now, the two likely candidates should be Vasher and Hester. You can't pay Vasher what we are as a nickel. Just like we can't pay Hester what we are for being a possible #3 WR. I believe if we trade them before march, we can save a cap hit for a roster bonus. At least I think thats how it works. i was told the only money guaranteed Hester was the roster bonus and his salary of course and the same with Vasher. Somebody needs to send a message to this entire ball club. Coaches and players alike. Angelo can fix some mistakes here. We have people who can play for vasher and as for hester, hell, anything we put out there for a return guy is better than he is. Manning's doing just fine. As far as WR goes, we need to think about possibly making a trade for a Boldin, Housmensadeh type of guy and personally, I want them to draft a WR with the #1 pick. You give Orton some help and we'll see this thing turn around.

Wasn't it Sapp who said that Tillman and Vasher were not known for their coverage skills? I don't know where these guys come up with top corner in lthe league nonsense but Tillman isn't anywhere close. Tillman and Vasher were Jerry Angelo projects who looked better because of the pressure we were getting in 06. Many people have a hard time realizing that. Kinda like referring to hester as the greatest return man in the game. Yeah, as long as you don't take what he's doing today into account.

We were discussing this on another board. My opinion very simply is, we're got a 3 pronged problem. First, we have a GM who probably doesn't trust his instincts very well with regards to first day draft picks so he trys to make a name for himself on day 2. That won't work. His blunders on first rounders is proof of that and listening to him, he sounds like one of those sideline carpers at a world series of poker event telling everyone how well he plays the game and that these guys aren't special. Well Jerry, they're special enough to be at the final table, what have you really done? I'll ask the question, how did we miss Tony Romo in our own back yard? Michael turner? Is our scouting that mediocre? Second, our coaching staff is what most teams fear, a mish mosh of mediocrity. We have Lovie Smith, a HC who is not a big game guy and seems to get outcoached on a regular basis. He doesn't prepare his teams well from training camp on into the season. His naive belief that these are grown men and they will do what they need to do to win is absurd. These are grown men who have learned how to dog it, manipulate, get around two a days, miss time in the weight room unless they are regimented and instructed to do so. He is also is painfully quiet and stubborn, not good characteristics for a HC who is losing. People NEED to see it Matters. All people, not just the Bears executives. He looks lethargic on the sidelines, almost lost and you can almost see that he really has no purpose, no goal, no intensity, fire. Some may equate that to being stoic. Don't kid yourselves anymore, Tom landry was Stoic. Nodody is going to confuse Lovie Smith OR his buddy Tony Dungy for Tom landry. Frankly, I believe the ONLY reason Dungy got a win in the SB is because he was playing Lovie Smith. Lovie invited Rivera to explore other opportunities and brought in his buddy Babich who has turned out to be a joke but since Lovie is running the show, Babich has been protected but anyone with a lick of sense knows this guy is in over his head. Turner has showed me that he can design plays to win in this league but what he really needs are playmakers which brings me to the third issue. Some of our players have slipped, Urlacher, brown, Ogun, Vasher, Tillman, Harris, Hester, Davis just to name the major culprits, With the exception of Brown and Ogun, all these guys got new money and in Browns defense, he's getting older but his effort is still high. The other issue with our players is that many of them appear to have taken on the personality of our HC. They appear soft, unaffected by losing and that drives us all nuts. Short term solution, and by the way, the thought that the Mccaskeys are stupid enough to hang on to a loser just because they have money tied up makes me very sad. Anyway, back to the short term solution. First, given that we aren't changing GMs or HC. We can only hope that Angelo FINALLY sees the light and gets an offense consultant to help with drafts because we need 2 top line WRs. I am convinced that even with our current o line, if we had 2 good WRs, we would have 2 more wins this year. Second we need to fire babich and it will happen. If not by Lovie, then by Angelo, now, should Lovie decide to stick up for his buddy and put his job on the line, big problem solved. But even Lovie will see that Babich needs to go. Hopefully the next DC is NOT a Tampa Two type guy. Third, we need to make some tough decisions and part ways with some guys. Vasher and Hester could bring us some high picks and let's face it, we won't miss anything with the way they are playing. There is some shifting we could do like putting Urlacher on the weakside to utilize his skills more with Briggs in the middle and maybe putting Harris at DE, he has the size, speed and certainly would be an upgrade over ogun but for now, lets just get rid of Babich, make some trades and get some REAL playmakers in here. Who knows, winners may even rub off on lovie. He might get to like it.

