Month: May 2015

John Mullin at csnchicago.com takes a thoughtful and interesting look at the contract situations of both running back Matt Forte and tight end Martellus Bennett. One general statement that he makes stands out to me:

“Understand that the matter of contracts are anything but simple, much more complicated than just declaring, ‘you’ve got a contract, you have to honor it.’ The problem with that, as Brian Urlacher once correctly noted, when teams want (read: ‘demand’) a player to take a pay cut, the public rarely applies that dictum to teams, only when a player is demanding a pay raise. That’s just the nature of the NFL compensation structure.”

Make no mistake. By “public” Urlacher and Mullin both mean “fans”. And there’s a reason for this bias.

The advent of free agency was a great boon for players in all sports leagues where it exists. But it’s created a bit of a problem for them as well. Any player anywhere can, and frequently does, choose to leave. That means that the only thing a fan knows he can depend upon to be there in future years, assuming there’s good support, is the team. And that makes most people fans of the franchise, not the individual players. Add on the fact that the player might be saying, “I want more money” but fans hear, “I want you to pay more for tickets” and you’ve got your explanation for the one-sided nature of public opinion.

English journalist Evan Davis once said, “Nice guys finish last. But we get to sleep in.” You’d like to think that this was true of Bears chairman George McCaskey on the Memorial Day holiday yesterday. But given that now former Bears defensive end Ray McDonald was arrested at 7 AM, I kind of doubt it.

I wasn’t too thrilled with the signing of McDonald from the beginning and wasn’t too surprised that he ended up on the police blotter again. What I was surprised by was the wide range of reactions in the press this morning, especially when it comes to McCaskey’s culpability in the matter.

I rather objected to the implication made by David Haugh at the Chicago Tribune that McCaskey should take all of the responsibility for the misstep:

“The Bears signed the troubled defensive end in March anyway, ignoring the pattern [of run-ins with the law] and taking an unnecessary risk because their gullible chairman, McCaskey, met with McDonald and talked to his parents. They still thought Ray was a swell guy, which was good enough for McCaskey.”

Haugh makes it sound like McCaskey actually pushed for the signing when he, in fact, rather hesitantly agreed to it.

On the other side of the coin I found the attempt of Hub Arkush at chicagofootball.com to excuse the Bears organization over this to be both amusing and insulting to my intelligence:

“But before you rush to judgment of George McCaskey, Ryan Pace and the Bears organization, do yourself a favor and Google the story of Brian Banks.

“He’s the young man from Long Beach who lost his scholarship to Southern Cal to play linebacker, and instead spent five years in prison and the last 10 years as a registered sex offender after being falsely accused of rape by a woman who has since completely recanted the allegation.”

To my knowledge, Banks was accused of running afoul of the law only once. Not three times in seven months.  That’s more than an isolated incident where a guy was wronged.  That’s a pattern.

Arkush’s defense is more understandable when you remember that he came out strongly in favor of the McDonald signing in March. So he’s not really excusing the Bears for their misjudgment. He’s excusing himself.

Rick Morrissey at the Chicago Sun-Times probably had the most balanced view point when addressing the situation. He quotes McCaskey from last March after he was asked if he had talked to the alleged victim in McDonald’s December sexual assault arrest:

“‘An alleged victim, I think — much like anybody else who has a bias in this situation — there’s a certain amount of discounting in what they have to say,’’ he said. ‘But our personnel department had done its work looking into the background and the incidents. And we had the benefit of two coaches who had been with him with the 49ers.’’

“One of those coaches was new Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. What do you expect from a football coach? The chairman of a billion-dollar business should know better.”

The chairman certainly should have. Actually both of them should have.  The question is, “Why didn’t they?”

Mike Imrem at the Daily Herald may have the answer as he tries to put together what was running, first through the head of McDonald, then McCaskey’s response:

“Think about it: Being caught in a lie isn’t a big deal after being caught in more serious transgressions.

“You might as well keep saying you didn’t do it until some sucker believes you.

“McDonald found a true believer in George McCaskey.”

“George McCaskey believed what Ray McDonald was babbling, and others in the organization believed what they wanted to believe.”

