Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Most Bear fans (and apparently team officials) believe that Bears center Olin Kreutz will likely be a Bear next year.  But Sean Jensen at the Chicago Sun-Times suggests that another team may take a run at Kreutz.

“First, without OTAs and minicamps, teams will be scrambling to solidify their starting lineups, especially up front.”

“Second, there are a handful of teams that might be in the market for a veteran center.”

“Third, if players get the high salary-cap floor in a new CBA, many teams will need to spend money.”

“The Baltimore Ravens lured Matt Birk away from the Minnesota Vikings with a three-year $12 million contract, half of which was guaranteed. But there were concerns about Birk’s health because of hernia and hip injuries.

That probably won’t be enough for Kreutz.”

First, the Bears might give Kreutz more than that for one year.  But I can’t imagine they’ll sign him for three at his age.  And for good reason.  As pointed out in the article, he struggles inside against power in running situations.  That’s bad news in a division with stellar defensive tackles.  The Bears eventually need to upgrade the position even as they plan to replace him.

But I really doubt anyone is going to pay Kreutz more than the Bears will.  The reason is very simple.  He’s currently more valuable to the Bears than he would be to anyone else.  He provides the team with needed leadership, bringing respect and authority that a veteran coming into a team like San Francisco for one year simply can’t exert.

If the Bears can’t resign Kreutz because some team wants to throw money at him, so be it.  He was a great Bear and I wish him luck.  I wouldn’t say he won’t be missed but strictly in terms of play on the field, the Bears will find someone comparable to play the position and someone else will just have to step up into a leadership role on offense.  But, like almost everyone else involved, I expect him to be back.

Lots of Bears news so there isn’t anything from the “Elsewhere” category today.

• ESPN‘s NFC North blogger Kevin Seifert pays Bears wide receiver Earl Bennett a nice compliment as e evaluates the division:

“Best hands, Earl Bennett: The NFC North has no shortage of elite receivers who have collected Pro Bowl honors, from Greg Jennings to Calvin Johnson to Sidney Rice. None of them displayed the kind of reliability Bennett achieved last season for the Chicago Bears. He dropped only one of the 70 passes thrown his way, according to ESPN Stats & Information, and caught 46. Jennings dropped five of the 122 passes thrown his way. Johnson also had five (on 134 targets). Rice was limited to five games. “

• Gene Chamberlain at The Sporting News gives an opponent’s (anonymous) view point of the Bears:

“Their offensive line needed an overhaul more than most people realized. (Line coach) Mike Tice was trying to get plays blocked with players — yeah, some of them were older, like (Olin) Kreutz — but they aren’t suited for Martz’s system. Most are guys better for the West Coast style: movement guys, quickness and technique. They haven’t been able to beat teams at the point of attack physically with their running game for a long time. They resorted to some deception and got (Matt) Forte on the edge in gimmick plays, but really have trouble blocking the run. …

“On defense, you know what you’re getting, and that’s the problem. I don’t think it’s going to change. They run their cover 2. They might disguise it, but they’ve basically got to do it all with athletic ability. Their coverage guys are using the outside shoulder leverage to funnel receivers into the middle, where there’s help. You know all of this going in, right away. That’s why you see some teams hurting their defense early in games with the prearranged plays.”

He’s spot on about the offensive line.  But I think this person doesn’t give Lovie Smith and Rod Marinelli enough credit.  The Bears started disguising coverages last year and they generally did a pretty good job of it.  If they keep doing that, their defense will continue to be less than straight forward to figure out at crucial moments in the game.

• Chamberlain ends his overview of the Bears with this somewhat grim assessment:

“Last season, the defense benefited by facing three third-string quarterbacks, and the team had no starters on injured reserve. Such good fortune rarely occurs for any team, let alone in successive years. Combine that expectation with an aging defense, the reduced impact of special teams and keen competition from dominant Green Bay and rising Detroit, and it all adds up to more pressure on the offense in 2011 — Cutler in particular.”

• Larry Mayer at chicagobears.com quotes Bears tight end Greg Olsen on new Bears wide receiver Andy Fantuz:

“Responding to a question about Fantuz during an in-studio appearance on ESPN 1000’s “Waddle and Silvy Show” Monday, Olsen said: “I think he’s pretty good. I have to say I’ve been impressed. He’s a good kid. He’s worked hard. He called us from the very beginning to find out when we were working out and what we were doing. He’s stepped right in and been at workouts.” Fantuz signed with the Bears in February after spending the past five seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian Football League. Last year he caught a career-high 87 passes for a league-leading 1,380 yards.”

I haven’t seen Fantuz play but some commentators have been quick to dismiss him, probably because he’s from the CFL.  I intensely dislike that kind of elitism and I’m not at all sure he doesn’t deserve better.  If Olsen is being honest, and I don’t see why he wouldn’t be, Fantuz might be able to contribute a great deal this year as a sizable receiver the Bears currently lack.

