DABEARSDABOMB

The bright side is, offensive pieces can develop with him on the roster. The other flip side is maybe he can build his value up for a trade (cause personally, he has a lot to play for). But with him healthy, there is no way we will be picking in the top 3, probably not even top 5.

His injury was pretty serious, but I think they've been playing it safe to downplay any controversy. I presume we might see him get healthier in a hurry, but we also have to wonder if the Bears even look at him. Remember, if we really are done with him, if he were to get hurt seriously this year, we would not be able to get rid of him and get out from his contract (kind of like the whole Kaeperneck thing). I suppose Jay could restructure to play, but I really wonder if we ever have him suit up again. I'd think we would give Barkley a game or two. He looked awful tonight, but he hasn't had many reps with the first team unit and wasn't with us for training camp. I do agree that if Barkley stays epically bad, we would probably need to go back to Jay for the pure sake of you can't develop people (at least on the offensive side of the ball), with performances that bad. On the flipped, Barkley playing the rest of the year would pretty much assure us the #1/#2 pick.

I do not think anyone gets axed during the season. Loggains could get axed in the off-season and that would be about it, imo.

Always enjoy reading your posts. I also agree that I've liked what I've seen from Meredith. I've seen some mistakes (to be expected given his lack of experience), but he also seems to have the talent to get open and get to the right spots. He's looked light years better then White ever did. I think you and I are in the same camp that we lack real playmakers, especially on defense (offensively Jeffrey is a playmaker...albeit we need more; hopefully Howard can develop into that). Oline looks solid (not great, but solid) and I would expect a year from now it will be better (healthy Long, more experienced Whitehair, plus we'll probably get a new tackle). I do hope Goldman and Floyd can develop into playmakers on the defensive side of the ball (more confident in Goldman than Floyd) but we still need more (but we should have more picks this next year to do that and who knows who else can develop). This process takes time and we've been competitive every game but the Dallas game (and Dallas is clearly pretty damn good).

So with Kizer getting all this hype, how come Notre Dame isn't scoring. I'm a Notre Dame fan but my young ones have been keeping me extremely busy this season so I haven't gotten to watch near the football I used to (Bears take priority so the Irish have gotten the shorter straw). Haven't they scored like one touchdown in the last nine quarters? I ask because for a guy to go #1 overall or top 5, I would expect them to be tearing it up. What has been the issue? I definitely see he has a ton of physical talent, but production hasn't seemed to match this year (especially last few weeks).

Lets not forget that Marty B has played pretty good for the Pats this year. He is crazy though (from a lockeroom perspective), but very very talented. They are also spending a lot of time in NE talking about how much better Marty makes Gronk.

I can't imagine he's back that quickly. Not that much time to get up to speed. Maybe you are right, but I'm guessing we are a week away. If we were playing Sunday, I'd think it is a possibility, but Thursday seems like too soon.

And again does nothing in the red zone. That said, Hoyer is perfect. Allows us to lose while still largely developing offensive players. I do think Hoyer is a darn good back-up / bridge for a young rookie QB.

Very cool.

I will say he has sucked, but as I pointed out when we signed him, he was a worse kicker then Gould. I'm not saying Gould was at the top of his game anymore and none of us know what he'd do this year, but history tells me Gould was far superior (even last year), especially when it came to hitting kicks from far. I don't like Barth and it was a crappy move (getting him). I hope we can find a way to upgrade the kicker position (I also understand moving away from Gould, but if we do, I'd like to get a good young kicker or find one and if we wanted to dump Gould, we should have done it a lot earlier in the process). Note: I heard where Gould supposedly was the best kicker the Cowboys tried out, but he wasn't willing to take the temporary gig when the offer was given to him (if he plays this year, he wants a job that he could hold vs. being a short term injury replacement).

I don't think it matters. We don't have many guys who are good pass rushers and as a result, we don't get a consistent pass rush. We also have a really young secondary and in general limited talent back there, so if we blitzed like crazy, we would put the secondary in a very bad spot. Our best pass rusher (McPhee) has not played this year and our second best pass rusher (Willie Young) is a good motor guy, but not even close to being a #1 type pass rusher. We also are missing Goldman, who can provide a nice push from the interior. Bottom line, we aren't seeing a consistent pass rush (technically we had quite a few sacks yesterday, but the Colts oline is horrid) because we don't have talent. Hopefully Floyd can get healthy and show something as the season progresses.

