Soul

I'm perfectly comfortable with Iglesias/Bennett developing into the possession type guys, with Hester continuing as the deep threat. You add that to Olsen/Clark as TE targets, plus Forte catching more passes than your average RB out of the backfield? With a high-quality QB delivering the ball on every play??? That's a much better offense than we've seen in Chicago in a long, long time. Let a guy like Knox learn the ropes in '09, perhaps '10 too. He can be our deep threat to emerge as a compliment to Hester in a couple years. We'll be scoring points like Chicagoans haven't seen if all goes well. If you want to see Gilbert's potential, the draft guys have a video on him, too: http://draftguys.com/index.php/articles/dgtv_1/jarron_gilbert_video/ I found it amusing that they call him an ideal 3-4 end in the making :) Well, that didn't happen, but......we'll still take him to compete for a spot on Lovie's speed-first, gap control 4-3.

This is why so many people are frustrated over the NBA. The whole league is basically refs discretion. The rules are just there to make people think that something is actually being governed. But it isn't. The refs simply make an arbitrary desicion on foul calls, on every play.

No victory tonight. Sounds like a nothing kind of night *sigh*

Stop losing baseball games. Thanks.

And that skill/talent won't necessarily have to translate into a significantly improved pass rush. Sulley said the Bears addressed the pass rush problem. I don't think they've done much of anything to address it for this year. Wale/Brown/Anderson/Harris are going to have to play better to see an improve pass rush. we addressed the pass rush, i didn't say we completely fixed it or that it will be fixed immediately. what could we have done to fix it completely, really? i think it will be improved, and i'd rather see gilbert at one of the DE spots rather than backing up harris. the pick itself gives us a talented player that can get in the backfield, to me, that means we improved the pass rush. add that to melton, a guy with the type of measurables that lovie and marinelli drool over for better or for worse, and i think they've done enough in their minds to accomplish something. besides, our pass rush couldn't get much worse. It's going to take a stud pass rushing DE and those are hard to find.

And that skill/talent won't necessarily have to translate into a significantly improved pass rush. Sulley said the Bears addressed the pass rush problem. I don't think they've done much of anything to address it for this year. Wale/Brown/Anderson/Harris are going to have to play better to see an improve pass rush. I don't think they will. I'm still angry at Anderson for dropping off a cliff. You should just choose to be happy he had one fluke good year. :D) Yeah, probably right.

And that skill/talent won't necessarily have to translate into a significantly improved pass rush. Sulley said the Bears addressed the pass rush problem. I don't think they've done much of anything to address it for this year. Wale/Brown/Anderson/Harris are going to have to play better to see an improve pass rush. I don't think they will. I'm still angry at Anderson for dropping off a cliff.

I question how much they addressed it. They got another tackle who may be a poor man's Tommie Harris, but the Bears already have a poor man's Tommie Harris, Tommie Harris. The end is a total project who is very unlikely to be a significant force this year. If they are going to have improved pass rush, it's going to be with Marinelli getting more out of the 3 established ends. we'll see. i think gilbert will be more of a force this year than you do. it's not like he's this raw athlete that has never seen a football field before. as i said, he had 22 tackles for loss last year and as soul has suggested, he has very good technique, he's explosive and uses his arms well. in addition to having good technique, he's also a pretty strong guy in both his lower and upper body. That's nice, but he's still just a backup to Harris. He's the Tommy replacement plan, methinks. I think the Bears are realizing Tommie Harris won't be the player he once was. But if he has a valid backup who can do the things he does and do them well, it could work out to their benefit by keeping both guys rested, and very little dropoff in performance. I'm thinking more like '10 for Gilbert to be a more regular part of the rotation. '09 -- probably spot duty, as he learns. He's going to be fun to watch develop though. I view Melton as more of a project. Good measurables, but then why didn't it translate to production @ Texas? He probably needs a lot of work on his technique.

I still think QB is a huge need position for the Vikes.

The sooner we can rid ourselves of Garza, the better IMO.

I watched the final ticks from bed. Seriously man, I had to be at work at 6:45am this morning. Awesome game. Khabi was the Khabi of old last night. Just awesome. They outshot us by some insane margin, and we still win by 3 goals? Great game. Rubbed in their Canadian faces too. :yahoo:

I'm still OK with Dez, but not for much longer. I thought Davis was coming along nicely -- did that change? I was seriously thinking Davis could step in for Dez, starting perhaps later in the season in '09. He looked pretty good to me. From what I understand Louis is a potential future OL guy. Probably longer-term future though.

Yeah, I didn't see the trade at first, but when I heard about it thought that was huge for Seattle. They will probably not be all that special this year, but with 2 firsts next year they are in a great position to rebuild quickly. I really, really like the Curry pick for Seattle.

