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

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!

Originally Posted by motownbear

actually same situation happened to Mike Green if anyone remembers him

wasnt R W cut for clashing wirh lovie?

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.

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.

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.