defiantgiant

I don't think we're going to find anybody worth starting in FA this year: the guys who are going to be UFAs are mostly old and washed up, and there aren't very many of them. I don't want to see another Pace signing. I think we need to start drafting linemen and resign ourselves to 2010 being a developmental year and not having the line together and gelled until 2011. If we draft Asamoah and Calloway (like I hope we can,) then here's what I see: Start of 2010: Williams-Beekman-Kreutz-Garza-Shaffer Midseason 2010: Williams-Asamoah-Kreutz-Garza-Shaffer End of 2010: Williams-Asamoah-Kreutz-Garza-Calloway Start of 2011: Williams-Asamoah-Beekman-Garza-Calloway There might be some growing pains in 2010, but the run game should benefit immediately: Williams is a better run-blocker than Pace, Shaffer is better than Williams, Beekman is better than Omiyale, and Asamoah would probably be much better than Beekman once he's ready. We can stick Lance Louis behind Garza as the eventual successor at RG, let him back up both guard spots, and let Shaffer and Omiyale compete to be the swing tackle. That gives us our 7 guys who'll dress on game day.

I only really know that he's a non-Tampa-2, more traditional 4-3 kind of guy. His defensive fronts have had really big immovable DTs in the middle (Sam Adams, Siragusa, John Henderson, Marcus Stroud, Kris Jenkins) and emphasized getting their pass rush from the DEs (Julius Peppers, Mike Rucker, Michael McCrary, Adalius Thomas,) rather than from the under tackle like we do. Basically, he runs more of a normal 4-3, which I wish we would go back to.

I see a lot of people in this thread talking about Chicago being very, VERY active in free agency this offseason. The problem with that is that there isn't going to be much of a FA class this year. Without a new CBA, only guys with 6 years in the league can become UFAs. Guys with less than six years aren't eligible, and usually a six-year vet who's any good has already been locked up. That means that it'll be a much smaller, older, less-talented year for free agency. At the same time, the likelihood that this will be the last draft class without a rookie pay scale means that you could easily get a bumper crop of underclassmen declaring. This is a year to draft rookies, not a year to go shopping for vets. The advantage of the whole situation is this: with a shortage of vets on the FA market, teams might be more willing to trade for players. That means it could be easier than normal for the Bears to move a couple of guys and get some draft picks back. I think we could probably get a 3rd for Alex Brown from a team like the Seahawks, who need some help on the DL. Also, Nick Roach should have some value: he's a young guy, has plenty of starting experience at two spots, and has played well enough to start for several teams. We might be able to package Roach with that 3rd in exchange for a mid-2nd. If we could do both of those moves, we could have two picks between 50-100. If we could package Vasher and a 6th for a 4th, then we could maybe do something like this: 2nd - Mike Iupati, OG or Jon Asamoah, OG 3rd - Jerrell Powe, DT or Dan Williams, DT 4th - Micah Johnson, ILB 4th - Kyle Calloway, RT or Chris Scott, RT or Vladimir Ducasse, RT 5th - Brian Jackson, CB 7th - Brandon Deaderick, DE UDFA - Kevin Matthews, G/C EDIT: I'm not saying we have to be totally silent in free agency. Kevin Walter from the Texans is going to be an unrestricted FA even without a new CBA. He's a big wideout (6'3" 215) with extremely reliable hands. He's good catching in traffic and in the red zone, and he'd give us a safety-valve type of target across from Hester. He's also younger than a lot of the 6-year vets: he's only 28. If the Texans let him hit free agency, the Bears should be on the phone immediately.

I mean, I'd be OK with that. We spent a lot to bring Cutler in: I'd be fine with bringing in some guys who know how to work with him and make him successful. If Shanahan could get the Bears' running game going like the Broncos back in the day, that would be cool too. Who would we get to be the DC, though? If Jack Del Rio gets fired by Jacksonville, I wouldn't mind bringing him in as a coordinator. He was the linebackers coach for the Ravens in 1999-2001, when that defense was one of the all-time greats. When he was the Panthers' DC in 2002, he turned their defense into the #2 unit in the NFL. He's had some struggles as a head coach, but I think he's got the chops as a coordinator.