Before the draft, I was thinking we needed to address WR, and then defense. I was pretty happy to see that we did exactly that. I agree it would have been nice to grab another big body to develop for the OL, though it didn't surprise me that Angelo didn't do it given the work that's already been done.

The Bears "took a bunch of guys". Thanks for the report Peter! While another report said the Bears had the best offer out there. If I am reading his last two sentences right, I agree with him. Cutler defines this draft class. I just don't understand why these guys continue to disregard later-round talent when probably fully half the guys they write about didn't get picked high. You'd think they would learn. But no. The next time King writes an article that extolls the glories of Tom Brady, perhaps King's editor should remind him that he's writing about a scrub that nobody cared about on draft day.

Yes, I'm sure the Bears drafted him solely because of a youtube video, and did no other scouting or research. Don Banks apparently is a massive dumb ass. It's difficult to assume anything else about the guy when he writes something like that.

Speaking of Mort. It's become clearer and clearer that he is getting lapped by the younger guys in the business. He had nothing to add to the draft discussion. The draft isn't usually his strength, is it? He's normally more of a guy who uses his connections for roster moves during the season (scooping trades, signings, who's hurt, etc.). He's always been an integral part of ESPN's draft coverage. But he's been less and less notable for a couple years, in and out of the season. He's gotten several stories wrong and flat out missed some major ones. And this weekend he was a non-entity. I've been relying so much on NFL Network coverage that I hadn't even realized Mort had dropped off so much. I switched back and forth. I did notice that Mort was kind of missing in action. Gruden was making me laugh.

In my mind, the only reason this game even went to overtime is because of TT's stupid keeping of the damn ball instead of dishing it off to a better free throw shooter. The Celtics didn't have that game, at all. If they want to argue Ben Gordon's shot in the 1st OT, then fine. It should never have even gotten to that point, and they probably know that but just won't say it. TT's stupidity notwithstanding, what about Vinnie' terrible coaching? Everyone in the building knew the Celtics were going to run a play for Allen. So what happens? They get screened off(although I find it hard to believe Davis managed to screen two Bulls at a time without holding, he's big, but) and Allen got an open look. I knew that would happen once TT missed the free throw. But I was still screaming at the TV when they inbounded it and it didn't look like they were defending the perimeter all that closely.

In my mind, the only reason this game even went to overtime is because of TT's stupid keeping of the damn ball instead of dishing it off to a better free throw shooter. The Celtics didn't have that game, at all. If they want to argue Ben Gordon's shot in the 1st OT, then fine. It should never have even gotten to that point, and they probably know that but just won't say it. TT's stupidity notwithstanding, what about Vinnie' terrible coaching? Everyone in the building knew the Celtics were going to run a play for Allen. So what happens? They get screened off(although I find it hard to believe Davis managed to screen two Bulls at a time without holding, he's big, but) and Allen got an open look. I knew that would happen once TT missed the free throw. But I was still screaming at the TV when they inbounded it and it didn't look like they were defending the perimeter all that closely.

Haugh makes the claim that it was #49: But I've seen Haugh on some of the sports shows, and my take on him is that he's quite prone to overreaches and hyperbole in his opinions. So I don't necessarily believe he's getting it correct.

Were you really comfortable with what TT did there? I know I wasn't.

With a DUI on his record and some uneven play in college. Somebody compared him to Mike Brown, which is laughable. Mike Brown was a steady force at a big time college program, very smart and dependable. This guy is a wild card. If all goes well, he might come close to what Brown did in the NFL. But odds are he'll be lucky to be half the player Mike was for 1/3rd of the time he lasted. I didn't know about the DUI. The Bears' area scout says he was slowed by a groin injury last year, which he played through. So hopefully that accounts for some of the uneven play. Obviously he is a project at this point. I like some of the things I've seen, which is admittedly not much.

I know. I fear whenever Rondo gets the ball and drives. There appears to be nothing we can do to stop him. I'm sure Celtics fans are feeling much the same about Rose when he drives. When he pulled up for that jumper instead of driving, I felt relief :)

In my mind, the only reason this game even went to overtime is because of TT's stupid keeping of the damn ball instead of dishing it off to a better free throw shooter. The Celtics didn't have that game, at all. If they want to argue Ben Gordon's shot in the 1st OT, then fine. It should never have even gotten to that point, and they probably know that but just won't say it.

The Afalava pick is intriguing to me. Here's a guy who I didn't see on the sites I usually look at for prospects. Yet he's got good size for a safety, and ran a 4.47 which is decent speed for a SS. He's known as a big hitter. Sounds pretty much exactly like what you would want.