And therein lies the problem. Everyone from McCaskey through Pace and head coach John Fox to defensive coordinator Vic Fangio wanted to believe. Athletes everywhere know that’s true of most people by the time they become professionals. People want them to be winners. They want to believe them. So it makes it easy for them to look you in the eye and tell you what you want to hear. They’re generally good at it.

I’m convinced that George McCaskey is genuinely nice guy. I think he’s a nice guy from a nice family that grew up in a nice environment. And like most nice guys, McCaskey probably believes that most other people are nice guys like him. That becomes a problem when it buts up against a crappy world with con men like Ray McDonald in it.

There are a lot of people this morning that are pointing out that the Bears damaged themselves with this. That Fangio’s relationship with the Bears (and the rest of the league) is damaged. That Pace’s relationship with McCaskey is damaged. That the Bears reputation and that of its chairman is damaged. But there’s one good thing that will come out of it. The next time an athlete waltzes into McCaskey’s office, looks him in the eye and “impresses him with his sincerity”, he’ll be a little more cynical when the facts don’t jibe with the words.

The next time no one, from McCaskey through Pace down to the coaches, will be quite so willing to believe. That will make them tougher to fool. And that can only benefit the Bears.

Sam Monson at profootballfocus.com reviews what he thought were the biggest reaches in the draft. I think this one might surprise most Bears fans:

“Eddie Goldman, DT, Florida State
#39 Overall to Chicago.

“Goldman is the classic example of a player who looks like he should be fantastic, but just isn’t. You read scouting reports on him and you wonder if they have been written just by looking at his sheer physical size and whether they bothered to actually turn on any tape whatsoever. Maybe throw on a quick highlight reel just to confirm it…

“The trouble is that Goldman does not play to his physical ability very often at all. He is regularly credited as a player that can ‘take on double teams’, but unless you are happy with him taking them on by being driven off the line and crushed by two blockers, then that’s not exactly a positive of his. Goldman was the 45th-ranked defensive interior player in this draft class when looking only at run defense grade. As a pass-rusher he was almost exactly average – in the entire FBS!

“Even those grades are kind to him because around half of his positive grade came in one game against Louisville, who might well have the worst starting center in the nation.”

I find this opinion to be mildly disturbing.

I did actually “throw on a quick highlight reel”. In fact, I did quite a bit more than that. I won’t claim to have watched every game – almost certainly not as many as Monson – but I thought I’d watched enough to get a good idea of what the Bears had and I liked what I saw.

Indeed, one of the tapes I did watch was the Louisville game. Unlike Monson, I thought Goldman did a worse job there than he did against Florida, a better team. If Goldman was getting knocked back into the linebackers very often, double teamed or not, I didn’t see it.

I’m used to disagreeing with “experts” who are hired to evaluate players and who frequently do a lazy job of it.  I’m pretty sure many of them simply work in an echo chamber where they parrot back what other “experts” say until it becomes “the truth”.   The problem is that Monson isn’t one of those guys. In fact, he has a bad habit of being right.

The fact that I’m agreeing with the “experts”, who almost universally loved the Bears pick of Goldman, and disagreeing with Monson doesn’t make me wrong. But it does make me second guess myself. Because I’ve been wrong before. Frequently. Let’s hope this isn’t one of those times because the Bears are going nowhere without a good run stopper at nose tackle.

As many long time readers of this blog know, I’m a firm believer in the well known Benjamin Disraeli proverb that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

But having said that, it can be interesting to take a look at what statistics complied from a neutral party can tell us. Such is the case, I think, with Pro Football Focus‘s look at 37 NFL starting quarterbacks from the 2014 season when they were or were not under pressure, especially when it comes to quarterback Jay Cutler. These stats were spit into two posts – one about how quarterbacks handled pressure of any type and one about how they handled the blitz.

The first surprise that I got was that Cutler rarely faced pressure ranking 26th in this category. That jibs with the fact that teams rarely blitzed him – he was 32nd. It seems that teams saw no reason to blitz Cutler and that they were right.  Those are two miserable statistics for a quarterback that led the league in interceptions last year.  Notably he was equally bad whether he was blitzed (32nd) or not blitzed (34th).

