selection7

That's a shame. I like winning but the league turns into a bit of a joke when teams have to play with that many injuries. We might as well literally play the Mother Mary's Crippled Children's Home.

The money makes a difference. Was Merril Hoge a disappointment? I was a little young at the time. I don't remember it that way. Why did you list Charles Tillman madlithuanian?

I automatically assumed it had to do with the pouring down rain. In such conditions catching with your hands loses some of its advantage over using your body. Also Olson being gunshy after dropping that one pass he got his bell rung on. He looked like all he cared about doing was curling up into a ball and daring anyone to think they could hit him so hard he'd drop it. Can't know unless someone asks them though.

Can someone tell me how to look at older drives on the NFL.com gamecenter page? All it shows is the very last drive. http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/2009092011/2...bears#tab:track

I think I'm the only one on the board that actually complained when we traded him because he was the first good QB we'd had since Kramer and the first good QB we'd developed since Jimmy Mac or maybe Harbaugh. I thought it was ironic that now we trade for a pro bowl QB and give up so much. ...and though I've occasionally annoyed you all by pointing out there's statistically no reason to be so high on Cutler while being so down on Orton, over time I've become excited about having him. I'll say what I said 2 months ago, Cutler shouldn't be expected to come right out of the gate with great performances. You don't have respect for how tough it is to play QB in the NFL (and many of you don't ) if you think that. I would even give Tom Brady that much leeway. Having said that, where have we before seen out WR's making our QB look worse...or a pick thrown right to an offensive lineman 6 feet away...or a pick thrown off a back foot? The grass is always greener on the other...quarterback...for Bear fans. Orton had these same WRs last year, possibly worse, and the same for his OL and Forte was just a rook. Some of you guys would have destroyed Orton had he played this type of game last year. It would not have mattered that the WRs and OL played badly too. Lucky for him he never did, though he did set a Bears record for passes without an interception and still got run out of town. That's life. But in coming weeks, I think the Bears will adjust and force the opposing Ds to respect our deep ball and that will help our short game out. If they want to jump the run, Cutler and Hester/Knox can make 'em pay. If Turner's good, then our adjustments will be on target.

Yeah, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Rex has always been capable of good games. It's going 16 games without multiple meltdowns that he was never able to do. It's tough being QB because you can have restraint for 27 out of 30 plays in a game but if on those other 3 plays you throw off your back foot to a receiver who's well covered, you're still a loser. When he wasn't injured, that was Rex. Fans/Chitown media shot themselves in the foot by making his psych-out problems worse, but that's what fans do these days.

Somehow I doubt we got that lucky. He's still hurt. That doesn't mean they won't try to play him anyway.

A) Favre won't want other team's defenses to be "hunting" his cracked rib. It's Brett Favre. We don't have to wonder whether a cracked rib will keep him out of a game. But hopefully it will hurt his effectiveness.

Hmmmmm, ok. I don't normally watch Favre enough to have noticed for myself.

Also, "trying to get rid of you" isn't really the best wording. I'm sure he would have loved to have had them both, but it's not realistic. And that's why I pointed out that Cassel and McDaniels both came from New England, to show that it was about Cassel, not McDaniel's distaste for Cutler. If it had been Shanahan desperately trying to trade him for a couple of draft picks, I'd be insulted, as it was howerver, it kind of makes sense. I'm sure Cutler fully realized that but didn't care.

I'm not saying I don't empathize. It's ok to feel somewhat uncomfortable, in fact these guys are paid to deal with much more than uncomfortable. The NFL isn't about comfort. Cutler had no reason not to "trust" that McDaniels woud do his job. You don't get to have that extreme level of security unless you ask for it ahead of time, and get it, either through your contract or through the word of the owner. Just like every guy on the team without a no-trade clause, being traded is a possibility. Don't like it, talk to your players union. I feel just a little bit sorry for 4th round draft picks that will ultimately spend their life in the middle class if they only get to play a few years but don't have fallback education. There's no reason to feel that way about rich, 1st round drafted QB's, save for the unfair media criticism that often comes their way. Actually, I can even sympathize with the idea that this is Cutler's life and passion, and if he all of a sudden feels that he is in a really poor situation, then he should do something about it...talk to the management and give them the benefit of the doubt. We know he eventually did, and maybe things were said that we don't know, but to base a trade demand on not having a right in the middle of your rookie contract promise made that he'll never be let go...when your alternative is to get traded to a team you'll also have no guarantees with... is beyond ridiculous. He signed a contract. No one forced him to. At the time he had a huge grin on his face thinking about all the guaranteed money I'm sure.

