defiantgiant

And he's the one guy we've had on the list so far who's coming from a successful offense that prioritizes the run. Not to mention the work he's done with Carson Palmer: with Zampese coaching him, Palmer threw for over 12,000 yards and 86 TDs from 2005 through 2007. Before he hurt his throwing elbow, the guy's average season was 4000 yards and 29 scores versus 15 interceptions...I'd take those numbers from Cutler any day of the week.

See, this year's free agency is exactly why I think it makes sense to trade a future draft pick. There's an INCREDIBLY small group of guys hitting FA this year, thanks to the uncapped-year rules. It's also going to be much easier for teams to retain their own RFAs this year. And because you need 6 years in the league (instead of the normal 4) to be an unrestricted FA this year, the pool of guys the Bears could get without giving up picks is not only small, but made up of much older vets: not many of these guys are younger than 29 or 30. And the talent level is lower: if you make it six years and haven't been locked up to a long-term deal, there's probably a reason. So banking on free agency to rebuild the team this offseason is not a good idea - it's a small, old, less-talented group that's going to be available, and there's going to be a LOT more competition for their services. Meanwhile, we've got a bumper crop of underclassmen declaring for the draft, most likely because of the prospect of a new rookie pay scale in 2011. Lots of guys who would probably get first-round grades in 2011 are declaring this year instead. Several positions of need for the Bears are much deeper in this draft than in normal years: especially free safety, interior o-line, and defensive tackle. I've said it before, but this is a very bad year to be looking for free agents, and a very good year to have a lot of draft picks. And all the juniors declaring this year means that next year's senior class could be fairly slim when the 2011 draft comes around. I agree that trading future draft picks is a bad idea as a general rule, but the fallout from the CBA makes it a good time to make an exception to that rule.

Yeah, I think he's obviously a brilliant guy, and a number of coaches/coordinators have talked about how tough it is to gameplan for him, but I think he ultimately beats himself. He just takes too many chances, his scheme is too unbalanced, and he's only been successful with a once-in-a-lifetime roster. We've all been frustrated with the Tampa-2 for requiring elite talent at two or three positions in order to work, but Martz's offense required elite-or-better talent at like four or five. St. Louis had a Hall of Fame left tackle, so Martz could use tons of 7-step drops and slow-developing pass plays. They had a borderline HoF quarterback who practically never makes mistakes. They had two unbelievable wide receivers and one of the best pass-catching halfbacks of all time. As soon as he didn't have all that, his offense wasn't effective.

It'd be kind of a gamble, but I'd be OK with it if we could get an immediate contributor. There are usually still some blue-chip guys available between #33 and #45, and this team really needs help. Also, trading a future pick would allow us to keep our 3rd-rounder, which is good: we need as many draft picks as we can get. Ultimately, I think it depends on whether there's a guy available there who fills an immediate need. Here's who I'd be looking for: - a real ballhawking free safety like Nate Allen or Earl Thomas - a road-grading guard prospect like Mike Iupati or Maurkice Pouncey - a legitimate nose guard like Dan Williams Any of those guys could potentially go in the late 1st...if one of them falls to the early 2nd, I think it would make a lot of sense to trade a future pick so we could draft him. It wouldn't really be a waste of a pick, since you're still getting a 1st-round value, just using next year's 1st to get him.

Yeah, he's got a good pedigree in the Coryell offense. His dad ran a Coryell system, and he worked in Martz's Coryell offense (with Al Saunders) in St. Louis. Bob Bratkowski also runs a Coryell offense in Cincinnati, although it's not ridiculously pass-oriented like Martz's variant. In fact, they've gone very run-heavy since they got Benson. But Zampese also worked with Sean Payton and Mike McCarthy, who run West Coast offenses. So he's got some experience in other systems. Also, the Tribune has a decent article on Zampese...it sounds like he'd be a better hire than Bates, if only because a bunch of other teams have thought enough of him to interview him for their OC jobs, which can't be said of Bates.

