rawaction

All of those guys - with the possible exception of Tillman - are vanilla players rather than play-making / game-changing talents. The number of game-changing playmakers Jerry and Lovie have brought here can be calculated on one hand. That's the reason why the results have been vanilla, as I said. All those guys, other than Tillman and Manning were drafted in the 4th round or later. The Bears haven't had the quantity or quality in their early round picks due to trading down and just plain failure to draft well. If you draft the way the Bears have from the 4th round and on, diamonds in the rough, and other teams' castoffs and combine that with even normal early round success, then you have a very talented team. The Bears seem to have the hard part right. That's why this GM search is so important.

I don't think Lovie's system being "vanilla" is a bad thing. For the most part, he's been successful with it. He's definitely been successful with it given the level of talent he has had to deal with on the offensive side of the ball. I also don't think the Bears have been "vanilla" in talent evaluation. They've had vanilla results, but the Bears have actually been one of the handful of teams that uses their own scouts exclusively and they've had their share of successes from getting players late in the draft (Knox, Webb to some extent, Chris Harris), small school talents (Knox, Manning, Tillman), players they've developed with position changes (Melton, Louis), and even other teams castoffs who they get to fit in their scheme (Jennings, Okoye).

"Holding. Offense, number 63. Holding is when a player illegally grabs an opposing player and holds onto him impeding his progress on the field of play. This is, by rule, a 10 yard penalty. Also, by rule, this does not result in a loss of down. The offense gets to retain possession, but now they have an additional 10 yards they need to pick up from the original 10 yards they had 4 downs to pick up prior to the penalty. The only penalty that results in a loss of down is intentionally grounding. The rationale is that the QB is throwing the ball away to avoid a sack, therefore the play should be treated as if he took said sack and lost not only yardage but also a chance to pick up that yardage, also known as a down"

Damn, Hochili likes the sound of his own voice.

Tebow woulda won this game already.

Dungy was criticized by many for not being a good game coach. They derided his philosophy of "do what we do" and refusal to make adjustments especially in playoff games when other teams were throwing in new wrinkles. I'm not sure I completely buy it, but it's out there. I don't remember Dungy being criticized for timeout/challenge issues like Lovie is though. The timeout and challenge issues aren't that big of a deal. The timeouts being used early hasn't cost the Bears a game. The challenges only cost the Bears the Redskins game last year, and they still ended up with a home game for a chance to go to the Superbowl. Sure it's pretty bad to watch and see early timeouts each half and bad challenges, but that's way down on the list of the things coaches need to be able to do well. But anyway, those criticisms of Dungy are dead on. Both are big, "what you see is what you get" coaches. They aren't guys who are going to make in-game changes in game plan and philosophy. Both are strong believers in their philosophies and aren't big on changing it on the fly. Week-to-week, both can make and have made changes, but during the course of a game, not so much.

Lovie and Dungy are damn near identical as coaches. Neither is a rah-rah guy. Players coaches. Loyal to a fault. Lovie has taken Dungy's influenced and mirrored it as a coach. They are obviously not the same person, but are the same type of coach. I'm pretty sure anyone that has ever had anything to do with Angelo will be similar to Angelo. Hopefully, worst case is a better version of the same type of GM. But best case should be a young, bold, bright, up-and-comer with great football acumen.

I'm hoping Ross really wowed them in the interview and he comes out of nowhere to win the job ala Mike Tomlin about 5 years ago in Pittsburgh.

Derrick Rose season per game stats: 20.8 points, 3.5 rebs, 8.7 assists, 1 steal, 3.2 turnovers, 40% from field PG stats in games that Rose has missed: 24.3 points, 5 rebs, 7 assists, 2.3 steals, 2.3 turnovers, 45% from field. The obvious solution is to trade D Rose for Dwight Howard.

What makes you come to this conclusion? I will say that based on the teams he's been involved with its rather underwhelming but we don't know enough about him to assume what kind of draft picks he makes. The Chiefs have actually made quite a few good picks the last couple of seasons. He worked for Ruskell, who worked for Angelo. It's a lateral move. Status quo. It makes the Angelo firing pointless if Emery is the hire.

Yeah, I'm not digging this news. But to make lemonade.... Some Matt Trowbridge guy wrote this today. Also of note, Emery is currently the Chiefs college scouting director, and he served in the same capacity under Tim Ruskell in Atlanta.

Right, but if you think he could get 1/4, then something like 3/6-7 shouldn't make them flinch, and that would be around the midpoint. Exactly. The team that gets him is going to have to be willing to eat some money too. Nobody is going to keep him on their roster for 3 years. I don't think a team at 3/7 would look at it as eating 4.6 Mil. They'd look at it as giving Soriano 1 year for 7 Million. Certainly not outlandish for a team that is desperate for power and hopeful that Soriano turns it around somewhat.

