Thread: Is Angelo Ready When the Lockout Ends?.......

Not sure I agree with a lot of what this guys says but then again I hardly agree with anything the Sun-Times has to say. I think most of their articles on the Bears are poorly researched, speculative and opiniated. Basically I think their columnists are lazy. But that aside there is some food for thought and I'm not gonna let my prejudice against these guys prevent me from reposting the article. I might earn a nobility award for this if we had one, LOL. j/k

First let me say that this guy must belong to 4th's I Hate Jerry Angelo Fan Club and Car Wash. It's either that or 4th wrote this under a psuedonym. What about it brother. The 10 scariest words a Bears fan could hear have just got to be one of his contributions, LOL.

And second I think this guy is Windy's brother or at the very least his second cousin. He'd rather see us blow off Adams and go for youth with Brandon Mebane or maybe Barry Colfield. Windy are you related to this guy? LOL

He also doesn't think much of Chris Williams which mean he could be related to about two dozen of you guys.

Seriously though he does offer some decent opinions and I think that all of us would have to admit that despite his more recent successes we all hold our collective breath everytime JA goes to the well. When he says we've got it handled those words don't exactly fill us with confidence.

Here's the way I see it. We have two major gaps to fill at OG and WR in that order. After that I'd like to see if we could get some help at CB. DT is the least of our worries so I'm not sure why this guy is concerned about it. The only way I go after Mebane or Colfield is if AA doesn't re-sign and the chances of that are mighty slim. He and Olin should be the first guys on the team who they stick a contract under their noses and a pen in their hands. After that get the LB's done and finally Manning and/or Graham if they haven't gotten a better deal.

The OG list should be deep if it's 5th year UFA and though I'd prefer Harvey Dahl there are several others who might do just as well. Moss is ok with me as a WR but I still wonder whether or not we're making a big mistake not getting a bigger target. Martz can compensate for that somewhat by throwing more to Olsen at both the TE and WR spots.

All things considered I think JA did a very nice job with the draft but that was only half the job this year. The other half is coming up and I'm gonna wait until it's over before rendering a final opinion and giving him a grade.

I'm a Jerry Angelo skeptic, and have been ever since those three lost seasons from 2007-09. I can't say with all certainty that he is terrible at drafting because he does very well in the later rounds, and this year, it appears that he did better the early rounds than he did in the latter ones. But the writer of this article is right to some extent in that this may well be the defining point, the water mark if you will, of Jerry Angelo as a general manager. He has a chance to put the Bears over the top and back into the race to compete for a Super Bowl championship like last year, or he will screw up and either sign no one or nobody of significance and therefore we will be left with huge cracks on the offensive line, the WR corp, and to a much lesser extent, the defensive line if that is a position the Bears are seriously looking at further upgrading.

C'mon, Jerry. Don't let us down like you have so many times before.

The Packers aren't gonna get any worse this year and the Lions will be better so we've got to keep pace in our own division to begin with to even have a chance at the ring. This is a pretty mature team so the gaps are pretty obvious. The need for inside offensive lineman sticks out like the beacon of a lighthouse as does the lack of depth at WR. After that he can look at spots that he could upgrade with younger players who may be ready for a breakout year and the UDFA rookies that are still unsigned.

For a change the balance of the offseason needs aren't all that difficult to see. Let's hope that he'll react as he has in the past. Line up the two or three top prospects on the list and have someone sitting on their doorstep with pen and contract in hand. The FA games are won within the first few hours after FA begins and he who snoozes loses.

I'm thinking that he learned his lessons from the OMG signing and the guarantees he put up for Manu and Taylor last year. I can't blame him completely for Taylor though. Taylor had a great history coming in and he fit. It wasn't JA's fault that Chester stepped on his dick once he got here. Manu was a complete waste though. Another one of Martz's boner requests that should never have been met.