Huge yardage stats, yes. But also huge interception numbers, huge sack numbers, an obscene number of pass attempts, and not that many scores. Under Martz, Kitna threw for more interceptions than touchdowns every year. He did throw for 4200 yards in 2006, but he was also sacked 63 times for nearly 400 yards. If you factor sacks into the yardage gained by pass plays, Jay Cutler netted 3462 yards on 590 dropbacks this season, whereas in 2006 Kitna got 3820 on 659 pass plays. If you work that out per passing play, Cutler actually averaged MORE yards gained than Kitna did. All those sacks add up to a lot of lost yards, even if Kitna's totals were inflated by Martz calling a ridiculous number of passes. I don't think it's accurate to just point to "the tools Saunders had." After all, Martz had some pretty insane tools on the Rams - Kurt Warner at QB, Marshall Faulk at RB, Orlando Pace at LT. Any way you cut it, that's at LEAST a comparable lineup to Trent Green/Priest Holmes/Willie Roaf. Also, whenever Martz was successful, he had absolutely phenomenal wide receivers, which Saunders definitely did not. Martz had two borderline HOF receivers in St. Louis with Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt, and even in Detroit he had a generational talent in Calvin Johnson. Saunders had Eddie Kennison and Samie Parker in Kansas City. His best receiving threat was a tight end, and he built his offense around that. When Martz went to San Francisco, he proved pretty emphatically that he couldn't adjust his offense to utilize a receiving TE. I think if either of the two was dependent on a highly talented roster, it was Martz.

Tillman to FS would be a terrible idea. He's had multiple shoulder and back injuries per year for the last several years, and you want to expose him to MORE contact? Not only do we not have an adequate replacement for him at corner, but moving to safety would probably shorten his career by a lot. I agree that Vasher is done, but I'm not too worried about replacing him. About the only thing Angelo has proven he can do in the draft is pick up decent defensive backs in the later rounds. With Tillman and Bowman as the starters, I'm sure he can find a good depth player to develop. Especially since so many juniors are declaring this year.

Clements would have been a good candidate, but I would have been VERY surprised if Green Bay let their QBs coach and Aaron Rodgers' mentor go to a division rival. It'd be like the Tampa-Oakland super bowl, only twice a season every season. At least they asked to interview Clements, though. I've been thinking about it more and more, and I have no idea why they haven't asked Denver to let them interview Rick Dennison yet. Dennison was Cutler's offensive coordinator from 2006-2008, and under him the Broncos' offense improved from #21 in total offense in 2006 to #11 in 2007 to #2 in 2008. McDaniels brought in his own OC, so Dennison's been demoted to offensive line coach. Denver might not let Chicago interview him, but they should at least put in the request. Cutler's familiar with him, he has a good track record as a coordinator, and he's consistently gotten great production out of their offensive line.

Well, Saunders' offense isn't as high-risk or as unbalanced as Martz's, but it's still a very complicated one. When he was with the Redskins, there were reports that he had a 700-page playbook containing 1,800 offensive plays. Yikes. However, I found a pretty good article where Saunders walks a bunch of reporters through the Coryell route terminology, and he seems to think that his playbook is actually easier to learn than others, despite being so huge. Specifically, he says that it's more of a reference book and that players don't really have to memorize it all, because the basic concepts in a Coryell offense are really simple. It's an interesting point: where in West Coast offenses you have to memorize and interpret a bunch of weird terminology, in a Coryell offense you can just listen to the playcall - if you hear 741 and you're the #1 receiver, you run a 7 route. If you're the #2 receiver, you run a 4 route. That's pretty simple...it could be simple enough for our developing WRs to nail it down very quickly. Here's a choice quote from Saunders in that interview: "If you can count from zero to nine, you can be a wide receiver in our offense." I think Hester could probably handle that. If we did get Saunders, though, I think it'd be worthwhile to devote a lot of attention to upgrading the run-blocking on the offensive line and bringing in a bulldozing short-yardage back. Saunders' scheme isn't great in short-yardage, and when had success in Kansas City, he had a really, really incredible o-line and Larry Johnson. We'd need better personnel to pick up 3rd-and-1 on the ground if we got Saunders, but we need that anyway.

