2009 Chicago Bears offseason

[Soul]

To me that's the factor that often gets underplayed with WRs. It's probably because there isn't a lot of solid statistical analysis that can be attached to a WR coming out of the combine to tell you how well he might catch the ball.

 

I can tell very easily how fast he's going to run though.

 

But I would most like to know first -- before anything else -- if he can catch the ball well.

 

I agree with your assessment of Olsen. I'm really, really excited to see what he does this year.

[Banedon]

Olsen has great hands and is both bigger and faster than Marshall, fwiw.

 

 

He's practically a wideout in a TE's body with his speed and receiving ability.

 

 

I believe Bennett to have pretty good hands and I think Hester's hands are underrated. He had a few big drops early in his career as a receiver and I think he also gets a bad rap because of the muffed punts now and then, but he should make enough plays to be a threat. I thought he caught the ball really well down the stretch last year.

 

The other guys (DA, Iglesias, Rideau, Knox) are said to have good hands but I've never seen them play.

 

Hester also has had to deal with a lot of balls that were thrown behind him, or underthrown that he had to fight for, which isn't really his game.

[David]

Seifert is as unbiased as it gets (possibly biased against Bears, if anything)...

 

Here's a good report from him...

 

Evening Bears update

August 10, 2009 8:39 PM

Posted by ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert

BOURBONNAIS, Ill. -- As move through training camp and into the regular season, it'll be incumbent on me to make sure we don't duplicate the fine Bears coverage we're now getting from Jeff Dickerson of ESPN Chicago. So make sure you check out his Monday practice notes, which leads off with the surprising ascent of rookie safety Al Afalava. It's impressive to see how much progress Afalava has made since missing most of the Bears' offseason program.

Here are a few other observations from Day 1 at Bears camp:

 

* I spent a decent amount of time watching pass rush/pass protection drills between the offensive and defensive lines. To little surprise, left tackle Orlando Pace was dominating. When he's healthy, no one can get around him. On the other side, I was also impressed with right tackle Chris Williams. He stopped Israel Idonije in his tracks and engulfed him on one play. Williams followed it up by doing the same to Mark Anderson on another. Last year's top draft choice looked quick and fundamentally sound to me.

* I won't pile on the Jay Cutler bandwagon -- too much. But I did see him throw at least one pass that makes you realize why the Bears paid so handsomely for him. During a team drill late in practice, receiver Devin Aromashodu had perhaps a quarter-step on cornerback Corey Graham as they sprinted down the right sideline. Cutler tossed the ball with perfect loft and distance, and Aromashodu caught it in full stride despite Graham being in pretty decent position. The pass was Exhibit A for how a really good quarterback can make receivers better. Cutler made the play work with only the slightest bit of separation.

* I got lost trying to keep up with the variations of defensive backs the Bears rotated in an out of the first team. With cornerbacks Charles Tillman (back) and Zack Bowman (hamstring) out, Trumaine McBride and Graham appeared to be rotating opposite Nate Vasher. Danieal Manning seemed to be the nickel back, when Afalava replaced him opposite Kevin Payne. I think. What that all means is the Bears secondary remains significantly unsettled with the first preseason game approaching.

[Keener98]

Love hearing that about Pace and Williams.

[David]

Olsen has great hands and is both bigger and faster than Marshall, fwiw.

 

 

He's practically a wideout in a TE's body with his speed and receiving ability.

 

 

I believe Bennett to have pretty good hands and I think Hester's hands are underrated. He had a few big drops early in his career as a receiver and I think he also gets a bad rap because of the muffed punts now and then, but he should make enough plays to be a threat. I thought he caught the ball really well down the stretch last year.

 

The other guys (DA, Iglesias, Rideau, Knox) are said to have good hands but I've never seen them play.

 

Hester also has had to deal with a lot of balls that were thrown behind him, or underthrown that he had to fight for, which isn't really his game.

 

 

Agreed

[Omar]

Every other Twitter update from ESPNChiBears ZachZaidman, and Chicagobearsdotcom is Olsen catching a Cutler pass, and Olsen making a great play.

[Soul]

Love hearing that about Pace and Williams.

