defiantgiant

I realize that the Chicago papers have been saying that, but they're wrong. The thing about needing another great pass-protector at right tackle, that's not the offensive system, that's Martz's playcalling. The Air Coryell system relies on taking shots deep down the field to stretch the defense vertically, but there's nothing that says you have to use the deep drops and slow-developing plays that Martz has called in the past, which put so much strain on the right tackle as a pass protector. In fact, since the Bears have some extremely fast receivers and Cutler has a very strong arm (much stronger than Warner's or Kitna's, for example,) it's possible that you could use a lot of standard 5-step drops and get the same big vertical gains. A great right tackle isn't a built-in requirement of the Coryell offense, it's just necessary because of the way Martz has liked to run it in the past, calling tons of deep drops and long throws, despite having a less-mobile quarterback who doesn't have tremendous arm strength. And that playcalling is absolutely something that he could change, if he were willing to do so. That's an interesting point. Most of the other Air Coryell teams have played either in domes (St. Louis) or in places with very little inclement weather (San Diego, Kansas City, Washington D.C. to a lesser extent.) Here's an interesting thing, though: the worse the weather at their home stadiums, the more those Coryell teams emphasized the run. Martz's Rams almost never ran. Norv Turner's Chargers are pretty balanced, I think. Al Saunders' Chiefs and Joe Gibbs' Redskins were smashmouth running teams, despite being from the same family as Martz's offense. Gibbs and Saunders both started out favoring a passing attack in San Diego, then changed their approach when they went places where you have to be able to run the ball to be successful. Now, I can't say for sure that a similar transition would work in Chicago: Soldier Field is a much worse passing environment than any of those teams' fields. But one look at what the Redskins did with the Hogs and John Riggins should tell you that a Coryell offense can definitely feature a power running attack more than a passing game. Again, I'm not saying Martz will change his mind. I'm just saying that if he were willing to show the same flexibility that Gibbs and Saunders did, he could make his offense feature the run.

You know, I've thought about that, too. If Martz tries to run the offense the same exact way he did in St. Louis and Lovie tries to run Tampa's defense, all they'd need is Warren Sapp, Simeon Rice, Derrick Brooks, Booger McFarland, John Lynch, Ronde Barber, Orlando Pace, Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, and Marshall Faulk all in their respective primes. It shouldn't be too hard to go out and get 10 or 11 All-Pro players, right?

Desperation might have something to do with it. Martz has a huge ego, but that might be tempered by the fact that he's having such a hard time breaking back into the league. That could be the one good thing to come out of the Bears' ridiculously prolonged coaching search: giving Martz the cold shoulder for so long may make him more willing to compromise in order to get the job. And if he were willing to compromise, I think he could be a pretty effective coordinator. It's not like Martz is dumb, and I don't think his system is inherently bad or unsuited to our personnel, it's just his playcalling tendencies in the past that have been the problem. There are plenty of balanced, even run-heavy Air Coryell offenses out there, and plenty of ones that use a receiving tight end extremely well, too. Look at Tomlinson and Antonio Gates in San Diego, or Priest Holmes, Larry Johnson and Tony Gonzalez in Kansas City. If Martz is willing to take a page (maybe literally) from the Norv Turner/Al Saunders playbook in exchange for getting back into the NFL, the whole thing could work out OK. If not, we're in trouble. Honestly, I'd prefer to see a passing-coordinator/running-coordinator split between Martz and Tice if Martz gets hired. Tice seems like he's a strong enough personality to stand up to Martz, and each of them would have a pretty good track record with their respective responsibilities.

Yeah, I'm not saying I think it's likely that Marinelli can motivate the guy (nothing seems to do that but a payday.) I'm just saying that if he could, I'd be OK with the Bears going after Peppers, especially since I've been hearing that Green Bay's going to try to retain Kampman.

