defiantgiant

While I tend to agree, I will say this: Martz has never worked with a mobile quarterback like Cutler. If Jeff Garcia had still been with the Niners (or Alex Smith hadn't been injured) when Martz was there, maybe we'd have some idea of what he would do with a QB who can scramble and buy time, but as it is there's no relevant history to go on. He could try to fit a square peg into a round hole and make Cutler into a 7-step-drop, pocket passer, but he's never had to do that before: the guys he had in the past were already cut out for it. Look at it this way: if you want to call a long-developing pass play and Jon Kitna or Shaun Hill is your quarterback, what can you do? Dial up a deep drop and hope your pass protection holds up. Martz got Kitna sacked a million times, but he didn't call all those deep drops because he loves sacks. He called them because he loves deep vertical pass plays that take a long time to develop. And with an immobile QB, the only way to get those plays off is with a deep drop and excellent pass protection. For example, let's say your QB is Ben Roethlisberger instead of Kitna: you can call the same vertical shots, but using a normal drop, then rely on him to get out of the pocket, buy time, and make the throw on the move. I'm not saying Martz will do that with Cutler, but Cutler is the first QB he's ever had who has that kind of scrambling ability and can make every throw on the run. The fact that Martz was so high on him in the draft makes me think he must understand what makes Cutler special. And if he understands that, he'd be stupid not to take advantage of it. I'm less worried about Martz adapting his playcalling to fit Cutler, since he seems to understand what a talent the guy is, and more worried about him adapting it to fit Olsen, the receivers, and the elements (read: crappy turf) at Soldier Field. Martz's offense is famous for requiring extremely precise routes, receivers who can stem off at exactly the right depth, etc. How many times have we seen Bears receivers slip and fall on the Soldier Field mud just trying to run a normal square-in or something? I don't know how Martz could get around that, but it'll require some adjustments on his part, that's for sure.

So I think this thread is as good a place as any for this - according to Brad Biggs, Angelo was personally scouting at both the East-West Shrine Game and the Texas vs. The Nation Game. Here are a few prospects who reportedly did well at each...maybe there's somebody Angelo's targeting. I'll do the East-West Game first: Roger Saffold, OT, Indiana - Polished, better-than-advertised right tackle prospect. Good-not-great size at 6'5" and 312 pounds, holds up exceedingly well in pass protection, and pretty good as an in-line run blocker. Mobile enough to pull and trap. NFLDraftScout Projected Round: 3-4 Kam Chancellor, FS, Virginia Tech - Poor man's Taylor Mays. Jumbo safety (6'3" and 232 lbs.) who has good straight-line speed but isn't very agile in space. Former corner, and excellent at jamming receivers at the line. Was productive for the Hokies, but their DBs have a track record of struggling to adjust in the NFL. Probably best as an in-the-box SS or a nickel DB at the next level, but physical ability is intriguing. NFLDraftScout Projected Round: 3-4 Sergio Render, OG, Virginia Tech - Leader on the Tech offensive line. Squatty, powerful lineman, but has short arms and limited range. Some durability questions after shoulder surgery in 2008 and a pectorals injury this year. Potential starter or borderline-starting backup if he clears medically. NFLDraftScout Projected Round: 5-6 Greg Hardy, DE, Ole Miss - Has the size/speed combination for the position (6'4" 279 pounds, 4.67 in the 40) and is a talented pass rusher, but runs very hot and cold. Will get handled one-on-one when he takes plays off, other times shows tons of ability. Good bull-rush, arm-over, and swim move. NFLDraftScout Projected Round: 2-3 Dmitri Nance, RB, Arizona State - Square, between-the-tackles running back who is difficult to bring down. Powerful build at only 5'9" but 224 pounds. Has adequate speed (4.56 int the 40) for a short-yardage back, but not much more. NFP's scouting correspondent said it best: "Nance is so thick and compact that tackling him is like trying to wrap up a Coke machine." NFLDraftScout Projected Round: FA Other Prospects: Both Nate Collins and TJ Ward (who are in my mock) did well for themselves at the East-West Game. NFP liked Collins' interior pass-rushing ability, and thought he could develop into a nickel rusher or a rotational player at DT. Their report on TJ Ward was pretty good, too: "Ward isn’t the biggest or most physical athlete playing the position here, but the guy is an instinctive football player who knows how to decipher information and get after the ball. He displayed impressive bend, footwork and overall fluidity in coverage Monday and has the ability to redirect, accelerate and quickly close on the play. He has a tendency to get caught ball-watching and will take himself out of plays at times freelancing, but he looks like a player at the next level."