 

Very awesome.

[cubweiser03]

Ive seen Knox's pre draft workout video and his hands looked really good. The guys on the video were raving about his fundamentals in catching the ball. Catching wont be his fatal flaw, learning the system, running routes is what he needs to work on. I too think Hesters hands are underrated, they arent awesome but they are good enough. I love Hesters double moves, off the charts quick and fast.

 

Ogun said Williams will be the most athletic RT he will face all year. I guess thats not really a suprise as that was his strength going into the draft but good to hear anyway.

[David]

http://www.chicagobears.com/team/depthchart.asp

[David]

http://www.nfl.com/videos/chicago-bears/09000d5d811d305e/All-Access-Greg-Olsen

[gflore34]

Seifert is as unbiased as it gets (possibly biased against Bears, if anything)...

 

Here's a good report from him...

 

Evening Bears update

August 10, 2009 8:39 PM

Posted by ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert

BOURBONNAIS, Ill. -- As move through training camp and into the regular season, it'll be incumbent on me to make sure we don't duplicate the fine Bears coverage we're now getting from Jeff Dickerson of ESPN Chicago. So make sure you check out his Monday practice notes, which leads off with the surprising ascent of rookie safety Al Afalava. It's impressive to see how much progress Afalava has made since missing most of the Bears' offseason program.

Here are a few other observations from Day 1 at Bears camp:

 

* I spent a decent amount of time watching pass rush/pass protection drills between the offensive and defensive lines. To little surprise, left tackle Orlando Pace was dominating. When he's healthy, no one can get around him. On the other side, I was also impressed with right tackle Chris Williams. He stopped Israel Idonije in his tracks and engulfed him on one play. Williams followed it up by doing the same to Mark Anderson on another. Last year's top draft choice looked quick and fundamentally sound to me.

* I won't pile on the Jay Cutler bandwagon -- too much. But I did see him throw at least one pass that makes you realize why the Bears paid so handsomely for him. During a team drill late in practice, receiver Devin Aromashodu had perhaps a quarter-step on cornerback Corey Graham as they sprinted down the right sideline. Cutler tossed the ball with perfect loft and distance, and Aromashodu caught it in full stride despite Graham being in pretty decent position. The pass was Exhibit A for how a really good quarterback can make receivers better. Cutler made the play work with only the slightest bit of separation.

* I got lost trying to keep up with the variations of defensive backs the Bears rotated in an out of the first team. With cornerbacks Charles Tillman (back) and Zack Bowman (hamstring) out, Trumaine McBride and Graham appeared to be rotating opposite Nate Vasher. Danieal Manning seemed to be the nickel back, when Afalava replaced him opposite Kevin Payne. I think. What that all means is the Bears secondary remains significantly unsettled with the first preseason game approaching.

 

If the Bears could somehow generate a consistent pass rush many of the concerns/problems with the secondary could disappear. But, as excited as I am about the very real prospect of the Bears having a competent offense, I'm not so about the DL. New coach or not, they couldn't get to the QB last year, now, they're year older and I don't see them getting to the QB.

[Banedon]

Harris practiced last night (although it was a no pad practice) and Zaidman was saying he looked fantastic. Was very quick, and moved well. Said he was doing everything you'd want to see a starting d-lineman do in this kind of practice.

 

Honestly, I'm more worried about the secondary than the d-line.

[Banedon]

Every other Twitter update from ESPNChiBears ZachZaidman, and Chicagobearsdotcom is Olsen catching a Cutler pass, and Olsen making a great play.

 

Yeah, there's a thread on DaBearz.com where they post all the tweets and news updates each day, but for last night's practice, this was what was posted....

 

Too many tweets to post, so let's just say Cutler and Olsen put on a show.

[Banedon]

For starters: Cutler started 7-on-7 drills completing 5 of 6 passes, including a deep one down the sideline to Earl Bennett. Cutler ended practice 6 of 8 running the two-minute drill out of the shotgun from his own 35. The drive ended with a 2-yard end-zone hookup with Greg Olsen on the fade, a nice one-handed catch.

 

Mr. Personality: As Olsen was surrounded by reporters after practice, Cutler casually walked by and said, "Two hands, two hands."

