defiantgiant

Those people are wrong. Since the end of last season, Hester's been drawing double coverage, putting up a healthy yards-per-catch, and catching a very high percentage of his targets. If he keeps up his pace since the bye week, which I think he can, he'll break 1200 yards receiving. In terms of receiving yards so far this season, Hester's ahead of Brandon Marshall, Greg Jennings, DeSean Jackson, Santana Moss, Steve Smith (Panthers), and Derrick Mason, to name a few. And it's not like he's getting more passes thrown to him than those guys are. In fact, Marshall, Mason, and Steve Smith all have significantly more targets than Hester. In my book, that makes him a #1 receiver. Is he Andre Johnson? No. But he's definitely a #1. Not according to Knox's stats, he couldn't: Hester: targeted on 59 pass attempts, made 41 catches for 548 yards and 3 TDs. Knox: targeted on 48 pass attempts, made 28 catches for 340 yards and 3 TDs. Hester's catching nearly 70% of his targets compared to Knox's 58%, and his yards-per-catch average is more than a yard better: Hester's averaging 13.3 compared to 12.1 for Knox. Knox hasn't done close to as much as Hester with the passes that have come his way; If Knox did get as many passes thrown his way as Hester does, he'd still only have 34 catches for 417 yards. OK, we agree that he shouldn't be traded, but I think there aren't many teams in the NFL that need him MORE than the Bears do, since we couldn't replace him at WR with anyone else on our roster.

Honestly, I think it probably means that they're happier playing for him or they feel like they're treated better. Coughlin was really low on that list, if I remember, and this was when the Giants were coming off a Super Bowl, so I don't think winning a Super Bowl necessarily meant that guys wanted to play for you. I just think it should be a two-headed monster: have a head coach who the guys want to play well for, and a coordinator who can stamp enough discipline into them that they actually WILL play well. I don't want to make another tired Ditka/Buddy Ryan comparison, but there's clearly some value to having a coach and a DC who aren't exactly one and the same. Some good cop/bad cop might get our defense to play up to its potential.

They kick to him because he isn't scoring. If he started taking returns to the house like he did in 2006 and 2007, do you really think teams would still give him the ball? What starting receiver is that? Not somebody on the Bears roster, that's for sure. And it's not that helpful to say "we should move Hester back to returner and replace him with a receiver who's just as good as he is." That's ducking the whole issue of where he's going to help his team the most. I mean, I could just say "we should keep Hester at receiver and replace him with a kick returner who's just as good as he is." Even if I were to assume for the sake of argument that we don't have another return man as good as Hester, we don't have another receiver as good as he is, either. We have to use him in one spot at the expense of the other, and I think it should be offense at the expense of special teams.

Gandy's the starter at LT for Arizona, but that doesn't mean he's any good. He's a well-below-average starter, and if Warner didn't get the ball out as quickly as he does, Gandy would be giving up a ton of sacks. Even considering Warner's quick release, Gandy still gave up 6.5 sacks last season, which ranked him 20th in the NFL. He's like a poor-man's Matt Light: a mediocre starter who benefits from a good quarterback who makes reads and throws very quickly. That's not to say we couldn't use him inside at guard, but he wouldn't be that big an improvement at tackle. At best, he could replace Beekman at LG so Beeks could move to center. The guys I really miss are Thomas Jones and Chris Harris. Harris was a hell of a strong safety, and we haven't had a real difference-maker at that position since he got traded. The Jones issue has been done to death, but man did we back the wrong horse on that one. They should have paid him whatever he was asking for and kept him here for the rest of his career. EDIT: You're right nfo, Colombo was out of football for a little while before Dallas signed him. His injury (dislocated kneecap that caused nerve damage in his lower leg) was a really nasty one, and I don't fault the staff for thinking that it would end his career. He'd missed most of the previous two seasons at that point. If there's one guy who I wish we'd had a crystal ball for, though, it would be Colombo. Who knows how he came back from that injury, but he's been a very good right tackle for the Cowboys, and he hasn't missed time since they got him.

