DABEARSDABOMB

I'm not a huge fan of Hester as a CB right away but I think he's going to make an immediate impact on special teams (especially Punt Returns) and that alone should have a major impact on our offense. Heck, if he can catch the ball and hold onto it he's already light-years better than what we had to offer last season.

http://www.chicagobears.com/news/newsDetail.jsp?id=16162 I was really glad to see the comments about Briggs. The coach said some nice things and said that Briggs did have a very good minicamp (whichever one he showed up to). Said that he's a team player and understands the game is a business (But he's getting paid to do his job) and he'll be here ready to play. In regards to Hunter, he says that he's gotten a little faster and stronger over the off-season and they once again refer to him being able to play any of the LB positions. I think the long term plan is to use him as a super sub/depth guy, especially if Williams can produce in time. In terms of Williams, not much was said about him but it appears the team has moved from Wil to SAM and he's picked up both pretty well.

Interesting....this is the only negative blurb I've heard on Benson all year and it comes from Rotoworld. Not sure where Rotoworld got it from.

Larry Mayer answered this question (he's the writer for the Bears official site). Sounds to me like he thinks Runnels and I'm guessing its because of what he's seen/heard of Runnels thus far in the various mini camps mixed with the fact that Johnson is always hurt. I'm glad we got ourselves a legit FB that should get better for years to come. He's a darn good blocker whose capable of catching a few passes a season.

The Quarterback's Will Bring on An Offensive Renaissance By Jason Gage TalkBears.com The 2005 Chicago Bears took the league by storm. Led by a vaunted defense, they were able to overcome playing with as bad of an offense as there was in football. The team lacked a quarterback, had trouble finding a receiver that could catch the ball, and as a result had trouble putting points on the board (29th in offense). With that in mind, Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo went out to build an offense…right??? WRONG. Angelo instead focused defense, working to improve their secondary and defensive depth. Instead of improving a weakness, Angelo went the route of strengthening a strength. This was to the chagrin of many Bears fans and analysts around the league were left scratching there heads. But the ‘06 Bears (and Bengals) will enter training camp (on July 27th in Bourbonnais, Illinois) with more returning starters than any team in the league. Yes, that means most of an unheralded offense is coming back. Thomas Jones will look to show the Bears (or a trade partner) that he is a franchise back. The offensive line will attempt to continue to open up holes in an effort to remain one of the best rushing attacks in the league. At the same time that line is going to have to protect opponents from teeing off on quarterback’s Rex Grossman, Brian Griese and Kyle Orton (as Bear fans, we’ve come to expect all 3 QB’s to get some action). However, most importantly, Grossman will look to prove to Bears fans, the coaching staff, and the rest of the league that he is the quarterback of the present and future. Two major injuries and one playoff start are Grossman’s career in a glance. In 06, he’ll look to put himself in position to get a few more playoff starts than injuries. Jerry did make one move this off-season on the offensive side of the ball. That one move and one position was all that Jerry Angelo had to upgrade to improve this offense (QUARTERBACK). Grossman is the best QB this team has had in years (sadly, I’m not even going out on a limb as I yearn for the days of Erik Kramer), but if he isn’t able to complete the season, the Bears have a competent, veteran QB named Brian Griese. Signed to an off-season deal, Griese gives the Bears much needed stability at the QB position. Angelo hopes this stability will carry right over to the offense. Angelo may not have said it directly, but he did so indirectly by not making any major upgrades to the receiving corps. Instead Angelo, Lovie Smith and the rest of the coaching staff will hope that Grossman (or Griese) will be able to execute the passes and get the balls in the hands of the backs (Jones, Benson, Peterson) and receivers (Mushin, Berrian, Bradley, Gage, Currie, Davies). The offense now needs to step up and mature. Bradley and Berrian are both talented receivers, Benson and Jones have the ability to be solid backs (in Benson’s case an upper echelon back) and Grossman and Griese are both capable of making all the passes (especially Grossman). On July 17, the Bears old offense will disappear and the beginning of a new offense (with a year of Turner’s system under there belts) and a more balanced team needs to begin.

ESPN had someone on talking about football and they talked a bit about the Bears. Said Benson had a tremendous off-season and is up to 225 pounds. Went on to say that head coach Lovie Smith has a policy that if you aren't around the team during the off-season you don't run with the 1st string. Angelo made a short comment saying he didn't expect Jones to stay away from training camp, but I guess it is a possibility.

I do think Vasher's play deserved a shot but those baseball catches were pretty damn impressive too. However, Vasher's is a record breaker and neither of those catchers were record breakers, imo. Not to mention Vasher's return pretty much won the game and helped give us a bit more momentum. Rowands play saved the game for them, but where are the Phils now?? Wright's play was nice but I don't think it was a game saver.

