A Couple Quick Notes

Just a few quick items of information:

I’m back from my time off from the site.  I usually try to post at least one item every day.  However, I’ve been posting on and off for the last few weeks.

First I took a ten day vacation with the family on a cruise ship.  Anyone who has been on these ships knows that Internet access costs an arm and a leg. The vacation was followed almost immediately by a week one business trip for my real job.

Collecting all of the information that goes into posts for the site usually means more or less getting up at 2 AM for me.  This is OK when I’m at home in Chicago and can go to bed early.  However, when I’m on the road I often don’t have that choice nor do I have the option of gutting it out by walking around like a zombie for 24 hours. So posting during those times is sporadic at best.

Fortunately those trips are over for a while – probably until at least July.  Unfortunately these trips appear to have ended just in time for a labor stoppage.

Which brings me to my second point.  If you are looking for a lot of posts on this situation, don’t bother.  They won’t be here.  Except as they affect the every day business of the league in the offseason, I will have no comment.  And you certainly won’t see me taking sides since, as a fan, I dislike them both.  As Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune put it this morning, “If you’re unhappy with the situation, spend your money accordingly.”

Beyond that, please enjoy the posts,

Tom Shannon

Mike McCarthy Is Not the Genius I Thought He Was and Other Points of View

Bears

“The Bears did it by changing Peppers’ $10.5 million roster bonus into a signing bonus so they could prorate that $10.5 million over the life of the contract, which runs through 2015. The restructuring should give the team options once free agency finally begins, while allowing the team to re-sign some of its own free agents.”

Obviously the Bears wanted this initially in the form of a roster bonus so they wouldn’t have to pay it if Peppers had less impact than expected last season.  Now that they know that’s not the case, they can pay it and simultaneously spread the cap hit out.

In fairness to Mullin, you could argue that Martz single handedly destroyed the Rams with his personnel moves.

Elsewhere

  • ESPN‘s NFC North blogger Kevin Seifert points out that with the resigning of A.J. Hawk,  the Packers have a glut at linebacker.  This gave them leverage but now that the negotiation is over, something is likely to have to give.  It sounds like Nick Barnett might be the odd man out.
  • Judd Zulgad at the Minneapolis Star Tribune says that the Vikings have failed to offer a tender to Tarvaris Jackson, making him a free agent.  Wise move.  No one knows what the Vikings answer at quarterback is going to be but I think its safe to say Jackson, who was wildly inconsistent, wasn’t it.
  • Philip Zaroo at mlive.com gets points to originality but little else as he argues that a lockout would be a good thing.
  • For those of you who still care to read anything other than “We’ve come to a settlement”, here’s Michael Silver‘s rather optimistic report at Yahoo Sports which details the goings on yesterday behind the scenes.

One Final Thought

OK, maybe there’s hope for Bears fans after all:

New Energy Drink “Tastefully Done” and Other Points of View

Bears

“[Cutler] is financially secure and head strong. It’s probably too late for him to make a radical change. And the truth is he usually gets the ball where he wants it to be despite bad mechanics. The bigger issue with Cutler is getting him to make better decisions about where he wants the ball to go.”

I would say that decision making is a big issue.  But if Cutler doesn’t improve his mechanics he’ll never be a consistent passer and we’ll be seeing a lot more performances like the NFC title game.  Assuming Pompei is right, and I think he is, Cutler is wasting his talent.  That’s a terrible shame.

  • Larry Mayer at chicagobears.com points out that Edwin Williams could be the Bears center of the future.  I admit that I’d forgotten about him.  He’s got size and he was a center in college.
  • Vaughn McClure at the Tribune has a source that claims the Bears placed a low tender on backup quarterback Caleb Hanie.  This means the Bears can match an offer to Hanie but will get no compensation if he is signed elsewhere.  It will be interesting to see if the rest of the league has higher opinion of Hanie than offensive coordinator Mike Martz and the Bears do.

Elsewhere

“If a player is not playing in 80% of the snaps, then you cannot take him in the first rounds or pay him elite money. This is why Running Backs are seldom taken in the 1st Round anymore. And many Linebackers, too. If you are not an every down player, then we cannot pay you and have enough cash to go around.”

I think this deserves a full blog entry at some point as it applies to the Bears.

I’m torn by this.  On the one hand, its nice to see that money isn’t everything to Rogers.  On the other, you’d like to see that translate into a desire to make your current team into a champion.  Otherwise you end up like the situation in the NBA where there are a handful of good teams with the best players while the others suffer.