You know, there was a time when I would have disagreed with this, but I think this team has shown a real lack of discipline recently. I still think Lovie's a good head coach, and the players clearly want to play for him: there was a survey of NFL players last year, and Lovie was like #2 among coaches that players would like to play for. But I wonder if he's hard enough on his guys. We had a lot more guys playing up to their potential when Ron Rivera was here. Rivera's had some ups and downs as DC in San Diego, but he's definitely a hardass when it comes to motivating his players. I wonder if we really needed a DC who the players were afraid of, to go along with the HC that they love playing for. I'm not going to join the Fire Lovie crowd, but I would love it if the front office brought in an outside DC to work with him. He's done enough as a head coach to warrant keeping him for that alone, but it's pretty clear that the team was better when there was an independent-minded coordinator working on the defense with him.

I think the problem with Hester as a kick returner is that, by the end of 2007, teams just wouldn't kick to him. Starting on the 40 is fine and all, but you can't have a player with his kind of ability and put the other team in charge of giving him the ball. It made a lot of sense to move him to WR, if only so he could get the ball without relying on the other team to be stupid enough to kick it to him. Look at it this way: Hester definitely hasn't reached his full potential as a receiver yet, but he's on pace for 6 touchdowns this season. That's as many scores as he had on punt and kick returns combined in 2007. Even if he's only an average #1 receiver, he's going to score his team as many points or more as when he was an All-Pro returner.

As much as it pains me to do so, I agree with Peter King on this one. He thinks that LJ doesn't get signed until some team with a shot at the playoffs has some injuries at RB. I think that's probably accurate. I think that team could be New England, San Francisco, or maybe even Philly. All of them are clearly not afraid of a player who's hard to manage, all of them have dinged-up running backs and have pretty decent offensive lines, so LJ could be more productive than he was earlier this season. New England pretty much has their division sewed up, and both Philly and SF are still in the mix for their divisions or for a wildcard. I don't see him going to Pittsburgh unless they lose Mendenhall and Willie Parker for the season or something. They're pretty well set at running back right now.

Yeah, I agree with this 100%. Really, the Bears have very few positions of depth to trade from. We have some guys with value, but most of them (Cutler, Briggs, Peanut, Forte, Hester, Olsen) are guys that we'd have to immediately spend value to replace, so it would be stupid to trade any of them unless somebody offered way, way more than they're worth. I also don't think Tommie has any trade value at this point: I remember NFP anonymously polled a few front office guys a while back, and all of them said they wouldn't give up anything for Harris. I think other teams have seen enough of Tommie over the past couple of years to know that he's done. I see him getting cut next offseason and somebody taking a flyer on him in camp. I doubt it works out. If we were going to deal a player, I think it would have to be either Alex Brown or Wale (if we did a tag-and-trade with him.) If we were going to try to get an earlier pick, maybe we could package Brown or Wale with a 3rd in exchange for a 2nd. Derrick Burgess is about as old as those two and probably had comparable value; Burgess went for a 3rd and a 5th. The only other guy I could see trading is Jamar Williams. His value would be a little harder to determine since he's a young guy and has been stuck behind Lance Briggs, but I think he's probably worth a Day 2 pick. I can't think of anybody else (that the Bears could afford to lose) who has any trade value. We're just not in a position to make many trades: Angelo's going to have to throw a bunch of money at some FAs to bring any talent in, and god help him if he doesn't get some immediate contributors with our Day 2 draft picks.

Yeah, I really wish Orton the best in Denver; there's no reason why we should be worried about whether he's putting up better numbers than Cutler or vice versa. Jon Gruden (who knows a couple of things about quarterbacks) hit it on the head when he said that Orton's stats are misleading because he runs a very low-risk offense: he's being asked to make a lot of short, high-percentage throws, stay in the pocket, and limit his mistakes as much as possible. Putting Cutler in that same offense would minimize his great strengths and maximize his weaknesses, just like putting Orton in Chicago's offense exposed his poor ball placement and inability to throw a deep out accurately. It's a question of what you want your quarterback to do, not what numbers he's putting up. Angelo and company saw a QB in Cutler who would let them run the offense they wanted to, and Josh McDaniels saw a QB in Orton who would let him run the offense he was trying to bring in from New England. Both teams had QBs who were wrong for their current offenses, but right for the other guy's offense. If I have one qualm about the Cutler trade, it's how much we gave up to get him, but I don't have any problem with Angelo making a big move for a QB who's perfect for our system. With the exception of the Green Bay game, Cutler's played very well, incredibly well considering his awful protection and the fact that our defense spots everybody three touchdowns in the first half. Once we can get the guy a halfway decent o-line and a defense that won't put him in a hole, I don't think anybody's going to question trading Orton to get him.