Seriously. If your defense is constantly forcing third-and-long, only to give up 20 yard completions down the seam and allow a conversion every single time, that's a problem with the scheme not the execution. There's no way our players were failing that consistently in the exact same way every time they got into third-and-12 or third-and-15.

Because we don't have anyone who can replace him. Our WR position is anything BUT overstocked. It's not like we're the Lions and can afford to get rid of Roy Williams because we have Calvin Johnson. We have Devin Hester and a bunch of very, VERY unproven talent behind him. The whole debate over who's a "#1" and who's not is pretty dumb: Anquan Boldin was the Cardinals' #1 until they drafted Fitzgerald. Now he's their #2. Was he a #2 all along, even when he was the best on their team and putting up 1000 yards a season? Or did he magically become "not a #1 receiver" when Fitzgerald showed up? Or do they have two #1s? If so, who's Warner's first read? Same thing with Donald Driver and Greg Jennings, or Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne. When I say Hester's our #1 receiver, I mean he's the #1 because he's the best receiver on the team. Would he be the #1 receiver on the Cardinals or the Colts or the Packers? No way. But he's our #1 receiver until we get somebody better, and at this point, we don't have anyone on the roster who's proven to be better than Hester. In fact, on a per-catch and per-target basis, everybody else we have on the roster is worse. And it would be stupid to get rid of a guy because he's "not a #1 receiver" when everybody else is even worse. Even if you look at conventional stats, Hester's the best we've got - he had more yards than any other Bears receiver, more yards per game than any other Bears receiver, more 75-plus-yard games than any other Bears receiver, and more catches than anybody but Olsen. Touchdowns are the only measure where anybody was better than Hester, and that just means that we should be looking to some of our other receivers in the red zone. I know everybody's excited about Aromashodu, but the fact is that more than half of his total yards came in one game, playing against a significantly injured Antoine Winfield. Baltimore's secondary was very suspect, and they held him to just 2 catches for 10 yards. I'm as excited about his potential as anybody else, but he's far from proving that he's our #1 receiver over Hester, and it's WAY premature to suggest that we could afford to trade Hester away and count on Aromashodu or Knox instead. Also, Holt isn't better than Hester, not at this stage in his career. Holt got 103 passes thrown his way this season, but he only managed 51 catches for 722 yards, and he didn't make it into the end zone all season. Hester did more with fewer targets and has upside, whereas Holt is already worse and clearly in decline. I'm not saying Hester is trade-proof or anything, but anything we got from him in trade would have to be spent replacing him in the receiver corps, or else we'd be improving at one position by getting worse at another.

Yeah, that worries me. It could go either way: if Cutler and the receivers were struggling because they were each trying to guess what the other one was going to do, then maybe Martz's scheme will help, since he'll presumably be telling them both where to be and when. On the other hand, our receivers don't run very precise routes and Cutler likes to string a play out until he sees someone get open, then gun it in there, kind of like Roethlisberger does or like Culpepper did back in 2004. That's pretty much the antithesis of a Martz QB. Cutler's going to need to change the way he does things, but Martz is probably going to have to meet him halfway. If Martz can get everybody on the same page in a single offseason, he's a genius. That said, if he actually can do it, he's got better personnel here than he did in Detroit or San Francisco...there's no reason to think the Bears' offense won't be better than the Niners/Lions offenses were (though certainly not as good as the St. Louis offense back in the day.)

