WrigleyField 22

I am totally on board with Watkins in the draft... assuming that like 90% of that cap space Bears will have this offseason (plus cutting Peppers), goes toward the D. The other 10% goes to re-signing Cutler. I don't think you can pass up a talent like Watkins if we end up in a position to draft him, but I think you need more than FA to build up the D so it puts some pressure to find some mid round hits. There should be some good DL available though in the first and I don't ultimately think we'll be in a position to draft Watkins by combination of him shooting up boards and the Bears not finishing with a worse enough record. Even without Cutler, I'm a little more bullish on the Bears than finishing top 10 range.

Uh, Cutler?

I think it keeps guys interested deeper into the season. Also it gives some additional strategy of picking consistent week to week players.

I think it keeps guys interested deeper into the season. Also it gives some additional strategy of picking consistent week to week players.

Jay-Absolutely Garza- Maybe, but they kept Boggs to basically do nothing, so they must see something in him and he could be a replacement at cheap'" Slauson- As long as its teams friendly. Could get by with "another Slauson" next year if the price is too high Melton- I'm not even sure a prove it deal is worthwhile. As we hit the defense the question really becomes, is Tucker back and/or are we a 4-3 Cover 2 defense? Anderson- See above re: 4-3/cover 2, but he is a good LB, but LB is also the defensive position I least want to put money into DJ- I think you put it well. Peanut and Jennings- I don't even want to think about it, but I really want to keep Peanut and as he ages I have visions in my head of him making a Charles Woodson-like transition to a top notch safety in a few years. Wright- Even if we can do better in FA or draft, is he gonna get enough elsewhere that we couldn't bring him back as a 3rd safety? Despite his weaknesses I'm not totally buying into PF's ranking of him as the worst regular safety in football. A better pash rush would make our defensive backs looks much better. Without looking up the rest of the league's stats, we have to have the worst pass rush in the league, right?

Can we also talk about Treastman and his use of the end around? I'm astonished he keeps getting relatively strong results out of it (especially since its always to Jeffrey), when I feel like coordinators of old who used to try it always ended up in a 3 yard loss. What the heck is different?

Runningback injuries. Andre Brown gets hurt during my draft (okay he was my #5 RB. No big deal) Shane Vereen gets hurt week one (still my #4, big 3 intact) Reggie Bush hurt in week two and misses week 3. CJ Spiller gets hurt during the game week 4, puts up one point. Definitely contributes to his stupid shared workload and low carries going forward this season. Arian Foster gets hurt in the first quarter today. One point. I might be off a week or so on some of these, but mid-game injuries are the worst. And this week one of my backups only got 17 yards rushing, which would usually make me feel better, because hey, what else could I have done. Even if I knew Foster would exit with one point, what could I have done differently? Oh except he gets two stupid reception TDs so I'm just starting at a wasted 17 points from Jaquizs Rodgers stumbled into and 13 points from Zak Stacy, while my hobbled Big three RB give me 10 POINTS! Saving grace is the pitiful performance from my opponent and Andrew Luck this week.

I want to switch to the 3-4. It would extend Briggs' career, fit Greene better, and give Shea one last chance So what do the current Bears look like in a 3-4 Melton and Wotton at DE. Peppers and McClellin at OLB, with Peppers probably also going in at DE some. Bostic and Briggs in the middle. Might as well just let go of Anderson and Williams since their contracts are up . Paea is stuck not fitting really anywhere but could probably situationally play NT or DE depending on situation. Definitely need some additional OLB and a true NT. The good news is our offense doesn't stand to lose a lot next year with I believe Slauson and Garza being the only FA question marks, and the biggest missing piece probably being a speedy slot receiver, so you should really be able to commit some resources to revamping the D (even if we stay in a 4-3). Obvious you have to lock up Jay too but I'm taking that as a given. Paea should work as a 3-4 DE, rotating to NT when the NT needs a rest. I think you have to bring back one of the free agent LBs because one of the reasons you consider switching to the 3-4 is the depth at LB. But are any of them really OLB in the 3-4? Williams has 3-4 experience and I believe played inside when he did. Briggs, Bostic, Anderson and Greene all seem like ILB to me. Bostic and Greene are maybe athletic enough to get by on the outside, but aren't really prototypical 3-4 OLB. So I see a lot of 4-3 LB depth. As far as Tucker goes, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The big thing I liked about him was he talked about wanting to keep up the turnover creation, and thus far we've mostly lived up to it. His track record isn't great, but he also has never had great players really. He does have 3-4 experience too, so we could experiment with a mixed defense with him, and based on our personnel could probably handle it with just a couple additions. I'd give him another year with a couple new young faces to help the defense and evaluate again. If he doesn't improve the defense enough next year, I don't think you've lost a ton in that one year, as long as this off season you are putting the commitment into bringing in new players. Its a shame Marenelli didn't want to stick around, although maybe he saw the ship sinking and correctly jumped ship when he could.