Yeah, I can't figure it out: both Lovie and Turner seem perfectly happy to make adjustments to capitalize on the other team's weaknesses, but they NEVER make adjustments to cover their own. If somebody's beating us (like Allen torching Pace or Griese hitting that 6-yard slant all day) it takes at least 3 quarters before they make any adjustments to stop it. It seems like they're doing exactly what you said: just asking guys to "play better" and leaving it at that. If they'd just admitted that Orlando Pace can't stop Jared Allen one-on-one and left a TE in to block or assigned a back to chip him, maybe Cutler could have hit some of those passes. Literally EVERY TEAM IN THE NFL doubles Allen or at LEAST chips him, but the Bears think their 34-year-old retread LT is going to stop him solo? Even the 31-year-old version of Pace gave up 2 or 3 sacks to Allen; do the coaches think he's gotten better since then? When the coaches won't admit that one of our guys is outclassed by a guy on the other team, they're just giving him license to beat us all day. If they can't see that, they should go find some tape of Super Bowl XXXI and watch what happened when the Patriots decided that Max Lane could handle Reggie White by himself, after he'd been needing help from a TE for the whole game. If your guy isn't good enough to block his man, then you need to get him some help. Worry about getting him to play better when you start practice on Monday, but don't leave it all up to him on Sunday.

I hadn't thought about an old-school 4-3 defense like the 2000 Ravens or 2001 Bears: you're definitely right that Urlacher could flourish in a system like that. Not too many teams any more run a big 40 front like the Bears did when we had Ted Washington up front, but playing in that defense would benefit Urlacher tremendously. Really, I'd like for the Bears to go back to that. If they could draft a real nose tackle like Terrence Cody from Alabama or Jerrell Powe from Ole Miss, move away from the Tampa-2, and just ask our DTs to plug the middle and keep Urlacher clean, we could probably get another couple of years of high-level production out of #54. We could use Cody and Harrison/Adams inside on early downs, then rotate Tommie in on passing downs. A jumbo line like Idonije-Cody-Harrison-Gilbert would be pretty nasty against the run, and could free up Briggs-Urlacher-Tinoisamoa to make a ton of tackles.

You're 100% right. The Patriots compensated for a subpar o-line with an offense that involves a lot of short drops and quick underneath passes, plus they had a great dumpoff target in Welker. The Bears' O-line is much worse, but they don't have anybody nearly as reliable as Welker, and Turner still calls a lot of pass plays that take much longer to develop. Every quarterback needs a safety valve: Cutler especially so, since he tends to lock in on one guy and make some risky throws. Olsen was supposed to be Cutler's go-to guy, but he just isn't reliable enough. He can be totally shut down by most teams' top CB (like when the Packers had Woodson shadow him all game) or with bracket coverage, and he still makes some bonehead drops. This is why the screens to Forte are such a good idea: they're short passes that get the ball out of Cutler's hands in a hurry, and Forte's our most dependable target in the passing game. That's how you compensate for a bad o-line, not by asking Cutler to chuck it 40 yards downfield to Knox or Hester when he's got 3 d-linemen in his face every time. The problem is that we only throw it to Forte on these designed RB screen plays. If we started using more standard pass plays that include halfback drag routes, circle routes, stop flares, etc. we could take a lot of the pressure off Cutler.

Also Myron Lewis from Vanderbilt. He has just-average speed and quickness, which probably limits him to being a zone corner, but he's big (6'2" 205 lbs,) durable, and an excellent tackler. Worst-case scenario, he's a FS or a nickel DB. Best-case, I could see him as being a Tillman clone somewhere down the road, if he can learn to punch the ball out as well as Peanut.

Eh, I don't think Weis is a good HC choice. He seems like one of these good-coordinator/bad-head-coach types. I'd rather get a guy like Cowher who's proven that he can be successful as a head coach and that he has an eye for talent, then let him pick his coordinators, run the draft, etc.

Yeah, I'd rather keep Toub as the ST coach, but he's the one guy on the current staff who I'd trust to be interim head coach. I don't see anybody getting fired midseason, though. There's no way we're getting to the playoffs, so I see them letting the current group finish out the year, at a minimum. I really hope that they don't just make Turner the fall guy and stick with the status quo. This team needs a new playcaller on defense, and they badly need a GM who can actually identify talent in the draft.

