adam

Bowman has looked really good given the opportunity. I just hope it is because of his play and not the WRs.

I think of Brees and someone like Colston. He is a good receiver, but becomes even better when he has a great QB like Brees. I think Cutler is that type of QB. He can get away with some things others cannot. From watching Denver's training camp videos, it doesn't seem like they are too thrilled with the passing game. I saw more footage about the defense and the running game.

Cutler became Denver's starting QB Week 13 in 2006. Before that game Brandon Marshall had caught 6 passes for 76 yards and 1 TD the entire season. The first pass he catches from Cutler? A 71 yard TD strike, and from then on they both stayed in as starters. Now you can say that Marshall helped Cutler, and I am sure he did, but Marshall was essentially a non-factor until Cutler started. It will be interesting to see what Marshall and Royal do this year.

Really odd timing to say the least. Hard to imagine this was a new injury.

That is true. Dominant receivers don't equate to Super Bowls. Great QBs, a great running game, and a great Defense normally do. If look back at the past winners since 2000. Most had a dominant Defense (PIT, NYG, NE, TB, BAL), a great QB (PIT, NYG, IND, NE), and a solid running game (NYG, IND, PIT, NE, BAL). Hell, PIT won last year with their leading receiver having 1,009 yards and leading rusher having 791 yards, but had a sick Defense. I also think Hester will crack the top 30.

How does Driver know "what we have right now"? He also never mentions potential, he just said "they don't have the receiver group" or "receivers that can make plays down field". How does he know this? Just because there are a bunch of young receivers? Also, what does that say about Hester? He can't make plays downfield? Also, Driver is an odd one to make these comments. He didn't do jack until his 4th season, and I wouldn't be surprised if you saw his numbers slip this year with him being 34.

That seems feasible, and it is not like we couldn't pick someone up in the event of an injury. I just like to think that we only need 1 QB.

Yeah Driver's comments have a lot of weight coming from a former 7th round pick. /sarcasm He should be the one saying, hey look at me, I was drafted in the 7th round and turned out pretty good. He also forgot to mention Olsen/Clark, so he clearly doesn't know the team very well.

If you had to pick what type of season Denver will have this year (trainwreck or surprising success), I would have to go with the trainwreck. If McDaniels has lost trust in numerous players on that roster, it could be an ugly year.

1) I agree that injury risk is much higher. I also think that KR/PR actually run into different problems if they stay exclusively as return men. One problem is contracts. Teams don't want to pay big bucks for a guy that is only going to play 6-8 plays a game. 2) I was thinking more along the lines of Hester (KR/PR) compared to a normal returner vs Hester (as WR) compared to a normal receiver. The differences right now lean towards Hester being a KR/PR since the upside is so much higher. Now I am hoping that this year is the year that it all changes. 3) No matter where Hester is on the field, he is going to draw attention and make teams game plan around him. Which is good. That is why I think they should still use him sparingly as a returner. Maybe open up the game or half as KR, and as a PR on important punt returns. All in all, it is a good problem to have.

Great point nfo. I never thought about it that way.

I like the NYG defense, but their offense was all run. 2x 1,000 yard rushers and one is gone. Not a single receiver with over 600 yards receiving. Also, they lost Spagnuolo who was the architect behind that defense. They are due to regress. They went 1-4 (including playoff loss) in their last 5 games in 2008 (all without Plax).

I agree that any extra play during the game is going to take something out of you, but I think the injury potential is one of the biggest factors. I agree that the decision will be much easier if he improves as a receiver and if we have other options. In the long run, where will he have the bigger impact, as a returner or as a receiver? If he only becomes a decent #2, is that more valuable than the best returner in the game? I just thought his talent as a returner was so good (best ever) that you would not want to mess with that.