I couldn't agree more. Martz is a great offensive mind and Cutler's a tremendous talent, but they both have some problems they're going to need to overcome. If (and only if) both of them can change the way they approach the game, we could see something really good emerging on offense. Cutler needs to clean up his fundamentals some; he's gotten away with sloppy footwork and throwing off his back foot because of his ridiculous arm strength, but it hurts his accuracy (like we saw with all the overthrows in the Philadelphia game) and leads to interceptions. Martz needs to whip Cutler into shape for this offense to be successful. The thing that I'm really worried about, though, is whether Martz is willing to adapt his scheme to our personnel and the elements at Soldier Field. I really hope that he's planning to change the scheme to fit the personnel, rather than trading players or changing the roster to fit his system. As far as Olsen goes, I'll say this: Martz may prefer his TEs to block, but he also has no problem with slower wideouts in his offense. Look at Ricky Proehl, Mike Furrey, and Shaun McDonald...I don't think any of them were as fast in a straight line as Olsen is. I don't see any reason why Martz couldn't use Olsen more like an extra wide receiver, and leave the blocking to Clark and Davis. If he does that, I think Olsen could have some great success under Martz. I know that Martz didn't do that with Vernon Davis, but Davis is more of an athlete and less of a receiver than Olsen. He's also WAY stronger than Olsen, which would make it more tempting to ask him to block. Between Olsen's mediocre blocking and how smooth/polished he is as a receiver, I don't think it'd be hard for Martz to figure out how best to use him, provided that Martz is willing to be flexible.

I wish they had at least interviewed somebody outside of the organization. This just looks so much like a Lovie Smith yes-man move...hiring "his guy" rather than acknowledging that the last time our defense was good, it was being run by someone he butted heads with from time to time. Mike Nolan was on the open market not too long ago, and his track record as a DC speaks for itself, but the Bears didn't even reach out to him because he's not a Lovie Smith guy. Sure, Nolan likes to run a 3-4, but he's also run 4-3 and hybrid defenses with equal success; he could definitely have adapted his scheme to our personnel. But nope, he's not a Tampa-2 guy. Romeo Crennel was available too, and they didn't make a move...same deal. It's hard to feel good about this move. If it turns out well, it'll be a pleasant surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. Marinelli's never succeeded at a level above position coach. He said himself that his preference was to stick to his strengths and remain d-line coach. And now we're relying on him to turn around a moribund defense by doing what? Running it the exact same way Lovie did for the past two seasons? I'm finding it hard to see how that could work.

Catch percentage among starting wide receivers is very tightly grouped: very few starting WRs have sub-50% catch rates, and 75% is an incredible figure. Since a range of 25% covers about the entire spectrum of starters in the NFL, Hester being 7% better than Aromashodu is a significant figure. Oh, I'll be the first to admit that Hester's not a good red-zone receiver. He probably never will be. But that's OK by me, as long as we have somebody else to do that. I left out Olsen because tight ends' per-target and per-catch numbers are actually kind of hard to compare to wide receivers. Teams vary so much in how they use tight ends that their stats are harder to interpret. But here's Olsen: 108 targets, 60 catches, 612 yards, 8 scores::10.2 YPC, 55.6% catch rate, 5.67 YPT. He was actually active for 10 games, not 9. Unless NFL.com is wrong. Anyway, number of games doesn't matter at all for per-target figures like the ones I'm looking at. The issue is number of targets. And Aromashodu had a little fewer than half of Hester's targets, but fell significantly short of half of Hester's production. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about this group's potential, too. I just think that Hester's the best among them until somebody proves otherwise.

Hester led all of our receivers in yards per catch, yards per target, and catch percentage, which are the three best indicators of a wide receiver's performance. Yards per target is particularly important, since it includes both how likely a receiver is to catch the ball and how much yardage he'll gain if he does. More on that in a minute. Hester missed 3 games (according to nfl.com) this year with a strained calf and played through a dinged-up shoulder. Boldin has played a full season just twice in his 7-year career, and the most recent one was 2006. Not really the same thing. Also, Boldin is a #2 because his team has Larry Fitzgerald. If Angelo can swing a trade for Fitz, then I'll agree with you that Hester's our #2 receiver. How do you figure Aromashodu did more with less? When you look at what he did with the passes that went his way, he did less than Hester by every measure: fewer yards per catch, much lower percentage of passes caught, and way, way fewer yards per target. Here are the two guys side-by-side: Hester: 91 targets, 57 catches, 757 yards, 3 TDs Aromashodu: 43 targets, 24 catches, 298 yards, 4 TDs Hester caught 62.6% of the passes thrown to him. Aromashodu? 55.8%. Hester averaged 13.3 yards per catch (which is even more notable since Ron Turner kept calling those stupid screens where he got the ball behind the LOS.) Aromashodu? 12.4 yards per catch. And most importantly, yards-per-target: the average throw to Hester gained 8.32 yards, which is an excellent number for a starting wideout. The average throw to Aromashodu? 6.93 yards. A difference of nearly a yard and a half in their respective YPTs means (by definition) that giving Aromashodu more targets at Hester's expense will make the passing game worse, not better. The same goes for Knox and for Bennett, too. By way of a comparison, here are some other starting wideouts' per-target numbers: Anquan Boldin: 128 targets, 85 catches, 1029 yards, 5 TDs:: 12.1 YPC, 66.4% catch rate, 8.04 YPT Chad Ochocinco: 128 targets, 72 catches, 1047 yards, 9 TDs:: 14.5 YPC, 56.2% catch rate, 8.18 YPT Roddy White: 165 targets, 85 catches, 1153 yards, 11 TDs:: 13.6 YPC, 51.5% catch rate, 6.99 YPT Brandon Marshall: 154 targets, 101 catches, 1120 yards, 10 TDs:: 11.1 YPC, 65.6% catch rate, 7.27 YPT What's the one thing that jumps out about those guys? None of their YPTs are as good as Hester's, but they all got WAY more passes thrown their way than he did, which let them put up more total yards, scores, etc. I think we need to see what Hester can do when he gets 120-150 passes thrown his way before we start sayin he's not a #1 receiver.