Most NFL people will tell you that Tillman and Vasher are NOT great cover guys. Hell, right now, they aren't even decent so whatever YOU may have found in the past is exactly that, in the past. When we had great pressure, Tillman was better , then again, every CB in this league gets better with d line pressure. Right now and since klast year, Tillman and Vasher are overpaid and overrated.

Quick, while he's standing, somebody kick him right square in the nuts. This is two games this year that he has singlehandedly sucked the life outta this defense with his blunders. First the blown coverage and then the horsecollar in this game. Look, guys are going to get beat but he makes an artform of being toasted by average receivers and has been all year long. Bring on the rookies and let him join his buddy Vasher on the bench as the highest paid stiff CBs in the league.

The Bears didn't win that game as much as Minnesota lost it?????? Jesus Art, we were up by 17 in the 4th qtr. WE damn near gave it away. Minnesota didn't lose it.

I'd like to know how many times Devin hester has broken off the ruturn that was called this year and is that why Toub last week was seen pointing his finger at hester and why Manning got the rest of the returns? Blaming his lack of success on blocking is just plain silly. This is not an o line. Toub has been better than exceptional at replacing ST talent. That is his strength. When this is all over, we're going to see that Hester is the problem, not blocking or anything else.

Jesus, talk about denial.

Whether the defensive problems we have are coaching problems or player problems? The true answer is, we all know it's both. We could not possibly be this bad and that far removed from what we were as a defense to what we see on the field now. Only a moron (Lovie Smith) could defend the scheme we are seeing. My guess is, Babich is trying to tweak the base 4-3 but doesn't have the knowledge and my fear is, Lovie Smith does not possess it either. It's no secret that Rivera tweaked this scheme when he was here. HE learned from the best in the business, Johnson in Philly. He took what we had, the scheme and then each week, tweaked it for whoever we were playing to maximize the pressure. His results a #1 rated defense alot of the year until Brown and Harris went down to injury but a top 5 finish overall. Why Lovie launched him to bring in Babich is something we'll never know but most in the media would agree that Rivera wanted to run the defense the way he saw fit and Lovie wanted it his way. Big mistake so we can can make an assumption based on that info that bad coaching is a problem here. After listening to Warren Sapp on the score, I had to come to grips with the fact that it's not just coaching but these players are NOT performing. They've admitted it, said it's on them, the scheme is fine, they just need to execute. They've done everything but improve. But this too points to bad coaching. How in the world canm you continually allow a defensive line to be so bad for so long without doing something? I mean, we've got a road grater in Adams who looked good last year as did Toeinga but we haven't seen thenm this year. Why? Sapp said it looks like everybody on that defensive line is waiting for Tommie to make a play. If that's true, you mean we have coaches who can't see it? What are they doing? Dvoracek looks lost and unable to do much, just like everyone else on that line but why have we gotten to this point in the season with this group without any changes. Same thing could be said for our offense, I mean, we draft Bennett and he can't get on the field? Why? Booker is bad, Hester is nothing, davis is getting it done, lloyds vagina is still hurt, yet we never see Bennett. I'll stick to the defense since thats the reason for this thread but there is a pattern here and it's existed ever since Lovie Smith has been the coach. Guys have been on this roster for years and not seen the field yet they go elsewhere and produce. Urlacher has been lining up out of position all year long. No wonder he can't make a play, he's never where is supposed to be because they have him shuffling up and back off the line. let they guy play the middle like it's supposed to be played. He had an INT last week when they let him do that. Why did it take this staff so long to figure that out? Look, we need this d line to man up and get the job done. If that means we sit Harris, Dusty, Wale, so be it. But here we are, another season fading away and escaping us because we didn't know, or we didn't act earlier and now, after 10 weeks, we see and here Adams name mentioned. That, my friends is coaching and it's also executive management or lack thereof. Angelo should have insisted that Smith make changes sooner if he saw that Smith was waiting too long but he probably didn't know either. I mentioned in an earlier thread that we should have reached out to Warren Sapp at some point to see what he thought about this line and why they weren't getting pressure. We all heard his comments on the score but would you think that a resourceful head coach might have thought about that either in preseason when we saw they were getting killed but they all told us, it was a vanilla scheme used for preseason that they knew was a lie or certainly after about week 6. So my opinion is, it's coaching and Angelo first and foremost and it's the players second. The players can be fixed, but unfortunately, if we believe the line on the Mccaskeys not making coaching changes with so much money invested, then we just don't have the guys to fix this mess. Boy, I can hardly wait till next season.