If we wanted to use more of a centerfielder free safety like Baltimore does, I'd be very OK with moving Tillman there. In the Tampa-2, though, the whole premise is to keep the play in front of the DBs, then make the tackle/strip the ball. The free safety and strong safety are supposed to be interchangeable, and the scheme makes the FS do about as much tackling as the SS. You're right, though, if we were going to move away from the Tampa-2, Tillman would be a good coverage-type FS and it would probably prolong his career some. As far as this offseason goes, I think we should be on the lookout for guys like Rhodes: players who are still under contract, but are due a lot of money. There might be a very weak free agent class this year, but a lot of teams could be cutting guys. I've read in several places that some teams will probably try to save a bunch of money on player salaries in 2010, what with there being no salary floor and no cap. So some guys who ordinarily wouldn't get cut because of the cap hit might get released, since their teams will be worried about their real salary, not the cap. The other thing is that this is a great year for free safeties in the draft, which is very unusual. Eric Berry, Taylor Mays, and Earl Thomas could all go in the first round, and they'll push quality prospects like Nate Allen and Morgan Burnett into the 2nd, at least. If Angelo can trade from our high 3rd up to the middle of the 2nd, he could get either Allen or Burnett: they're both real ballhawks and could probably start immediately.

The issue with Peppers is definitely motivation. He completely disappears for games at a time, and the only exception seems to be when he's in a contract year. That said, if all it would take is money and the team thinks Marinelli could motivate him on a consistent basis, I'd be OK with it. The Bears desperately need to add some d-line pressure, and we don't have any draft picks.

Yeah, when I said "looking like" I meant on paper: obviously we never got a chance to see much from them on the field.

I think it's also an issue of how attractive the Vikings organization is as an employer. A lot of NFL teams have agreements to let their assistant coaches pursue promotions, and I assume that it'd be harder to attract/retain good candidates if word gets out that you'll block them getting coordinator jobs elsewhere. When Jack Del Rio was interviewed about letting Tice go, he said that he and Tice had an agreement from the beginning: if Tice got offered a job coaching the offensive line, Del Rio would allow him to interview. Since Tice really wanted to be an OL coach, that deal was part of how Del Rio convinced him to come be a TEs coach in the first place. If the Vikings are letting Rogers (who a lot of people think pretty highly of) interview with a division rival, I imagine they must have had the same kind of deal with him.

Davis is fine by me as long as he's only playing on special teams. McGahee caught 43 passes the last time he played a full season, so he's a pretty good receiver...he'd be a great pickup. Marshall is a total pipe dream, unless he gets cut outright, which I highly doubt. The Broncos will be looking for a lot more value than Chicago can afford to part with. It sounds like they're going to be looking for a 1st-rounder for him, and I doubt they'd take less than a 2nd plus a later pick. Lito Sheppard is almost exactly like Vasher, and I'd much rather have Bowman than Sheppard. Bowman is shaping up to be a pretty good #2 corner, and our big need in the secondary is free safety.

I heard it suggested that Martz's desperation to get back into coaching might make him more flexible in terms of adapting his scheme to the Bears' personnel. If he's willing to moderate his scheme to make it more like the other Air Coryell systems out there (like the Chargers, or the Chiefs back in the day) that have a better run-pass mix and don't demand so much of their pass protection, then I think the hire could potentially work out OK, especially if Tice has some input in the run game. If he's going to try to implement the same offense he installed in St. Louis, Detroit and San Francisco, though, Cutler might want to buy some extra life insurance.

I think part of why DA looks so much taller than Knox is that he's got a very lanky build with very long arms. When I look at DA on the field, I'm a little surprised that he's not 6-3 or 6-4. But look at Knox in the picture in this article. He's right next to Earl Bennett, who's an even 6 feet, and they're about the exact same height, Knox is just skinnier.