Yeah, nfo, you're way right. Cutler is under pressure nearly every snap, and more often than not, it's pressure coming from a 3-man or 4-man rush. Nobody's blitzing him, because they don't have to. Look at the series in the Vikings game after Johnny Knox got them the ball on the 8-yard line: 1st Down - Forte tackled for a loss; defender was in the backfield practically before the handoff. 2nd Down - Cutler sacked 3rd Down - Cutler sacked; Orlando Pace's false start makes it a no-play Repeat 3rd Down - Cutler sacked 4th Down - Field Goal The line this year has been atrocious - it's way, WAY worse than last year's. I went and looked up the numbers on Pro Football Focus, which tallies pressures/hits/sacks allowed by each o-lineman. Last season, the Bears' line allowed 101 pressures, 36 QB hits, and 24 sacks. Through the first 9 games this season, the Bears line allowed 88/27/9. That means the Bears' line is on pace to allow 156 pressures, 48 QB hits, and 16 sacks this season. Cutler's getting pressured 50% more and hit 33% more than Orton did, but he's only taking two-thirds the sacks that Orton took. That pattern (pressured more, hit more, sacked less) usually means the QB is making the line look better than it really is by getting away from unblocked rushers and getting the ball out. Tom Brady in 2007 had a similar pattern: he got pressured and hit a ton behind a not-so-great Patriots line, but he hardly ever got sacked because he was so good at sliding in the pocket and getting rid of the ball. Think about that for a minute: our line is actually worse than what we're seeing on Sundays and on the stat sheet. Cutler's running for his life out there. Put a less-mobile QB like Orton behind the same line, and he'd be getting the David Carr treatment. As for Part B, you don't need any complicated stats to see that the run-blocking is worse than last year: the Bears are 32nd in the league in rushing yards per game. Dead last. And the run-blocking has been so ineffective that we don't even try to establish the run any more, which means that everybody knows Cutler's throwing on every down. And when teams know you're going to pass it AND they know they can consistently get major pressure with just 3 or 4 rushers, you're going to have a ton of interceptions. If we don't fix the line immediately, we're going to waste a premier talent at QB.

I don't know how much credence to give Hub on this one. Urlacher played a rover/borderline free safety in college, and his great strength has always been his range and ability in coverage. He's not great at shedding blocks or at closing running lanes, since he can be washed out by bigger interior linemen pretty easily. Plus, his back problems make it a very bad idea to put him in a scheme where he has to take on offensive linemen frequently. Pittsburgh's system calls for inside linebackers like Larry Foote, who crash up into the gaps, shed a block, and stop the run. None of that plays to Urlacher's strengths: whether he likes it or not, he's a prototype Tampa-2 middle linebacker. Honestly, I can't imagine that anybody would give up a 2nd for Urlacher. He'll be 31 by the time he can play again, and he's been dinged up constantly the past few years. The back issue isn't going away, and who knows if that wrist will get reinjured. On top of that, he's not as mobile as he used to be. Best-case scenario, he might have three or four years left as an above-average MLB in a Cover-2 defense that caters to his skillset. And in most other defenses, MLB is a position you can manufacture - it's nice to have a premier player there, but you don't necessarily need one. Look at last year's Steelers with Larry Foote and James Farrior: neither of those guys are tremendous athletes, they're just smart, nasty, blue-collar type players. Basically, if another team was willing to use a 2nd on a middle linebacker, they'd draft one. Brandon Spikes and Rolando McClain are both 1st-rounders, which is probably going to push some very good MLBs like Sean Lee down into the second round. If I'm a GM choosing between a 22-year-old Lee and a 31-year-old Urlacher, I'm taking Lee every time.

