adam

I'll take Marshall and Jeffery over TO and Moss. Moss probably has something left, but Alex Smith will be under throwing to him. TO on the other hand is older than me, and was out of football last year. He hasn't played since ACL surgery. I doubt he will have a huge impact.

This will be interesting, because in terms of receiving duties, Marshall replaced Williams and Jeffery replaced Knox. You could say Weems replaced Hurd, leaving Hester, Bennett, and Sanz as the last 3 on the roster. Now if they want someone else on coverage units instead of Weems who would be the primary returner, then Davis has the upper hand. However, that is only if Weems won't be on coverage units. This will be something to watch. Sanz is the better WR, but Davis is a decent WR who plays good ST. With our upgrades at WR, Sanz seems to be the odd man out.

Yeah, looks like Sanz has inside track: http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/bears/post...new-opportunity

I say it will be Marshall, Jeffery, Bennett, Hester, Weems, and Sanz.

One blind side hit and Manning's career is done, book it.

When I tried to test system, it just stays at connecting to server. It is probably just too early or servers are down for maintenance.

Here is how each of them voted, Ira can go suck it, 18 my ass. Otherwise, the others are all within reason. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redsk...LrMX_story.html

I assume that since I am taking over for Bluecollarbears that I will be drafting 2nd?

Yeah, DeCastro signed a few days ago, and Poe on Thursday. Criner, a later round pick that was a possibility signed today I believe. It just surprises me how long these guys wait.

Cutler would not be a surprise. I figure Moore will do about the same, and now he has more competition in Hayden, Wilhite, Frey, and McCoy. Rodriguez has looked good in TC, hopefully he continues to improve. A 2TE set with him and Davis with Marshall on the outside would cause a bunch of mismatch problems for the D.

Every year it amazes me how many rookies go unsigned into camp, and sometimes into the season. Looking at this year's list, there were a bunch of players that could've ended up on the Bears. Guys like Blackmon (if we traded up), Kendall Wright, DeCastro, and Poe from the first round come to mind. Some others like DeVier Posey and Trumaine Johnson from later rounds are also unsigned. What could you possibly be holding out for? You are basically slotted, and unless the team is under-cutting the slot, these should be easy deals. I love that fact that the Bears are great at getting rookie players to sign, sometimes the entire rookie class signs before some other teams sign even one of their rookies.

I think Cutler will get a new 5-year deal, and Url will get a 2-3 year deal.

Urlacher and Cutler are no-brainers for extensions, but Tillman and Hester will be much harder. Hester is really tricky with a $10 million "deescalating" roster bonus for next season. I don't see him getting the type of deal he thinks he deserves.

I would say anywhere from 8th-12th is fair for the Bears based on last year's record. I think people have lost their mind putting Philly in any top 10 though. It looks like they will have Philly in their top 8, lol. GB, NE, SF, NYG, PIT, HOU, BAL, and PHI? Philly? Really? NYG won the SB and will play better in the regular season, Dallas is always right there, and Washington is improved. I just don't see Philly getting much better in that division. For us, Detroit is too dysfunctional of an organization to win double digits again, I see them around 8-8, and Minnesota is a disaster. Also, I doubt GB wins 15 again with one of the worst defenses in the league. They will probably drop to 12 or 13 wins at best. I see us right there with them around 11 to 12 wins.

Bush has also had more rushing TD's than Forte the last 2 years, and I would assume that would continue. I really like the combination of Forte and Bush, they compliment each other very well, and both can catch out of the backfield. They are definitely a top-3 tandem in the league.

I am in if there are spots available.

The Bears really closed the talent gap on offense against the Pack with the addition of Marshall, Bush, and Jeffery. We have a better running game, by far, and our passing game will be a lot closer to theirs this year. We are much more well-rounded on offense and the only thing holding us back is the O-Line.

Jason, However, Bush is going to take a higher percentage of carries than past backups and will probably get more goal-line chances than Forte. Also, with the improved passing game and Red-Zone threats, we may be passing more in the RZ. If anything I believe Forte's numbers will drop slightly across the board.

That makes sense, but I think the league is shifting away from the need for an elite RB so is it money well spent? I think it is a good deal because I like Forte and he is a great player, but I don't think he is necessarily worth 2.5x Bush. Just look at the last 5 years at the Super Bowl teams and their lead RB's: 2011 NYG Bradshaw 659 NE Green-Ellis 667 2010 GB Jackson 703 PIT Mendenhall 1273 2009 NO Thomas 793 IND Addai 828 2008 PIT Parker 791 ARZ James 514 2007 NYG Jacobs 1009 NE Maroney 835 Only Mendenhall in 2010 had an elite year, and only 2 out of 10 had over 1,000 yards. 8 lead RB's had 835 yards or less and their teams were in the SB. The last 4 SB winners did not have a leading rusher with more than 800 yards. That is crazy.

This is a great deal for the Bears, and in line with the market value for Forte. We now have Forte and Bush both locked up for the next 4 years for a total of $46 million (just over $11 mill a year).

We have until 3pm........

That seems spot on for Jay. Eli is always an interesting topic. He had some below average years to start his career which really locked people into a certain opinion about him, at the same time, his brother was tearing up the league. However, over the last four years he has won 2x Super Bowls and thrown for over 100 TDs and 16,000 yards. Over 25 TD's and 4,000 yards a year is pretty impressive. Here are the career QB ratings for the listed QB's (Eli is 13th): Rodgers - 104.1 Romo - 96.9 Brady - 96.4 Rivers - 95.5 Manning - 94.9 Brees - 94.0 Big Ben - 92.1 Ryan - 88.4 Flacco - 86 Stafford - 84.7 Cutler - 84.5 Newton 84.5 Manning - 82.1 Vick - 80.9

I always liked it later in the season, between weeks 8-10, that way you can rest some players for the stretch run. I also like playing the following week at home, that way you essentially get an extra day (no travel). This year we have our Bye in Week 6, a little early for me, but at least we play at home the following week. For comparison, Green Bay has their Bye in Week 10, Minnesota in Week 11, and Detroit in Week 5. All three teams play on the road the following week. Every team also plays one Thursday game.

Yeah, Cutler's omission is sort of puzzling, but at least they had Peppers, Forte, Hester, Urlacher, and Briggs on there. I guess they are going off of last year's performance, and Jay was hurt? Tebow on the list is odd because I thought other players hated him?

Sure, but what would Davis have to do to be considered a breakout player? 50 receptions? 600 yards? 8 TDs? Also, for the criticality of our offense, where would the TE position rank? I would say TE would be near the bottom.