Thread: So, is it: Bushrod - Draftee - Draftee - Louis - Webb?

Originally Posted by Grizzblue

I don't see why we wouldn't give Louis a one year cheap "prove yourself" deal

Why would we move on from him...as of now we have a old, bad center and no lg to speak of

So we would leave ourselves needing 2 gaurds and a center before TC?

Only way I see this is either we sign another g...or carimi moves to gaurd (hope not)

And with his release we are putting ourselves in a position to have to draft 2 maybe 3 IOL this year just to hedge our bets

Of course the dark horse is brown in this mix.....

Louis has to agree to the deal, and if there are other suitors w/more cap money, he's going to go there. It's not that the Bears don't want him, it's that he might be worth more to someone else.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

You understand. Most folks don't. They have very little understanding as to the complexities of an offensive line unit. These are VERY challenging & complex positions in football. That's one reason why getting a franchise LT is about as hard as getting a franchise QB. And the best ones make bigtime money.

There is a reason why the best OL are usually extremely intelligent too. It's not just 5 fat guys battling 5 DL's. My son was a LT. During his career he did play some guard too. But he told me it is a HUGE change from tackle to guard. It's not a situation where you just jamb these guys into slots interchangeably - and expect to see a seamless transition. It's a big change moving from one side of the OL to the other too. Also, playing in space as a tackle is different from playing guard.

Sure, you can swap players around and play them out of position. Mike Tice football. But don't expect the results to be much different from last season - or the year before that. You end up with a toilet full of floating turds. It stinks.

I wonder if Kromer will use the blocking sleds Tice brought in with him.

Ah, remember the good old days when everyone thought of Mike Tice as an offensive line coaching genius? Then he put together back to back seasons of offensive lines ranked in the 30's, and we saw through the BS.

Plenty of blame to go around, we didn't invest on enough day 1 and 2 OL picks and we didn't develop the ones we did (and made some bad top picks when we did)

But it was madness to move our line around like we did, no time to form any chemistry or consiststantly and it showed

It really fell apart after Kreutz declined and left, garza should have never moved to center and I've said that since they day he did

With this being said its time to build a solid unit via the draft, this one is deep and gives us a great chance to add 2 quality players and possible starters

And maybe we get very lucky with coop or Warmack falling to us, I'm not holding my breath but is certinatly possible

We will have at least one rookie starter, maybe two. Not ideal but we are paying for the incompentence of the previous regime when it came to our oline. We need to really start to build a solid unit for the future

Bushrod is a good start but the interior is still a disaster that needs immeadiate and immense attention.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

It wasn't Tice's fault. He did all of the right things.

1. Start with crap for players.
2. Move your players around a lot to new positions.
3. Be absolutely certain to play NFL players out of position (the ole' 'keep 'em guessing' thing).
4. Use ample pixie dust to sprinkle on the turds & they will turn out to be fine offensive linemen.
5. Be sure to draft busts. That always helps.

We now have 1 decent guy for the OL this year - Bushrod. Beyond that, we have a bunch of Tice's "floaters" that we HOPE will turn into fantastic offensive lineman. I love it. It's just what Mike Tice would do (and Lovie and Angelo).

You forgot the some steps of Tice's wisdom.

1.1 Complain about lack of blocking sleds to media. Purchase blocking sleds.
1.2 Remove box step from linemen. Install all important forward step in its place..

And of course :

6. Wait for offensive line to gel into a cohesive unit.
7. Add nothing and continue to wait for gelling to occur.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

Competition would be a good thing for these two. And I think we end up with a solid swing tackle afterwards too. At Least I'm hoping the odd man out ends up a tackle and not a guard. Carimi doesn't seem to be anything more than an afterthought guard. I'm still hoping he can be a solid tackle once he's healthy.

Let's have guards playing the guard positions.

I have to totally agree with you, and I've been screaming for BIG G's for years! I hate having flunky T's be my G's. However, I grow very intrigued by DJ Fluker. A RT, who I think could make a great G. He's had some problems in pass rush at times, but it's said that, in the run game, once he get's his hands on a DT, they're done. I read some stuff that say he's an extreme road grater in the run game. He's 6'6" and 335lbs.

