Thread: Rachal feeling 'explosive' in bid to start for Bears

Originally Posted by Dagan81

All I know is that on the 49ers message board I went to one time (or at least it was something to do with San Francisco...I don't know), the people on it were essentially talking about Rachal as a "walking turnstile" for defensive linemen to run through him to get to the quarterback. If Webb remains at LT playing at the level he was at, which was lower than low, and we install Rachal who in San Francisco played at a very low level at LG, Mike Tice might as well pack up his office and leave Halas Hall because he will not have a job coaching the Bears after this year.

No Hooter's tonight?

What Rachal was in SF and what he may be here are two different things. He has a chance to resurrect his career and if not he's probably done in the NFL. Having back against the wall can be really motivating. Yeah he had a bad rap coming in the door and he maybe as useless here as he was there but he was worth a look.

Originally Posted by BigBadPapaBear

Lance louis is actually the best Guard on the entire roster.

I believe Tice himself graded out Cwill as the best guard. I think Louis is a close second and just as versatile as Cwill.

Originally Posted by soulman

No Hooter's tonight?

What Rachal was in SF and what he may be here are two different things. He has a chance to resurrect his career and if not he's probably done in the NFL. Having back against the wall can be really motivating. Yeah he had a bad rap coming in the door and he maybe as useless here as he was there but he was worth a look.

No Hooters, but I did go out with a gal last night. Needless to say, I spent more on the two of us than I should have, especially considering that she knocked down a couple of Painkillers and had two drinks before we had even gone out. Call me laid back, but someone needs to reel that girl in. For someone who is 30 years old and has a kid, she sure is irresponsible with her life, having just gotten fired by her previous employer because she stayed on her cell phone all day.

I'm not saying this guy can't perform better with some coaching, but we've had two separate offensive tackles who have so far been awful in OMG, who was cut, and Webb, who may be on his last legs as a LT, and unless Webb really makes strides this season, I just don't think that Tice's coaching has been all that good. Yeah, Tice installed a couple of chip blockers last year to help Webb out on the left side of the line, but the fact remains that this situation only presented itself as nothing more than a temporary solution at best; teams caught on to what we were doing, we had men out of place for a variety of reasons (specifically Lance Louis), and it just spelled out to be "bad news Bears" for us as a result.

That being said, I think our stat line for sacks given up this year will improve just by the scheme, but then again, how long will we be able to simply bandage up this glaring weakness that goes back to at least 2009?

Originally Posted by Dagan81

No Hooters, but I did go out with a gal last night. Needless to say, I spent more on the two of us than I should have, especially considering that she knocked down a couple of Painkillers and had two drinks before we had even gone out. Call me laid back, but someone needs to reel that girl in. For someone who is 30 years old and has a kid, she sure is irresponsible with her life, having just gotten fired by her previous employer because she stayed on her cell phone all day.

I'm not saying this guy can't perform better with some coaching, but we've had two separate offensive tackles who have so far been awful in OMG, who was cut, and Webb, who may be on his last legs as a LT, and unless Webb really makes strides this season, I just don't think that Tice's coaching has been all that good. Yeah, Tice installed a couple of chip blockers last year to help Webb out on the left side of the line, but the fact remains that this situation only presented itself as nothing more than a temporary solution at best; teams caught on to what we were doing, we had men out of place for a variety of reasons (specifically Lance Louis), and it just spelled out to be "bad news Bears" for us as a result.

That being said, I think our stat line for sacks given up this year will improve just by the scheme, but then again, how long will we be able to simply bandage up this glaring weakness that goes back to at least 2009?

Well if the guy doesn't improve over his play in SF he's not likely to make the team. Spencer did a fair job at RG last year in his first outing and at the very least he gonna need to play better than him. Both these guys are former high draft picks, Spencer a first and Rachal a high second, so at one point in their careers they showed some potential.

Now both of them stand a chance of losing their NFL career for good if they don't realize that potential. Both of these guys have a had their warning shots fired across their bows when they were demoted and then cut. The Bears may be the last stop along the line if they don't perform. That alone should make the competition fierce and both players emerge from it as better players. If not it's sayonara for one or the other.

Obviously, I am hoping that a change of scenery will help Rachal. But from the 49er board comments, they viewed him as badly as we viewed OMG. So can OMG go somewhere else and dominate? Sure. I guess the same can be said for Rachal. I think most of us view OMG's new fans as crazy to think he is going to dominate and probably the same can be said of 49er fans thoughts about our optimism on Rachal.

So far, I think the only "explosive" feelings Rachal has shown has been when sitting on the toilet, but I understand he is looking pretty good in OTA's. Still, alot of that is compared to rookies and there has been no real hitting.

I'm going to stay optimistic, but also realistic. With such negative comments on him, where there smoke, there is usually fire. So he probably was not a very good linemane in San Fran. Hopefully he is one of those guys that can make a change in scenery work for him. Then he can bring his explosive feelings out onto the field.

Perhaps the saving grace for Rachal is that JA didn't scout him or give him a giant contract like Ohmyfail.

I don't know that anyone expects him to dominate buy if he can come in and handle the starting role we could conceivably let Spencer go and recover some cap space.

When it comes to the offensive line, I couldn't give two shits about recovering cap space. Talk like this gets teams beat. We have, for years, underspent on the offensive line, and it's shown in the amount of pressures and sacks given up over the past several years. Instead of worrying about primadonna running backs who think their worth more than they actually are, why not spend that money on fixing the offensive line? At some point, we have to get rid of the failures like OMG (which, thankfully, we did) and Webb, and apparently this Rachal guy as well, and start building the foundation for a solid offensive line that will last this team several seasons.

Originally Posted by Dagan81

When it comes to the offensive line, I couldn't give two shits about recovering cap space. Talk like this gets teams beat. We have, for years, underspent on the offensive line, and it's shown in the amount of pressures and sacks given up over the past several years. Instead of worrying about primadonna running backs who think their worth more than they actually are, why not spend that money on fixing the offensive line? At some point, we have to get rid of the failures like OMG (which, thankfully, we did) and Webb, and apparently this Rachal guy as well, and start building the foundation for a solid offensive line that will last this team several seasons.

Dags my only point there was that if both players grade out equally as starters or especially if CWill returns to LG then Rachal has an advantage because he's significantly less expensive. You don't want a guy you're paying $3.5 mil to sitting on the bench. If Spencer doesn't win that spot outright I think they either need to renegotiate his deal or let him go.