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I'm getting to that age where a lifetime warranty just doesn't mean as much to me anymore as an afternoon nap. 
Honey Badger Don't Care. Honey Badger Don't Give a Shit.
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I just think of how cool it would be to have us draft a couple of absolute stud interior linemen & add that to a solid LT free agent. I just don't see any down side to that. If by some chance some of our old crap players end up being studs (you know, like a miracle happens) then all the better. And hopefully Louis comes back from the walking wounded and stays healthy - and can get back to his previous level of play.
And I hope Webb's t-shirt sales are up this year too (didn't want to leave him out here) 
Trestman - Kromer - Tucker - DeCamillis
I'm looking forward to seeing these guys coach. Hope they're good.
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This thread started out about Justin Pugh and it might be worthwhile to comment that he would make a bad pick in the second round either.
I'm getting to that age where a lifetime warranty just doesn't mean as much to me anymore as an afternoon nap. Honey Badger Don't Care. Honey Badger Don't Give a Shit.
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Soul, grading a position for an entire year, when the majority of the year was not played by the 2 I'm talking about is misguided at best, again stats can lie. The line played better at the end of the year then it had prior w/out question. Part of that was the removal of Rachal and Spencer.
I'm all for an upgrade at OL, it's the most important group on the field, but there are other issues on this team besides it. This is not a team that is a LT,C, RG, LG away from a SB....and there is no need to grab in the first two rounds a C/LG when there are others that can handle LG currently on the roster.
Regardless if BU comes back, MLB is a need, TE is a need(even if you do grab a FA), and G's can be found in the middle rounds far easier then most positions(see the NO OL again). It's a myopic thought process to think that C/G or vice versa in the 1st 2 rounds is somehow going to fix all issues on this team when there are other definate needs, and an overall depth issue on this team that needs addressed also.
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Originally Posted by
Riczaj01 
Soul, grading a position for an entire year, when the majority of the year was not played by the 2 I'm talking about is misguided at best, again stats can lie. The line played better at the end of the year then it had prior w/out question. Part of that was the removal of Rachal and Spencer.
I'm all for an upgrade at OL, it's the most important group on the field, but there are other issues on this team besides it. This is not a team that is a LT,C, RG, LG away from a SB....and there is no need to grab in the first two rounds a C/LG when there are others that can handle LG currently on the roster.
Regardless if BU comes back, MLB is a need, TE is a need(even if you do grab a FA), and G's can be found in the middle rounds far easier then most positions(see the NO OL again). It's a myopic thought process to think that C/G or vice versa in the 1st 2 rounds is somehow going to fix all issues on this team when there are other definate needs, and an overall depth issue on this team that needs addressed also.
Ric, I would respectfully disagree with you on this one. Here's two important failures by the oline, that was still persistent at the end of the year:
1. We still had to max protect to the point we had a dysfunctional offense. It was crippling to have to rob skill positions to use them as blockers. This was not just a problem with our tackles. Our interior linemen were allowing the pocket to disappear and Cutler was getting flushed out. He sure couldn't step up to deliver passes as he should have (and part of the reason he was throwing passes from bad form positions......he was often running for his life). Max protection did buy him more time, but we don't want to go into 2013 max protecting like we did all last year.
2. We still could not run well between the tackles due to the blocking failure of our interior linemen. It was a drive killer, and we were forced to dumb down our play calling because we could not run well on these plays. It hurt our offense.
There were other problems too, but these two were really hurting us badly all season long. This is why I believe we need a serious upgrade with our interior linemen. Louis may or may not be able to play at his former level after this injury. Certainly, like Urlacher and Carimi, last year, he's not going to be 100% at the beginning of the year. Garza is done. He may play this year, but he is killing us at center - both in run blocking and pass protection. Brown looked like what he is - a raw player who may someday be a solid OL guy, but like Webb, he's a work in progress (and behind Webb in development at this point). E.Will must be pretty bad if he still can't crack the starting lineup (over our really crappy starters) after years of development.
I mean, what do you do with all of that? Hope that players with "potential" will get better in this off season? That's pretty much what we've been doing for years with the oline. We hope something magical happens, but "potential" often doesn't pan out. We've seen that repeated countless times during the Jerry Angelo & Lovie Smith era. It's just blind hope by the fans.
If we continue to repeat the same failed strategies, personnel-wise, then we will probably see failed results. Again.
I am so tired of looking up at the backsides of Green Bay and in the past two years the Vikings (and Detroit the year before) as we've sunk to 3rd place in the NFC-N. No playoffs. And it is so disheartening to me, to see the same failures repeated year-after-year-after-year.