What I don't understand is, why on earth Lovie Smith hasn't thought about that. Let's face it, all Sapp ever did was define the DT role in that scheme. To me, anybody having as much trouble as we have with getting pressure should have talked to Sapp after about the fifth game. But, that's Lovie for ya. I can hear his comment now, "we have a coaching staff and don't need any other help, the players just need to execute better".

Here's my mea culpa. Watching Dusty in preseason and the first couple games of the regular season, I thought thay this guy just might even be our best DT. He looked like he was getting upfield, he looked strong, but I gotta say, I was absolutely, positively wrong about this guy. Especially in light of Warren Sapps comments about him wondering what he was doing out there and that those guys were sitting back waiting for Harris to make the play. It sure as hell took the wind out of my sails. I was actually worried about how we would renegotiate his compensation after this year. Looks like that's one less tough decision for Jerry Angelo to make, that is provided he's even here in the offseason. Right now, I say put Adams, Harris, Harrison in a rotation and see who does what then we make our decisions accordingly. If Harris isn't cutting it, put in Izzy or Toeinga but get a group in there who will fight and claw to get up field and we also need to do something about or DEs Wale looks pedestrian out there. Maybe we could get Izzy some PT at DE so we could rotate that position as well. All I know is, we gotta do something here. This is freakin ridiculous. Ya know, one other thing that just might help this crew is, we've got Warren Sapp just sitting out there. If, as the players all indicate, it isn't the scheme, bring Sapp in as a consultant to help identify the real culprits here. Make any sense?

Because he hasn't returned a TD yet? Hell, our expectations for that went away watching this goofball in preseason. If anyone had any hopes of him scoring a TD after that it has surely gone by the wayside by now. No, what those of us who you think have thrown poor wittle Devin under thus bus are looking for is average for starters. Tell me something, why is it that Manning looks so much better on his returns than Hester does? Why does HE have the burst that Hester used to have? What, they block better for Manning? Look, save yourself the aggravation and stop trying to hang Hester's issues on blocking, or they way teams kick to him, none of that is why he stinks this year. The answer to Hester's problems is staring back at him in the mirror. What's worse is, I think he knows it and knows what he needs to do but his fear is, if he does, he won't be that #1 WR he thought he was going to be. HE has to decide what he wants to be, the greatest return man the games ever seen or a mediocre WR and a slightly below average return man. Now, being ranked #32 in the league, he would have to work his way up to average.

What I remember is a guy who was fearless and had a burst of speed that was so rare it often compensated for ANY blocking deficiencies. I remember a guy who saw the entire field and ran to the open areas. Stop all this bullshit about poor devin not getting blocks. thats nonsense. He's scared he's gonna get hurt and all he's doing is getting the ball, looking straight ahead and dropping his head behind the wedge. Either than or he is always finding the short side of the field, making it easier for him to get out of bounds. Yes you can say he's lazy. It might not be completely true but he damn sure isn't overworking himself but most of all, he's scared out there and that is the kiss of death to a KR/PR.

" But it looks painfully obvious that this Bears team under Smith (and Angelo) seem to rest on their laurels" Laurels? What laurels? That would imply they've actually done something.