Here's the interview with Benson I was referring to. He talks about making a lot of personal changes after, "for the first time in [his] life, football was not there." He specifically touches on how, when he was making all these changes in his personal life, he didn't allow himself to even think about playing football, he just focused on being a better person. That tells me that, whatever his reasons were, this turnaround was something he wasn't going to do while playing pro football, no matter who he was playing for. By his own admission, the guy needed some time away from the game to get some perspective and get his head on straight. I know he's also made some comments to the effect that he feels more welcomed in Cincinnati, and there's probably something to that. Mike Brown has made that team a home for a lot of guys who need a second chance; sometimes that's worked out badly (Odell Thurman comes to mind) and sometimes it's worked out really well (with Benson and with Chris Henry, before he broke his arm at least.) But after reading his interviews, there's no doubt in my mind that Benson was a very, very different guy when the Bengals first brought him in than he was when he left Chicago. I wouldn't say it was "well known" that Benson was a flake, but I definitely recall some people questioning his drive and maturity. Here are the negatives from some scouting reports: Sports Illustrated: "Seemingly goes down rather easy at times or finishes the play running out of bounds." "Made some very selfish comments...when asked to share the load at running back." "...does not always show a fire in his belly." About.Com: "As was the case with fellow Longhorn Ricky Williams when he came out of college, there are questions surrounding Benson's desire to play football..." "His leadership skills aren't exactly what you would like to see in a franchise back..." "Cedric Benson is clearly a first-round talent, but teams might think twice before taking him at the top of the round because of questions about whether his heart is really in the game." ...again, I'm not saying it was everyone. Clearly there were a lot of people, myself included, who just saw a guy who piled up huge yardage in college. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but there were some eerily accurate questions about Benson that were out there at the time, and it's Angelo's job to get answers to them before spending a #4 pick on him. Oh yeah, the other draft picks bit was shameless hindsight on my part. On balance, 2005 might have been the worst year to have a high first-round pick that I can remember. I'm not actually faulting Angelo for failing to look into a crystal ball and see that some fourth-round pick out of Notre Dame named Justin Tuck was going to be a superstar. That said, of the list you've got there, I would definitely prefer Carlos Rogers to Benson, and he was (if memory serves) considered very good when he was coming out of Auburn. That much isn't hindsight. ...but thank god we didn't draft Pacman, Troy Williamson, Mike Williams...man, that was a bad first round.

Damn, you're right...nice catch! Fixed it in the OP.

Hah, sorry about that. Guess I really don't like Larry Johnson. In other news, Kendall Simmons got cut by the Pats, and if the Bears wanted to sign him I would not have one problem with it, as long as it's a one-year deal and we draft his replacement in 2010. That would let us move Beekman to center so Kreutz can stop holding/false-starting/low-snapping his way to ignominy.

I still don't think the Bears should go after him. He's a pretty despicable human being, and he hasn't been effective on the field for about two years now. He can't stay healthy, and his utility as a change of pace to Forte would be severely limited, since Johnson isn't good in pass-protection. He might offer some upgrade over Forte as a pure short-yardage back, but I can't see that being worth the headache and the roster spot. Oh, and Johnson's averaging 2.7 yards a carry while Kansas City has the fewest runs of 10 or more yards in the league this season. That tells me that, on top of his massive personal problems, Johnson wasn't getting it done on the field. Even now that he's waived, I hope Lovie and company say no thanks.