Let's finally fix the oline right. Invest some top quality personnel resources into that oline. Watch us be a playoff team again, once we do that. It doesn't mean we have to go crazy in the draft. But I don't think it's crazy to get that interior line rebuilt. If some of our "potential" players DO develop, then all the better. We'll just enter the season with a player or two more depth. High quality depth.
To me, selfishly, this is what I want to see, over any other player position upgrade. Don't totally ignore our other needs. But they are not on the same priority plane as fixing the oline. But that's just me.
Last edited by JustAnotherBearsFan99; 02-16-2013 at 09:05 AM.
Trestman - Kromer - Tucker - DeCamillis
I'm looking forward to seeing these guys coach. Hope they're good.
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Originally Posted by
Riczaj01 I think it is extremely far fetched when you need a MLB, TE, at minimum that are going to play substantial time/and or start(MLB might be starting if BU isn't here). I think people are looking at how the OL was for most the year and not how they were at the end. They looked solid at the end of the year, still need help, still need a FA LT and a C, but it wasn't like they needed a complete overhaul like they looked like most of the year.
C
There is depth everywhere in the draft, but some positions are more likely to be deeper then others, and G is one of deeper ones, not only do you have a lot of G's, but also C's/T's that aren't good enough to play those positions can be drafted for G. Soul pointed out that the majority of the NO's OL were mid rounders, not day 1 guys. Good coaching/scheme can do wonders for players and I think you'll find that will be the case next year. Trestman is far more WCO then anything else and that alone will be a huge help to the OL.
We don't need to draft a starting TE, Ric. That's far less important than drafting starting OLs right now. ERod is going to be made more active in the receiving game and we will sign a vet TE in FA as well. TE is a position that doesn't command huge FA contracts so it makes sense to sign an established vet with tread on the tires who can contribute right away. The highest picked TE in last years draft (Fleenor) didn't do much at all his rookie year so I wouldn't be in favor of drafting a developmental guy until the back half. Spaeth as the blocker, ERod + vet FA as the route runners. That's all we need.
As far as LB goes, I'm pretty damn sure Urlacher is coming back for 1-2 more years. I'm also pretty sure that Emery will keep either Roach or Hayes around too (neither of them are that expensive). We also have the possibility that Shea may be gradually transitioned over to a LB role from being a pure 4-3 DE. So we aren't as desperate as some may think. I'd like to find a SLB/MLB in rounds 2-4 (there's that 3rd round trade down pickup coming up again) to start grooming but it isn't necessarily vital that he be an immediate starter IMO.
The OL is far from "solid" just because we finished the year defeating 2 of the most hapless teams in the NFC. We have been over this before. There isn't a single position of the 5 on the OL that doesn't have major question marks and/or a need for new blood.
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Ric I'm only saying that LG was the lowest graded position on the entire line last year no matter who was playing there. It made no difference. Spencer actually graded out higher than Rachal if you can believe that and probably why they benched him again and Brown didn't grade out higher than either but as a rookie I wouldn't have expected him to.
Carimi pretty much sucked last year but even his grades in the run game pushed him higher than any of those guys playing LG. Tice had a decent LG in CWill but he never liked the guy and IMHO he set him up to fail just about every year he coached for us.
Not only did moving CWill to LT to compete with Webb do no good as far as LT was concerned but it caused a regression in the play at LG. Carimi isn't an OG and he shouldn't be played at OG right now or all you end up with is CWill v2.0. The man with no position. The kid graded out high for his run blocking at RT it was his awful pass blocking that knocked him down. He could be a top notch RT and at best probably a serviceable OG so let him play where he's built to play. He's a tough kid and good football player but putting him at OG is what you do if you want to try to salvage something out of him. It's not time for that yet.
Brown was a LT in college and he's got the arm length and athletic ability to possibly play LT but he may also be able to play LG maybe. It's a little to early to tell but here's my point. We're trying to upgrade this line were we can as best we can given the opportunities at hand. Brown was an UDFA OT from a small school who at best rated a mid round pick last year but fell because he tested positive for weed. He played LT in college and now we may be trying to teach him a new position he's never played before even at the college level.
As an upgrade how in the blue hell does he trump and All American from a major college program who plays LG and has played LG in college and is one of the top 20 ranked players overall in this draft? It doesn't and no amount of rationalization is gonna change those facts. Jonathan Cooper or Chance Warmack are immediate upgrades at LT when all you have in Brown is a guy not all that dissimilar from Webb. A guy with athleticism and potential just not as big.
We can probably live with Garza at OC for another year if we have to and surrounding him with better talent can only help but at the bottom line Garza was not the worst OC in the NFL last year but all of our LGs were. You and others may see this differently but this is what I saw and this is how they graded out.