I don't think the iron's particularly hot. I'm not sure anybody would trade much for Hester at this point. Also, Holt's on a major decline, he's clearly not the same player he was. Unless we're going to get a Brandon Marshall-caliber receiver (which we really don't have the ammunition to do) I don't want to take playing time away from our young guys.

Hey, congrats man! Good luck in the fall!

So, I like to use fftoday.com, since it gives you targets as well as receptions and yards. They actually tally up how many times the quarterback passed to a particular receiver over the whole season, which is his targets stat. Here are the Bears' receivers: Devin Hester: 91 targets, 57 catches, 757 yards, 3 TDs Devin Aromashodu: 43 targets, 24 catches, 298 yards, 4 TDs Earl Bennett: 88 targets, 54 catches, 717 yards, 2 TDs Johnny Knox: 80 targets, 45 catches, 527 yards, 5 TDs My favorite measure for wide receivers is yards-per-target, for two reasons. First, it incorporates both catch percentage and yards-per-catch, so you can compare a deep threat like Braylon Edwards (7.23 YPT) to a possession guy like Jerricho Cotchery (8.55 YPT.) Second, you get a receiver's yards-per-target from the same formula as a QB's yards-per-attempt, so the receiver's performance lines up nicely with the quarterback's. And when you look at yards-per-target, Hester is our best receiver: Hester: 8.32 yards per target Aromashodu: 6.93 yards per target Bennett: 8.15 yards per target Knox: 6.59 yards per target Surprisingly, Bennett comes out pretty well, but Hester's catch percentage was better and he got more yards per catch, adding up to a better YPT. Both of them were significantly more effective than Aromashodu and Knox.

How do you figure he's not integral? He was our leading receiver, and he was on pace for close to 1000 yards if he hadn't missed 3 games. Is there any actual evidence that Knox or Aromashodu or Bennett could replace Hester's production? I haven't seen any: all of them have been less productive on a per-target basis than Hester. Giving any of them more targets at the expense of Hester would make the passing game less effective. Also, both Boldin and Marshall are under contract. Both their respective teams are going to want draft picks. I can't imagine that either of them would take a 3rd rounder, so I think we can go ahead and forget about Boldin or Marshall to the Bears. I wouldn't want Boldin anyway: yeah, he has good hands, but he's also slow, constantly injured, and about to be 30. I've made this argument before, but even an all-world return man isn't as valuable as a starting wide receiver. Teams wouldn't even kick to Hester by the end of 2007, and what good is he if he never gets to touch the ball? Look: would you rather our offense started on the 40 every time, but without Hester in the receiving game? We've got two other guys (Danieal Manning and Johnny Knox) who can return kicks at a very high level; we need to keep Hester where he's most valuable to the team, in the receiver corps.