What the announcers said was probably appropriate, to go much beyond that would be ridiculous. He made a clearly unintentional mistake, and he says so too. That other guy hits Favre almost as much as Favre hit him...and Favre's initial contact was just above the right knee so it technically might not even be illegal. QB's are taught to be wimps in terms of contact, Favre just didn't want to absorb (or deliver) a big blow. In fact if you look closely, Favre's block was aimed nearly at the guy's stomach initially, but Favre is a QB, not a blocker, who had his back turned halfway through the block, resulting in him misjudging how far he'd fall before being contacted by the other guy. There was no way for him to know that guy would stick his left leg underneath Favre just before Favre fell on it. Otherwise, blocks almost that low are common, especially by runningbacks. Now that I think about it more, can anyone tell me why that guy was pursuing so slowly if he didn't know Favre was there and was responsible for outside contain? I might go so far as to say that Favre's block should have been just fine, but that other guy oddly decided to never pick up the pace, causing Favre's timing to be too early. Ultimately, you play a game like football, sometimes things are going to happen, even when the players aren't dirty...and many of them are.

It's moot. You don't ask a grown man not to do his job. I seriously doubt the owner ever told Cutler (still on his rookie contract) that he was without a doubt the future of the Broncos, much less that it would be worded that way in his contract. Furthermore, it makes perfect sense that Denver's new coach would be interested in Cassel considering where he came from. You don't want to be traded, get a no trade clause, otherwise be happy that your coach is committed to always improving the team. You don't worry about the things you can't control. And how could Cutler have known that the team he'd end up on after being traded would be any more comitted to him longterm considering he doesn't get to choose who he goes to and at the time he demanded a trade, he hadn't had a serious talk with another team? It wasn't about commitment, it was about Culter's ego, and a 32 year old coach new that it'd be the death of him if he started out looking like he couldn't control his own players. Troublemakers sense weakness. Having said that, the coach and owner have a responsibility to deal with immaturity. If they don't like it, switch careers where everybody isn't in their 20's and used to being put on a pedalstal. Also, remember that the Broncos got what could amount to a Greg Olson, Chris Williams, & Marcus Harrison-like player, and Orton for giving up a malcontent Cutler with a big contract. And consider that had Orton not gotten hurt, he probably would have ended up with a higher QB rating than Cutler last year since his injured period almost surely cost him 6 points of QB rating. I'm glad we got Cutler of course, but that's not the point. It's just that it's quite possible that neither team will be a loser on this deal when it's all said and done, but that doesn't sell newspapers, and I find it irritating listening to people pass judgement on this guy (McDaniels) so recklessly. Though it's a good point that the owner and the coach should be looked at similarly, I still say it's moot because neither of them deserve outright bashing.

Think about it from this perspective. If you have a great coach, but give him crap, you'll never get to see what he can really do. How much are we paying the D for mediocre results? At least with Toub's squad if you give him the players and pay to keep them around (I believe) you're gonna get bigtime results. And obviously everybody wasn't so interchangable or Hester's returning wouldn't have dropped like a rock. We're not talking about from great to good, we're talking about 2 years straight of "without a doubt the best in the history of the NFL" to pretty good. An enormous drop off. I was glad to see Manning have some success but he didn't play enough to convince me that all our ST blocking prolems were fixed/Hester was the whole problem. That Bears coaches aren't going back to him as double duty returner, says they feel the same way. Remember, Hester's been returning kicks his whole football life. If someone with Gale Sayers' return ability was on our team but he was only a decent upgrade over the 2nd string at his offensive position, would you sit him on ST? As an aside, think about it, it wasn't that long ago we had the best D and the best ST in the league, now it looks like we've got an O but the ST is back down to earth and the D is questionable.

