DABEARSDABOMB

Moving Harris frees up a lot of money for the Bears to spend on the oline. Harrison was a huge dissapointment this year. He looked good last season came in this year out of shape and it showed. What ultimately happens with Melton will be interesting, but I still believe you see a lot of veteran DT's without a job come cap casualty time and the Bears could always sign a quality stop-gap or two while they wait for others to develop. No need to pay a non-special player 9 mill, when you could use that money towards an olineman or two.

I also think that from an offensive perspective, we are headed in the right direction. I like our 3 WR's, Olsen is young, Forte as well. Basically put on the offensive side of the ball I think we are alright with the exeption of the line. That is a big if, but a couple good free-agent signings along with the development of a Chris Williams and Josh Beekman (maybe at C) could immediately improve this line as soon as next year. We'd still be in need of using some of our 2011 picks on the oline, but the reality is they could target one guy via FA as soon as this off-season and pick him up, if not two guys. The Bears have money, especially when you factor some of the other changes that will come, specifically Vasher/Harris being gone along with Ogunleye and a few others. At that same time, I can't think of anyone that we need to resign or due up for a major extension now that Cutler has signed. On the defensive side there is also much to do, but we've put a lot of recent picks into the line so we can only hope that Marinelli can do what he does and that a rotation of Gilbert/Melton/Gaines Adams/Anthony Adams/Marcus Harrison/Mark Anderson/Alex Brown can do its thing and be a solid dline. If Gaines Adams or one of the pass rushers lives up to there hype we would instantly have an above average dline. Plus, if we need at DT, there are usually quality veteran DT's available who we could pick up to play part of the time. The secondary is a whole nother story, but the Bears have spent draft picks on Moore and they like Bowman. He's still raw but hopefully he can develop into something and than Tillman could potentially move to safety and thus strengthening our position there. Plus look at how a Darren Sharper can move relatively cheaply. There is no reason the Bears couldn't go out and spend some money on a safety. Add a healthy Urlacher (while I am not a fan, right now he's our best option) and go with Roach/Williams on the outside and the LB corps is fine. Basically put, the Bears can fix a lot of holes by spending money on 2 olineman, developing the Dline a bit, finding one more CB, and signing a safety. That wouldn't be out of the question. Than you can use the 3rd round and later picks (maybe get a pick for a Tommie Harris) to hopefully fill some long-term needs (ie, draft some guards, a project tackle, maybe a safety, etc). And next year's team will be better and than we'll have another off-season where we'll have our full round of picks where we can hopefully grab another impact olineman or an impact Dlineman or both (with our 1st two picks) and maybe go after an impact WR if we ultimately determine we need one. Who knows though, we still have Iglesias there. Basically put, FA will be a much more important thing for the Bears this year, but we don't need to sign 10 guys, realistically 2 bigger signings and one solid signing would be enough to fill some major holes so that the team couldn't be exploited and that we could really look to Cutler to maybe make us even better. I basically think Cutler makes our team a couple wins better based purely on his talent. So if we have a 9 win team, we might have an 11 win team with Jay. This team without Jay (and with Kyle) is probably a 6-7 win team. With Jay I still think they have a great shot at 9 wins, maybe 10.

The thing is, I think most Bears fans knew that short-term, Cutler wasn't going to win a superbowl with the team currently constructed. However, Cutler alone should make this team a playoff contender while it rebuilds in a better direction and hopefully 3 years from now we are talking about a super bowl caliber club and we'll have a super bowl caliber QB in his prime.

Pretty dead on. I'd probably just give the whole team F's, but its hard to completely kill the QB/RB given they were in zero position to do anything the whole game (being down as far as they were and with the blocking they had). Hell, I'd give them incompletes cause they had no chance to succeed.

I would not go back and re-do the deal. We would not be a better team with Orton than Cutler. We'd be even worse cause there is really no support system for our QB. Our oline is the worst line in the NFL.

I don't even see how you could evaluate Cutler's performance this week. We were down 5 Td's and we had 2 guys in his face all game.

The D wouldn't have said that last year with Urlacher as the leader, but it probably wouldn't have had to. That said I give them credit for speaking up, but I firmly believe its time for a change (at the end of the season). I hope I'm wrong and its one game, but wow what a bad game.