That might be the only way we could move up in the draft. We don't have too many players (who we could afford to part with) who are worth enough to get us into the 2nd round. Right now, it looks like we've got the #74 overall pick in the draft. Moving up 20 spots to a decent 2nd-round pick, #54 overall, would take our 3rd plus a player equal in value to a late 3rd (specifically, equal to the #90 pick overall.) Personally, I don't think we have a lot of guys we can afford to lose who are worth a late 3rd in trade. One thought: maybe we could package our 3rd with Danieal Manning? He's relatively young and while he's crap at FS, he has shown that he's a pretty good nickel DB and an excellent kick returner. In a year with very few quality DBs hitting free agency, that might be worth the equivalent of a late 3rd to some teams. We could afford to lose him, too: Corey Graham can step in at nickel and Johnny Knox can hold down kick returns. He was a waste of an early 2nd-round pick, true, but he might still have late-3rd value. Unless Angelo can pull off an iffy trade like that, though, I don't see us moving up in the draft without throwing in some future picks.

I'd love to see the Bears go for an established free safety like Atogwe, but he's slated to be a restricted free agent, and there's no way the Rams aren't going to match whatever the Bears offer. He's one of two good players in their secondary, and they can't afford to get any worse on the back end. I'd be very surprised if we could pry Atogwe away from St. Louis. It's really not a good year to need ANY position in free agency. One pickup I'd like to see the Bears make is Eugene Amano from the Titans. He started out as their center, then moved out to LG and has played very well. He's only 27, has decent size at 6'3" 310, and could challenge for a starting job at any of the 3 interior line positions. Adding Amano would help us get younger on the line, and would give us tons of flexibility to get the best guy at each spot. Some possible combinations: Williams-Amano-Beekman-Garza-Shaffer (with Kreutz as the interior backup and Omiyale as the swing tackle) Williams-Beekman-Amano-Garza-Shaffer (Kreutz-interior backup, Omiyale-swing tackle) Williams-Amano-Kreutz-Garza-Shaffer (Beekman-interior backup, Omiyale-swing tackle) Williams-Omiyale-Beekman-Amano-Shaffer (Kreutz-cut/traded, Garza-interior backup) Williams-Beekman-Kreutz-Amano-Shaffer (Garza-interior backup, Omiyale-swing tackle) We could have open competition at all three interior line spots, with several decent candidates for each. If Kreutz can step it up, maybe he can keep the starting center job. If not, Amano, Beekman, and even Garza can all play center. If Omiyale keeps playing like he did the last couple of games, maybe he could keep a starting guard job. If not, bump him out to swing tackle, which is probably a better fit anyway, and let Amano and Beekman compete for the LG job. If somebody can outplay Garza, so much the better - he'd make a great quality depth player. Adding a flexible lineman who's proven himself on one of the better O-lines in the league would be HUGE for the Bears in the running and passing game.

Nfo, I agree with pretty much everything you've said. Martz's system constantly hangs his quarterback out to dry. He frequently calls plays that allow an unblocked rusher and don't have ANY checkdown target for the quarterback. I remember an interview in Detroit where he said (regarding one of those plays) that the unblocked guy was "the quarterback's responsibility." I'm all for getting the most out of the passing game, but that's fundamentally unsound playcalling. And Kitna's totals look gaudy, but so would nearly anyone's if they threw as often as he did. One thing that hasn't been touched on yet: Martz runs an Air Coryell variant that uses very different concepts/terminology from Ron Turner's West coast offense. I doubt that many, if any, of our current players have any experience in a Coryell offense, since not many coaches use it (outside of Martz, Norv Turner is the only other guy I can think of.) On top of that, even among Coryell guys, Martz's playbook is notoriously complicated and difficult to learn. If we're looking for a turnaround next season, Martz would be a very bad choice: basically every player on offense would be going back to square one, then trying to acclimate to a brand-new offense that's much more complex and demanding than the one they've been running. And that's to say nothing of the fact that basically none of them, except for Forte, are well-suited for a Martz offense.

