adam

I thought this was a pretty interesting fact from the article: "Biggs points out that Lovie Smith now has 28 ex-assistant coaches that have worked with him in Chicago." 28 ex-assistants? How is he still the HC? At some point he has to be held accountable.

1. Yeah, but even a non-football guy knew this was the right decision. The draft day failures alone make this a legitimate firing. 2. I am assuming Lovie has one more year, and if we don't get to the playoffs, he will be gone. 3. As long as it isn't "one of Lovie's guys" 4. That is possible, but so is Bates and Billick (and I wouldn't mind either of them as HC down the road) 5. Can't argue with that, I believe Tice still needs to prove he can manage an O-Line 6. Just media fluff, the numbers don't lie 7. Not necessarily. He can re-learn one where he excelled. It is like picking up an old instrument that you haven't played in awhile. You will be rusty, but will pick it up much quicker. 8. I believe a change will suite what we have (and may get) because you can adjust the playbook to take advantage of any possible strengths. Also, more players will be familiar with a normal offense compared to Martzfense. 9. The new GM's first order may be to get him a new deal, which will be good for all parties. 10. I agree, I hate the Cover/Tampa-2 or any variation. Just like Martz' offense, it is about 5 years out of date. That won't change unless Lovie is gone. That sucks too because it would've been nice to see Urlacher rushing the QB and getting sacks vs sprinting back to cover the huge hole over the middle.

I am glad he is gone, but it would nice to have Olsen back now with a new Offense coming in.

Wow, this is great news. No Jerry, No Martz, addition by subtraction. The organization just improved.

Jay, You move up one position per round until you get to the first pick of your record, then you go to the back. So we pick 19th in the first, 18th in the second, 17th in the third, 16th in the fourth, 15th in the fifth, 14th in the sixth, and 13th in the seventh. So 19, 50, 74 (from CAR), 81, 112, 143, 174, 205.

I hate garbage time at the end of games and the season, especially when stars get hurt with nothing to play for. ** I guess he was playing for something, according to Pro Football Reference, Urlacher had 992 tackles coming into the game for his career, and ended the game with 8 tackles, so congrats to him for 1,000 tackles! **

That is true, but you can rest starters in the 2nd half and give some younger guys a chance at some reps. With nothing to play for, it would be a good time to evaluate some of the younger players (Enderle?) Also, actually the Carolina pick is the 10th for the 3rd round since the teams with the same record cycle the picks. They have the 9th in the first, 8th in the second, and the 10th in the third. So we lose there a well, lol.

Yeah, the 8-8 teams that won all hurt themselves the most. SD lost about 5 slots, and I believe KC and PHI lost 4. No team, however, lost more than the Bears with that win. Which is crazy considering there was absolutely nothing to gain with a win other than saying you didn't finish with a losing record.

Guaranteed the 19th pick. Since SD and PHI won, we could've had the 13th pick with a loss. That one win cost 6 slots, wow. 1. IND 2-14 2. STL 2-14 3. MIN 3-13 4. CLE 4-12 5. TB 4-12 6. WAS 5-11 7. JAX 5-11 * 8. MIA 6-10 * 9. CAR 6-10 10. BUF 6-10 11. KC 7-9 * 12. SEA 7-9 13. ARZ 8-8 * 14. DAL 8-8 (assuming they lose) 15. PHI 8-8 * 16. NYJ 8-8 17. OAK 8-8 18. SD 8-8 * 19. CHI 8-8 * 20. TEN 9-7 * Teams with asterisks won in Week 17.

Hypothetically, we could move into the Top 10. If we lose and SD and PHI wins this weekend, we would get the 13th pick. We could then use the CAR 3rd rounder and move to the 9th or 10th pick. I doubt Blackmon goes in the Top 5, so if he happens to fall to 9th, I would trade that extra 3rd and go for it. Otherwise, I would wait and even trade down. We could go from 13th to 20th and pick up another 2nd round pick.

Yep, right now we are 16th, and we can get to 13th with a loss and SD/PHI wins or drop to 20th with a win and a few other team losses. So this weekend, root for a loss and SD and PHI wins.

If we traded the Olsen 3rd rounder to move up, we would more than likely be able to move up 3-4 slots. So if we stayed where we are, we could move up to #12. If Blackmon is there at #12, then you make the move. However, I think he will be gone in the Top 10.

Ok, I will play this game. The last month (4 games): Peterson Punt Returns 1-1 5-44 3-33 0-0 9-78 (8.6 Avg) 78 Return Yards (19.5/g) Hester Punt Returns 3-39 2-36 0-0 2-7 7-82 (11.8 Avg) Kick Returns 1-23 1-25 1-17 5-117 8-182 (22.8 Avg) 264 Return Yards (66/g) I just thought it was sort of a snub since Peterson only had one more TD than Hester (which seems to be the deciding factor), but Hester also does Kickoffs, and the position is Kick Returner, not Punt Returner.

Congrats to Forte, Urlacher, Briggs, Tillman, and Graham! http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=Am01...pro_bowl_roster Hester the closest snub.