We had a strong-armed gunslinger. His name was Rex. We need to ask for a little more than that. And there's not too many Brett Favre's out there who can make up for mistakes with freakish natural talent. IMO, learning to play smart is part of the job. Also, what happens (as has happened with Favre) when the arm gets injured? Chad Pennington has made a career out of figuring out how to win without arm strength, but a gimped Cutler would be starting from square one.

Garza has no ACL and still plays. But he's a rarity.

Also agreed. Favre not being able to make it through 20 games without reduced ability is exactly why I don't see the Vikings as SB cotenders. If they were smart, they'd let him take it easy the first 8 games. It's only because he's been playing 18 years that he could get away with taking over a team that abruptly, but Favre would never stomach sitting, so it won't happen. Just last weekend though my cousin prophetically said he wouldn't be surprised if Favre comes back right before the season. I honestly was expecting him back midseason after some team lost their QB for the year and he'd had an extended chance to rest his arm, but this soon is a surprise.

Ever notice how erything remotely dramatic about Favre comes from someone not named Favre (revenge on Green Bay/old teammates, contract issues, injury status, ...)? He may be self-important and indecisive, but dramatic he is not. Whether retiring, unretiring, or vaguely having no idea about retiring, he always does it in a fairly boring, matter of fact way. I guess he did do the crybaby routine the two times he claimed to retire. Otherwise, it's just you guys/media that are the dramatic ones! ! It's like hating Jon because you're so tired of hearing about Jon and Kate on the news. I get it, but the real question is...are we happy? or sad that Favre is back in our division? I want an interesting season, and Sage Rosenfels bores me. I don't think the Vikes will keep the Bears out of the SB, so I couldn't care less otherwise.

Keep in mind that's based on an injured Favre. It probably makes more sense to talk hypothetically about Favre coming back as healthy, since an injured Favre wouldn't (and didn't) come back anyway. Year before when he was healthy he nearly took his team to the Super Bowl. A healthy Favre would definitely not have been better for us than Minny's backups. As it is, we get the best of both worlds. No healthy Favre for Minny, no unfified team direction either.

Does that mean Tillman's already 2 weeks into his 4-10 week recovery?

My overall point is somebody's got to get the credit for the O being more "effective" than half the league, even with a "weak" line. And, really, an O-line can be both of those words since "weak" is better than "terrible" and "effective" can be worse than "good". I suppose you get to say Turner was partially responsible for the O's successes since you aren't a Turner basher...that's why I brought it up. Of course you could also give Kyle some credit, I do, though not much of that goes on anymore. But it has to be someone. Brian Urlacher didn't put those points up. But you can't argue with raw points scored by the offense, especially considering the field position wasnt' great like it was the year before and save for our TE, we had no marquee offensive skill players. I think if you had watched every game for every team last year you'd be talking like you've been about almost half of them ...even though you're basically describing one of the few worst OLs in football. That's all my point is. I'm not asking anyone to call them "good". It's not like I'm beating my chest about them ultimately being uninspiring/mediocre. It's just that as it turns out we had bigger problems at WR and on the D. Why would our GM only want to upgrade his OL if they were terrible? Tait's not getting any younger. Anyway, that's not the more interesting argument.

I think your admitted bias is affecting your grades a little. As Ray Lewis once said (something like) "Those other guys get paid to win too". We had the 13th rated TD scoring offense (tied with the Broncos) and were 15th rated overall in scoring (includes FGs and defensive/ST TDs)...which was one slot ahead, yes ahead, of the Denver Broncos. Somehow I'm skeptical it was all the work of our best players Hester/Olson, Orton, and rookie Forte...the line was part of that. ...unless you think Turner is underrated. By the way, the rest of your reply was convincing, nevertheless.

Probably had somthing to do with the Steelers D being a part of all those Superbowl wins, even though the list was presumably supposed to about any one given year. But the Steelers also played 2 less games and didn't the Bears shut out or nearly shut out every playoff team they faced up to the SB?

Good point. We should hope Brandon Marshall doesn't jump ship just so the comparison can be more apples to apples.

I hope we're not saying the same thing about Tommie years from now.