Good post. When the Bears were good on defense, up until 2006, they were bringing in fresh faces from the draft consistently. Granted they kept trying, but failed miserably with Bazuin and Okwo. Also, Anderson regressing has hurt. I think it's much easier to bring in veteran offensive players than defensive players. Defensive players can easily step in and play right away, getting by on their god given ability. They also lose effectiveness as the age moreso than offensive players. So, I would rather draft a DL or a CB and put him in the rotation over drafting a WR, QB, or even an OL and throwing him to the wolves. How is Hester counted on this list? He was drafted as a DB/KR, you can't count him as offense. That year they went DB, DB, DT, LB, DE, RB, G. Then, in 2007, they went Olsen 1, at the end of the draft, but your arbitrary value system gives more emphasis to that pick, even though he was closer in numerical order to DManning than Chris Williams. Aside from that, they wasted their next three picks on reaches that didn't come close to fulfilling their value, Bazuin, Wolfe, Okwo. The only guy still around is the offensive player, but I don't think you can say they emphasized offense over defense in that draft. I don't think they have ignored defense, as much as they got cocky with their supposed ability to find gems there. They ignored the offensive line, but they've picked defensive players. They've just done a horrible job recently. The last three drafts they went heavy defense, mixed, and heavy offense. The free agent/trade aspect is meaningless, as they've had much more stability of players on defense and invested more money than most teams have done on defense during that time. They just kept their own because earlier in this regime they actually did a good job finding guys. I also think a portion of the problem is that after the Super Bowl run, Lovie and the coaches got more decision making power, and they were able to get guys they wanted.