One Final Thought

Pompei, again, putting things in perspective as he answers fan questions:

“Why don’t the Bears move to the NFC West? And maybe to another town? Enough’s enough. The whole organization is beyond repair. — SportsGal, Chicago

“I’m not sure what planet you are coming from SportsGal. But in the world I live in, when you make it to the final four in a 32-team league, that means you are a little better than ‘beyond repair.'”

Why Soccer Isn’t Real Football and Other Points of View

Bears

“With the release of Hunter Hillenmeyer, Bears have 2 linebackers under contract: Lance Briggs & Brian Urlacher.”

  • On a potentially related note, Aaron Wilson reports:

“Illinois linebacker Martez Wilson met with the Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints and the Houston Texans.”

“The drills a lot of times, for me, don’t tell a whole lot of the story because there’s no reaction. It’s all pre-determined movements. Defense is not that. It’s reaction. I do love watching guys vertical jump and broad jump because you can see their natural power.”

  • McClure also quotes Bears defensive line coach Mike Phair in the wake of the release of Tommie Harris:

“I’d say it’s a deep class, at least that’s what I’ve seen.”

Defensive lineman Anthony Adams is also hoping the Bears will make him a better offer before entering free agency (via McClure).

  • Here’s one that almost got by me.  ESPN.com is reporting that the Bears have tendered Danieal Manning, who would, indeed, be a restricted free agent under the current rules.  If they hold up under the new agreement, this promises to irritate him no end.
  • Tim Ruskell might have an impact not only upon the personnel that the Bears select but also upon the way that the Bears approach the draft.  Dan Pompei at the Tribune asked him about trding up in the first two rounds, something general manager Jerry Angelo has never done:

“I don’t have the final call, but I wouldn’t have any problems moving up or down if something sounded right.  If you can get an impact player right now, you have to look at that hard. I have a history of doing that.”

“A lot of times you look at average. We play in the elements. So you go through all of those things with him … he’s a holder for us, we have an athlete back there. There is no team player better than him. Believe me, we’re not trying to get rid of Brad. Brad knows that. He’s been our guy every year we’ve been here for a good reason because of how he played.”

Then why haven’t they signed him, yet?

Elsewhere

  • Want to know why the Bears are a good defensive team?  Read why Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer thinks the Bengals are not one (from the Bengals website via Aaron Wilson at The National Football Post):

“[middle linebacker] Dhani [Jones] will miss a tackle and another guy will jump out of his gap and the safety comes down and doesn’t keep the ball on his proper shoulder.  The defensive end has got him and he locks a guy out and he jumps inside too fast or he gets off a block or we jump offside on fourth and 1. All those things are discipline. We’re an undisciplined defensive team.”

  • Bob LeGere at the Daily Herald thinks Illinois LB Martez Wilson helped himself at the combine.  The Bears have reportedly interviewed Wilson with an eye towards potentially drafting him.  Though this was generally a positive entry, here’s the reason why alarms are going off in some heads:

“But there are still questions about whether Wilson has the instincts to be a first-round draft pick. His production on the field has rarely matched his physical gifts, and NFL teams will have to be sure that the neck injury that sidelined him for the entire 2009 season will not become a chronic condition.”

  • Top five pick Nick Fairley was disappointing at the Combine but not for the reason you might think (via ESPN).  He can always get heavier but how are you going to correct the problem when a guy who’s reported to be 6’5″ turn out to actually be 6’3″?  What are they going to do, put him on the rack?

  • The Sports Pickle asks which NFL Combine workout has the most relevance to playing real NFL football.  Here’s a sample:

“broad jump — many a top NFL player has eluded police and continued their career by jumping over a dead broad/hooker”

  • Of course, you could go with the ever popular performance in the nose-pick.  Watch number 34 on the right:

  • But in the end, I think this is the workout that I most prefer (via BenMaller.com):


One Final Thought

Want to know why Americans don’t consider soccer to be real football?  This video says it all:

For what its worth, the referee wasn’t fooled.

Bears Release Harris, Hillenmeyer and Shaffer

The Bears released defensive tackle Tommie Harris, linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer and offensive tackle Kevin Shaffer.

I feel rather badly for Harris, who apparently matured a great deal as he struggled to recover from injury.  Chicago Sun-Times beat writer Sean Jensen quotes Harris:

‘‘’I learned that it’s not what you go through, it’s how you go through it that will determine the outcome,’ Harris said days before an NFC Championship Game loss to the Packers. ‘You can either get in a situation where you can fold if things aren’t going the way you wanted or you can work harder to get out of that situation. I learned how to persevere through that.’’’