I also really think Kromer LOVES big G's. Moving to G could actually really help Fluker, and he's much bigger then Warmack, who I LOVE. I like Cooper, he's just to small for me, and I think Kromer too. I also have become interested in Travis Fredrick at C. He's supposed to have poor footwork and not real good in space, but he's another tough road grater. I want a huge OL, myself. So right now, I'm obsessing with an OL like this going into next season:

Bushrod - Fluker - Fredrick - Garza/Carimi/Louis - Webb

Originally Posted by Grizzblue

Plenty of blame to go around, we didn't invest on enough day 1 and 2 OL picks and we didn't develop the ones we did (and made some bad top picks when we did)

But it was madness to move our line around like we did, no time to form any chemistry or consiststantly and it showed

It really fell apart after Kreutz declined and left, garza should have never moved to center and I've said that since they day he did

With this being said its time to build a solid unit via the draft, this one is deep and gives us a great chance to add 2 quality players and possible starters

And maybe we get very lucky with coop or Warmack falling to us, I'm not holding my breath but is certinatly possible

We will have at least one rookie starter, maybe two. Not ideal but we are paying for the incompentence of the previous regime when it came to our oline. We need to really start to build a solid unit for the future

Bushrod is a good start but the interior is still a disaster that needs immeadiate and immense attention.

It fellI am not sure if I am reading this right. If you are saying that the line fell apart because Kruetz declined our 1 year 4 million dollar offer, than I completely disagree. He lasted 6 weeks on the Saints before he retired himself. He was done. The real failure was on JA for offering 4 million in the first place. Emery is handling his own "Kreutz moment" with Urlacher much better than JA would have.

Garza achieved more at being moved to center in his first year by being a pro bowl alternate in 2011 than he ever did at guard. From what I remember about the situation, the guy never wanted the spot in the first place, but had it thrust upon him at the beginning of training camp of 2011. Tice did the same thing to him in 2010 and forced him to play LG, where he was awful and did not belong, but no one seems to remember that. I keep seeing the absurd notion of moving Garza back to guard and shake my head. He was okay at RG, but we always suffered in short yardage situations with him there.

The o-line fell apart year after year because Tice did not know how to structure depth. He allowed personal feelings and hopes to get in the way of what his eyes should have been telling him. Webb was not ready for RT, nor was he ready for LT. Omiyale had no business at RT. Shaffer had no business at swing tackle. When injuries happened, and they happened every year, we found ourselves always not ready looking for scraps to fit into the empty holes. It came to a head in 2012 when he cut Chris Williams and had Chilo Rachal go head case on him in the middle of the season right when we needed him most.

Originally Posted by weneedmorelinemen

It fellI am not sure if I am reading this right. If you are saying that the line fell apart because Kruetz declined our 1 year 4 million dollar offer, than I completely disagree. He lasted 6 weeks on the Saints before he retired himself. He was done. The real failure was on JA for offering 4 million in the first place. Emery is handling his own "Kreutz moment" with Urlacher much better than JA would have.

Garza achieved more at being moved to center in his first year by being a pro bowl alternate in 2011 than he ever did at guard. From what I remember about the situation, the guy never wanted the spot in the first place, but had it thrust upon him at the beginning of training camp of 2011. Tice did the same thing to him in 2010 and forced him to play LG, where he was awful and did not belong, but no one seems to remember that. I keep seeing the absurd notion of moving Garza back to guard and shake my head. He was okay at RG, but we always suffered in short yardage situations with him there.

The o-line fell apart year after year because Tice did not know how to structure depth. He allowed personal feelings and hopes to get in the way of what his eyes should have been telling him. Webb was not ready for RT, nor was he ready for LT. Omiyale had no business at RT. Shaffer had no business at swing tackle. When injuries happened, and they happened every year, we found ourselves always not ready looking for scraps to fit into the empty holes. It came to a head in 2012 when he cut Chris Williams and had Chilo Rachal go head case on him in the middle of the season right when we needed him most.

I'm not saying that he was the reason it went to shambles, but that year is when we saw what mismanagement we had

They had no plan for his retire, instead moved a gaurd to center and have used that failed idea ever sinse

No, it wasn't because of Kreutz I was just pointing out the mismanagement and lack of concern for our oline and his loss started the madness of schuffleing our line around ever since