Since Ditka left: 1993 Conway Wide Receiver Southern California 1994 11 Thierry Defensive end Alcorn State 1995 21 Salaam Half Back Colorado 1996 13 Walt Harris Defensive back Mississippi State 1997 — No Pick — — [t] 1998 5 Enis Half Back Penn State 1999 12 McNown Quarterback UCLA 2000 9 Urlacher Linebacker/Safety New Mexico 2001 8 Terrell Wide Receiver Michigan 2002 29 Colombo Offensive tackle Boston College 2003 14 Haynes Defensive end Penn State [v] 2003 22 Grossman Quarterback Florida [v] 2004 14 Tommie Harris Defensive tackle Oklahoma 2005 4 Benson Half Back Texas 2006 — No Pick — — [w] 2007 31 Olsen Tight End Miami 2008 14 Chris Williams Offensive tackle Vanderbilt 2009 — No Pick — — [x] 2010 — No Pick — — [x] 2011 29 Carimi Offensive tackle Wisconsin If you believe as I do that 1st Rnd picks (particualrly when taken in the first half of the round) should be true impact players who are with your franchise for 7-10 years, then we have done a pretty piss poor job based on that list. Of course two of those picks were turned into Jay Cutler, which is great....but the one in 1997 was turned into Rick Mirer....not so great. There are a couple that qualify as the worst, IMO: Thierry (Hatley) and Haynes (Angelo). Most disappointing to me would be Salaam (Hatley), Enis (Hatley) and Terrell (Angelo). Really can't afford to miss that much in the 1st round. Urlacher and Harris are the only true "successes" of that group.

Sounds like a pretty good starting point for negotiations. A difference of $8m? Yeah, it's a really good start. 3 years, 2.7 Mil seems insanely low for Soriano. I don't think 3 years, 10.8 Mil is too much to ask a team to pay for him. Granted, the years are clearly the bigger issue, but if he was a FA you wouldn't get Soriano for much less than 3.6Mil/year. Guessing a team will meet the Cubs somewhere in the middle. 3 years/$5-7Mil wouldn't be bad for a team to swallow.

He's also been a good WR since then. Bears haven't had a good WR since......

Obviously not the most recent but I'd like to get a Herschel Walker return for Forte :) Edit: I'd settle for a Ricky Williams like trade too Ricky was a decade ago. Marshawn Lynch was recently dealt for very little. Reggie Bush netted next to nothing. The Chargers tried to trade Turner but he left via free agency. I can't think of any meaningful RB trade in recent memory. Forte is better than Lynch, Bush, and Turner were at the times they were traded/attempted to be traded. But yeah, it's not happening.

eta: Kahlil Bell? I'd feel more comfortable with him if he didnt have a habit of fumbling so much. he was dogged by that in college, and it seems that hasnt changed Yes, but fumbling is correctable. And I think his fumbles stick out because they all occured within 3 quarters. Those are the only 3 fumbles he has though. RBs are a dime a dozen. I just think there are better uses of money than spending 8Mil on Forte, almost 2 Mil on Barber, and near 1Mil on Bell. Barber's money becomes more of a waste when you remember that he missed several games with injuries this year, missed several games due to injury in his career, and runs with a style conducive to causing injury.

I don't really care about the notion that he deserves it. It's a salary cap world and teams pay for the mistakes they make in handing out too much money for past performance. I don't care about the supposed lockerroom talk, that's Lovie's area and he handles it well. The Bears have had Briggs, Urlacher, Forte and others talking about holdouts and contracts for the better part of a decade and it's not the distraction people portray it as. And a franchise tag eats up cap space in one year, a longterm extension can easily eat up a lot more dead space in the 2 years it takes you to realize a guy has lost it and then cut him. Exactly. It sucks for Forte, and I love the guy....but he has every sign of flaming out during his next contract. Franchising him and letting him walk may be the best for the team and maybe for him. He'll earn more money in 1 year than he will in any other 1 year for the rest of his career. And he'll probably get more from another team than he would from the Bears.

Barber is making almost 2 Mil next year. I'd rather use that money elsewhere.

Franchise him first. Talk 4-5 year deal with him. Bears have enough cap space to franchise him and not be hampered by it. But I'd probably look at a RB as early as this year in the middle rounds. If nothing can be worked out with Forte, at least you have a potential replacement in house with a year under his belt. Plus, it also allows them to get rid of Marion Barber.

Appears unlikely, but if we hire Ruskell I am going to be pissed. Not particularly enamored of Emery either. Ross is still my fave based on some of the recent impact guys they have drafted, partuclarly in the later rounds (i.e., Ahmad Bradshaw). In general the Giants seem to understand the importance of having game-changing playmakers on both sides of the ball and they aren't afraid to use early picks to get them (Nicks one year, Pierre-Paul the next) even if they already have guys at the position. I like the approach. In spite of all of the injuries they have exprienced on the D-Line, defensive backfield, offensive backfield and at WR, they are often around at this time of year because of the high-quality depth at those positions. Exactly. And Ross is their director of college scouting, so the draft should be his strong suit. I did read though that he didn't participate in the 2007 draft since he had just gotten there. The Giants 1st round picks have all been hits recently, and I like their aggressiveness with drafting in the same ways you noted.

Wow. We suck now.

THE ASIK SHOW

I would have hated to lose Toub from the Bears but would have been very interested in seeing how he'd do as a head coach.