It's a good point, but I just have a bad taste in my mouth after all of Angelo's recent FA o-line acquisitions. Hell, even when he was getting good players like Tait and Ruben Brown, it ended up costing the team in the long run. I'd rather draft guys and go through the growing pains than pick up more duds like Omiyale or guys who only have 2 or 3 years left.

OK, so let me get this said up front: I'm not giving up on the Bears after 8 games. They could still be anywhere from 12-4 to 4-12 (although god knows they look more like a 4-12 team right now.) However this season plays out, though, there are some serious personnel holes on this team. If you believe (as I do) that Lovie's keeping his job, this next offseason is going to be really key. So here's the game: you're the 2010 Chicago Football Bears, and you need at least two new starters on the o-line, plus maybe a new CB and DT, depending on your viewpoint. Problem is, Jerry Angelo traded away all your draft picks! Well, at least all the ones on the first day. Maybe he had a doctor's appointment or something, maybe he just didn't feel like showing up, who knows. Anyway, for the second year running, your first pick is a 3rd-rounder. You can also sign one veteran free agent, but only one. So who ya got? I did a quick mock, using CBS Sports' prospect rankings as a rough projection of where guys will go (they're far from perfect, but way better than most of the rest.) Here's what I came up with, feel free to shoot it full of holes: Free Agent - Dunta Robinson, CB, Texans or Carlos Rogers, CB, Redskins Both are good starting-caliber corners stuck on awful teams. Both are hitting free agency in 2010, unless something happens between now and the offseason. Robinson's playing on the franchise tag this season and is clearly unhappy about it. His play has suffered after holding out for all of preseason, but he's got a ton of ability and should benefit from a change of scenery. Rogers is a very, very solid cover corner, but doesn't have great hands for the interception. Still, he's physical and excellent in man coverage, something the Bears severely lack at corner. Getting either Robinson or Rogers would give the Bears a proven starter across from Peanut, allowing Bowman more time to develop as Tillman's eventual successor. Draft Picks 3 - Kyle Calloway, OT, Iowa Calloway's a pure right tackle in the NFL, but he's a pretty awesome run-blocker and not bad in pass protection. He's made a lot of starts and has been very durable. The CBS Sports analysis compares him to Marc Colombo; that's a pretty good benchmark (although they must have missed the "very durable" part.) He'd allow Chris Williams to shift to LT and Pace to shift to a nice home somewhere. 4 - Dan Williams, DT, Tennessee Big (6'3" 327 lbs.) run-stuffing DT, can get some pressure up the middle, too. Looked awesome against South Carolina. Williams could rotate with Adams at the nose, allowing Harrison to move to under tackle full-time. 5 - Vladimir Ducasse, OG, UMass I like Ducasse as a developmental RG behind Roberto Garza, or as a starting LG if he makes the transition quickly. He's huge (6'5" 328 lbs.,) extremely powerful, and has great film study/practice habits. He played right and left tackle at UMass, but he projects better to guard in the pros. 6 - Thomas Austin, OG/OC, Clemson Smart, nearly mistake-free lineman who moved from center to left guard and has played very well at both spots. Could make for a solid starter at LG if Ducasse takes time to develop; if not, could take over at LG down the road when Ducasse replaces Garza at RG. At 6'3" and 315, he has good size/strength for guard in the NFL, although he's better blocking on passing plays than on runs. He'd give Chicago some flexibility in terms of where they want to play Beekman. 7 - Joique Bell, RB, Wayne State Tiny-school prospect with the size and speed to play in the NFL (5'11" 224 lbs. and runs 4.47-4.54 in the 40.) Watching his film, Bell looks like a good change-of-pace back: he catches the ball exceedingly well and looks very shifty when picking through small holes at the line of scrimmage. He also makes an unreal number of defenders miss, although that's at his admittedly lower level of competition. Currently has 6,654 rushing yards, which is 8th in NCAA history.

Yeah, I was going to ask this exact question: it seems like Williams might be more comfortable from a technique perspective if he went back to the left side, since that's where was working on his technique all through college. BearSox, do you think it would help the transition to be leaving a relatively new position for your old one?

