Bears grumblings

Last week I made a post about possible moves and stuff that the Bears could do. Well, we're a week further along in the offseason, so why don't I reflect on what's going on with the Bears now. You care what I think, right? Right?!

First, the Bears slapped the big fat franchise tag on Lance Briggs, which we all knew they'd do. At least right away. They had a coaching extension that was their top priority to take care of, And then after that maybe they'd renegotiate some contracts.

Well, now Briggs is pissed off. He's got the franchise tag, so no teams can offer him a contract without giving up a first-round pick as compensation. Regardless of how good a player is, very few teams are going to give up a first round pick.

But, whatever. Briggs is seeing these contracts and I think he's getting pissed off because he knows the money is out there for him. He also is probably pretty concerned about the Bears opening up their checkbooks in order to give him the money he feels he deserves. And his agent is first-class prick Drew Rosenhaus. Rosenhaus has to be telling Briggs that he can get a deal better than Nate Clements (thanks for that one 49ers), because he totally should be able to.

So Briggs either wants the tag removed or he wants to be traded. There is no way I think the Bears do this. It's not their style to renegotiate contracts when they don't need to. And I'm not sure that the Bears have decided whether or not Briggs is in the long-term plans or not. He's doing a good job of making the decision easier though by being a jackass about the whole thing.

Listen, I like Lance Briggs. He was an absolute steal in the draft. While some times I personally feel like his tackling is questionable, his ability to be in the right place at the right time is pretty amazing.

Briggs says he loves Chicago the team, but not Chicago the management. So, basically, he loves the Bears, but hates the front office. Join the club Briggsy. But he's pretty much acting like a dick right now. He's in line for a huge raise because of the franchise tag, but he's too impatient to wait for it.

If the Bears don't give Briggs what he wants, the only reasonable thing I can see him doing is holding out. Because Rosenhaus will tell him to. Prick. If not, Briggs will play just as hard as always to make sure he gets the big payday (and next year he'd get even MORE money with how the market has ridiculously blown up this year). But I probably see the Bears just letting him complain, doing nothing about it, possibly while he holds out, then probably letting him walk next year. Briggs should just man up and play out his contract. Seriously, I'm pretty sick of the whining about it.

The Briggs news came right around the same time that I found out that the Bears had traded Thomas Jones and their 2nd round pick to the Jets for the Jets 2nd round pick. I was really excited when I saw "The Bears have agreed to trade Thomas Jones..." and then I was waiting for the player they were going to get back and I saw "and the 2nd round draft pick..." and then I saw the rest.

I do not know how to feel about this. Basically we get two picks close to each other, which we could possibly package and trade up (like 4 spots at most probably).

I think I'm disappointed with this, mainly because we're getting virtually nothing in return. Well, that's not true. But we're getting potential as opposed to impact. Why couldn't we get a DT, since we'll probably be losing at least one. And the Bears love depth. Also, I kind of look at this like Jerry Angelo is so confident in his ability to scout and recognize potential that he's confident he can get just as good of a player at 37 (I think that's the pick we get) as Thomas Jones, a former top 10 pick. Is it possible?

Well, as we all know, I personally felt that TJ was overrated. I don't think he did anything that Cedric Benson couldn't do. And now that Benson is the feature back, I think Benson will show that he can be just as good (or better) than TJ.

But let us also not forget that TJ's accomplishments in the past two years were a product of an absolutely amazing offensive line and an offense with a.) pretty incapable QB's for almost an entire season, b.) a QB who was very streaky, c.) a dedication to the running game. His yards/carry, while fairly solid at 4.1, is nothing that can't be achieved by most other capable RB's in the league. So the problem is just making sure that we have other capable RB's.

However, I am kind of disappointed that we couldn't trick people into thinking those stats were outstanding. I think that's why we didn't get more for Jones.

Ultimately, I'm ok with the trade, aside from being slightly disappointed. Assuming Benson can stay healthy, I expect him to be just as good as Jones. I also wouldn't be surprised if the Bears drafted a speed running back later, just sort of as a change of pace.