You nailed it: his system has never worked without once-in-a-lifetime talent. Martz's offenses put up gaudy passing yardage numbers, but outside of the years where he had multiple Hall-of-Fame-level players on offense, they don't actually score that often. A lot of people have talked about how Martz made Kitna a 4000-yard passer, but Kitna averaged fewer than 20 TDs a season under Martz. And his interceptions always outnumbered his touchdowns. And that's not even addressing the issue of balance on offense. Kitna had pretty underwhelming yards-per-attempt, which makes it obvious that his high yardage was due to a huge number of pass attempts. Martz called 1,300 passes in two seasons with Detroit, compared to 727 runs. In 2006 and 2007, respectively, Martz's Lions ranked #2 and #4 in the NFL in pass attempts and #32 and #30 in rushing attempts. That's insane, and it honestly could set Cutler back: everywhere Martz has gone, his quarterbacks have gotten destroyed. Kitna got sacked nearly 60 times a season under Martz. The 49ers led the league in sacks allowed (with 55) under Martz, in his one year there. Getting hit that much absolutely can affect a good quarterback's performance for the rest of his career. If we're going to bring in an offensive coordinator for a one-year deal, I'd rather it not be a guy who might turn our franchise QB into David Carr. Somebody here brought up Cutler's mobility, and he's definitely more mobile than Warner/Bulger/Kitna, but Martz's system isn't designed to be friendly to mobile quarterbacks. He makes use of deep 7-step drops, then asks the QB to stand in the pocket, make the throw downfield, and then take the hit, frequently from an unblocked rusher. A West Coast offense could protect Cutler with shorter drops, more rollouts, and quick underneath passing routes: Martz's offense doesn't do any of that...a lot of his plays don't even have a checkdown receiver.

It's worse than first dibs. The Rams could tender an offer to Atogwe at the lowest RFA level, and we'd have to give up our third-round pick if they didn't match the offer. A 3rd-rounder for a dinged-up guy who's going to be 29 before next season? Also, I really, really don't like the idea of Tillman to FS. He's still our best corner, and we don't really have another guy who could take the spot across from Bowman, since Graham would be a pretty big downgrade from Peanut. Also, with all the shoulder and back problems that Tillman has had over the past couple of years, exposing him to the harder impact at safety could definitely shorten his career. If there's one guy I'd look at, it's Kerry Rhodes from the Jets. He's 27 and a pretty good coverage safety (he had 13 passes broken up and 3 interceptions to go with 63 tackles this season) with great size at 6'3" and 214 pounds. The Jets might cut him rather than pay his $2 million roster bonus, or they might make him available via trade. He was only a 4th-round pick, and it wouldn't be crazy to get him for a 4th or a 4th and a lower-tier player. Rhodes would be an upgrade and allow Danieal Manning to move back to nickel DB, where he's much better. If we had Tillman-Bowman at corner, Manning as the nickel, and Rhodes-Afalava at safety, that would be a pretty good secondary.

Yeah, think about this: if we start DA and Hester with Knox in the slot, our slowest receiver (in the 40, not on the field) is actually Hester, since he ran a 4.41 at the Combine. Think about that. That's a TON of speed at wideout. We could give some defensive backs nightmares.

Yeah, it was a cleanup type of procedure. Hopefully it'll make him a little more effective than he has been for the past couple of years, but really we need to find out if Beekman can take over or not. There's no way Kreutz has more than a couple of years left, and he's not the player he used to be. It sucks because he's definitely the leader on offense, but I think this team needs to give Beekman a chance to win the job for good, and sooner rather than later.

Yeah, Briggs-Urlacher-Tinoisamoa was looking like the ideal Tampa-2 linebacking corps before all the injuries set in. If they can all stay healthy for a season, the defense could be much better.

Rogers did decent work with Tarvaris Jackson, and excellent work with McNabb at Syracuse. Jackson was incredibly raw when Childress reached for him in the draft, and it's been Rogers' job to basically rebuild him from scratch. To Rogers' credit, Jackson actually put together some good games the last time he was starting. He's not a great QB, but he's definitely come a long way. Also, Rogers helped Brett Favre put together the only season in his career where he didn't get picked off a million times. Think about it: Favre's previous all-time low for interceptions was 13...he comes to the Vikings, works with Rogers, and cuts that in half. Favre also had the highest completion percentage of his career, more passing yards than he's had since '98, and more TDs than any season since '97. Rogers managed to maintain Favre's big-play ability this season, but without his usual parade of dumb, risky throws. If the guy can settle Cutler down like that, I'm all for hiring him.

There's a trend in those stats...

Well, OK, Iglesias and Bennett had identical rookie years, but so did Iglesias and Airese Currie. I'm not saying he's a bust yet, but I haven't seen any indication that Iglesias is going to turn into anything. I'll be happy if he does, but at this point it's anybody's guess.

