Bears Opt for Youth Over Experience in Secondary..................

Bears relying on youth in secondary


Brad Biggs, Tribune reporter 1:30 p.m. CDT, October 27, 2011


One of the obstacles to getting young players on the field can be veterans. From the sounds of things, that had at least something to do with the decision Thursday morning to release veteran safety Chris Harris.

The Chicago Bears are prepared to move forward with their third-round picks at the position -- Chris Conte from this year and Major Wright from a year ago.

“We’ve got guys that we drafted that we feel good about, young players,” secondary coach Jon Hoke said following a brief 45-minute practice. “We’re in a position to move forward.”

Obviously, the decision to let Harris go rises far above the level of a position coach, and Hoke was clear that he appreciated the time he spent with Harris in the last 1 1/2 seasons.

“Chris was an awesome player for us,” Hoke said. “I know from last season I learned a lot as a coach from him about the game.”

But Conte has impressed the coaches in starting the last two weeks and the Bears were pleased with Wright coming out of the Minnesota game before he injured his hip in practice last week. It was a minor injury and Wright practiced this week. He should be fully ready next week when the Bears return to work on Tuesday.

Hoke says he has no hesitation going with young players. Assuming Conte and Wright are in the lineup when the Bears play at Philadelphia Nov. 7, they’ll have six combined starts between the two of them when they’re asked to defend against a slippery deep threat like DeSean Jackson.

“We’ve started young players here before,” Hoke said. “We have no hesitation. We feel very comfortable with where we’re at with our young players and we feel good moving forward.”

It wouldn’t be a surprise if Brandon Meriweather, benched the last two weeks, re-enters the picture at some point. When? That’s hard to tell.

“He’s a good football player,” Hoke said. “He’s in the mix. He’s doing fine.”

Meriweather, signed to a $3.25 million, one-year contract, has arguably been a bigger disappointment than Harris when you match the contracts up side by side and use that as a gauge for expectations. But athletically Meriweather brings more to the position and with a little more time to settle into the scheme, the Bears are hopeful he can contribute.

For now, it looks like the plan will be to stay young and see what Conte and Wright can offer.

bmbiggs@tribune.com
Twitter @BradBiggs

Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune
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Something just doesn't seem Wright (right) about this. When have the Bears ever cut ties with a veteran player and team leader who comes cheap in favor of a younger but oft injured replacement who hasn't shown that he's any better at the position than the player they're letting go?

Major Wright has flashed some signs of becoming a good Safety but as often as not it's been when he was playing in tandem with Chris Harris. That won't be the case any longer. There's also the fact that he seems to be somewhat injury prone which then leaves the Bears with only Craig Steltz or Brandon Meriweather to cover for him when he goes down. We already know that covering for Wright is about all Steltz can cover and it seems Meriweather doesn't want to even pick his helmet up and cover. He'd rather use that as a battering ram.

I can see playing Conte at FS since he has a decided advantage of Harris there but supplanting Harris with Wright or one of the others seem strange for a team with playoff hopes who had major struggles at the Saftety spot before Harris came along to help repair them. We had a banner year in the secondary last year with Harris and Manning starting and Wright in reserve learning his roll which in the Bears defense is an important one. Now we have only the reserve left out of a Safety tandem who played at a very high level last season. Is anyone besides me a little nervous about this?

Truth be told I think this has a lot more to do with the fact that we're paying Meriweather big time bucks to sit on the bench right now and that makes Jerry Angelo look like and idiot for signing him. Of course we already know that Angelo is an idiot but I'm equally certain that he doesn't see it that way. To me it looks like Chris Harris showed him up asking for a trade he knew couldn't get done and JA didn't take kindly to that so I believe the decision to let Harris go came down from the front office and not the coaches den and all we're hearing is them parrot the company line about it.

Fire Jerry Angelo!

actually same situation happened to Mike Green if anyone remembers him

wasnt R W cut for clashing wirh lovie?

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Originally Posted by motownbear

actually same situation happened to Mike Green if anyone remembers him

wasnt R W cut for clashing wirh lovie?

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I do remember Mike Green and he was another end of the draft pick who made good. It seems to me like no matter how important the Safety positions are in this defense JA and Lovie always want low budget guys starting there and the reserves are typically minimum salary guys who fill in on ST. I think their player budget for those positions is around $1 mil per year give or take $500k. Harris would never have ended up a Bear again if he hadn't been willing to take a major hit on the $ 2 mil + he was due from the Panthers before he was traded.

I'm willing to bet the $3.5 mil they're paying Meriweather is the most they've ever paid a Safety with the possible exception of Mike Brown and Brown wasn't getting anymore than that as I remember. There's no doubt Meriweather has more speed than Harris but he lacks the discipline to be trusted at FS so how come they're so willing to pay him $3.5 mil to sit on the bench (he doesn't play ST either) but they can cut Harris who only makes $1.5 mil.

I still can't figure out why we ever signed the guy instead of keeping Manning. He's getting $1.5 mil per year more than we offered Manning and we'd be worlds better off right now if we still had Manning. There's a pattern here. Once a Safety comes off his rookie deal and is worth more than $1.0-$2.0 mil a year he's gone and that's why we draft them every year so we have a couple of cheap ones stewing in the pot. Meriweather's signing was a mistake just like OMG but Angelo won't allow Lovie to cut him since it would make him look like a fool.

The longer Angelo is left in charge the more f'd up that front office gets.

I think the whole thing with not investing big at s is it seems to be a high risk Injury position. Safeties seem to have shorter life spans then rb. So unless you got a reed or palomalu you will continue to see magical chairs there. Isn't manning out the year now? Remember how short parish career was. Donovan darius another that comes to mind.

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Originally Posted by motownbear

I think the whole thing with not investing big at s is it seems to be a high risk Injury position. Safeties seem to have shorter life spans then rb. So unless you got a reed or palomalu you will continue to see magical chairs there. Isn't manning out the year now? Remember how short parish career was. Donovan darius another that comes to mind.

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You may be right mo. I just posted a new thread titled "The Safety Burst" and it indicate we're not the only team with a revolving door at Safety. Indy and the Bucs are two more Cover-2 teams who had the same situation and surprisingly the Pats have as much or more turnover as we do. When you get a chance read that article I posted.