I agree with Nfo that we should use more 3 and 4 WR sets, maybe some shotgun sets with Forte lined up next to Cutler. Forte's great at reading defenses and finding a running lane (when there is one,) so it seems like he could do a lot better with the defense spread out. The inside-out 4-wide set where Olsen and Clark line up on the outside has some potential, although I think it could be better if they substituted Kellen Davis for Clark. Davis could run a little three-step curl or a quick slant and there's no way a corner could cover him. It wouldn't be good for a long gain, but I bet we could reliably pick up 5-7 yards that way. As for the goal line, I'd still like to see Lance Louis in as a goal line fullback or a blocking TE when we're a yard or two out. McKie and Olsen just aren't good blockers, especially not in power-running situations. We need to find somebody who can clear a hole for Forte, and there's no good reason not to give Louis a shot at it. I think I'm a little more optimistic about our receivers than most guys here: it's a position where it's hard to make an immediate impact, and all our guys are showing very good progress. Hester, in particular, looks like a high-quality #2 receiver at the very least. That said, none of them are big targets and none of them are particularly good at beating a jam. That could account for some of our struggles throwing the ball in the red zone: teams don't have to double-cover Hester there, since they can just stick our WRs at the line. That frees them up to double Olsen, then Cutler doesn't have anybody open, and then he has to either force the ball or take a sack. I don't think we need Brandon Marshall like all the talking heads have been saying, but I do think we could use a guy like the Chargers' Malcom Floyd: a jumbo wide receiver for goal-line formations. Floyd goes 6'5" 226 pounds and has pretty reliable hands, so he's a tough matchup down in the red zone. We could use a red-zone specialist like that, so Cutler has more targets than just Olsen. When Clark was hurt and Kellen Davis got some playing time, he looked like he could potentially be a go-to guy down by the goal line: he made some really nifty catches, and his height and vertical leap mean that he's pretty much always open. I could see him helping our red-zone passing game in a big, big way down the road.

Oh, no doubt. One of the reasons I like Andre Dixon is that he could be around in the 5th or 6th, giving us a couple of chances to get some o-line help first. Still, even after we've got some better blockers up front, we've got to have a healthy guy to spell Forte. Wolfe and Jones both have major injury concerns; Peterson has been dinged up too, and he'll be 31 before next season starts. Even Kahlil Bell, the guy we just elevated off the practice squad, had serious injuries in college: he tore the ACL in his right knee in 2007 and had multiple injuries to his left ankle in 2006 and 2008. We have to get better up front, but we also need a healthy back to take some of the load off of Forte.

Ah ha ha ha, that's eerie. It's not just the neckbeard...that dude could be Orton's brother.

Per an NFP piece written by his former agent, Ricky Williams came very close to declaring for the draft after his junior year. The Bears reportedly preferred Williams to Curtis Enis, and this agent thinks they would have drafted Ricky had he declared in 1998. ...so instead of going to Ditka in New Orleans, he could have easily been a Bear. What do you guys think?

So with Kevin Jones out for the season, AP dinged up, and Wolfe now out, who else thinks we'll be going back to the well on draft day? After the UConn-Notre Dame game, I wouldn't mind getting Andre Dixon somewhere on Day 2. He had nearly 6 yards a carry, and got into the end zone three times, although two got called back on some pretty questionable holding calls. UConn ran him up the middle almost exclusively, and I lost count of how many tackles he broke. Here's my five-cent scouting report: Pros: Doesn't look like a bulldozer of a back (at 6'1" 210,) but he displays a lot more power than he looks like he should have. Never stops driving with his legs: absolutely does not go down on first (or second, or third) contact. Runs through arm tackles and drags defenders even when they wrap up. Has enough strength to push the pile in short-yardage. Can pick through some small holes and flashes the ability to cut a run back when his block doesn't develop. Keeps driving when he's hit in the backfield; can turn some negative plays into positive ones. Quick/explosive enough to get to the edge when they ask him to run outside, although he makes his living on inside runs. Has some niftiness to him in the open field and will set defenders up. Shows a pretty good stiff-arm. Lowers his shoulder and look for contact when he sees a defender. Cons: Has a somewhat lanky build, which might raise some questions. Could stand to add some bulk to his lower body. Breakaway speed is OK, but nothing special: enough to get to the second level, but he's not going to run away from some NFL defenders. Has the ability to make a cutback, but doesn't always do so consistently, sometimes running into the backs of his blockers before breaking the other way. Looks OK as a receiver, but isn't asked to catch the ball often. Dixon's running style reminds me a little of Ahmad Bradshaw...he's not a steamroller and not lightning-fast, but he's quick, hard to bring down, and isn't afraid of contact. He was behind a 1st-round pick (Donald Brown) until this year, and now he's platooned with another talented back, so his numbers aren't huge; that could lead to him falling far enough for the Bears to grab him on day 2 (after getting some OL help, of course.) I think he could be an excellent complement to Forte.

Yeah, I totally agree. Also, I think Andy Reid's point is well taken that a special teams coach has to be more of a generalist than an OC or a DC does, which is helpful for the transition to head coach.