True, but the Coryell numbering system's main advantage is that it makes plays much, MUCH easier to learn, since you don't really have to memorize anything. When people were questioning Al Saunders' 700-page playbook, he used to say that it was more like a textbook, and that in about 20 minutes, he could teach a receiver everything he needed to know to run any of the plays in it. Check it out: in a West Coast offense like Turner's, Hester would have to memorize some complicated terminology like "23 Go Ruby Slam Right" or whatever. He has to remember what each of those terms stands for, and what they mean for the play, and then he has to pick out "Go" as the part that applies to him. A standard Coryell playcall would be something like "419 H-Post Swing". All Hester has to remember is which number is his (if he's lined up at his usual flanker spot, it's the third one) and then remember that a 9 route is the Go route. Nothing else in the playcall applies to him: the 4 route is for the split end, the 1 route is for the TE or slot receiver, and the Post and Swing routes are for the halfback and fullback. Also, that 4-1-9 corresponds to split-slot-flanker...it's actually read from left to right, in the same order as the players on the field. So Hester literally just has to look to his left, count the other receivers, and then just run whatever number the play tells him. If anything, I think the switch to Martz's number-based terminology could help our young receivers out a LOT. It may be really complicated for the playcaller and the quarterback, but by all accounts it's extremely simple for the receivers.

I'd be surprised if he were gone, actually. This is a great safety crop this year, and Rolle's only going to be able to play strong safety. I don't know where FS/SS came from, but Rolle played a rover-type position at FSU. If anything, it's hard to tell whether he's a jumbo strong safety or a small outside linebacker. Either way, the guy's just not a ballhawk: he's got ONE career interception. There are also some concerns about his range in coverage. He's a very smart, durable, assignment-sound safety, and he'd be great for a team like Detroit or Green Bay that has an established FS to pair him with, but the Bears need a guy like Nate Allen who can play in coverage. Unfortunately, Nate Allen will definitely be gone before the 3rd. Also, O'Brien Schofield will probably be available in the 7th. He destroyed his left knee (tore his ACL and maybe did other damage, too) in Senior Bowl practice. I would have loved to get him in the 4th before the injury, but now teams are going to be wondering if he'll even play again. If I had to do a draft board for the Bears, it would look like this: 3.) T.J. Ward, S, Oregon - Has played both strong and free safety at Oregon after starting out at corner, but FS is his best position. Big hitter, reliable tackler, excellent in zone coverage. Undersized (5'10", 199 lbs.) but extremely strong for his frame (squats 495 and cleans 330.) Doesn't have quite the range to be an Ed Reed-type centerfielder, but is more than good enough in coverage for a team that likes to play 2 deep safeties like Chicago. And did I mention that he can hit? Comes from an Oregon program that has been churning out quality NFL starters in the secondary. Injured his knee in high school, and had a separate injury to the same knee in 2006. Knee hasn't been a problem since, but he'd have to check out medically. Reminds me a lot of a young Mike Brown. 4.) Chris Scott, OT, Tennessee - Big, powerful lineman at 6'5" 328 lbs. Played left tackle at Tennessee and gave up very few sacks, but doesn't have the mobility to stay on the left side in the NFL. However, he's an absolute bulldozer in the run game, and should be more than adequate in pass-protection as a right tackle. Started his college career at right guard, and could potentially move back there if he struggles at right tackle, or if James Marten suddenly turns it on. 5.) Nate Collins, DT, Virginia - Really interesting prospect: he played a nose tackle in UVa's 3-4, but he's only 6'2" and 280 pounds. Emotional leader and a captain on Virginia's defense, despite only being a starter for 1 year. Also, where a normal nose tackle is a big space-eater, Collins is a disruptive, fairly explosive gap-shooting lineman, leading some evaluators to project him as a one-gap three-technique DT. Has pretty good burst, is an excellent handfighter, and has a nasty swim move and a solid bull-rush...he was apparently the second-hardest 3-tech to block one-on-one at the Senior Bowl, right after Geno Atkins. If he continues to transition well to under tackle, he could spell Tommie Harris, allowing Marcus Harrison to stay at nose tackle and Jarron Gilbert to move to DE. 6.) Clifton Geathers, DE, South Carolina - Unbelievable frame: looks lean, almost lanky, despite measuring 6'8" and 285 pounds. Probably should have stayed another year at South Carolina, but decided to declare despite only being given a mid- to late-round grade. Raw, and will need development, but has great bloodlines: brother Robert Geathers is a defensive end for the Bengals, and both his father and uncle were starters in the NFL as well. Total upside pick for his freak physical ability, but if Marinelli is what he's cracked up to be, Geathers and Gilbert could be an intimidating DE tandem in a year or two. 7.) James Starks, RB, Buffalo - Could provide an interesting complement to Forte and Kahlil Bell. Former QB who converted to halfback, and looks like an excellent third-down back. Decent size at 6'2" 218 lbs, and very good straight-line speed. Excellent hands as a receiver, caught 127 passes in three seasons at Buffalo. Was productive on the ground, too, rushing for 3140 yards and 34 TDs on 698 carries. Not a terribly shifty runner, more of a one-cut-and-go type of guy. But once he gets to the "go" part. Would be excellent in a zone-blocking scheme. Will need to work on his blocking. Has a shoulder injury that was surgically repaired back in August, will need to be checked out. UDFA) Trindon Holliday, RB/WR/KR/PR, LSU - Honestly, I don't know what we'd do with this little guy, but he's quite possibly the fastest player in football at any level, anywhere. Has been timed at 4.28 in the 40-yard dash, from a two-point stance, while wearing basketball shoes. The coaches didn't believe it, so he did it again and ran a 4.27. Borderline Olympic-level track athlete, but is a football player running track, not the other way around. Despite primarily training for football, runs the 100-meter in 10 seconds flat. Used to run the first leg on LSU's 4x100 relay team, but the second runner couldn't time his starts because Holliday's feet were moving too fast to see. Incredibly tiny (5'5" and 165 lbs.) but has a bowling-pin physique like a smaller Maurice Jones-Drew, and is not shy about contact. However the Bears wanted to use him, Holliday's speed and tackle-breaking ability would make him a weapon.