Some reports today that the Bears were somewhat optimistic that White would be able to play a few games late in the year. All that said, you just never know. They went the surgery route because it supposedly has a faster recovery time.

Damn, I thought you were giving me my props for saying Barth was a terrible move, haha. Seriously though, Jason was right on the money on Dak.

All the talk was that White had done nothing but bust his but and work hard. Football is a contact sport and this was a contact injury (not a non-contact injury or anything of the like). Sometimes things just happen and in this case it did. Maybe indeed his muscles are weak or he just is more prone to injury, but entering the draft, there was no track record of that.

I think everyone wanted Cooper. Unfortunately, he went off the board sooner. White went right when he was expected to. On a sidenote, Demaryius Thomas had quite a few injuries his first couple years and was deemed injury prone before he eventually went on to explode onto the scene in his third year (he did play more games, but had a few serious injuries, including a torn Achilles).

He's played 4 games out of a possible 20. Not out of a possible 32. He is not even out for this entire season (unless something changed) and could be back within 8 weeks (not sure how accurate that is or not). So he will end up missing something more like 6 to 8 games out of 32. Not ideal, but it is still two seasons and unrelated injuries (and no prior history of injuries). If he has a third, then absolutely, he is a bust. Clearly, the arrow isn't pointing up, but a week ago, prior to going down, he was looking like he was finally getting comfortable.

With White, he had no injury concerns coming out of college, so I have a hard time knocking Pace when it comes to that pick and we knew Floyd would not be an instant playmaker and a bit more of a project. I'm not ready to write-off either of Pace's picks yet, but there are clearly reasons to be concerned with the White pick. PS: I think we need to sign Alshon.

Not wanting to make a move on the OC yet. If we are going to dump our OC, lets do it in the off-season when we are ready to bring in our next QB. Cameron has done some good things but he's also had his challenges more recently and clearly wasn't setting the world on fire offensively at LSU (hence why Miles and him were axed). I'd be more interested in hiring a guy like Mike McCoy, if he does get the ax from the Chargers this year (worked with Fox and while he hasn't succeeded as a HC, his offenses have been very very good).

Don't want to see Langford hurt as I think he has good skills as well. Our line has done a poor job and our play calling has been very unimaginative.

Howard looks like he's got some potential. Want to see him the new starter.

We just had very little to start at the beginning of the era (that wasn't older veteran talent that was going to go downhill by the time we got competitive). We just made the decision to get bad real fast and start opening up tons of spots to see what young talent can develop. I'm going to be patient with the process.

More than anything, we made a huge investment in a franchise QB and gave him a million coordinators and invested minimal resources into the talent pool (until Emery got here and at that point, we did clearly make some investments) around him. Bottom line though, zero continuity and poor weapons. Cutler deserves plenty of blame too and this is all in hindsight (and none of us truly know what the outcome could have been), but I can't think there would be many QB's who would have excelled given the same circumstances.

Agreed. I just view Cook as a guy who was taken relatively late, so if a team wanted to trade for Jeffrey now and gave us picks in this years upcoming draft, great. Now I would do a deal that would involve Cook & a 1st round pick (IF our front office thought Cook had some potential). It isn't like Cook was a 2nd round pick or something. He was a 4th round pick. I'd also look at the Patriots and say if they want Jeffrey and a pick from us, I'd trade them Jimmy G.

We don't need a McCown or Orton, we need to find an above average QB. And I agree with everything you said and have been saying the same thing, now is the time to move on from Jay (albeit, I want it to be at the end of the season with us trading him). I was more ripping McPhee for his behavior and the people who are ripping Jay for anything other then his performance on the field.

So the guy who has had a hard time playing cares more? This is just ridiculous. This whole Jay doesn't care schtick is pathetic. IF you want to rip him, rip him for his play on the field, but he is who he is and the guy has proven he's a tough SOB who takes a ton of shots, etc. Back when he got pissed at Martz, he was classless, now he tries to keep a calm demeanor and more of the same. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.