Bears4Ever_34

Some news about Mike Sullivan. Sounds like he might be in serious contention for the job.

Chip Kelly to Cleveland..

I've been hearing people (not on here) mention the name Mike Wallace as a dark horse FA target because of what Emery has mentioned about a guy with some speed. Not sure I buy into that, although that would be a pretty scary wide receiving lineup to pair him next to Jeffery and Marshall. There will be another receiver added to the roster before the end of the offseason. A cheaper option in free agency could be someone like Darius Heyward Bey, who might become a cap causality in Oakland.

I think he may be one of the 3 finalists for the job if he doesn't automatically get hired in San Diego.

I can definitely see McCoy. Arians maybe to a lesser extent. McCoy seems like he fits the criteria of someone with an upbeat, energetic personality, who can command a press conference. I watched a couple of videos of him talking to the media yesterday, and he came off like someone who was already a head coach. McCoy Press Vid That's a press conference from today. I think Brad Biggs must have been in Denver because It sounded like his voice on a couple of questions. Kyle Shanahan is one guy I really want to find out if he's going to get an interview. Supposedly, his dad won't let him until the season is over, which means we wouldn't be able to ask next week after the game unless they lose.

Everything depends upon what the new system is. If we get a head coach who uses a lot of zone blocking like Shanahan or McCoy, you're going to want to get some smaller, more athletic offensive lineman, as opposed to the bruising maulers. Ryan Clady is about as realistic as Sean Payton being our next head coach before he re-signed with the Saints. I don't have a particular preference for a certain guy after him. Just get somebody good. Get a couple of guys that can start right away. In a perfect world, I would sign 2 and draft one within the first 2 rounds.

That mock would be about the best thing possible. Ogletree is a stud, and MLB is a huge need with a declining Urlacher who probably won't even be back next year. Any of the Alabama offensive lineman are also fine with me.

You can cross Bill Obrien off the list. He's staying at Penn State.

It was very brief. I believe Cutler was only there with him for a couple of weeks/months before he got traded.

Will Muschamp's offense sucks. If you're going after college coaches, the top 3 should be both of the Kelly's and Bill Obrien. 3 guys that know offense.

That's really the only negative about either guy, but I still think you would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't go out and interview either one. They are one of the top two coaches in college football, and Kelly took over for a program that was desperate just to get noticed again, and not only did he accomplish that, he's taken them to the BCS National Championship game. I like the way he commands himself with the media and his players. You want to talk about a man that exudes confidence, look at him. If you are looking to get better offensively, why wouldn't you want to interview Chip? I understand the obvious concerns over him, but as I've been saying, it can't hurt to sit down and have a talk with a guy. I don't think so. Kyle has been calling the offensive plays in Washington since he got there, and has 9 years of coaching experience in Tampa and Houston before he started coaching with his dad. Obviously Cutler has familiarity with a Shannahan system, and the way they run the ball is extremely intriguing. Keep in mind, Thomas came from an offense that also didn't teach the route tree at Georgia Tech. He came from a running team in college, and then essentially fell right into a Tim Tebow designed offense that almost never threw the ball. I can't even imagine the jump in going from that offense to an offense lead by Peyton Manning. Then, like I said, having had the experience to work with Peyton Manning will only help McCoy as a coach. It's like going to graduate school. Arians and Clements are both older candidates. I have a hard time envisioning either one having the kind of energy that Phil is asking for his HC to have. I also don't really like the fact that Clements has never called a single play in GB. His only opportunity to do that came in Buffalo where he was fired within a year. There's not a lot to go off of.

Unless the new head coach has a preference for the Cover 2, you're probably going to see a change in scheme. That's what happens when you make a change at head coach. You can't worry about what happened in the past because it's about moving forward and molding together your own team with your own vision. The stars on your defense are all old and dated. It would be the wrong decision, in my opinion, to stick with the same system. Those old guys aren't going to be around for much longer, and then what do you have? They're better off making the change now, and going through a 1-2 year transition period, if that, to whatever defense they want to run.

McCoy Shannahan Gruden Greg Roman Brian Kelly Chip Kelly Bill Obrien McCoy and Shannahan would be my top 2 guys you have to interview. I'm all about having an offensive minded HC that is an innovator. I also want somebody that have had success at making his quarterback's better. McCoy had a hand in making Jake Delhomme and Kyle Orton look like pro bowlers for a couple years, and even changed his offense in the middle of the season for Tim Tebow. Some people are going to hold it against him that he's working with Peyton Manning, who's really the coordinator of the offense, but my counter argument to that would be that McCoy will be better for it, having had that experience of working with one of the best of all time. It is only going to help him. What Kyle Shannahan is doing in Washington is pretty remarkable. Lot of people are going to knock him for having a uniquely talented quarterback to run his offense, but I would ask you this-- How many coordinators would have the smarts and the creativity to take a lot of the plays the man ran in college and integrate them into his own playbook? There's only about 4 other guys that have shown this ability. Greg Roman, Darrell Bevel, Rob Chudzinski, and Mike McCoy. Some of the other guys I think are must interviews, which include Brian Kelly, Chip Kelly, and Bill Obrien. I've said that I think you'd have to completely change the roster to fit Chip Kelly's scheme, but you would certainly be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't allow him to interview and learn some things about him.