Umm, is Williams going to bring Dwight Freeney with him? Or Robert Mathis? Or Bob Sanders? Because unless he does, I don't think we're in any danger of having a defense like Indy's. You can just rest easy on that one. And balta/nfo, yeah, I do agree that chances of Lovie going outside his own coaching tree are pretty minimal. And I guess if he's going to get another guy from St. Louis or Tampa, we should at least get somebody who can develop players. But I'm not happy settling for that: the last time this defense was good, it was being run by somebody who knew several different schemes. I'd like to see that again, rather than another guy who's going to run the same thing that hasn't been working. I'm not one of these guys who thinks the Tampa-2 is dead, but it depends on having some horses that we just don't have. Indy can get tons of pass pressure with their front four, but we can't. We're going to need to blitz all the time anyway, we should hire a guy who's proven he can do it effectively.

Oh, I know what Peppers is asking for (he basically wants Haynesworth's contract, last I heard) I just don't think he's going to get it. I'm not sure there's anyone in the league dumb enough to offer that kind of money to a 30-year-old player who takes entire games off. Seriously, there was a quote from Peppers to one of his teammates at one point, to the effect of "imagine what I could do if I actually tried." That has to be a red flag for any team.

He'd definitely be qualified, but he seems too much like a Lovie yes-man hire for my tastes. Dude started as the assistant DBs coach in Tampa back in 2001, and he's been in Indianapolis since. That means the ONLY background he has is in the Tampa-2. Fewell, at least, had one stop on his resume with a non-Tampa-2 team. If Lovie's going to go outside his current staff for the hire, I'd really like to see him get somebody with a more diverse background, like Rivera had.

Yeah, I think that Martz will run the ball somewhat often when he's got a very effective run game and defense, and he's proven that he'll run it next to not at all if he gets behind or the run game stalls. So if Tice can keep the run-blocking effective, maybe we'll get some runs in there. I'm not saying we need to be a run-first team at all, and that 's certainly not the way the league appears to be going, but we've got to have some balance. If Martz wants to go 60-40 pass, so be it. But it can't be 75-25 pass like we've seen before. That makes the offense one-dimensional. EDIT: So I'm listening to Martz's press conference now, and one thing jumped out at me...the receiver he mentions the most, the one he seems to be the most excited about, is Johnny Knox. He calls the guy a "diamond" and uses his name when talking about sending a receiver on a streak route for a touchdown. I may be reading way too much into this, but he also specifically mentions using Hester both outside and in the slot. I'm not trying to get my hopes up, but a package with Knox and Aromashodu on the outside and Hester in the slot could create some serious mismatches. Also, I was kind of encouraged by the way he talked about Olsen. Martz mentioned that most of his TEs in the past have been big blocking tight ends, and so he used them as such. He also made it sound like he has a model (Kellen Winslow, Sr.) for how he wants to use Olsen in his offense, and that model is different than what he's done with TEs in the past. He came right out and said "Greg's a different kind of player," which makes me think he gets it.