If he hasn't learned from that he never will. When he spent top dollar and got Peppers he got even more than what he paid for. Pep was a major difference maker last year and worth more to the team than both Manu and Taylor put together. Between the two of them they cost about what Peppers did and didn't even make a whole player out of both of them. OMG played better than he did the year before but that's not saying much and we still overpaid for what we've gotten out of him.

It's not like we don't have the cap room to go first class again this year. The two greatest needs are obviously at OG and WR. With 4 years to FA it looks like the supply will be generous at both positions which means it's a buyers market. If JA can't fill those two spots with top tier guys who can take over at their respective positions and become immediate difference makers like Peppers did then he's not gonna get a high grade for this offseason from me or any vote of confidence going forward.

Frankly with around $37 mil to spend and the needs so obvious both for our own and other FA's I don't see how he could mess this one up. Keeping AA and Olin should be a no brainer and the unsigned LB's aren't going to attract more attention than we could probably give them. They're basically system level guys. Manning and Graham have already been given offers and if they better them and move on it's ok. We can't keep everyone happy and still manage the cap. There should be at least 4 top OG's to chose from and at least that many WR's so somewhere out there is the perfect guy looking for a chance to play with a top team with SB prospects.

So like I said, how can he mess up? Most of us could probably handle this FA period. Of course this is JA we're talking about, LOL.

My Bet:

We go after Mebane.....and Adams.

We need a OG, and will target one. Who is the big ??

We need to keep Corey Graham, and I think we will try to do so, but could get outbid.

We need another CB. There really isn't anyone who fits the system and available, so we may pass on this, but we will have to let Zack Bowman out of the doghouse. It's a contract year for him, so perhaps he will step up.

I don't really care much about the WR thing, and I don't like Santana Moss. I live near DC, and have seen him play lots, we don't want him, trust me.

Oh yeah, I forgot we need to sign Roach big time. I think we only make one or two FA signings from other teams. I'd prefer to keep our guys together (core one anyway).

Originally Posted by BearStuff

My Bet:

We go after Mebane.....and Adams.

We need a OG, and will target one. Who is the big ??

We need to keep Corey Graham, and I think we will try to do so, but could get outbid.

We need another CB. There really isn't anyone who fits the system and available, so we may pass on this, but we will have to let Zack Bowman out of the doghouse. It's a contract year for him, so perhaps he will step up.

I don't really care much about the WR thing, and I don't like Santana Moss. I live near DC, and have seen him play lots, we don't want him, trust me.

Originally Posted by BearStuff

Oh yeah, I forgot we need to sign Roach big time. I think we only make one or two FA signings from other teams. I'd prefer to keep our guys together (core one anyway).

If we don't go out and spend the money on a good vet WR then I'd say yes to picking up a younger NT who can pass rush like Mebane has proven he can do but I agree with you that we still keep AA.

My OG list would start with Harvey Dahl and I'd have Martz parked on his door step with a contract, pen, and a big bonus check the second after the doors for FA open. There may be better run blocking guards but none are as versatile in both run and pass blocking as he is and after all we do have Magic Martz as our OC.

If we could keep Corey Graham and give him his shot at CB again we'd kill two birds with one stone. We keep our best ST gunner and we keep CB depth. I can't figure it out. All he says is that he wants the opportunity to compete for a CB spot so why won't Lovie give it to him and keep the guy around? If it's something from the past he needs to get over it. Bowman needs to learn how to sit in a zone and tackle before Lovie will trust him again so why not give Graham a chance. He's the one Lovie needs to let out of the doghouse IMO.

Sign all the FA LB's including Pisa. When he's healthy he kicks ass. Roach is valuable because he can backup at MLB now that Hilly is gone and Iwuh has been a ST standout. The new guy Thomas may need a year on the practice squad before he learns the defense and since our LB's are very important to our overall defensive success I'd prefer not to lose anybody we have.

Now at WR it seems that we'd all prefer this size and speed of a guy like Sidney Rice but the scuttlebutt has us digging Moss instead because he's a Martz style guy. Personally I think we need to get away from Martz style guys (see thread on #86, Manu) but assuming we don't in this regard what is there about Moss you don't like my friend?