I wonder if Emery is going to look at Rick Dennison-- Cutler's old OC from his Denver days when he put up those huge numbers with Marshall. He is currently now the coordinator for the Houston Texans.

Pete Carmichael is interviewing with Emery right now.

Dis guy's got da fire and da passion.

It's not going to be a re-build until they cut ties with Cutler, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen at least for another year. Maybe down the road, but I didn't get that sense listening to Emery's press conference. He basically said they will try and build upon what they already have to get better as a club. Re-tooling would be the word I would use.

Ogletree, the ILB from Georgia would be great if they took an OL in the 2nd round.

He said they didn't have the personnel right now to run a traditional 3-4 with a nose tackle in a 2 gap scheme. The question at hand is whether or not they would have the personnel to run the one gap scheme that doesn't call for big ends or a nose tackle, which would seem to fit us better between the two styles.

My final thoughts on Lovie: He's a good but not great head coach. Very good teacher, poor talent evaluator. He should be commended for garnering the player's respect and always seeming to have control in the locker room. He does all the things the right way. The main issue with Lovie is the obvious. He never had a clue about offense. Too many failed coordinator hirings, not enough productive. That ultimately is what got him fired, along with missing the playoffs 5 out of 6 years. Do I think he will get another gig elsewhere right away? Yes I do. But at the end of the day Emery made the decision that he wasn't the right fit for the type of team he envisions having; meaning a team that can consistently contend year in and year out, while finding the right balance between offense/defense. The Bears can't be in the bottom half of the league in offense anymore if you want to win a Superbowl. Hopefully this new guy will be able to do that. I wish Lovie the best, and appreciate the memories of the Superbowl win from 06 that I believe we would have won if Tommie Harris and Mike Brown had been healthy.

Supposedly the Armstrong interview is happening tonight. I personally didn't see this guy as a legit candidate when his name came out yesterday. This would make the 2nd special teams coordinator that Emery is going to interview. I think he would be a tough sell in Chicago, especially being someone with no NFL offensive background in coaching. I don't think anybody had heard of this man until yesterday, unless you were that familiar with the days going back to Dave Wannstedt when he worked in Chicago. If he winds up being the head coach, I trust Emery to make the right decision until he proves all of us wrong, though I would really not be overly enthused about it. Norv Turner as OC? Meh.. He runs too much of the same stuff Mike Martz does. I wouldn't be that excited about him either. I just want some guy that can come in here as a Head Coach, with an offensive mind, who is innovative. The two guys at the top of my list are still McCoy and Shannahan. Clements was one of the guys I had on my radar too. He's 59 though. He's been praised for his development of Rodgers and Flynn. Some will say it's more McCarthy, but Clements definitely played a vital role in quarterback play. If you hire him he’d have an very good understanding of the Packers and how to beat them, based on what he's seen in practice. Knowing their audibles, so on and so forth.. I don't know Tom Clements, but he wouldn't strike me as an "Energy" guy that Emery has been talking about.

My only problem with Emery's answer on switching to a 3-4 is that in talking about the 2 gap scheme he ran in KC, he also brought up other one gap schemes that he says 'teams call it a 3-4'. Well.. My question is, why couldn't we run a one gap 3-4 then if it meant not having to draft a nose tackle? The difference between one gap and two gap is the former relies more on speed and quickness, which we seem to already have, rather than size and girth required to play in a 2 gap scheme.

Why would you draft an offensive lineman you feel that isn't any better than the ones you currently have now? You don't just draft a position because it's one of your needs. If the right guy isn't there, you don't waste a pick on someone you aren't sold on. That would be the absolute wrong move to make. Last thing, before I end this pointless argument, because it's clear one of us is having trouble understanding the message here. Emery sounds like a man that knows what he's doing. He will ultimately be judged by how well he is able to draft, and whether it translates into winning a lot of football games over the next couple of years. If you disagree with his methodology behind the decisions he makes, that's up to you. I was strongly encouraged by what was said this morning, and I would hope most Bear's fans would be too, based on the wealth of information that he so eloquently laid out there. I have no reason to believe there won't be some pretty significant moves made this offseason to improve all the areas that we seem to be lacking in. If we know one thing after today, we should know that it wasn't for a lack of trying.

It did sound a lot like Jon Gruden. Though I think one could also say it sounded like any young, hungry HC that's out there with an opportunity to interview. I was particularly interested in his comments about the Shannahan's, and while he didn't really get into Kyle specifically, he did mention his name in reference to his dad Mike, who used to call his own plays, and then his next sentence was something like "There still might be some younger guys out there that are coaching in the playoffs that we might want to talk to."

Yeah, Emery mentioned both STATS inc. and PFF as websites he uses often to give him an unbiased view about a player's performance. He said that he met with some of the programmers there that are responsible for putting all this information together. They explained and showed him how they go about viewing tape and how everything is graded out, so he knows exactly what's being evaluated.