Bleacher Bums Forum

Watching the Blackhawks and there was one of the Comcast sports blurbs where they said the the Bears were forgetting about the passing coordinator position and speculated that Bates would be more involved in the play calling than originally thought.

LOL.  I bet anything that what winds up happening is, Bates gets a QB coach title but is the de facto OC (without the title), while Tice has the OC title but will basically just continue what he's been doing with the OL.  And the Bears won't hire a dedicated OL Coach at all. It would be convoluted, confusing and ass-backwards as hell but then what do you expect from this outfit? 

I guess if it works though, whatever. It could look something like Tice and Bates collaborating on the offensive gameplanning with Tice having the final say during the week (and at halftime), but then deferring to Bates on in-game playcalling.  It may very well have been that playcalling was the sticking point with Bates and if Tice didn't really want to do it anyway and was willing to relinquish that, that may have been what got Bates to sign-on the 2nd time around.  It could also mean that Cutler will have wide latitude to run the offense from behind center.

For Bates, I don't see him having to make much of an adjustment. Assuming we improve our WR situation he could potentially have better talent to work with than he did in Seattle, and about the same caliber of personnel (on average) as he did in Denver. Out OL won't be as good as Denver's was, but Forte is eons better than the RB the Broncos had while he was there.   

Dallasbear was asking about McNeill last week...  here's the latest:

chifan, I would agree with you. He seemed to be building a little more chemistry with Cutler later in the season before Cutler went down.

I guess it depends on who else is available.

I'm starting to see some mock drafts with us taking the WR from Baylor.

Man...  I don't know how I'd feel about that.  A 5'10 straight-line burner is really not what we need, especially if Michael Floyd were also still on the board (who is a much better fit for the new WCO-based offense we'll be running). 

OTOH if Johnny Knox is done for we'll probably need some speed.  The only way I'd be on board with Wright would be if we had gotten a big WR in FA already.

I don't know if he returns kicks.

But since it sounds like this year's kickoff rules are going to stand, KRs don't have the value they used to, either. Doesn't take a lot of skill to stand 5 yards deep in the end zone and watch the kickoff go through it.

Punt returns, that's a whole nother story but we've got Hester for that.

Wshful, I agree and I think the biggest flaw in that guy's article is to assume that Briggs and our 1st rounder would be enough to get us up to 5 from 19.  That assumes a hell of a lot of value for Briggs, who is a very good player but is closer to the end of his productive career than the beginning. 

Also you have to question the scenario of making all those moves (including giving up the 2013 2nd rounder), just to get Blackmon and Brandon Marshall while completely ignoring the OL.  Clearly the writer assumes that having two legit WR targets will help Cutler more than improving the OL personnel.  It's chicken and egg I understand, but if Cutler's on his back he could have Andre Johnson, Larry Fitszgerald and Calvin Johnson all in the pattern and it still wouldn't help.

Yep, that guy totally ignores the OL.  Maybe he is related to Angelo?

We'd have a better chance of pulling off a major draft-day tradeup if we put Hester on the block rather than Briggs, IMHO.

A lot of Bears fans would be really upset to see either of those guys walk, but I'm almost certain Hester would bring more in value than Briggs at this point.

The problem with trading Briggs is that it pretty much forces you to go right back to the draft to fill the hole you just created (as in that Bleacher Report scenario)...  and then that's a pick you can't use on another position.  And if that rookie didn't step right in from Day One and play at Briggs' level, we'd be hosed. Whereas with Hester, presumably we'll be phasing him out of the offense anyway and we do have other guys on the team that can return punts even if not at a Hall of Fame level.