I think Toub would make a great head coach. The guy is very, very intelligent and has his special teams units performing near the top of the rankings every single year, despite having a rotating cast of guys to work with. He lost Hester to the offense (for the most part,) Idonije and Manning to the defense, Ayanbadejo to the Ravens, and still got excellent production out of the pieces he had. I hope that he's content to coach special teams for a long time to come, but I could see some team making him an offer to be HC at some point. Hell, if the Bears really are in the market for a new head coach next year or the year after, I'd be OK with them giving Toub a look.

If this blackout were about avoiding bad press, why did they wait until now to do it? They've been getting lambasted in the Chicago media for more than two years. I think if there's one thing we can say for sure about Lovie, Angelo, et al. it's that they don't care at ALL what the press has to say about them.

To be fair, Moore, Melton, and Gilbert all play positions with a significant learning curve, where it's not easy to make an impact as a rookie. Remember Mark Anderson's rookie season? There's a reason that was so notable: 12 sacks is OK for a veteran DE, but for a rookie it was unheard of. Last year's best rookie DE had 5. Same thing goes for corners: unless a guy was a surefire 1st rounder, he's probably not going to start his rookie year. I'd say we've got a ways to go before we can write off Melton/Moore/Gilbert as busts. They were definitely upside picks, but even "safe" picks at those positions don't usually light it up their first year. Wolfe and Okwo, meanwhile, played positions where rookies routinely make an impact. They were just bad picks, guys who weren't cut out to make the jump to the NFL.

Again, I'm not saying that Lovie and Angelo are right, just that their heads are in the right place. I can't think of an overwhelming reason why ignoring the media would help you get a win, but if they believe it's what they have to do to win, then I'm glad that they're doing what they think is necessary to beat Philly. And I don't see any reason to think that they DON'T believe that: it seems more plausible that Lovie and Angelo believe the media's contributing to a lack of focus than that they're lying about believing that, for no apparent reason. EDIT: Madlith, I guess I could see that being the case. I'll say this, though: these guys need to win, regardless of whether they do interviews and answer the tough questions. If they were winning, I wouldn't care about interviews. When they're losing, I still don't care about interviews - it's not like they make up for losses. You could be as honest and forthright a coach as anyone has ever seen, and if you go 4-12 every season, you're toast regardless of how many tough interviews you submit to. At the end of the day, I want a winning coach, whether he talks to the media or not. And I want a losing coach to leave, even if he tells me all about why we lost and how hard he's trying.

Yeah, that draft reeked of hubris. We were taking reaches and niche players all over the place when we had a seriously aging offensive line and no Thomas Jones. If we'd gone after a real running back and not tried to get cute, Garrett Wolfe could have been Michael Bush.

Honestly, this just reads like another in the endless series of Chicago sportswriters who spend their time griping about the Bears' media relations, rather than talking about anything relevant to football. Sure, Lovie Smith is dishonest with the press. He thinks that giving out team information to the media puts him at a competitive disadvantage. I don't know if he's right or wrong, but I'm glad he's making that decision based on what he thinks is best for his football team, not on what the writers at the Trib and the Sun-Times would prefer. His job (and Angelo's, and all the players') is to win, not to make nice to guys like Palmer. The same thing goes for this blackout. The explanation they gave was that everybody in the organization, players and coaches alike, needs to focus on winning against Philly, rather than explaining themselves to the media. THAT'S TRUE. The Bears' playoff chances are infinitesimal at this point, but I'm pretty sure a loss on Sunday would mathematically eliminate them. If ignoring the media means that the Bears win some games, then I hope the Bears black out the media every week of the season, and guys like Palmer, Telander, and Rosenbloom can write all the stupid diatribes they want. ...to pull from Palmer's own article (if you can call it that,) people don't remember George Halas for delivering press releases to the newspapers by hand. They remember him for winning football games, and building a great organization. But apparently if it were up to Palmer, the Bears would bring back Jauron or Wannstedt and go 2-14 every year, as long as they made sure to schedule lots of interviews in between losses.

Yeah, I'd believe that. Looking at his speed and quickness in college, you'd have thought he could be a great up-man on returns, but some guys just struggle to field a punt/kickoff cleanly. They definitely didn't have a plan for him as a running back: this was the first season where I saw them call plays differently when he was in the game on offense. Last year he was running all the same plays as Forte (like all those stupid up-the-gut runs) with virtually no success. It sucks that he got hurt, and I hope he can recover, but I don't know how much of a shot he'll get when he comes back. If that guy Bell off the practice squad has anything, I could see him pushing Wolfe off the roster.