I agree that that's where we are right now, but before Kevin Everett had his spinal injury, I doubt that anyone would have thought that the NFL could help a quadriplegic man walk again. But the Bills' team doctor had gone to some neurosurgery conference where they discussed how hypothermia could preserve an injured person's spine, and he started keeping IV drips full of cold saline solution in a cooler on the sidelines. When Everett got hurt, the medical staff had already been practicing a spinal-injury drill: they put him in hypothermia before they even took him off the field, and didn't bring him out until he was in the trauma ward with a neurosurgeon ready. He couldn't move his limbs at all when he was on the field...he couldn't even control his lungs very well; now he can walk unassisted, he has small motor control, he can do basically everything an uninjured person can do. Everett's living proof that the NFL's resources can lead to medical advances that people wouldn't have thought possible. I'm not saying anybody's to blame for not catching Gaines Adams' condition. It's tragic, but like you said, it's apparently very difficult to diagnose in athletes. But the NFL has the resources to make major advances in medicine, and I don't know why it couldn't devote some of those resources to getting improved diagnoses for athletes in the future.

I could see Knox rotating in at basically any position. This season he only played at split end, which I'm assuming would be Aromashodu's position next season. If we have a play that puts Hester in the slot, Aromashodu could rotate back to flanker (where he played this season) and Knox could come in at split end. That would be the easiest way to do it, since only one guy (Hester) would be playing a position he hadn't played before. On the other hand, Knox could replace Bennett in the slot on some plays to give us a big-play dimension from that position. I agree with you about Bennett's potential - the main knock on him in the draft was that he might have hit his ceiling physically, and I think that's the case. He's very polished and has great hands, which is what made him so productive in college, but he's not overwhelming in any one area talent-wise. That said, I think he'd be an above-average slot receiver, and for a 3rd-round pick, that's still good value. The rest of our receivers might be faster, but I don't think any of them run their routes as well as Bennett runs his. He's still got something to offer, it's just a question of where he fits best. With Hester/Aromashodu/Knox stretching defenses deep, Clark/Bennett/Forte working underneath, and Olsen doing some of both, I think we could have a nice passing game next season. As for Iglesias, I have no idea what he's going to contribute, if anything. I haven't heard a peep about him since camp, and the word back then was that he was struggling. We'll see, I guess. It'd be nice if he turned into something.

I wouldn't do it. Campbell's not a bad quarterback by any means, but he has some significant flaws. He takes much too long to get rid of the ball, both in terms of slow release and slow decision-making, which puts a lot of pressure on his offensive line. He's also not great at escaping pressure behind the line. While our line is better than Washington's, Campbell would still put them in some difficult spots in pass-protection, and my money would be on the line giving up a lot more sacks. Meanwhile, Cutler's quick release and ability to escape pressure leads to fewer sacks. Campbell's also 2 or 3 years older than Cutler: one of the things I liked most about the Cutler trade is that the guy could play for us for another 10 years. Unless Campbell turns into Kurt Warner, I don't see him playing until he's 39. Campbell strikes me as being basically Kyle Orton, but with a better arm and worse timing. He's careful with the football and manages the game well, but he doesn't give you the big-play potential that Cutler does, and he needs a very good line to protect him. Campbell would be a good, safe pickup for a team that doesn't need much from its quarterback, has a good-to-very-good o-line, and has a good defense/running game to take pressure off of him. For the Bears, though, it just wouldn't be worth the downgrade from Cutler, even if we got some draft picks back. Honestly, my big fear is that Favre retires after this season and Minnesota swings a deal for Campbell. If they got him from the Skins, they could be a tough team to beat for the next 5 or 6 seasons.