“’I grew up,’ he said. ‘I stopped pointing the finger at everybody else. I paid attention to myself, which was the most difficult thing to do.’’’

Hunter Hillenmeyer was released after problems with repeated concussions.  It didn’t help that Hillenmeyer was the Bears union rep and was heavily involved with it.  WSCR’s Zach Zaidman put this loss to the Bears the best:

“It’s a shame there aren’t more professional athletes with the class and dignity routinely displayed by Hunter Hillenmeyer.”

These are high character players that have generally become the rule with the Bears over the last seven or eight years.  It says something about both the team and the individuals that we will miss them not so much as players but as men.

Tim Ruskell and the Lure of the “Undersized, Try-Hard Players” and Other Points of View

I will be on vacation until Feb. 28, meaning I’ll once again be out of the country for a major NFL offseason event.  At least its only the Combine and not the Draft like last year.  In any case posts will be sporadic (if not non-existent) during this time.

Bears

The extension of Tice in particular is significant because if he’d been truly unhappy with the Bears for blocking him from interviewing for the Titan’s then vacant offensive coordinator position, he probably wouldn’t have signed a new contract.

I’m wondering if the lockout language was the standard or if it is significantly different in these extensions.  Its been reported that the other Bears coaches will take a 25% cut in salary during a lockout  with a team option to dismiss after a 60-day notice.

  • Steve Rosenbloom at the Chicago Tribune has a wild theory on why the Bears refused to allow the titans to talk to Tice:

“If Mike Martz still thinks the Bears can run his offense with a 4-1 pass-run ratio and in fact he insists on calling it that way, then the Bears might all of a sudden need Tice as their own offensive coordinator after, say, Game 3, if not before.”

“Ruskell, now the Chicago Bears’ Director of Player Personnel, tends to prefer seniors with 40-plus starts from major colleges. He also looks for undersized, try-hard players, as he believes they are bargains in the skill set vs. draft pick equation. Problem was, Ruskell had almost no feel for the concept of athletic upside, and he whiffed a lot, both in the draft and in free agency, when he tried to pinpoint those athletes who would develop into stars based on pure physical potential.”

“Take enough of those low-ceiling ‘tweeners and put them in the wrong places, and that’s how you’ll go from Team President to watching college tape for a living.”

The fairness of this evaluation aside, if Farrrar thinks Ruskell will be taking undersized tweeners with Mike Tice anywhere near the draft room, I think he’s got another thing coming.  Tice is probably going to be looking for the biggest guys he can find.  Thanks to Chris at the Chicago Bears Fan Forum for pointing me to this article.

  • Former Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner on the The Waddle & Silvy Show on ESPN 1000 (via Jeff Dickerson at ESPNChicago.com) talks about the value of having a clear number one receiver, something the Bears don’t have.  Turner oversaw Reggie Wayne as the Colts wide receivers coach this season.

“I don’t think [you can win at a high level without a receiver like Wayne].  It would be really, really difficult. You have to have that guy you know you can go to, a guy that’s going to be there every game for you, making big plays. You have to have that. If you have that, it takes so much pressure off the other guys and enables you to run the ball.

“If you have a guy like that, it alters your defensive gameplan a little bit.”

Ben Ijalana, OT, Villanova

“While the questions after a playoff loss centered around the toughness of the quarterback, many Bears fans forgot that Jay Cutler was hit as much or more than any other QB in the league all season. Even on many of his good plays, he was dodging rushers. The Bears did some decent work on their line in last year’s draft with a late steal but should attack it early in 2011. Ijalana offers versatilty and the ability to step in early. Solid fit.”

Ijalana would be the fifth offensive tackle off the board.  Guard/Center Mike Pouncey would already be gone but its worth noting that guard Danny Watkins would still be there according to this scenario.

  • Captain Morgan is stealing votes from Rahm Emanuel now:


Elsewhere

“Vick, who was named The Associated Press 2010 Comeback Player of the Year in the NFL, was confronted by radio host/standup comic Richard Hunter at an event in Dallas before Super Bowl XLV.

“Hunter says he adopted one of Vick’s former dogs. He told Game On! Wednesday that and other families who adopted Vick’s dogs have been “flooding” the producers of Winfrey’s show with calls and emails asking the “voices of the victims’ families” be heard on the episode.”

“One thing we never were able to see in 2010 was a fully operational Cowboys offense. By the time Dez Bryant was able to participate in the offense, Tony Romo was lost for the season. In 2011, with Miles Austin, Dez Bryant, Jason Witten, and Tony Romo all available for 16 games (health pending) the results have a real chance to be something special. Austin demands a double-team, but with Bryant on the other side, there are some real classic conflicts that defenses will have to face.”