It's more than a little misleading to say that "teams didn't need to throw on them." Opposing teams passed against the Bills 32.4 times per game, which ranks them right in the middle of the league - #13 overall. The team thrown on the least had 27.4 per game, and the team with the most had 37.8. The Bills are smack in the middle, so there's no real indication that teams playing them gave up on the pass. Also, if that's your worry, just look at what they did when teams DID throw against them: the Bills are #2 in yards allowed per pass (whereas the Bears were #15.) Only Darrelle Revis and the Jets allowed fewer yards per pass than Fewell's Bills. As for the run, Fewell didn't have personnel control (Jauron did that) and he was working with one of the most undersized defensive fronts in the NFL. I mean, Aaron Schobel is the star of their d-line, and he's 6'4" 243 pounds. He's actually smaller than Aaron Maybin was at the Combine, and everyone was talking about how Maybin was too small to play DE. Then the Bills drafted him, too. Even the Colts' DEs are bigger than the Bills'. I can't think of another DE tandem in the league that weighs under 500 pounds put together...that's a recipe for giving up tons of running yards. The Bears' d-linemen aren't great against the run, but they're way better than the ones Fewell was working with in Buffalo.

My two cents: the 2008 draft class is looking good, but several important players need to prove they can stay healthy before the group gets a passing grade. 1st - Williams: Looked capable once he moved back to his natural position. Is getting better about penalties, and he stonewalled Jared Allen (without help on at least 15 snaps) in the Vikings game without giving up a sack. Pretty decent run-blocker for a left tackle, especially after Pace. However, the back injury is a major long-term concern, and it's one Angelo knew about. Some o-linemen can play a whole career through disc issues and stenosis, but for other guys it can be a career-ender. Williams' draft grade depends very much on whether he's the former or the latter. 2nd - Forte: Good all-around back, not spectacular in any one area. Suffered from really poor run-blocking for most of this season, and games where Turner just abandoned the run. Still, he was good value for his draft position, unless his hamstring/MCL issues crop up again next season. 3rd - Bennett: Appears to have hit his ceiling. May never be better than a possession/slot receiver, but he should be fine in that role. 3rd - Harrison: Looks like a bust. Showed up way out of shape, and then flat-out admitted that he got outplayed by Anthony Adams. He's talented, but unless he turns it around he's not going to be anything. Still, taking a gamble on a first-round talent in the late third isn't that stupid. 4th - Steltz: Not so great in coverage. He's a pretty good special teamer, but looks stretched as a starter. 5th - Bowman: Looks like a VERY capable starter, but again, has to prove he can stay healthy long-term. Major injury issues. 5th - Davis: Looks like a great pickup. Getting much better as a blocker, and he's turning into a major red-zone threat. 7th - Ervin Baldwin/Chester Adams/Joey LaRocque/Kirk Barton/Marcus Monk: All gone.

Yeah, a lot of defensive coaches like Mangini haven't looked as good when they weren't working with Belichick. But Belichick's offensive guys, like McDaniels, have more autonomy. And while there wasn't a big dropoff in the Pats' offense after Weis left, you can also look at what Weis did when he wasn't working under Belichick, and the results are pretty good. Weis' Jets were the #4 offense in 1998, when Belichick was only coaching the defense. They went 12-4 in the regular season and went all the way to the AFC championship. If Bates was calling plays in Denver, that'd be pretty good. I'd also want to know why he didn't land somewhere in the NFL, but it could just be that no one was looking for a QBs coach when Shanahan and his staff got canned.