One final note: Lovie Smith said he didn't want to trade Thomas Jones. This is a firm reminder to Smith, following his contract extension, that while his opinion is possibly valued, he is not the GM of this team, and he will not be the decider in who stays and goes. I'm not sure how I feel about that. But I'm glad TJ is gone.

More profanity on TV this week involving a Saints game?

Hopefully most everyone has seen the picture of the lady in the shirt that said "Fuck da Eagles" on national television. That is, if no one saw it live. Which leads me to question whether or not Bears fans will try to sneak profanity onto the screen this week when the Bears play the Saints. Of course, it's not like that lady was trying to sneak anything onto the screen, aside from maybe her abdomen. We were watching the game, I was drunk, and it was like, uh did I just see that?

So anyways, I thought I would string together some of my thoughts on the Bears game. And, obviously, I'm way behind schedule since I didn't work yesterday and I'm too lazy to actually post things while at home. Well, in many cases at least. It gives me something to do at work.

Anyways, first things first, the correct Rex Grossman showed up on Sunday. And when I say correct, I mean for Bears fans. Fuck the Seahawks fans. That bomb he threw to Bernard Berrian was just immaculate. I almost cried tears of beautiful, beautiful joy when I saw that. Ok, who am I kidding, of course I cried.

And, again, Cedric Benson was underused. I'm not going to say that Thomas Jones did poorly, except there are absolutely a couple instances when he did. But Benson is just the better runner. And you see it time and time again, when each one gets in the open field. Thomas Jones is completely unable to make anyone miss. He also runs out of bounds. Meanwhile, Cedric Benson runs through guys. There were a couple different times that it took at least 3 guys to get him down. You will never see that from TJ.

The drops were big for the receivers. Specifically Muhammed's drop was the worst, because it took us out of range for everything. Then, coming back from that pick, we go absolutely nowhere. Which brings me to my next point:

Where the fuck did the playcalling go? It was absolute shit for most of the second half. It seemed like the entire game we were simply content to have any lead over the Seahawks. There was no urgency in playcalling to go up by any more points. I just can't understand how we seemed to score so easily on one drive, then have maybe 2 go for like 20 yards each until 3 consecutive shit-called plays. And how were we ok with going into OT without even taking a shot? The Seahawks had a terrible secondary and we did shit to expose it. It was amazing that in the OT we FINALLY chose to run a seam-route. And what about not letting Gould kick a 49 yard field go? If you're going to pooch it, you might as well just take the delay of game, put your punter in, and knock them inside the 10. The conservative playcalling is just so confusing when it shows up. You can play to not lose or you can play to win. Run up the score. Who cares.

And what about Maynard? His game was shitty. The best punt he had all day was a touchback. I'll take that back, I think his first punt was good too. The rest, though, were shit. Hester sucked (for the most part) too. He had the return called back, but other than that, there were the 3 or so kicks he muffed. That will need to change.

In addition, we also need to remember that Tillman should have been able to take the interception back for a TD. If he gets that pick, the game changes completely. Anyways, as it is, we won, and now we've got the Saints.

So what do we need to work on.

Special teams obviously. Gould was fine, but no one else was.

Pass coverage. There were too many times that the Seahawks just looked to move the ball effortlessly against our secondary. Luckily for us, if we could hold them to 3rd and short they couldn't do shit. The Saints are gonna come with 5-wide, multiple looks, it's going to be tough. We need to look at exactly what the Redskins did to beat them and copy it exactly.

Blitz pickups. Grossman needs to learn to hold onto the ball until he's ready to throw it. It flops out of his hands too often. But so many times the Seahawks brought Tatupu off the end right into Grossman's face and he had no time to get rid of the ball. Sidenote: How about that Benson block. If a linebacker goes high, you make him pay for it. It sucked to see him come down wrong, but still, that's what you get when you go high on Benson.