Here is the current draft order: 1. IND 2-13 2. STL 2-13 3. MIN 3-12 4. CLE 4-11 5. JAX 4-11 6. TB 4-11 7. WAS 5-10 8. MIA 5-10 9. CAR 6-9 10. BUF 6-9 11. KC 6-9 12. ARZ 7-8 vs SEA 13. PHI 7-8 vs WAS 14. SEA 7-8 @ ARZ 15. SD 7-8 @ OAK 16. CHI 7-8 17. NYJ 8-7 @ MIA 18. TEN 8-7 @ HOU 19. DEN 8-7 vs KC 20. OAK 8-7 vs SD 21. NYG 8-7 vs DAL 22. DAL 8-7 @ NYG Right now we are 16th, and have the best SoS of the bunch, so we will always lose the tie breaker with the same record. That said, we can fall all the way to 20th with a win; NYJ and TEN losses, and one of DEN and OAK loses (one wins the West). NYG plays DAL, so one of them will be 8-8. Now if we can somehow pull out a loss next week (we have been good at that lately), we will be guaranteed no worse than 15th, and can get all the way to 13th if SD and PHI both win. ARZ and SEA play each other, so one will be 8-8. A Top 15 pick would be tasty, because there are always Top 10 talent in the Top 15 who have fallen due to draft needs. Here are 15 quick names, someone would be there at #15: Luck-QB Griffin-QB Jones-QB Richardson-RB Blackmon-WR Jeffery-WR Floyd-WR Kalil-OT Martin-OT Reiff-OT DeCastro-G Coples-DE Claiborne-CB Kirkpatrick-CB Kuechly-ILB Also hoping for a CAR loss, so we get a solid 3rd rounder from them, giving us 4 picks in the first 80. I don't like the tiebreaker rules. We have a harder schedule so we pick after a team that beat us with the same record? Why not only use the strength of schedule against teams you beat? Who cares if we lost to a 14-1 team, and another team with the same record lost to a 10-5 team. Are we any better because we lost to a better team?

Yes, very true.

Unfortunately Rodgers is probably a Top 5 QB, of all time, he is that good. Just look at his career numbers, with basically no running game and a bad defense. Now to a degree, any player is elevated based on his teammates, so Rodgers is fortunate to have a great receiving corps, but they also benefit from having him as a QB.

I guess either way it works out, a loss eliminates us from the playoffs and gives us a better draft pick. A win keeps slim playoff hopes alive and we lose 4-6 slots in the draft. What would be ironic is if we beat GB and MIN then ATL loses to both NO and TB, we slip into the playoffs and get both Cutler and Forte back. Our playoff path would be NO, then GB. Highly unlikely, but similar to how GB beat us, then we faced them again in the NFC Championship game.

Jason, very true. I just hope we learn from this and have a veteran as a backup next year with the project QB as the 3rd stringer. Its pretty ironic that our last two seasons essentially ended with a Cutler injury. Seems pretty obvious what our needs our this offseason. I would like to see some O-Line and WR's brought in via Free Agency and the draft. Knox will be the only receiver with over 500 yards and 40 receptions. That is pretty sad. Forte is going to miss a bunch of games and still lead the team in receptions and will be second in receiving yards. That makes Cutler look even better. He has been basically throwing to the worst receiving corps in the league behind the worst offensive line in the league.

Damn Mongo, now I am really hurting. Those games sucked!!!! Hell, I'm still pissed about the Super Bowl loss.

At some point someone needs to be held accountable. I hate being a middle of the road team between 7-9 and 10-6 when we should be perennial contenders in a big market.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but after the Oakland game we really should have brought in another QB. Hanie has been in this system as long as Cutler, so there is no way he should be this bad just because of the system. He was clearly not prepared to play and was just sucking up a salary on the sidelines, basically free money. People may ask who, I would have tried any veteran over Hanie. Bulger maybe, and after the KC game, why not try McNabb? It is not like Hanie did anything with a complex playbook, and statistically I believe he is the worst QB to start a game this season. We couldn't get any worse. So strip it down and bring in a vet who knows how to run an offense. Lastly, besides exposing how bad Hanie is, it also shows how good Cutler actually is. I hope he gets more respect and credit now.

There are definitely a lot of failures throughout the game that can affect the outcome, but I think he was saying that the Barber play was probably the biggest in the fact that if he simply stays in bounds, we win. It was an individual mistake that essentially changed the game.

This loss and the KC loss were unacceptable IMO. The Raiders, ok, first game without Cutler, and the Raiders playing good, I can see a loss there. Against KC, a loss is unacceptable regardless of the QB. For this game, our Defense was a perfect fit to stop Tebow and they did until the coaches decided to play prevent, which Tebow is actually good against. Wow, I am so pissed because we are basically out of the playoff hunt with this loss. Atlanta and Detroit are both a game up and the Giants still have to play. Either way, we would have to win out to even have a chance, and I just don't see that happening after this loss.

Yeah, that was actually the worst play, that saved them at least 20 seconds and they had no timeouts.