Yeah, of our current players, I think Forte is probably the most tailor-made for Martz's system. He probably won't get as many carries as he's had in the past (which could be a good thing, given how dinged up he was after his rookie year) but he'll be getting a ton of receptions. Didn't Faulk break 80 catches in a season under Martz? Forte being as smooth a receiver as he is, I think he'll do well in a Martz offense. The thing I'm worried about isn't Williams: he looked perfectly fine once he shifted back to left tackle, and his lateral agility is his biggest asset. He should be pretty well cut out for the deep drops that Martz has run in the past. My worry is the rest of the line. Omiyale could be OK at left guard if he gets his technique down; as much as I hated him early on, he was playing pretty well by the end of the season. The rest of the line, though, I really don't know. Kreutz and Garza both seem to be on the decline, and Shaffer is definitely not a great pass-protector...the Browns found that out the hard way. If Martz is going to call for as many deep drops as he has in the past, he and Tice better be able to develop James Marten. Marten's a former left tackle, he's very athletic, and his pass-blocking was always better than his run-blocking. He'd be the closest thing we have to a pass-protecting right tackle, but he's a huge question mark right now.

God, I hope not. H-back is a FB/TE hybrid, right? A real H-back (like Chris Cooley) has to be able to lead block. I'd love to see Olsen in motion more, or Olsen as a receiver out of the backfield into the flat, but we all saw what happened when Turner tried to use him as a fullback.

Garrett Wolfe has never impressed me in any kind of a traditional running back role, even as a receiver out of the backfield. He's just not quick or explosive enough to make people miss at the NFL level, and he's never been strong enough to run through tackles. Any defender, even corners and safeties, who so much as swipes at him usually brings him down. The only plays that work for him are designed screens and gadget plays that get him into space: even on those plays, he's not really adding any value, since he never gets past the first defender. Anything we use Wolfe for, Forte could probably do better. Maybe he's worth a roster spot for his special teams performance, but I'm not even sure about that, unless we can get a durable, productive #2 back. Also, Trung Canidate was considered undersized, and he was way bigger than Wolfe. Canidate was 5'11" and 205 pounds. Next to Wolfe, he'd look like Brandon Jacobs.

You think so? I was actually thinking that Kampman's price could be higher than Peppers'. The Panthers aren't expected to try to retain Peppers, whereas Ted Thompson says the Packers are going to make Kampman an offer. Now, this is probably going to be Kampman's last contract, so he could be looking for the biggest payday, but given how loyal most Green Bay players are to the organization and how much their front office rewards their own players, I think it could take some serious cash to pry him away from there. Meanwhile, it looks like the Panthers are going to let Peppers walk, none of the final 8 teams can sign him, and there could be a lot of red flags about effort/consistency that are non-issues for Kampman. His sack numbers are gaudy (at least when he's in a contract year) but I don't think that will necessarily mean the market for him will be higher. This is just my two cents, but I think it might end up being harder to get Kampman, which is a shame, because I'd definitely take him over Peppers.

It's a passing game now, and I've got no problem with Chicago getting with the times, as long as there's some balance. But in previous years "Mike Martz" hasn't exactly been synonymous with "balanced playcalling." I guess we can hope that he'll moderate his usual tendency to throw, throw, throw. If he doesn't, our offense will be just as one-dimensional as last season, and we might as well have kept Turner. The original Air Coryell offense was built around power running and occasionally a deep shot down the field to stretch the defense...maybe Martz can rediscover his roots. More than that, though, I hope he realizes that he needs to throw to the TEs in Chicago. Olsen and Clark are the most consistent receivers we've got, and if Martz leaves them in to block all the time, he'll be wasting our best receiving threats. Not to mention that Olsen can't block worth crap.

We don't have the horses to run a 3-4, and we don't have the draft picks to get them. Nobody on our current roster could play nose tackle, none of them have played in a two-gap scheme that I'm aware of, and neither Harris nor Adams would be a good fit at 3-4 DE. We'd need a whole new defensive line to install a 3-4. The best candidates we have for a 30 front on the current roster are Idonije and Gilbert at end and Harrison in the middle. Needless to say, that would be a pretty poor 3-4 d-line. I'm not saying it'll never happen, but even if they wanted to make that switch, they'd be a couple of years away at best.