You still believe in the tooth fairy don't you?

Do you think they are going to continue to pay him what they are this year for a shit performance like we're seeing? YOU are out of your freakin mind. He is either going to improve DRAMTICALLY, or he's going to have to renegotiate OR he's gonna be gone. there is no way in hell you can pay a guy 6-7M a yr for nothing. There are way too many holes in this team already.

You are right to a large extent, this coaching staff and some of these players are soft. The training camp is like a country club, no hitting, practices are soft. This team is undisciplined, lacks focus and intensity and ALL of this should be rested at the feet of Lovie Smith. I listened to Warraen Sapp yesterday on the score and he had some very interesting comments on this defense. He said as far as the front four, everyone seems to be waiting for Tommie to do something, clear the way, make a play and these guys don't seem to understand that they have to make plays as well. Said Dusty was NOT playing very well and getting upfield much to my surprise as I thought he was doing better but Sapp watched the film on him. He said our DEs were not getting it done, singled out Wale. He does like Harrison and they also talked about Adams being able to get upfield and why is he sitting on the bench. He likes Izzy but say he plays too tall for a DT. Well, he did start off as a DE but of course we couldn't see his value there. in terms of the LBs, he said no wonder why Url can't make plays and is always out of position. He has been playing in no mans land. That fake blitz look isn't working and hasn't been and it takes urlacher out of the middle and he also said that Tillman AND Vasher ere not known around the league for their cover skills. So what does all this tell us? First, our d line is broken and the coaching staff has known it all year and done nothing to fix it. Our LBs are out of position and thats one of the reasons we've been getting exploited over the middle all year, our DBs, on top of not being great cover men are playing way too far off the receiver but of course our coaching staff I guess can't see this either. I wonder what we'd look like with real NFL coaches at the helm.

I got news for ya pal, I'm glad you don't work for me too. First you say lovie NEVER said the players didn't execute and then you write that Lovie said the scheme is fine we need to execute better. Who the hell is we then????? He just said the scheme is fine but somebody isn't executing.........??????????? Can't mean the coaches can he?

This football organization is in a complete state of denial. We have a head coach who doesn't believe that there is anything wrong with this scheme. It is all the players fault. We have players who are either pointing the finger at each other or the coaches. This football team's identity is becoming a joke. They talk tough but play soft. There isn't ANYONE in this organization man enough to take responsibility. I was actually envious of Tennessee having a guy like Finnegan, at least he plays with some fire and isn't afraid to smack somebody in the mouth. We could use about 7 of him on defense, maybve then we'd start playing like we're capable of.

I think it's about time these players start talking about the issues this defense is having. Look, if Babich is in fact responsible for Vasher and Tillman playing so far off the line and that is the scheme, he should have been fired weeks ago. My understanding was that the CBs were given latitude as to where they play a WR so naturally, I'm mad as hell at both of them but if they don't actually make that decision, then Babich should not only be fired, he should be drawn and quartered as well, then the players should have their asses kicked for not saying anything sooner. This is absolutely ridiculous that we are week in week out making Kerry Collins, Orlovsky, Matt Ryan a rookie, Gus Ferotte look like world beaters by giving them career days against this defense. I am so hopeful that Angelo pulls the plug on all of these bums. I would keep Turner and toub but everyone else would be gone. I do hope that this thing escalates to the point of Babich and Lovie being called out until this problem is fixed.

We still have 2 months to decide what we do with any of these guys. If we are 9M under the cap, it certainly makes sense to get Orton done earlier but let's see how he finishes the season because based on what I've seen so far this year from our illustrious defense, he's gonna have ample opportunity to have to win some games for us. I say no to Brown. His time is past and I just don't think he has the speed anymore. St Clair? I dunno. I need more time. If we ever get Lloyd back on the field, he might be a major contributor but I question his toughness. Doesn't seem like a guy who can play hurt.

The nickel? I don't think so. They want somebody bigger and more physical and it AIN'T Vasher.

I think it's time for everyone to move on.