But here’s where it gets interesting. Cutler wasn’t actually that bad when under pressure of all types, ranking 16th. In fact, he was much worse when NOT facing pressure – 36th out of 37 QBs rated.

What does this tell me? It looks to me like Cutler is better when he faces pressure because the play breaks down unexpectedly. In fact he’s great at it. Those plays actually make up the difference in the rankings between when he’s facing pressure simply due to the blitz and facing pressure of all types. It’s probably no coincidence that these are the plays that Cutler doesn’t have to think about. The protection just falls apart and he’s forced to react, usually by running. But the minute that you ask him to think – read a blitzing defense or, probably even worse, having a defense drop into coverage and make him find the open receiver, he’s helpless.

The Bears aren’t going to go far with a quarterback who can’t read a defense and my first conclusion is that Cutler has to eventually go – no surprise to anyone who regularly reads this blog. But there’s more to it than that. Offensive coordinator Adam Gase has spent his recent years working with quarterback Peyton Manning. Manning is strictly a pocket quarterback and is well known for reading a defense and making adjustments at the line. He’s practically a coach on the field.

But the stats seem to me to confirm what many fans have said for some time now. While there are serious disadvantages to relying on it long term, in the short term, Cutler is probably going to be better if you make him think as little as possible with no audibles and if you roll him out and let him create. This is going to make him the anti-Manning. The first problem that Gase faces is simply recognizing this. By all accounts, Cutler comes across as being very intelligent in the meeting room and its only when you get him out on the field in a game situation where he has to make decisions on the spur of the moment under pressure that his weaknesses come out. Even if Gase sees the problem its going to be interesting to see how he makes the adjustment to a quarterback whose strengths are diametrically opposed to what he’s become used to.

Bottom line, the Bears offensive is going to have to be radically different from what the Broncos ran last year if they are going to see any success. Whether Gase comes to that realization and how he executes the change if he does is something that Bears fans will want to keep an eye in the coming year.

Hub Arkush at chicagofootball.com answers your questions:

“From @chwtom: What do you see as the biggest remaining holes on the team? Any options to fill those?

“There is no proven depth behind Matt Forte or Martellus Bennett and I don’t think Jordan Mills is a starting tackle in the NFL. On defense there are bodies everywhere, but I don’t see proven, qualified candidates for one of the starting safety jobs or the nickel spot, and we still have no idea of there’s a legitimate edge rushing spot on the roster.

“My concern in order is safety, right tackle, nickel corner, pass-rushing outside linebacker and of course quarterback.”

I wouldn’t stop at depth behind Forte and Bennett. I don’t see quality depth anywhere on this roster with the possible exception of pass rusher and offensive line. And pass rusher is a funny one because, as Arkush points out, there are so many bodies there that I almost have to assume more than a couple will work out as decent backups but have to wonder whether any will be decent starters.

At defensive end the Bears have Jarvis Jenkins, Ray McDonald and possibly Jeremiah Ratliff and… nobody. At corner they have Kyle Fuller, Alan Ball, Tim Jennings and… nobody. At safety they have Atrel Rolle and Ryan Mundy and a roll of the dice with draft pick Adrian Amos. And at wide receiver they have Alshon Jeffery, Eddie Royal, Kevin White and… nobody.

Hub’s opinion of the starters at safety and nickel is debatable.  I don’t like all of the players but I don’t think that the Bears have any “holes” left per se.  They have starters for every position. But assuming that they have the usual number of injuries, they’re going to run out of quality players pretty quickly. The Bears coaching staff is really going to have to earn their money if they are going to make something out of backups that have never shown that they can do anything. Unless the team is extremely lucky, we’re going to find out how capable they are of doing that fairly quickly.