I'm getting to that age where a lifetime warranty just doesn't mean as much to me anymore as an afternoon nap. Honey Badger Don't Care. Honey Badger Don't Give a Shit.
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Originally Posted by
Riczaj01 Soul, grading a position for an entire year, when the majority of the year was not played by the 2 I'm talking about is misguided at best, again stats can lie. The line played better at the end of the year then it had prior w/out question. Part of that was the removal of Rachal and Spencer.
I'm all for an upgrade at OL, it's the most important group on the field, but there are other issues on this team besides it. This is not a team that is a LT,C, RG, LG away from a SB....and there is no need to grab in the first two rounds a C/LG when there are others that can handle LG currently on the roster.
Regardless if BU comes back, MLB is a need, TE is a need(even if you do grab a FA), and G's can be found in the middle rounds far easier then most positions(see the NO OL again). It's a myopic thought process to think that C/G or vice versa in the 1st 2 rounds is somehow going to fix all issues on this team when there are other definate needs, and an overall depth issue on this team that needs addressed also.
Now I'll address this part. Yep we have a need to replace Urlacher and if the best guy on the board at #20 is a MLB then we may take him but then you may as well kiss Urlacher goodbye now unless the new kid on the block can start at SLB and I wouldn't count on that being guaranteed. Emery isn't gonna spend a #20 pick on a guy who's gonna sit when he can fill that pick with a starter somewhere else. I'd bet my bankroll on that.
TE isn't a high pick need because we should be able to fill that in FA. TEs are not high dollar guys so you don't gain as much drafting one as you do when you take a position where top tier vets are getting $7-$10 mil per year. We have Spaeth who's one of the better blocking TEs, we drafted ERod last year as a move TE but Tice played him at FB and what we need is the guy who can fit between those two. A guy like Des Clark used to be. A guy who can catch as well as line up and block.
If you read some of Kromer's comments about the offense then you'd find that he prefers a true FB not the kind of guy ERod is. So Davis isn't a fit and unless Kyle Adams can turn himself into a FB he's probably gone too. We'll carry three TE's this year and all we'll need from FA or the draft is one. Get the right guy in FA and you have no need to draft one this year too.
It's not myopic when you observe that many of the problems your offense is having are based on poor line play and you really have very few interior lineman of any kind right now to even fill those spots. Right now the only interior lineman under contract who have actually played for us are Garza, EWill and Brown. That's it! So where are you gonna get more? Vets FAs, draftees, re-sign the bums you had last year?
At the risk of offending you to once again claim that we need to pay more attention to two or our more marginal needs than the core needs tells me you're short on missing the big picture. We have a great defense with or without Urlacher. I just think that it will be a better defense with him still in it but if we had to play another we'd adapt. Any rookie TE on the Bears playing with Marshall, Jeffery, Bennett and Forte is gonna be lucky to catch 50 balls next year and he'll share time with two other TEs and a FB. You want to spend a first round #20 pick on that?? Besides both these top TEs are Greg Olsen v2.0 and not what Kromer said he was looking for out of a TE.
If we drafted Warmack or Cooper or even Jones barring injury those guys are gonna play very down this year and any of them even as a rookie would be a significant upgrade over who we have playing there now. Yes you can find OG in the mid rounds but not like these two. You know what I find puzzling. It's how short a memory some guys have. I'm the one who should be losing mine.
We still see daily gripes about passing on DeCastro last year to take McClellin even though DeCastro got hurt and didn't play and McClellin proved to be an adapt playmaker who did just what we expected of him. He pressured the passer and he made plays in the backfield. I think we came out on top there. Now this year we may have a shot at not one but two OGs of a very similar caliber but you want to pass on them for MLBs who are reaches for us because they don't have the same type of skills we look for in a LB and TEs who catch but can't block like one we just traded away.
Damned if I can see the sense of that.
I'm getting to that age where a lifetime warranty just doesn't mean as much to me anymore as an afternoon nap. Honey Badger Don't Care. Honey Badger Don't Give a Shit.
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High Fives / Like - 1 BEAR DOWN!, 0 Dislikes
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Originally Posted by
soulman Now I'll address this part. Yep we have a need to replace Urlacher and if the best guy on the board at #20 is a MLB then we may take him but then you may as well kiss Urlacher goodbye now unless the new kid on the block can start at SLB and I wouldn't count on that being guaranteed. Emery isn't gonna spend a #20 pick on a guy who's gonna sit when he can fill that pick with a starter somewhere else. I'd bet my bankroll on that.
TE isn't a high pick need because we should be able to fill that in FA. TEs are not high dollar guys so you don't gain as much drafting one as you do when you take a position where top tier vets are getting $7-$10 mil per year. We have Spaeth who's one of the better blocking TEs, we drafted ERod last year as a move TE but Tice played him at FB and what we need is the guy who can fit between those two. A guy like Des Clark used to be. A guy who can catch as well as line up and block.