I'm OK with the coaching changes and with Lovie staying. I'm all right with him as a head coach, as long as he's not calling the defensive plays. Lovie has his problems: he's too willing to stick with incompetent-but-loyal assistant coaches and doesn't crack the whip when his star players underperform. But at the end of the day, he's a pretty good coach. With a competent OC and an independent-minded DC, we could have a very good coaching staff. The only change I wanted that didn't happen was Angelo getting fired: his awful drafting and talent evaluation put Lovie in a position that very few (if any) coaches could coach their way out of. Angelo has final authority over the roster, and that should be enough to cost him his job. The roster has gotten steadily worse and worse every year since he basically blew up the Super Bowl team. He sent Chris Harris to Carolina for a 5th-rounder. He traded Thomas Jones plus a 2nd for the picks that ended up being Dan Bazuin, Garrett Wolfe, Kevin Payne, and Marcus Harrison, none of whom are even close to starting-caliber players. He let Berrian and Moose walk when we had no receivers behind them, then brought in Marty Booker and Brandon Lloyd as their replacements. Lovie's made some bad coaching decisions, but they're nothing compared to the horrendous personnel decisions Angelo's responsible for.

Yeah, Buffalo got devastated by injuries, and Jauron put together an extremely undersized front seven, but Fewell still managed to get decent production out of them. They were close to a Lions/Rams type of talent deficit on D, but they finished midpack in yards and points and #2 in passing defense. That speaks to good coaching. Also, like nfo said, he coached our DBs back when they were picking everybody off. If he could get our secondary back to that form, we'd be a much better defense. Ideally, I'd rather have Mike Zimmer than Fewell, since he runs a totally non-Tampa-2 defense. Zimmer, I think, could be like Rivera - he's got experience running both 4-3 and 3-4 defenses, he heads up a defense that can both stuff the run and get takeaways, and his players play incredibly hard for him (which is something we're badly missing on this defense.) Zimmer would be my first choice, but I'd be OK with Fewell.

Nfo, I think you're right: Bates' inexperience is a little worrisome. I'm torn between pulling for Bates or for Weis: I like Bates' scheme but Weis has the track record. I assume Bates would bring something similar to the West Coast offense they ran in Denver, which Cutler's familiar with and which is at least a distant relative of the West Coast variant Turner's been running here. That'd probably be a very easy transition to make on offense. Weis, on the other hand, installed Erhardt-Perkins offenses in New York, New England and when he went to Notre Dame. It's a very, very effective offense, but the terminology and concepts are very different from what any of the Bears' players have used in the past (unless one of them played for Belichick or Bill Parcells.) There could be a serious learning curve with Weis coming in, and Lovie can't afford to wait on the offense to start winning. On the other hand, Weis has a great track record as an offensive coordinator, where Bates has none. I guess it comes down to whether Lovie and Angelo think Bates can make the jump versus whether they think their players could learn Weis' system quickly. Either way, I hope to God they don't pick Mike Martz. His offensive system neglects the running game, gets quarterbacks hit a huge amount, and depends on extremely precise route-running from the receivers. It'd be a disaster in Chicago.

I didn't realize he was only 25. We need to keep this guy around...he looks like he could be the replacement for Ayanbadejo on ST. He's been absolutely LEVELING people this year.

I'd really like to see some information on some good drive-blocking guards and pure right tackles - guys who might slip to the 3rd or the 4th round (since those aren't very high-value positions,) but could still step in and help out the running game.

Turner isn't nearly as bad as Shoop, but I get what you're saying. I made a lot of excuses for Turner in the past, not because I thought he was any good, but just because I thought anybody would suck with the talent he had to work with. This season, though, it's become pretty apparent that there are some major coaching problems on offense. Issues with the players aside, there's been incredibly predictable play calling (which Hester pretty much said,) and godawful personnel evaluation. Why did it take them most of a season to play Williams at LT and Shaffer at RT? Why didn't Aromashodu get a shot? Why did Turner keep using Garrett Wolfe and Greg Olsen as blockers? Why is Omiyale still on the roster? Turner's been dealt a pretty bad hand by Angelo, but he's consistently played it in the worst way possible. The guy needs to go.

