Thread: Bears ready to size up offensive tackles

Originally Posted by inchibearfan

I think with Reid as the new coach he wants to be able to select his own quarterback (either Smith or Barkley). That makes it the necessity to keep Albert at LT since they likely aren't going to find a LT in the 2nd round. Its not that I believe Smith or Barkley are going to be great, but the quarterback position puts them at the front of the draft. Who else is Reid going to go with at quarterback if he doesn't draft one, Cassel?

They could trade for Alex Smith.

Originally Posted by Henry Burris

What interior linemen are going to be available in FA? It would be ideal to get a LT frok there, but seeing how a Long or Albert are going to cause bidding wars, I think the best bet would be to get 2 FA interior linemen, and draft the LT.

Drafting a LT is conceding that Webb will be your starter this year. Where as you can get a potentially 10 year starter at 20 with jones Warmack or cooper

No LT at 20 will be better than what we have, I'm confident that we can land a LT in FA. I'm not sure bushrod or Albert will get anything over 8.4-9 a year and they have history with our staff.

In the event we miss on a LT I think we still go IOL in round 1 and grab a tackle with upside in 2 or 4

Originally Posted by soulman

It's highly unlikely we'd get starting LT as late as the #20 pick Henry. That's pushing hard to get on in FA is so important. A rookie may be no better and quite possibly even worse than Webb to begin with. It takes about three years to develop a good LT.

There's a good chance big time bidding wars may not even develop. I posted about an article Jack Bechta wrote in the NFP saying that fewer teams have the great amounts of excess cap space they did last year and the cap will rise only a few million. Teams won't be able to afford the multiple signings they did last year.

Another issues I though was interesting is that when Trestman took over as HC on Montreal he halved the number of sacks using exactly the same lineman as had played the year before. He just redesigned the blocking schemes to provide better protection. If he and Kromer can accomplish that here we may not be as bad off as we think.

allot of people here claim they trust emery and the new staff so much so I don't see why we can't get any starting caliber players in the draft. Just where kromer came from nicks and bushrod were 5 rounders and idk about the rest of that line. Would be interesting to see what trestman was working with while at the raiders. This isn't JA drafting oline so it can't get any worse lol

Originally Posted by Henry Burris

What interior linemen are going to be available in FA? It would be ideal to get a LT frok there, but seeing how a Long or Albert are going to cause bidding wars, I think the best bet would be to get 2 FA interior linemen, and draft the LT.

Who would you draft? Not likely anyone we could draft would beat Webb.