Thread: Here's What MWill Got From the Bills.............

Originally Posted by Riczaj01

Zelezo, I agree. I'm not dogging Eli, he's a top 10 qb, maybe near top 5. But the WR's aren't elite, Nicks is the only great one. Their RB's aren't elite either, but as a combo they are more then capable of eating clock and sustaining drives; which allows that D to rest, and dictate to the other team how they have to play.

IMO you need a really solid OL, and truly dominant DL, really good DB's, and then an above average qb(top 15) and good 2-3WR's/Te's and RB/s and LB's. You cannot be below average at anything in this league anymore; it's to easy to exploit a weakness.

I see the Bears has having a few problems, mainly the OL is below average(even when playing it's best), the Wr's are below average(although Marshal probably ups that to aveage), the DL is not dominant; the other guys on the line never really consistantly took advantage of the double/triple teams that Pepper took on, and that speaks volumes. Our DB's are bad outside of Tillman. We do have great qb/rb play which does help hide a lot of issues w/the WR's and OL. IF Forte does sign and play this year, look for his yards to probably stay the same on less touches, and watch his TD's go up b/c teams will not be able to key on him, all b/c of Marshal. If do upgrade the OL at all, it will be even more drastic..

I think the fact that we fell apart after Cutler went down gives a misleading view of our play the last half of the year. With a better QB things wouldn't have looked quite as bad.

I'd agree that the Oline was below average as pass blockers but the run blocking was great. Even with as much upheaval as we had our RB's still averaged 4.5 ypc. Forte was sailing along at nearly 5.0 ypc before he was injured. You don't put up those kind of numbers behind a 100% crappy line. A first year LT, OG's playing OT and a RG and OC swapped around and all of these guys somewhat unfamiliar with one another playing in an offensive system that requires top notch pass protection. Shoot, quite a few lines would have struggled to pass block effectively for Martz. We need to upgrade but it's not necessary to replace the entire line.

I think we have an average bunch of WR's and the most glaring deficiency, the lack of a dominant #1 guy hurt everyone else. Players were being asked to execute stuff that wasn't playing to their best talents. Before Cutler went down Bennett was setting the place on fire. You can't blame him for Hanie's ineptitude. Knox was on his way to another 900 yard plus season before he was hurt running routes where he shouldn't. The guys a good long ball threat but not a guy you send over the middle on quick slants. He doesn't have the size for that.

Conte looked good for a rookie and Wright has talent but he's inconsistent. We need help at SS and at CB but the guys we have aren't worthless. Meriweather was worthless and so was Bowman and neither will return. So we got rid of the major problem guys and we'll upgrade. Same thing on the Dline. We badly need more outside pass rushing help which is why we need to draft it because we failed in our attempt to buy it. The inside guys did OK though. We got 13 sacks from the DT's this year and I can think of at least another half dozen where we had a guy dead in our sights but he scrambled away. The last time we got that many sacks from DT's Tommie Harris was in his prime.

We were just a few mil away from having the biggest and best off season we've ever had and probably the best in the entire NFL if we had been able to land MWill and Marshall. Each would have a huge impact on the defense and offense respectively. We only won half that battle though so we need to find a pass rusher in the draft. If we can do that and upgrade just a bit at some key spots I don't think we're all that far away from an NFCC Game again. We got there in 2010 with less talent than we'll have this year.