It's good to see this wake-up call coming from a leader on the defense - I'm worried that Lovie's going to pawn this season off on Ron Turner and Pep Hamilton (and maybe even Darryl Drake,) and then trot the same ineffective D out next year. Briggs' comments should really be a reminder that as bad as Turner's offense has been, Lovie's D has been even worse, and it's steadily getting worse each season. And while Turner's been dealing with some major personnel/talent problems (specifically, the worst offensive line I've ever seen) on offense, Lovie's gotten a schizophrenic, mediocre performance out of a fairly talented group on D. I'm all for canning Turner and Hamilton, then bringing in somebody who can work with Cutler and get the running game going, but if this offseason doesn't at LEAST include hiring a new (competent) defensive coordinator, this team is in for another long season next year.

Yeah, I think a lot of it is chemistry, but I also wonder whether Cutler's used to having a receiver who can bail him out when he makes a poor throw. I mean, Brandon Marshall's a giant receiver and he consistently fights defensive backs for the ball. I imagine it's much easier for a quarterback to put the ball out of a defender's reach when he can take advantage of a size/strength mismatch like Marshall. Olsen was supposed to give us that mismatch this season, but he just hasn't...I think a lot of what we're seeing this season comes down to Olsen not being the receiving threat that Marshall was, which leaves Cutler with no go-to guy. Olsen's got comparable size, and probably even comparable speed, but he's nowhere near as physical with defenders as Marshall is, so Cutler can't just chuck it to him under pressure and trust him to go get it. And we don't have a guy like that in the receiver corps, either: Bennett's a reliable possession guy, but he's not going to outfight a corner for the ball like Marshall does, and he doesn't have the size or vertical to handle jump balls the way Marshall can. As much as I think the receivers have exceeded expectations, there's a reason that most teams have at least wideout who's bigger and stronger than a defensive back, and who can go up and get a high pass. If Arrelious Benn were to fall into the second round (which is at least possible, considering his down season and the other receivers declaring this year) I think the Bears could take a serious look at trading up to get him. Danario Alexander from Missouri might be another option, and he could be around in the 3rd. As much as I like the Bears' receivers, it might just be that Cutler needs a Brandon Marshall/Anquan Boldin type of receiver as a safety valve.

Pace handled it with some class - it's got to be hard for a guy who practically redefined the position to admit that he doesn't have it any more, and to take his demotion in stride. Yeah, I think you pretty much nailed it. Iglesias isn't going to dress over a better ST player, but I don't see any reason why they shouldn't shut down Ogunleye in favor of Gilbert and do the same for Vasher/Moore. Ogun doesn't play on special teams, and Vasher's not any good on ST. No reason not to get the young guys some reps.

Yeah, if they're actually willing to hold Angelo accountable for his poor drafting and fire him, then they need to offer Cowher whatever salary he wants and make sure that Colbert comes along for the ride. We all know how bad Angelo has been in the first round of the draft...you want to see Colbert's 1st-round draft picks? 2000 - Plaxico Burress 2001 - Casey Hampton 2002 - Kendall Simmons 2003 - Troy Polamalu 2004 - Ben Roethlisberger 2005 - Heath Miller 2006 - Santonio Holmes 2007 - Lawrence Timmons 2008 - Rashard Mendenhall 2009 - Ziggy Hood Some notable things about that list: - Between them, they have 10 Pro Bowls and 4 All-Pro selections. - Except for Plax, all of them are still in the league, which certainly can't be said for Angelo's 1st-rounders. - All of them except for Plax and Kendall Simmons are still with the Steelers. - All of them turned out to be legit NFL-level starters (Ziggy Hood gets a pass, since he's still a rookie.) Plax was starting for the Giants before his run-in with the law, and Simmons is starting for the Bills. That's 10 picks, 9 NFL starters (plus a rookie who might turn into one,) 7 of whom are still on the Steelers' roster. One of those guys is a franchise quarterback, and two of them (Hampton and Polamalu) are franchise-type players on defense. Everybody else is, at a minimum, a very good starting player. If Ziggy Hood develops into a starter down the road, Colbert will be 10-for-10 in the 1st round. The guy knows how to find talent.