Thread: Bears may give Rodriguez a look at tight end

Originally Posted by MPBears68

MM, couldn't agree with you more on paper. A lot of us here came into this season thinking "we finally have a top-10 potential, deep and balanced offense." After a promising opening week display against Indy, it hasn't happened. The O has been a disappointment...a huge one that is obvious all across the league (teams have been avoiding Hester and giving us short fields all year knowing our offense doesn't scare them all that much).

First Bennett gets hurt. Then he gets ignored when he's a far better receiver than DH or any TE we have.

Then Jeffery gets hurt just when he was starting to show he was the real deal as a rookie.

Forte and Bush have both been underutilized and mismanaged. Where have the RB screens and play actions been? Where has the "ground and pound" been? Why are we running empty backfield spreads on 3rd and 2?

Yes, the OL woes have played a role and injuries have really hurt the WR corps. But inept mismanagement by the coaching staff has greatly reduced the effectiveness of the "big 5" you identified.

The talent is there, but the management of that talent has not. Maybe Tice can turn it around for the second half of the season. He is in his rookie year as a playcaller...

Signed,
The eternal optimist.

Originally Posted by bearsinhouston

Bears may give Rodriguez a look at tight end

Short face --you left us hanging. Whose tight end are they giving him a look at?

You getting as bad as me houston.

Originally Posted by XxMidwayMonstersxX

Couple of random thoughts here:

1.) Kellen Davis Numbers:

SEASON	TEAM	GP	REC	TGTS	YDS	AVG	LNG	TD	FD	FUM	LST
2009	CHI	16	9	13	75	8.3	18	3	5	0	0
2010	CHI	16	1	3	19	19.0	19	1	1	0	0
2011	CHI	16	18	35	206	11.4	32	5	13	0	0
2012	CHI	9	11	26	150	13.6	25	2	8	1	1

Last year the guy was as solid as any non-star tight end in the league. If you project his utilization level up to that of a Rob Gronkowski circa 2011, then Davis' numbers for 2011 would have been as follows:

64 receptions for 732 yards, 18 TD's and 46 first downs.

We are basically saying "what would Kellen Davis's numbers look like if he had the same number of targets as Rob Gronkowski, given his current level of production?" Gronk had 124 targets in 2011, the math works like this:
18 / 35 = 51.4% completion rate, then --> 51.4% x 124 targets = 64 receptions, then --> 64 receptions x 11.4 yrd avg. =732. You do the same with TD's and FD's.

Those are some impressive F-ing numbers guys! Kellen Davis can play if we use him right. Maybe somebody needs to call Martz and see what the hell he was doing "correctly" to get that production out of Davis? Just a thought.

(Well he's not used like "Gronk" and never will be so all those pretty projections means doodly squat. He won't be thrown to 124 times in 16 games and he needs to catch more than one out of every two passes that come his way. Those are high percentage attempts. What Martz did, although not frequently enough, is exactly what you suggested. He was primarily a red zone target and even more specifically and end zone target which is what he's best at.)

2.) Next random thought is "This guy has had 1 turnover in his entire professional career!" Just one, and we are killing him over it. I know it was a critical mistake but you have to give some credit to Manning, he looks like he's been working out (muscle hamster) pretty hard and he put a hell of a hit on the ball. Watch this video, its crappy but you can clearly see that Davis turns around and immediately gets BLASTED by Manning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsWJAWsw9Zc

(I did cut him some slack for it and I also gave Manning credit just like Urlacher did but I didn't get ripped for it like he did thank God. It was his crappy play the rest of the game I have a problem with. There were many more transgressions than that one fumble)

Don't get me wrong, Davis needs to improve his catching. He's hauling in only 42% of passes thrown his way this year, piss poor IMHO. His blocking is mediocre as hell too, somebody needs to light a fire under his ass because we don't have anyone better than him on the squad this year.

3.) Who the hell said Davis was going to be great this year? It's not like Davis all of the sudden said "Hey I'm going to hype myself up! Over-promise and under-deliver baby!!! That's my motto, you know it."

Hell no, it was the coaches. Particularly it was Tice shooting his fat stupid mouth off again.

(Actually it was Lovie back last spring long before Tice was named OC and it came right after we out bid Dallas for him and gave him a $6mil two year deal. So far he's been no bargain and I think he should return about $2mil of salary and SB because that's about all he's been worth so far.)


4.) Final random thought is that we are loaded at the skill positions right now. When fully healthy, I would not trade our receiving core and RB's for any other team's receivers/Rb's. Marshal/Jeffery/Bennett/Forte/Bush is the best 5 man set up in the league IMO.

What I'm getting at here is, even IF we had the world's best TE, what makes you think we could use him? We are already loaded with talent and we can't get anyone going except B. Marshall. You really think a skilled TE is the linch-pin that's holding us back? I sure don't.

Now we're getting somewhere which is why any talk about using a 1st round pick on another TE makes no sense when we have more important needs elsewhere and we have five more of them signed already besides Davis. Let's see what they've got to offer before we go hire another one we misuse.

Up until this game I've pretty much defended Davis but after that performance he needs to sit and think about really working on his game. Right now he simply doesn't deserve a starting spot. Put him on the bench and see if that motivates him to win it back and if not let him go or better yet trade him after the season and move on. If Dallas really wants him we may get another 3rd round pick for him to replace the 2013 one we paid for Marshall.