Running game. Seriously, this doesn't need much work. I suggest we make Benson #1, Peterson #2 (he's more explosive and probably just as slippery as TJ) and trade Jones. Ok, so that's not feasible right now, and probably won't ever happen, we at least need to make Benson #1.

Blitzing. Why do the Bears never blitz any more? I admit, when we had Tommie Harris and Tank on the line, we didn't really need to, but a lot of the time we don't get the pressure on the QB that we used to. And if blitzing can cause a QB to struggle (see: Grossman, Rex) why not do it? I loved seeing Urlacher come through and smoke Hasselbeck. Let's see it more often.

The Saints definitely scare me, because their offense is so potent. I just hope the style of play maintains at such a high level, and I'll definitely be more ok with a loss than if we get blown out. But to say that I'll be ok with a loss is probably a fat lie.

Uh, Bears, stop sucking

I didn't manage to watch the entire game yesterday, as I had to drive home to meet my parents for dinner. I watched the first half though, and then I listened to the rest in my car on the drive. So that was like 2 hours of football when I was expecting less than 90 minutes.

And I was not impressed. I mean, I started out impressed. And the game was 21-3 at halftime. I was fully prepared to enjoy listening to a rout in the second half until the game became so much of a blowout that I would just listen to my iPod.

Anyways, here are some problems that I have.

First, I have no idea what the situation will turn out to be with Tank Johnson. But we were already short with Tommie Harris out, so we'll be hurting for however long Tank is gone. And I appreciate Ian Scott and Alfonso Boone as much as any players who don't start at DT, but they didn't start for a reason. I'm assuming they're going to get less respect, which will lead to less of a pass rush as the guys on the outside get double teamed. So unless we come up with some creative blitzes, people are going to be able to take time and make passes.

Second, what is the deal with Ricky Manning? He got burnt twice. Of course, I didn't see the plays, so I don't know what the safety situation or anything like that was. But, come on. Burnt twice. That is unacceptable. We've got Vasher out, and Charles Tillman is playing pretty banged up. And Devin Hester is our 4th CB. If Manning can't cover, then we gave him all that money in the off-season for nothing.

Third, why is Thomas Jones still getting the bulk of the rushing? It has been statistically proven (I read somewhere that someone had crunched the numbers) and he is not, in fact, any better at picking up blitzes than Cedric Benson. Cedric Benson is a more aggressive runner, and he's a more punishing runner. Having him in early could help wear down a defense. And you never see Benson leaving his feet as he jumps backwards into a pile like you see from Thomas Jones. Keep that shit on the sideline. And, then yesterday we see Adrian Peterson perform. Maybe Thomas Jones isn't full-strength right now. But we have better options than a sore T.J.

Fourth, what's up Devin Hester? People are comparing you to the best returners in the history of the game, you need to hold on to the damn ball. Especially in crunch time. And crunch time is every single game we're not up by 40 points. I can see one fumble being an accident. Perhaps even two. But, come on, hold on to the damn ball. Look at what happened to Bobby Wade.

Along the same special teams lines, what about Brad Maynard? His best punts were early in the game, and the ones in crunch time sucked. I was not impressed.

Finally, I am extremely disappointed in the play-calling down the stretch. We get the ball with over a minute left and all of our time outs, and we just eat it? This after we have gone three and out twice due to conservative playcalling, meanwhile we can barely stop their offense. Their shitty shitty offense. So we eat it, and we get the ball in great position in OT. We run the ball twice, only to kick it on third down. True, the FG should have been made, but it wasn't. We could have, you know, tried to get a first down or something.

I think the defense will play much better, and there was absolutely no gameplan for Rattay coming in at QB. At least I wouldn't think so. And I assume that most of what happened yesterday can be corrected. And, I wouldn't think that the defense is something you need to worry about in the future. It was kind of a trap game yesterday.

Should it have even been close? No way in hell. But you know what? Nothing matters any more for a month. So let's get everybody healthy and then beat some ass in the playoffs. Besides, you know that the Bears should win that first game pretty easily, so the only real competition should be in the NFC Championship. Piece of cake.