If you read some of Kromer's comments about the offense then you'd find that he prefers a true FB not the kind of guy ERod is. So Davis isn't a fit and unless Kyle Adams can turn himself into a FB he's probably gone too. We'll carry three TE's this year and all we'll need from FA or the draft is one. Get the right guy in FA and you have no need to draft one this year too.
It's not myopic when you observe that many of the problems your offense is having are based on poor line play and you really have very few interior lineman of any kind right now to even fill those spots. Right now the only interior lineman under contract who have actually played for us are Garza, EWill and Brown. That's it! So where are you gonna get more? Vets FAs, draftees, re-sign the bums you had last year?
At the risk of offending you to once again claim that we need to pay more attention to two or our more marginal needs than the core needs tells me you're short on missing the big picture. We have a great defense with or without Urlacher. I just think that it will be a better defense with him still in it but if we had to play another we'd adapt. Any rookie TE on the Bears playing with Marshall, Jeffery, Bennett and Forte is gonna be lucky to catch 50 balls next year and he'll share time with two other TEs and a FB. You want to spend a first round #20 pick on that?? Besides both these top TEs are Greg Olsen v2.0 and not what Kromer said he was looking for out of a TE.
If we drafted Warmack or Cooper or even Jones barring injury those guys are gonna play very down this year and any of them even as a rookie would be a significant upgrade over who we have playing there now. Yes you can find OG in the mid rounds but not like these two. You know what I find puzzling. It's how short a memory some guys have. I'm the one who should be losing mine.
We still see daily gripes about passing on DeCastro last year to take McClellin even though DeCastro got hurt and didn't play and McClellin proved to be an adapt playmaker who did just what we expected of him. He pressured the passer and he made plays in the backfield. I think we came out on top there. Now this year we may have a shot at not one but two OGs of a very similar caliber but you want to pass on them for MLBs who are reaches for us because they don't have the same type of skills we look for in a LB and TEs who catch but can't block like one we just traded away.
Damned if I can see the sense of that.
Great post soul and your right on the points I've mentioned a few times prior
I think what we're seeing here goes back to my "cycle of thought" post in another thread. If the draft was one week after the end of the season, I think it would be almost a concensus pick of a OL at 20.
What happens is some of us tend to forget just how bad they were and just how much it costed us, then they get awed by highlight tapes and want their shiney, sexy, new skill player. Fact is IOL at 20 isn't even a question, the only debatable thing would be of we should double dip in the 2nd (I say yes)
As you mentioned soul, TE can be addressed in FA, so that's out. Even if we got another Olsen, Hernandez type of guy he won't be a very focal part of the offense, more like an "oh shit handle" for cutler. Not a great return on investment for a 1st or 2nd pick.
Now the the MLB dream. Either in first or 2nd, the value of pick won't be equal to what we can upgrade the OL.
The fact of the matter is we have no functional LG and our C is bad with no backup. So by all means, we can do what we have the last 10 years and shore up our defense, add a backup mlb, and neglect our OL again. We can plug in the crap we've seen for the last 10 year and watch as we have another bottom 7 offense. Our opponents will recognize this, play cautiously on offense knowing 17 points with no turnovers will win the game and we can watch GB win the division again, and find a new team to root for in a Bearless playoff. Anyone denying that our OL had costed us the playoffs the last 2 years is delusional, and anyone valuing a backup middle linebacker over filling a void in the middle of our line, in my opinion, dosent understand the the core dynamics of the game.
Or maybe I'm the crazy one I don't know.
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High Fives / Like - 2 BEAR DOWN!, 0 Dislikes
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Originally Posted by
soulman
TE isn't a high pick need because we should be able to fill that in FA. TEs are not high dollar guys so you don't gain as much drafting one as you do when you take a position where top tier vets are getting $7-$10 mil per year.
Soul, that is a GREAT point.
Rock solid TE's are a bargain in FA. The 2013 contracts for some of the top TE's are pretty reasonable. Owen Daniels is going to make 4 mil this year. Celek and Olsen a bit over 3 mil. Heck, Antonio Gates was just making over 4 mil.
To me that is peanuts compared to some other skill positions. And every year there are solid TE's available in FA.
So, why roll the dice & blow a top draft pick on one, when we can buy a PROVEN one in FA? Great post Soul.
Last edited by JustAnotherBearsFan99; 02-16-2013 at 02:02 PM.
Trestman - Kromer - Tucker - DeCamillis
I'm looking forward to seeing these guys coach. Hope they're good.
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