jersey cubs fan

There are 2 TE in the top 25 in receiving yards. This isn't all of a sudden a tight end league. Reggie Wayne had a horrible year and still outperformed all but 2 TE. Brent Celek was no beast, he was basically Dustin Keller, who is as replacable as they come. Jimmy Graham led his team in receiving, but that's largely because they have about 5 #2 receivers who take turns being feature fantasy guy of the week. Wes Welker still caught 30 more balls than Gronkowski despite his ridiculous year. Jason Witten led the Cowboys yards, largely because his team, head coach and QB are kind of a joke. This isn't a tight end league, it is a QB league. You win consistently with consistenly good QB play and those QBs can feature TE or not, they certainly don't need them to win.

No way. It's a 5 man grouping, Webb is still a mess and Garza is going to need to be replaced soon. Two spots might be fixed, but there are 3 that remain in flux.

It's nit-picky nonsense. The Bears didn't struggle because of some sort of snubbing of the tight end position. They struggled because the offensive line was terrible and they had no receivers.

the TE position just seems to be a poor reason to criticize martz. if you're going to criticize him, criticize him for something else. I just hate that we had to trade away a pretty good young TE that wanted to be here and had good chemistry with the QB so that we could utilize Martz for one more season. Now we don't have Martz and I'm sure one of the things the new OC is going to want is a pass catching TE. That was probably my biggest complaint, because I didn't think Martz was going to be back. Either he'd have a good year and be in-line for some college head coaching gig, or he'd have a bad year an be fired. I hated that Olsen deal.

I have been obsessed with the offensive line, but the Bears were really good last year with a terrible one.

I'm sure it did, but you are going to have a tough time running an NFL team for a decade without having multiple embarrassing situations pop up. I think the "stale" factor is real, plus the Hanie disaster. Hopefully somebody in charge sees a chance to win now with a franchise QB and still formidable defensive players.

oh jeez, are we going back to the days where everybody is going to obsess over the need for a tight end?

I agree with the first part of what you said, but I really don't see how you can say he couldn't win a Super Bowl. He built two NFCCG teams, once of which made the Super Bowl which they played close for the most part. I generally like the idea of a different direction, and I actually kind of like the idea of sticking with Lovie (for now) while going about that different direction, despite it being the sort of half assed change it is. What I'm mostly concerned with is their ability to find a better replacement. Ted Phillips is an accountant. He's basically in charge of hiring and firing. He went out and got the solid, but uninspiring hire of Angelo. But nobody in this organization strikes me as particularly bright, forward thinking or innovative.

Or: I want competent players on my side of the ball. No. I'm gone.

Looks like he resigned. resigned an extension?

Well on the bright side, Minnesota is maintaining their "Cleveland Indians in Major League" stance by promoting Rick Spielman to GM. He previously sucked in the Bears and Dolphins front offices before running the Vikings personel department in recent seasons.

As big of a deal as that is, I don't really see any sort of nationwide backlash against the Bears. Maybe the Bears did an internal investigation that found Angelo should have known more or something, but that incident seemed to be less of a story than the Tank Johnson or Cedric Benson stories. It just doesn't seem to me that the Bears have suffered from Hurd's arrest, yet. Although I could definitely see Virginia freaking out over it.

I don't have the exact number, but I'm pretty sure he isn't 50+ games over 500 as bears GM The wins look right, but the losses are way off. I've counted 95-73. It's 95-81 if I added up the records correctly. Hes only off by 40 losses. No big deal Yeah, 95-81 in the regular season, 3-4 in the playoffs during that period.

I agree with most of those, but I would argue that the Pujols signing was very Hendry-like. WHY DO PEOPLE PRETEND THAT HENDRY ALWAYS WENT AFTER HALL OF FAMERS? JEBUS H. TEBOW DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE ANY CLUE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE HENDRY ERA???????????????????????????????????

Because it would be Cutler's 5th offense in the last 6 years (Shanahan to McDaniels, to Turner to Martz). Plus, if the Bears don't make the playoffs next year, there's a possibility that the whole staff gets fired. That would mean a 6th OC in 7 years for Cutler. Cutler didn't play under McDaniels. Yes, but I'm sure he had the playbook and was learning the offense. I was thinking that, but didn't they never end up meeting? That relationship soured almost from day one.

If they let Lovie come back with some personel figure head at the helm this season, it's going to be a make or break year. He is only signed through 2013. I doubt they give him an extension if they aren't back in the playoffs, and teams generally fire coaches with one year left on the deal if they are making a move. They won't have him lame duck his way through 2013 and it would be stupid to let him completely off the hook and give him an extension today. He makes way too much money at this point to let him just mediocre his way into another extension.

As would I. Unfortunately most people out there available for hire are worse than Angelo. It's not the no-brainer that hiring Hendry's replacement was.

Chauncey Davis was selected in the fourth round of the 2005 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons and after spending six seasons with them, he was released on September 2, 2011. The Chicago Bears signed Davis on November 14, 2011.

Well, for one, it worked fine with Cutler and garbage linemen/receivers. But if Lovie is getting one year to make things right without a real outside replacement for Angelo, he doesn't have time to institute a new system. They'd be much better off improving the linemen and getting a wide receiver and trying to make another go with what they have. It was more bad than good. 2010 the offense was largely terrible. There was a decent stretch this season but it wasn't an elite unit by any means. If we're bringing in some new offensive talent, as we should, we might as well get a new OC if he'll be a better fit for Cutler. There will be a transition period but I don't see it as being tougher than Cutler continuing to play with incompetent boobs under the same system. I also don't see this as a one year stay of execution on Lovie. I think he's the guy unless we fall into multiple 5-11 type seasons. Not being elite doesn't mean they weren't good. They were good despite a garbage line and no receivers until Cutler got hurt and Martz had to use the incompetent piece of crap that Angelo forced into the system. As of now, there is no real GM. But the minute they hire one, Lovie's job is on the line. That would mean it is vital for Lovie to win in 2012, or else the pressure to hire a real GM will be huge.

Well, for one, it worked fine with Cutler and garbage linemen/receivers. But if Lovie is getting one year to make things right without a real outside replacement for Angelo, he doesn't have time to institute a new system. They'd be much better off improving the linemen and getting a wide receiver and trying to make another go with what they have.

I agree that he's not incompetenent, but he's not good either. He built a good team.

That's certainly another option under this scenario, but I think there's a lot to the "Jerry forced Martz to use Hanie" part of the storyline. Plus, Martz was never given a line or receiver group to work with. My guess is that is why Angelo is gone. If the internal feeling was that Martz failed to get the most out of what he had, my guess is he'd have been shown the door before Angelo.

Eh. Bell was alright. He fumbled 3 times, but he hadn't really carried the ball much in 3 years in the NFL. He wasn't used to the workload and fumbling issues are correctable. Barber is due 1.9Mil next year. That's money that can be used to upgrade various positions, or upgrade a position more. I agree with you. Unless they wind up dealing Forte, I'd rather pay him the franchise money and go with the cheaper Bell, whose issues can be worked on. You can't fix stupid and injury prone.

Top 5ish.

The QB coach. I don't get it either.