  • I’m not surprised that former Ohio State quarterback and compulsive gambler Art Schlichter is in trouble again.  But this story from Mike Wagner at the Columbus Dispatch shocks even me.  What a nightmare.
  • Hmmmm…   I’m a big fan of ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser.  I’d like to think that there’s more to this than meets the eye.  From John Feinstein:

“Tony Kornheiser has specifically asked me not to bring up Dan Snyder on his show. I feel queasy about this but Tony’s my friend and it is his show. It isn’t as if there aren’t plenty of other forums for me to talk about Snyder and Snyder is one of those guys Tony simply isn’t going to go after—not because he’s paid by him but because he likes him.”

Kornheiser has a responsibility to report the news no matter how he feels about the people involved but he’s under no obligation to discuss other people’s opinions beyond that.  But having said that, it would be much more like Kornheiser to let Feinstein say his piece and then defend Snyder.

  • Kiper and Todd McShay, also at ESPN, talk about the draft’s wide receiver class.  I love the fact that Kiper digs into the Division III ranks to find some kid fro Mount Union:

Here’s a video of the play in action:

One Final Thought

Joe Reedy at the Cincinnati Enquirer quotes new Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden on why he likes to spend the game calling plays from the sideline rather than from in the booth:

“I like to be down there when things aren’t going where they should.  It’s important for me to calm everyone down or stick my foot up where it should be. A big part of the job is controlling the emotions. Everyone can call plays but a lot of coaching has to go with controlling guys and make sure guys aren’t too up or down.”

Would an Assistant Coaches Union Have Helped Tice? And Other Points of View

Bears

  • Vaughn McClure at the Chicago Tribune reports that top receiver prospect A.J. Green was in town.  Unfortunately it was for an NFL Films feature and not to visit the Bears.  They could only wish they had a pick high enough to justify such a visit.
  • Michael C. Wright at ESPNChicago.com asks a sharp question.  Would a union have helped offensive line coach Mike Tice to be allowed to interview in Tennessee for their offensive coordinator position?  The Titans were denied permission to contact Tice by the Bears.  The NFL assistant coaches are meeting at the NFL Scouting Combine to consider unionizing.

I think the answer here is likely “No.  Tice was under contract and had the Titans been allowed to contact him, it would have been because head coach Lovie Smith simply thought it was the right thing to do.  But in the business landscape, a contract is a contract whether you are part of a union or not.  Indeed, once you get union representation, you take the “human” factor out of the equation and everything becomes all business.  The position on these issues like this is likely to harden and no one will ever get permission.

But get this.  Minnesota Vikings coaches get ninety days of full pay after a lockout begins, followed by a 75 percent salary reduction for 90 days and then dismissal.  September is 6 months from March, folks.

That means that the Bears can (and I think likely will) keep keep their most valuable coaches employed during what would have been the season, probably because they wouldn’t want to lose them.  But the Vikings apparently aren’t going to do that.  If other teams have handled it in a similar fashion, there could be a free-for-all tussle amongst teams to sign assistants once a lockout ends.

Elsewhere

  • The Vikings may have a savior that will get them a stadium to keep them in Minnesota.  Let’s hope.
  • Jeremy Fowler at the Pioneer Press reports that Vikings players are planning to workout together in the hopes of learning their new offense despite being locked out of the facilities at Winter Park.
  • Tom Kowalski at milve.com says that once the NFL filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against the players, pretty much all hope for a clean, quick resolution to the labor problem was lost.  He says that the StarCaps case proved that once you put it all into the hands of the lawyers, nothing quick or clean will come of anything:

“Three years and tens of millions in legal fees for a few celebrity diet pills. What do you think the price is for the fate of 2,500 football players and the long-term fate of the NFL?”

I would say that Kowalski’s got a point but that the complaint wasn’t when it started.  It started when lawyer DeMaurice Smith was elected NFLPA president.  The players have been angling to get the NFL into court ever since.

  • NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has written an op-ed column on the CBA talks which has appeared in various newspapers around the country.  Adam Schefter reacts in a way which I agree with.  I wouldn’t pay much attention to the rest.  The owners aren’t going to open up their books, nor should they:

  • Carolina owner Jerry Richardson has been accused of being “condescending” in meetings with players.  I’ve read some of the comments and it sounds to me like “direct” might have been a better term.  Richardson is a former NFL halfback and I think that the players at the bargaining table shouldn’t heave been surprised at some blunt comments from him.  He’s basically not just an owner.  He’s a peer.  Cowboys owner Jerry Jones apparently agrees (via Darin Gantt and Joe Person at the Charlotte Observer):

“Jerry’s greatest strength is communication  The more that is at stake, the more direct and clear he is with his words. When he speaks with people he cares about deeply – players, business partners, his fellow owners – he is always particularly straightforward and to the point. That is how he shows his respect for the situation and the individuals involved.