Jeff Dickerson at ESPN is reviewing the Bears position-by-position. He starts with the offensive line where he highlights the guard position:

“Two-time Pro Bowl right guard Kyle Long and left tackle Jermon Bushrod should return to their customary spots in the starting lineup, although Long has the ability to eventually move outside to tackle if necessary. Veteran left guard Matt Slauson is completely recovered from a torn pectoral muscle that caused him to miss the final nine games of 2014 — Slauson also missed three games last season due to a high-ankle sprain. When healthy, Slauson is an above-average NFL guard and is a strong contender to retain his starting job.”

The fly in the ointment here is draft pick Hroniss Grasu. Grasu is considered to be the future at center and there’s the remote possibility that he could beat out Will Montgomery for that job. But center is a tough position to learn and most people believe that Grasu will be a guard for at least a year before moving to his natural position. If he moves into the starting lineup there, the assumption that it would be at right guard with Long moving to left tackle and Bushrod replacing Jordan Mills at right tackle. But as Dickerson reviews Slauson’s injury history above, you have to wonder what the Bears are thinking on the left. Is it possible that Grasu could move there in place of Slauson?

Slauson is entering the second year of a 4 year contract with $4.9 million guaranteed. The dead space on the cap would be $1.252 million if he was released which would make it unlikely that he would fail to make the roster. But that doesn’t guarantee a starting job. It’s also possible that Slauson would make a decent right tackle.

A move to left guard for Grasu might be more likely because it is considered to be an easier position to play for a rookie to play.  It generally results in fewer one-on-one blocks than the right guard position. And there’s no guarantee that Long would be as good at left tackle. You could argue that having a Pro Bowl right guard is more beneficial than an average left tackle – which Bushrod already is.

I’ve a sneaking suspicion that if he’s not starting at center, Grasu’s 2015 will be spent as a reserve.  The Bears are undoubtedly going to do more zone blocking but they are still going to mix it up and I doubt that Grasu has the size to play guard on either side of the line as well as the current starters. But if he moves into a starting roll this year you have to wonder if it will be more likely to be in place of Slauson rather than Long.

With the NFL calming down before the start of mandatory mini-camps and then training camp, news has been in short supply. Many outlets are settling down to get an overview issues facing their teams. In that respect, John Mullin at csnchicago.com has been taking a special look at what the Bears are going to do at running back.

The problem is that Bears head coach John Fox and offensive coordinator Adam Gase both have a history of using a running back by committee approach to their offense. Despite spending an inordinate amount of money on back ups to Matt Forte, the players behind Forte have traditionally gotten few carries. That’s partly because they’ve under-performed but that’s not the entire explanation. For instance, we can’t really say whether current backup Ka’Deem Carey was good or bad because he barely got a chance to perform at all last year.  That’s probably largely because Forte hates to be removed from games and the Bears have chosen to accommodate him by leaving him in rather than upsetting him. What Fox and Gase decide to do about this situation will be interesting to watch.

He doesn’t state it out right but as I read it, Mullin seems to be leaning towards the backups seeing more time with Forte just having to live with it. But I’m not so sure. Neither Fox nor Gase has indicated that they’re going to do anything other than play to the strengths of their personnel. Gase, at least, seems to recognize the difference this year:

“‘This is an unusual situation just because Matt has been in such great shape and has been so dynamic as far as staying on the field,’ said offensive coordinator Adam Gase. ‘We’ve just got to see how it plays out.'”

That may mean that if Forte shows no signs of wearing down, they will choose to do what the previous staffs have done – leave the best performer in. The guess here is that the Bears drafted Jemermy Langford with the idea that if he was going to languish behind Forte, he would at least contribute to special teams. That’s a very bad sign for Carey. I personally, like what little I’ve seen of him but he doesn’t contribute to special teams and he was, as it turned out, a waste of space on game day last year. That won’t happen under the current regime, which shows signs of being better able to manage the roster. Carey will likely either learn to contribute on special teams or Langford will win the job. And that may be the only difference in the way that the position is handled this year.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

“Will Martellus Bennett still be on the trading block after camp begins? — @huskies714”

“The problem with trading Bennett right now is it would really thin out the depth chart at the position. The Bears have six other tight ends on the roster — Dante Rosario, Blake Annen, Jacob Maxwell, Zach Miller, Bear Pascoe and Brian Vogler, an undrafted rookie free agent from Alabama. Bennett had a career-high 90 receptions last season and the other six have combined for 202 catches in their careers: Rosario (116), Miller (46) and Pascoe (40). Unless the Bears simply don’t want Bennett, I find it hard to believe they can improve their team in 2015 by trading him. I don’t know that they would get a huge return in trade for him either. Remember the Bears got a third-round pick from the Carolina Panthers for Greg Olsen on the eve of training camp in 2011. My guess is Bennett is on the roster and a key cog in the passing attack.”