I don't buy him being out of juice. He is getting on the field 1 play early. I could see if he was playing CB, then had to return a punt, but he could've been sitting on the bench for 10 minutes while the defense was on the field. The same goes for kickoffs. What is wrong with him opening the half or the start of the game returning a kick. I could see kick returning taking juice out of his plays on offense, but not the other way around. Also, how much juice did he expend averaging 6 yds a punt return? His drop off last year was huge, and I don't know how much of that was because he was playing receiver.

The Bears have a great shot to win the NFC. There is really no elite team in the NFC. Only 4 teams had 10 or more wins last year (NYG, CAR, ATL, and MIN). None of those teams are really dominant.

I hate using all-time record as a starter as some type of measurement for a QB. It takes the entire team to win a game. They love to throw that around a lot. I like this one, "near interception". Nice way to change the numbers Joyner. Cutler averages 1 interception every 33 attempts for his career. You also have to consider how many of those were forced into coverage because Denver was playing from behind (always). Grossman 1 every 27 attempts. Also, comparing him to Grossman is silly. In our SB year, Grossman had 7 games with a QB Rating of 100 or more and 5 games with a QB rating below 50. What a roller coaster. Compare that to Cutler last year who had 5 games with a QB Rating above 100, and only 1 game below 50 (a 49.8). Grossman had 1 TD and 16 INTs in those 5 games (ugly). There is no way Cutler will ever play that bad. He has only had 3 games in his career with a QB Rating below 50. Grossman has 10. 3 or more INTs in one game (Cutler 1, Grossman 6). Then think about the running component. Cutler can actually run with the ball, something we haven't had in a long time. In the end, Grossman is not a good comparison for Cutler.

I answered in bold.

Yeah, take it with a grain of salt, but I would have no issue picking him up.

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/HeadLines...L&hl=145487 Damn, I would take a flyer on a one-year low-end deal for Harrison in a heartbeat.

DG, One huge factor to consider is Hester was catching passes from Orton and Jackson was catching passes from Rivers. Also, the Bears conservative offense gave him his 13 YPC. Also, how many of those chances that Hester got were actually decent? He did have his share of drops, but there were a lot of bad passes thrown his way as well. I don't like YPC compared to YAC which Hester actually beat Jackson 4.2 to 3.6. Can Hester really control when he actually gets the ball (8 yards down the field compared to 15 yards down the field)?

I wish him the best of luck. I am curious to see the terms of the deal. It is amazing that he has only appeared in 36 games over the past 5 years.

Yeah, 600 yards is not much over a course of a full season. If he passed for 10 more yards per quarter over 16 games that would be 640 yards overall. I don't think 4,000 yards is out of reason for Cutler. For Hester, I think he can be better than Jackson. Look at Jackson's numbers a little deeper: - 2008 was his 4th year in the league and first with over 1,000 yards. (2008 was Hester's 2nd year at WR) - So Hester is still technically less developed as a WR than Jackson. - Jackson had a 3.6 YAC in 2008 and career is 3.2 (Hester had a 4.2 in 2008 and has a career 5.0 YAC) - His Avg was 18.6 in 2008 (compared to Hester's 13.0) So those numbers tell me that Jackson was getting the ball deeper down the field (about 6 yards deeper than Hester) every reception and actually doing less after the catch than Hester. So he basically benefited from the scheme by about (59*6) 354 yards. If you subtract those yards from Jackson he is looking at 59-744 compared to Hester's 51-665. Also, looking at 1st Down catches, Jackson blew Hester away 52-29, again telling me he was catching the ball near or beyond the 1st Down marker everytime whereas Hester was getting these little dink and dunks.

I think you are over-rating playing together. If that was the case, Atlanta's offense should've sucked last year. They had a rookie QB, a new RB who was not even a starter on his former team (Turner) with no real threat at TE and a brand new HC to boot. So using your logic, Atlanta should've finished 6-10?

Mongo, it was more of comparing the 2008 SD offensive production with the 2009 Chicago offensive production.

I think that is one of the best comparisons you can make across the board on offense. With that offensive production, we probably would've went 11-5 or 12-4 last year since we lost 3 games by 3 pts or less.