Well, you might hear ME crying, if cutting Tommie means every team hangs 180 rushing yards on us like the Bengals and the Cards did.

Yeah, Tank's value on the field was severely undercut by the imminent likelihood that he would get busted again. And Benson simply wasn't the player that he is now. By his own account, he didn't start to take his career seriously until he was sitting at home and no teams were calling. After that, he says he started taking his diet/training/preparation seriously. Benson's clearly reinvented himself; but if it took not only getting fired, but getting fired and having to wait for two months by his phone for him to finally get the message, then there was no way he was going to turn it around in Chicago. Benson's always going to be a waste of a Chicago draft pick, but it's hard to fault the coaching staff for it. That said, I absolutely fault Jerry Angelo for drafting him. Sure, Benson ran over a lot of teams when he was at Texas, but people already knew that he had questionable desire and poor work habits before he declared for the draft. Guys who are used to coasting on their natural talent and ability are rarely worth the draft pick: just ask a Carolina fan about Julius Peppers. Angelo should have red-flagged Benson as a guy who didn't really want to play football; then we could have spent that pick on DeMarcus Ware/Jammal Brown/Carlos Rogers/Logan Mankins. Hell, if Angelo was dead-set on a running back, we could have reached all the way down to day 2 and taken Frank Gore or Marion Barber or Brandon Jacobs. Those guys clearly wanted to play football, at least.

Yeah, there's no way any team would give up a draft pick for Kreutz. He's 32, isn't blocking as effectively as he used to, and is starting to show some problems in the mental aspect of the game, too. Kreutz's problem used to just be a lot of bad snaps: this season, though, he's not only started to pick up a bunch of dumb penalties, but he's also getting blown up on a lot of blocks, which I never saw before this year. He got a little less effective each year in '07 and '08, but it looks like he's definitely hit the steep part of his decline this year. Garza has been our only consistent lineman through 8 games this season (although I'd include Beekman if he'd been starting since Week 1) and he's only been consistently average. Beekman, I think, actually looks promising: if he plays at center like he has at guard, he'll be more than adequate. I think the jury's still out on Williams: he's made some rookie mental mistakes and he hasn't done a great job run-blocking, but he's also being played out of position and his pass protection has looked OK. He's not a good run-blocker for a right tackle, but he'd be at least mid-pack on the left side: in terms of ALY, he's 25th in the league (with 3.71) among right tackles, but that same 3.71 would rank him 18th among left tackles. I think that's about what you'd expect from a finesse guy whose main strength is pass protection, and it's way better than what we have now. For comparison, the Bears would be doing a whole yard better on each run to the left if Williams were to replace Orlando Pace. Now that Omiyale's benched, I think that Pace and Kreutz are the only guys really bombing on the Bears' line right now. Beekman can replace Kreutz and I'm pretty sure Williams can replace Pace, but then we'd have to find replacements for Beekman and Williams at their old spots.

While I'm tempted to agree, I think that sending a message could be a Pyrrhic victory if it means losing a body at DT. The problem with losing Harris is this: we're using a heavy rotation at DT this year, and I think it's out of necessity. If we were to cut Harris, we'd only have five DTs on the roster: Adams, Harrison, Idonije, Gilbert, and Toeaina. Idonije and Gilbert are both basically jumbo-sized ends - they're each like 6'6" and 270-280 pounds, which is very tall and skinny to play under tackle. Adams really only plays nose guard, from what I've seen. That leaves Harrison and Toeaina as the only candidates to take Tommie's spot who are any good against the run. Considering that Harrison's already counted on to rotate with Adams, that either gives us a VERY shallow rotation on the interior line, or we have to give significant snaps to two guys who are much better suited to play outside at defensive end, in which case our line becomes a liability against the run. Basically, I don't think we have enough depth right now to cut Tommie.