I want to switch to the 3-4. It would extend Briggs' career, fit Greene better, and give Shea one last chance So what do the current Bears look like in a 3-4 Melton and Wotton at DE. Peppers and McClellin at OLB, with Peppers probably also going in at DE some. Bostic and Briggs in the middle. Might as well just let go of Anderson and Williams since their contracts are up . Paea is stuck not fitting really anywhere but could probably situationally play NT or DE depending on situation. Definitely need some additional OLB and a true NT. The good news is our offense doesn't stand to lose a lot next year with I believe Slauson and Garza being the only FA question marks, and the biggest missing piece probably being a speedy slot receiver, so you should really be able to commit some resources to revamping the D (even if we stay in a 4-3). Obvious you have to lock up Jay too but I'm taking that as a given.

Hey I don't like watching games with any other fans. I was in college for the Bears SB and had a SB party with my fraternity. And while there were no Indy fans, nothing was worse than those [expletive] smug Cleveland Brown fans (seriously Cleveland of all [expletive] places) trying to mask their own pitiful existence(cuz they're from [expletive] Cleveland) and sorrow over Ohio States sorry ass performance that year but railing against the large Bears contingency there.

I look at the Nets and don't see a team but a random collection of talent with a complete unknown at coach. They don't scare me, even if healthy. I mean the Bulls beat them and I'll take the addition of DRose over their additions. Actually no one in the NBA had a bigger offseason then the Bulls so bring it on NBA, all of you.

http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=chicagocubs&id=20375&city=chicago&src=desktop I don't think I've seen this posted yet. Talks about a big motivation for the Cubs manager search being able to communicate with Latin American players. Not sure I totally buy the motivation, but based on the candidates we're hearing, wouldn't be totally shocking. If it is true it screams Starlin Castro. That being said it's Jesse Rodgers and I know he isn't held in the highest esteem as far as info goes.

He has the smile of a QB All American and the eyes of Voldermort. Love it.

Debt servicing could technically be considered part of the budget and push the total higher. While I'm not sure that still would make the total expenditures higher, since revenue also is down, maybe as a ratio it's higher. None of us have ever seen a MLB budget from top to bottom and few of us would even be equipped to understand it fully, so I don't think you can really say horsepoop in response.

Pick two Alshon Jeffery @ Wash DeSean Jackson vs Dal Antonio Brown vs Bal Mike Wallace vs Buf

Sounds like another year to get a highly rated hitter at the top, either HD or College and a big HS arm at two. Presumably followed by a lot more arms.

I don't think they'll fool anyone as stars, but they seem more serviceable than that.

No but a few catchers making the list...

Well you included their best WR under "and co." So sure.

[expletive] maybe there is no such thing as 100% when coming back from a major injury and you have to ease back into it and extra time isn't going to make a difference.

Well we did have some AAA players but that was after the annual sell off and some injuries.

My idea of Baez busting is to bust his nut all over Cardinal pitching for the next decade+.

I dunno sounds redundant bro ... Love playing second fiddle to Mirotic

Because a draft isn't run by one man a few weeks leading up to the draft. It's a collaborative effort in which the GM is like director and starts as early as August of the year prior. I know all of our draft prep starts around the time of the combine but not an NFL scouting department. I just don't think you can discount the relatively short time frame Emery or must GMs have from the time of being hired to the draft with all the other aspects of running a team. Plus add in the fact if a GM uses a different scouting/grading/language system. Which Emery did/does and implemented after the first draft. So properly managing a draft is as much about your management of your team of employees as it is about scouting ability (not to discount scouting because it's still really important, especially being the guy at top with the final word). And anyone who claims to run the show alone is a lying blowhard, sucks at drafting, Bill Bellicheck, or some combination of the three. None of that excuses a horrible pick. This isn't rocket scientist. That same mistake can be made in year 4 as easily as year 1. I'm not interested in excusing the pick if you read my first post. No added weight or to later picks or anything. A failure in year one is the same as a failure in year four if I'm evaluating the job he has done 4 years from now. Just interested in projecting what to expect going forward. Early returns from year two are much better. Time may still show that to just be variance and luck, but I feel pretty good about everything I've ever read about Emery and how he evaluates talent and his background as scouting director. I think some people have a romanticized view of sports GMs as brilliant guys or duds who make or break teams, but the truth is the brilliant ones do a better job surrounding themselves with other talented people and evaluating their opinions alongside their own. To that point, I have to emphasize the shift in added scouts, promotions, and dismissals that occurred after his first draft, particularly the additions. There are resources going to scouting that either Angelo chose not to use, allocated the resources elsewhere (though I couldn't tell you where that could be) or wasn't able to convince the people with the money that it was important. Either way, Emery gets credit for bringing up our scouting department to the level that it was needed, which by many accounts was lacking behind many of the top NFL franchises. So that makes me feel much better about things going forward verse year one.

Because a draft isn't run by one man a few weeks leading up to the draft. It's a collaborative effort in which the GM is like director and starts as early as August of the year prior. I know all of our draft prep starts around the time of the combine but not an NFL scouting department. I just don't think you can discount the relatively short time frame Emery or must GMs have from the time of being hired to the draft with all the other aspects of running a team. Plus add in the fact if a GM uses a different scouting/grading/language system. Which Emery did/does and implemented after the first draft. So properly managing a draft is as much about your management of your team of employees as it is about scouting ability (not to discount scouting because it's still really important, especially being the guy at top with the final word). And anyone who claims to run the show alone is a lying blowhard, sucks at drafting, Bill Bellicheck, or some combination of the three.