OK, so I think we're kind of in agreement here. For base 2-receiver and 3-receiver sets, I'd like to see Hester on the outside. This is just my own inexpert opinion, but a lot of the routes that I saw him run really well were outside the numbers: he beat I don't know how many corners with that hitch-and-go that he does. He sells that first step and gets back into his route better than most receivers in the NFL, in my opinion. In the Philly game he spun Asante Samuel around 360 degrees with a hitch-and-go, and Samuel's a pretty good corner. He's pretty good on deep out and deep post patterns, too, and he's also gotten very good at tracking the ball over his shoulder on those routes. When I saw him go across the middle on slants/square-ins/drags, though, it wasn't nearly as impressive. Remember when Cutler got picked off because Hester basically ran into the ref on a shallow cross? I don't think his route-running is precise enough (at least right now) to be effective on the inside routes that a traditional slot receiver runs, and he's not very good at picking through traffic from what I've seen. Bennett, I think, should be the normal slot receiver when we go 3-wide, since he's better in traffic and runs cleaner routes. That said, I could definitely see Hester moving into the slot when the play calls for the slot receiver to run a deep pattern. Pittsburgh used Nate Washington that way, as a vertical threat from the slot, and it was very effective. Unless I'm wrong, Philly rotates DeSean Jackson into the slot for some plays, with similar results. I could definitely see the Bears having success with one or two personnel packages that put Hester in the slot. Also, if we had a 3- or 4-wide set with Knox and Aromashodu on the outside and Hester in the slot, that would just be nasty. Aromashodu's the slowest of the three, and he ran like a 4.35 in the 40. There'd be a huge amount of vertical pressure on the defense, which could really open things up underneath for Olsen/Clark/Bennett to work. As for who's covering Hester, I agree that he got shut down too often this season, but I think having Aromashodu in the starting lineup would solve a lot of that. Teams this year could double and bracket Hester all game long if they wanted to, because Bennett simply doesn't have the speed or change-of-direction to beat single coverage. You can single-cover Bennett all you want, and he's not going to break a big gain. That wouldn't be a problem if he were in the slot, but with Bennett as the starting X receiver, it meant that Hester got doubled a lot. Aromashodu could make defenses play Hester more honestly, which would help him take the next step as a receiver.

Nfo, nice take on the receivers. I agree that we could do just fine at the WR position with what we have now: if we start Devin and Devin, with Bennett in the slot and Knox rotating in/returning kicks, that'd be a pretty decent group of wideouts. Also, you mentioned how Aromashodu's stats extrapolate out over a season; I'd add that Hester only played in 13 games. If he had played all 16 games, he'd have had something like 70 catches for 930 yards and 4 TDs. Not stellar numbers, but he made a major improvement from last season, and he did it while getting significantly more attention from opposing defenses. If we had Aromashodu putting up 1100-1200 yards a season and Hester contributing 900-1000, we'd have a pretty solid passing game on the outside. Not to mention the fact that Aromashodu's presence could make it a lot harder for teams to double Hester all game or have their #1 corner shadow Olsen.

Also, I do like the idea of going after Leon Washington, if he's recovered fully from his leg injury. He's basically what Garrett Wolfe was supposed to be, but never turned into: a shifty, make-you-miss change of pace back. I know a lot of people on these boards like Wolfe, but I just haven't seen it. Just because he's small doesn't make him Darren Sproles. I mean, the #2 running back job was basically his for the taking this season, and he only put up 120 yards. On top of that, over a quarter of those yards came on one gadget play, that fake punt against Cleveland. That one play aside, he gained 84 yards on 21 carries, which is pretty unspectacular. Wolfe was dynamite in college, but at the NFL level, he's just not fast enough to make defenders miss, and he's not strong enough even to run through arm tackles. Anyone who can get a hand on him just takes him down; I can't remember the last time where he didn't get stopped by the first defender to reach him. You hear people say all the time that to be a good running back in the NFL, you have to beat the first defender: big backs need to run over the guy, and quicker backs need to make him miss. Wolfe can't do either. A guy like Leon Washington would be a big upgrade. If it were me, though, I'd cut everybody but Forte and Bell, then draft a running back late on Day 2. Joique Bell from Wayne State has a 4th-5th round grade right now, and if he lasts until the 5th, I'd take him in a heartbeat to compete with Kahlil Bell for the #2 spot. He reminds me of a bigger Ahmad Bradshaw: he's got great shiftiness and balance to bounce off tackles, but also generates a lot of lower-body power on contact. Forte-Bell-Bell (whichever way it works out) could be a good platoon.