Nfo, I think you're right: there was a noticeable difference in the run defense when Harris was out. True, Benson is having a major renaissance in Cincinnati, but the Cards had the worst rushing offense in the league and they absolutely gashed the Bears sans Tommie. Tommie may not be any good at rushing the passer any more, and he may not demand double-teams or beat single blocks any more, but it appears that he's still a little better at closing a running lane than Idonije, who seems to get the most snaps at under tackle when Tommie's out. That's not a huge surprise, considering that Izzy is down under 270 pounds after his aborted move to DE. I still don't think we should keep Harris on board after this season; he's clearly a shell of his former self. But if the Bears need to start thinking about finding another starter at DT for next season, it clearly needs to be a guy who can play the run at least as well as latter-day Tommie Harris. Maybe that's Harrison or a bulked-back-up Idonije or even Toeaina, maybe it's a draft pick, but we can't go into next season with Anthony Adams as our only DT who can stop the run.

I don't think Pace at RT would work. As nfoligno pointed out, Baltimore wanted to bring him in to play on the right side last offseason, but his work so far this season has demonstrated that he's become a pretty atrocious run-blocker. If you look at the Adjusted Line Yards across the league, the Bears rank 29th on runs behind the left tackle; it's the worst spot on the current line in terms of the running game. Pace himself said that he's been having trouble bending his knees and getting low enough to run-block effectively. If it can be done without a major increase in sacks, I'd be all for benching Pace, moving Williams to left tackle, and putting Shaffer in on the right side, as was suggested here. I think there's at least a chance that the pass protection wouldn't be any worse: last time he was starting at right tackle for the Browns, Shaffer only allowed 4.5 sacks in 15 starts. The Bears' current line has given up 19 sacks through 8 games, so Shaffer's numbers compare pretty favorably. If nothing else, I'm sure that Williams-Beekman-Kreutz-Garza-Shaffer would be a better run-blocking line than the current group, which might let us keep some opposing offenses on the bench for a change. Given the way the defense has been playing, that's probably the only way we're going to hold anybody under 40 points.

OK, I'll agree to most of that. But that's not an argument for replacing Lovie; he's a pretty good head coach, one who's won a lot of games in Chicago. What that's an argument for is bringing in another defensive coordinator, and doing it like what the team did with Rivera; bringing in a DC with some chops who's not Lovie's guy. I don't see why it should be such a big deal; Lovie's great in his role as a head coach, but I think it's pretty clear that the team is better when he has an outside DC on board.

Not surprising, I guess: Kellen Davis has stepped up his run-blocking a little, and he showed his value as a red-zone receiver when Clark went down. I had heard rumors that we might release Toeaina to make room for Adams, and I'm glad we didn't do that. Toeaina's too valuable as a reserve, especially with some of our DTs being injury-prone.

My main problem with the Williams pick was where he was drafted. They passed on a number of talented o-linemen to take Williams, and none of those guys had a herniated disc or spinal stenosis. Guys we could have taken with that pick: Branden Albert: Albert's the guy I wanted (little bit of UVa homerism, although they have turned out some good linemen.) Very athletic, great mobility, but also significantly stronger than Williams. Not as polished, though: despite tons of physical talent, he's having a slow start on the Chiefs, even playing next to a great LG in Brian Waters. Time will tell, but he does have a lot of upside. Jeff Otah: Pure right tackle, but hey, that's where we're playing Williams now. Otah is the polar opposite of Williams - an absolute mauler on the right side, tons of power, great in the run game. In retrospect, I would have taken Otah over Williams in a heartbeat. Gosder Cherilus: Cherlius is another pure right tackle, but he's strong, a little more mobile than Otah, and plays nasty. BC linemen are usually a safe bet to be at least above-average (see Josh Beekman,) and Cherilus looks like no exception. Would have taken him over Williams for sure. Honestly, the only guys I wouldn't have taken over Williams are Sam Baker and Duane Brown. Baker's got a lot of the same problems Williams does (back injury, short arms, limited upper-body strength) and Brown is just as much of a finesse guy without being as good at it. Really, though, Angelo passed on three starting-caliber linemen to take a less complete player that most teams had red-flagged for an injury that the Bears knew of. That's inexcusable. Even if Williams is all right after his surgery, even if he can bulk up and become adequate in the run game, even if all the consequences of Angelo's mistake are eventually mitigated, you just can't make a mistake like that in the top half of the first round.