Perfect analysis. I also want to point out that as one of Urlacher's biggest haters on the site, the first thing I've noticed with regards to our D is how soft the Cover 2 has hole over the middle of the field has gotten. Urlacher did a great job keeping it relatively minimal, but Roach playing the middle has created a massive soft spot in the cover 2 and Cinncy exploited it time and time again this past week. We had a lot wrong, but Roach at MLB was one of the biggest things wrong on the defensive side, but I also think Its time to realize that without a super special MLB (Urlacher isn't that anymore), we can't get away running this cover 2 non-sense and ultimately its time to bring in a new coach who can run a better scheme.

My biggest problem is the Bears lines. The offensive line was awful and the defensive line might have even bêen worse. What an absolute joke.

I don't want Shanny if he wants to the be GM tơo. He failed in Denver when he was the GM, but excelled as purely the coach and that is how the Bears need to have him.

Winning matters, and the reality is the Bears got embarassed today. I could care less what the coach does on the sideline but the Bears didn't lơok prepared to play the game.

Let the D do the talking and shut his rushin game down.

Isn't Pompei one of the more widely respected Football Writers though? I've always thought pretty highly of him.

That is actually a very interesting idea and I'd support us trying Url at safety. It'll never happen, but damn would it create for some interesting match-ups. Plus Urlacher does his best in space and this would enable him tons of space.

The big problem to me is the Bears flat out don't have many draft picks and that means we won't be able to draft another guy. The question is, Is Brian Urlacher for another season or two worth more than us getting a draft pick or two (which is much needed) that can be used on potential safeties/olineman who could help rejuvanate our corps. I say that because MLB's are usually around that get cut and easier to find than quality o-lineman. Not to mention I think at least one of Roach/Williams is a capable starter.

I see a 3rd rounder as a potential safety or OT and given the scarcity of draft picks we have next year I think that is more valuable than an over-paid Urlacher. Not to mention I actually think Roach has a lot of tools to be a pretty solid MLB. He won't be Urlacher in his prime but he's solid and if him and Harris can get us two 3rd rounders between each other it could allow us to address some areas outside of FA this off-season (cause I think we all know this team has some needs and really its going to be hard to address those needs without signing a buttload of guys via FA).

Football is also the easiest sport for a fan to rip on because when any one play goes wrong they think its a dumb decision, this and that. But ultimately there is a lot of strategy to every play. You never run Wolfe inside and all of a sudden teams can pretty much read everything you do. Sometimes a failed play ultimately ends up setting a big play later in the game and a lot of fans fail to grasp that concept (not saying anyone here does or doesn't, just saying in general). Not to mention, most of the time I listen to Chicago Sports talk on something I have a vast knowledge on (Baseball), I'm usually pretty embarassed and ashamed at what the callers suggest and it becomes pretty obvious about the complete ignorance most people that call sports talk have. There are good callers, but ultimately those are few and far between compared to the dumbasses that hyperventilate and go super high with the high's and mega low with the low's.

The reporter indicates that the sources he talked to have been known to give him honest opinions, whether good or bad, so I'd say that puts validity into there comments. In addition, I've reported on other sports (not NFL), specifically MLB, and you'd be amazed at the bad things people will say. In fact, when you talk to scouts, etc, they usually first talk about the holes in guys games or at least thats been my experience when interviewing various individuals, albeit I did it free-lance as a hobby during college, but I've still interviewed a good chunk of MLB scouts and current and former MLB players. And in terms of executing, I think if you have the talent and execute appropriately you'll get the play right and the more convulated and complex you get things the harder it is to actually execute properly and you ultimately end up with more bad than good. A lot of the great offenses in the NFL didn't work because they were so fancy and complex, they worked because they had the right players executing and there is no reason an offense that has good plays and puts its players in position to excel (which is what the article insinuates based upon its discussion with NFL Experts) is an offense that is doing its job.

Marcus Harrison will get the start. Also, Adrian Peterson is not expected to play.

http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune....ngals-game.html Harris is expected to miss this weekend's game and usually when Harris goes down, it only gets worse. This will be his last year in a Bears uni....Book it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...3.column?page=2 Great article and it basically is consistent with what I had told you guys I had heard from a long-time coach and a guy who does some consulting work for Belliceck now.

No, I don't think he's calling him out. I think he's mearly talking about how when the Bears do it, they still have the coach call the shots where maybe other teams defenses maybe have there MIKE call the plays in those situations?

I liked the blurb on Daniel Manning a bit. He's really turned a corner this year.

Roach is trying out for the full-time job and if he emerges and plays well it would be great cause it will enable the Bears to trade Urlacher for a 3rd rounder or so, or maybe even better.

No excuses, just win!