Though I agree with Biggs that the depth chart is thin at the position, I would question his assertion that the Bears can’t “improve their team in 2015 by trading him”. Biggs, himself was the one that wrote last summer about Bennett’s apparent problem with authority during training camp. His absence from voluntary minicamp because he wants more money two years short of his contract expiring says an awful lot about whether his “me first as an individual” attitude has changed. Bennet’s maturity level is obviously still questionable.

There was a lot of talk after the Brandon Marshall trade about “addition by subtraction”. The Bears may be in a similar position with Bennett now. As was the case with Marshall, its unlikely that they’ll get Bennett’s apparent value in a trade. But improving the Bears locker room has to be a priority as a new regime takes over and tries to reshape the Bears attitude as a team. Getting Bennett out of it may be a key to doing that.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

“Too many years ago the Bears professed to coach to the strengths of the players. They also pretended they could improve upon weaknesses and, where they could not improve the players’ skills, they could employ strategy to limit the expression of players’ weaknesses. To the point: We’ve been hearing and reading about the Bears’ intent to convert from a 4-3 defensive front to a 3-4 defensive front. As I look at the roster of the defensive front, I see a treasure trove of talent. I see Jeremiah Ratliff, Will Sutton, Lamarr Houston, Willie Young, David Bass, Jared Allen, Ego Ferguson and Cornelius Washington (forgive me if I’ve forgotten some). And, now the Bears have Eddie Goldman. Given those players as a base, I wonder why the apparent jump from considering a 4-3 defense to a 3-4 defense? — Eugene L., Libertyville,

“You make a fair point but defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has had tremendous success running a 3-4 scheme and being part of 3-4 defenses in the past. There is never going to be a clean slate for a team to make such a change but I think you can make a pretty good case that the Bears were at as good of a point for a switch as a team could be coming off last season. Fangio isn’t going to ask these players to do something they can’t handle. With Pernell McPhee and Houston, I think they’ve got capable starters at outside linebacker. Allen, in my opinion, will probably best fit as a pass-rushing end in the sub packages. The others on the line, Ray McDonald and Jarvis Jenkins incluced, will sort themselves out. A 3-4 front provides more variety when it comes to pressure packages. Some readers have been clamoring for a move to a 3-4 for several years. It’s going to be interesting to see how the defense unfolds.”

Biggs says a lot when he states that the Bears were “at as good of a point for a switch as a team could be.” The decision to make this conversion likely in part has to do with the reader’s assertion that the Bears had a “treasure trove of talent” on defense.

The Bears poor defensive performance last year was for one or both of two reasons: 1) The talent was lacking and/or 2) the coaching was lacking. It’s probable that the Bears front office and coaching staff figures that they can do a better job than last year’s staff and there will be some improvement just because of that. Patrick Finley at the Chicago Sun-Times quotes Fangio who apparently agrees:

“‘We’re going to have to make our own building blocks,’ he said Saturday, his first public comments since his January hiring. ‘But I think any time you come to a new place, the first job is to make the players you already have better. That’s our job, No. 1, before you talk about free agency and the draft and whatnot.

“‘So we need to make the guys that we have here, better.'”

But obviously the Bears also concluded that wasn’t going to be enough to over-come the defensive deficit that the teams faces within the division. Combine that with Fangio’s likely preference for a 3-4 and the decision was made.

I think the Bears were making a staement with this switch. Don’t get your hopes up for the defense to instantly enter the top ten in the league. They obviously opted for a long-term rebuilding because they didn’t think they had the talent to pull such an improvement off. I would concur.