“He is one of the most effective leaders I have ever known because he is one of the best communicators I have ever been associated with.”

  • Mel Kiper and Todd McShay break down the running backs in the NFL Draft:

One Final Thought

Bob Sturm at the Dallas Morning News on receiver Roy Williams and the danger of high expectations:

    “You always wonder how you would feel about a player if he was not tied to his contract. Expectation levels shot up for Tony Romo and Miles Austin when they went from being one of the cheapest contributors in the league to one of the most expensive on the roster. Perhaps one of the worst moves Jerry Jones has ever made was his decision to not only trade premium draft picks to the Lions, but then to sign Roy Williams to a 6-year, $54 million deal before he ever stepped on the field for the Cowboys.

    Bears Hold Tice Back from Advancement

    Both Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune and Sean Jensen at the Chicago Sun-Times report that the Bears have officially denied the Titans permission to talk to Mike Tice about their offensive coordinator position.  Biggs points out the major difficulty:

    “But it becomes a delicate situation when teams prevent assistants from exploring a chance for advancement. No one wants to work in an environment where they feel like opportunities for personal growth are not respected.”

    I understand the situation.  Unlike players, teams make a commitment to their assistant coaches by giving them guaranteed contracts.  They expect to get a return on that commitment.  Bob LeGere at the Daily Herald gives other good reasons to deny the Titans permission to interview Tice here.

    Having said that, I find this decision to be disappointing.  When Green Bay head coach Mike McCarthy held quarterbacks coach Tom Clements back from interviewing for the Bear offensive coordinator position last offseason, I naively thought the Bears were better than that.  Apparently not.

    No Surprise Here: NFL Files Charge Against NFLPA

    According to the Associated Press the NFL filed an unfair labor practice charge against its players’ union with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday.  The NFL’s filing with the NLRB says that the union wants to “run out the clock” and, essentially, avoid reaching a new CBA so it can decertify and file an antitrust lawsuit.

    Not surprisingly union spokesman George Atallah says the NFL’s “claim has absolutely no merit.”  But the guess here is that it does.

    This meeting was obviously prompted by the “bargaining session” which took place last week.  It was generally assumed that the NFL walked out of the session because of misunderstandings about a document which the union produced which suggested a straight 50-50 split of revenue.

    I don’t think there was a misunderstanding.  The key piece of information from this session comes from Chris Mortenson and Adam Scefter at ESPN:

    “According to sources familiar with the talks, last week’s negotiations between the NFLPA and the NFL broke off when the union characterized its documents as an “illustration” that NFL officials believed represented a proposal for revenue sharing between owners and players.”

    “When the NFLPA characterized documents labeled “NFLPA Proposal” as something other than a collective bargaining proposal, the NFL ended the session, a source familiar with the talks said.”

    In other words, the NFLPA once again failed to come up with a proposal to counter what the owners have put onto the table (i.e as I said yesterday, they aren’t negotiating).

    The union wants the status quo and they are either unwilling or unable to move off of that position.  The guess here is that its a little bit of both.  Union president DeMaurice Smith is inexperienced and appears to be paralyzed, unable to pick a direction to move in beyond re-stating the tired old points that he was trying to make this time last year.  In the end, he’s a lawyer and its obvious that he feels much more comforatble fighting this battle in court.  That is unfortunate for all of us.

    This process needs to move and its now obvious that the owners want it to do so.  It is not as obvious that the players can or will.

    Bears Top NFC Special Teams Unit and Other Points of View

    Bears

    • Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune passes along  the fact that the Bears ended the season tied for the top spot in the NFC in special teams in the ratings system popularized by Dallas Morning News writer Rick Gosselin.

    The Bears were only fourth overall in large part because they ranked last in gross punting at 40.1 yards.  Punter Brad Maynard has not been offered a contract and there is speculation that the Bears may be moving on without him.

    Elsewhere

    One Final Thought

    For those who think the Bears should try to acquire Albert Haynesworth we have this.  According to the Associated Press a waitress claims that the Washington Redskins defensive lineman sexually abused her at a restaurant.

    Upon tweeting the news, former Bear and current Redskins defensive end Phillip Daniels speaks for all of us: “Man does it ever end.”.