Ya, I'm so glad its part of my cable. For a while it wasn't. Of course I don't watch it near enough, but as football season gets closer I'll be watching it more and more.

Thats until I skin Soxtalk up. Working on doing it in about 5 minutes.

Now its time to get this site rocking...9 days till training camp

Three cheers go out to Kalapse and Heads...what an amazing job they did.

Bears are a solid team and they are capable of winning a superbowl, but like any superbowl winner things are going to have to go right for you. You got to get a couple breaks, stay healthy, and play very strong football. With our defense this team is definately capable, but all it takes are a few key injuries and we got no chance. But you can say that about pretty much any team in the league.

Ya, he's a very good coach and a high character individual. He seems to have the players motivated while at the same time I really think he has fun doing what he's doing. All that said he's had one winning season and before he gets annoited as an upper echelon coach he's going to have to put together a few winning seasons and make sure we don't get completely out-coached in a playoff game (like we did against the Panthers where we decided to single cover Steve Smith all game long).

Cool...I think she's pretty familiar with the area. Apparently her Grandon's best friend's dad is the main developer (he's the guy who has those billboard with that weird troll face). But from what she was saying the prices have really went up. She wanted to sell her little vacation thing up in South Haven (she bought it for like 6000) and move into town there into a little bigger place but apparently prices have went up a lot there. I thought South Haven was pretty nice. We also went into Sagautaw orwhatever its called and it was a decent quaint town (apparently pretty expensive as well and a little too artsy fartsy for me).

The outlet mall. It was raining that da. We were driving down from South Haven on the historic route (I think its called a star highway or something when your in Michigan and than the name changes when you get into Indiana) and it was a real real pretty drive. Than my aunt (lives on the southside currently) is thinking of moving to New Buffalo because they are building some train station that goes non stop into Chicago apparenetly? So we looked around there shortly as well.

Moose wasn't as good as he could have been, but he was also the only legitimate WR on the team last yaer for most of the season. Orton seemed to be good with Bradley (like you said) but Bradley went down pretty early in the year and Orton was about as good as you could be for a 2nd day QB getting thrown into the fire. This year we have two QB's that can make the throws and for the most part understand the offense (In Rex's case, he still is inexperienced so he isn't as smart as Brian, but he has a lot more tools). Mush shoud also have a bit more help since Bradley and Berrian have a bit more experience and they have the talent but my major concern is that if they go down our WR core is still just as crappy as it was last year (which was pretty crappy...yes it has talent, but most of our talented guys are what I'd call "injury prone").

They may just have one of the in-house guys do the updates or maybe hire one of the sports type guys from Fox Sports to come in and do it.

Funny story...it was during the week (and I realized I don't have your number) and the rest of my family (whose from the area) wants to stop at this place called the Lightower...turns out its in Michigan City. So I was in your town for like 45 minutes. I think your property values went up just from having "The Chisoxfn" there The lighthouse had a ton of stuff and the town seemed pretty cool (we took the historic route into town so we were driving near the lake most of the way).

I think the draft was a negative only if you go based on what was expected. We all expected a lot of offense, but Angelo showed faith in our current offense and by not taking a bunch of offense he made a statement that QB was the main problem last season and with Grossman and Griese at the helm it shouldn't be a problem this year.

Heck ya, it should be an awesome year. Welcome aboard

Hey is Grand Haven near South Haven? I ask that because I was in Michigan last week for about 2 days (my aunt has a little house on Lake Michigan; they've had it since the 70's) and it happened to be located in South Haven.

Yes siree...as soon as Heads can get to it, may take a week or so. He's doing the Bulls one and than this one. I'm with ya though, its gonna be hard to beat that last one. It was as Paris Hilton says: HOT

http://www.chicagobears.com/news/newsDetail.jsp?id=16157 Its nice to see that they expect Tank Johnson to come back. Of course they didn't give much of a timetable but Johnson talked as if he would be fine. He also mentioned Ogunleye and Brown tiring a bit last season and put a bit of the blame for that on himself. My guess is we'll see the Bears rotate in some of our depth a bit more often to keep them fresh throughout the season. Talked briefly about Anderson and Dvoracek and mentioned just how quick and athletic they are but also said its hard to tell anything about the guys without pads on.

So the Fox games will be getting a new update guy. That should be interesting. Colinsworth moved too right???

Who did they lose? I forget what happened with all the TV deals. NBC replaces ESPN for Sunday night while ESPN replaces ABC for Monday night???