[David]

Count me as a cautious believer in Marinelli. There's a reason he has the reputation he does around the league as a positional coach. The line should be better. Just how much, we'll see... but if this offense is as good as I think it can be, the defense only needs to be pretty good...not great. If it's great (which certainly might be asking a lot at this point), then we're going to be close to unbeatable. At the very least, we're still incredibly strong and deep at LB. I like the talent on our d-line even if it didn't amount to as much as we would've liked last year... And if we wind up with Tillman and Bowman at CB, I'd feel pretty good about that.

 

Not much to say about our safeties other than I'm excited to see Afalava play in the preseason... but either way, as was mentioned, the line dictates how good this secondary will be.

 

This defense wasn't as bad as people will have you believe last year. It wasn't up to our standards, but it still was decent. Top 5 in yards/play. Just so happens we were involved in lots and lots of plays due, in part, to the fact that our offense couldn't stay on the field.

[Soul]

Cool. Hope that's all right. As for me, I'm really concerned about our defensive backfield. It's like a game of musical chairs back there right now.

[TysonCBulls423]

Isn't it ironic that the very first post in this thread predicted a 10 loss team :-))

[Banedon]

Isn't it ironic that the very first post in this thread predicted a 10 loss team :-))

 

It said "barring a very impressive offseason", which is quite frankly, exactly what we got. It wasn't perfect, but there was significant additions made.

 

EDIT: Actually, reading that post more, Jersey was dead on....

 

The line might be okay if the QB and receivers were better, the receivers might be okay with a great QB, the QB might be okay if the receivers could impact the game more themselves.

[rawaction]

Isn't it ironic that the very first post in this thread predicted a 10 loss team :-))

 

It did say "barring an impressive offseason". I'd say this was about as impressive as could possibly be expected.

 

EDIT: Actually, reading that post more, Jersey was dead on....

 

The line might be okay if the QB and receivers were better, the receivers might be okay with a great QB, the QB might be okay if the receivers could impact the game more themselves.

[SpongeWorthy]

I'm still remembering training camp in 2007 when every report was glowing, Rex was amazing, the offense was adding tons of new wrinkles, etc. I'm confident in Cutler but the last thing I want is the team believing its own press clippings.

[Banedon]

Sources: Vick's trip to Chicago for charity work, doesn't involve Bears

 

By Brad Biggson August 12, 2009 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 

BOURBONNAIS, Ill.--Multiple league sources say that Michael Vick came into Chicago's O'Hare International Airport Tuesday night but that has visit has nothing to do with the Bears.

Vick is believed to be in town to take part in some type of charity work related to the time he spent in federal prison for his role in a dog fighting ring.

 

Bears coach Lovie Smith said when camp opened that he believed strongly in Vick receiving a second chance in the NFL. The Bears made an effort to bring in a fourth quarterback already after Andrew Walter was released by the Oakland Raiders, but it doesn't look like Vick will be in play for the Bears. To get approval, the club would have to go through so many layers at Halas Hall, and nothing is in the works at this point.

[rawaction]

Isn't it ironic that the very first post in this thread predicted a 10 loss team :-))

 

It did say "barring an impressive offseason". I'd say this was about as impressive as could possibly be expected.

 

EDIT: Actually, reading that post more, Jersey was dead on....

 

The line might be okay if the QB and receivers were better, the receivers might be okay with a great QB, the QB might be okay if the receivers could impact the game more themselves.

 

What the hell? I didn't edit that.

[Soul]

I'm still remembering training camp in 2007 when every report was glowing, Rex was amazing, the offense was adding tons of new wrinkles, etc. I'm confident in Cutler but the last thing I want is the team believing its own press clippings.

 

Yeah, everything's awesome when you're 0-0 like everyone else and you are ga-ga over the biggest acquisiton in decades.

 

But football isn't played with 1 guy, and there are significant enough injuries and question marks on this team that I am definitely not taking anything for granted.

[Omar]

Cutler says he will definitely make roster recommendations....Bears have never heard a QB talk that way in awhile. - David Haugh's Twitter.

[manbearcub]

but i heard he's not a leader....