• Packers safety Nick Collins on who the easiest quarterback to intercept in the NFL is:

“You know.  I do have my fair share against, I think, against Jay Cutler. But he is still a good quarterback. I take nothing from Jay. But at the end of the day I do get a good read on him on certain plays. So, but I would say Jay.”

• Chester Taylor is certainly taking more than his fair share of shots after a down year last year.  Here’s hoping he has a chip on his shoulder this year.

• Jeff Dickerson at ESPNChicago.com reports that newly drafted Bears quarterback Nathan Enderle has started coming to player organized workouts.  Enderle undoubtedly skipped the workouts to this point because he’s not under constract but I doubt he could help himself.  Along with the rest of the mid to late round draft picks I expect he’ll be quickly signed after the lockout with none of the usual mucking about.  So assuming he doesn’t get hurt (a big assumption) there’s not much reason for him to hold himself out.

One Final Thought

Fred Mitchell at the Chicago Tribune quotes former Bears safety Doug Plankon whether he will ever coach in Chicago.

“Every organization kind of looks at former players differently.  This is my own personal evaluation. I don’t know if former Chicago Bears coming back in a coaching capacity would really interest the organization. Or at least that’s the way it’s perceived. I would never expect (a Bears coaching opportunity) to happen.”

The Bears always talk about former player beaming part of the “family”.  Apparently their former players don’t “perceive” is that way.

ESPN‘s Adam Schefter thinks Chad Ochocinco could end up being a Chicago Bear:

“I also wouldn’t completely dismiss the possibility of Chad Ochocinco landing [in Chicago], since Cincinnati is not expected to pay him $6.25 million this season. I will say that I believe Chicago’s wide receivers are a bit better than most people think. The Bears can win, and have won, with the receivers they have. But to get another big receiving threat, particularly if it were to weaken a division opponent such as Minnesota — and the Vikings did the same thing to the Bears when they signed away Bernard Berrian — would help Cutler and Chicago. It’s likely the Bears will make a play on one of those big receivers.”

I have two words for Adam:  “No.”  “Way.”  If the Bengals thought the Ocho had anything left, they’d find a way to keep him.

But let’s set that aside by assuming he’s just not worth the $6.25 million that they’d currently have to pay.  There’s just no way the Bears are going to sign a guy that brings that kind of drama to the football team – and rightly so.  That kind of disruption calls for an equal return on the field and we’re not exactly talking about Randy Moss just out of college.  We’re talking about a guy who hasn’t managed to do anything on the field worth noting for at least two seasons.

The Bears really do like their receivers.  Or at least they like them better than to waste a roster spot on an older guy like Ochocinco.  They tried that before with Marty Booker in 2008 and it stunted the growth of the younger guys on the roster.  They’re unlikly to make that mistake again.

Former head of college scouting for the Bears Greg Gabriel looks at second year players to watch out for this season.  He highlights Bears defensive end Corey Wootton:

“Wootton was the Bears fourth-round pick a year ago. Going into his senior season he had a very high combine grade, but he was hurt (right knee ACL) in his team’s bowl game at the end of his junior season and did not look like the same player. He lacked the explosiveness that he showed as a junior. This carried over to his workouts before the draft and thus he slipped to the fourth round. With the Bears having a lot of depth in their defensive line it wasn’t until the last part of the season that he began to get playing time. In his limited role he showed flashes of his former self and this year he could play a big role in the defensive line rotation. The Bears like to rotate 6 to 7 players on the defensive line, so it could mean playing as much as 50 percent of a game. This is a tall, athletic guy with edge pass rush ability.”

I certainly hope Gabriel’s right.  But you’ll forgive me if I have my doubts.  I can understand “lack of explosiveness” for the first year after surgery (his senior year at Northwestern).  It usually takes about that long to fully recover.  But it seems to me like Wootton should have been showing us more last year even if he was just a rookie.  There wasn’t much special about his play and other than knocking Brett Favre out of his final game, there weren’t many highlights.

The Bears certainly do need Wootton to step up (along with defensive tackle Henry Melton).  But I’m not holding my breath.

Dan Pompei at the National Football Post has this interesting comment on the spring ratings amongst the players who were possibilities for the supplemental draft:

“Cornerback Janoris Jenkins was the highest rated cornerback among all senior prospects and was rated one of the top prospects at any position. His 6.9 grade was well above the 6.5 given to Alfonzo Dennard of Nebraska, the No. 2 ranked corner. After his dismissal from Florida, Jenkins decided to enroll at North Alabama rather than enter the supplemental draft.

“Michael Floyd also decided to forego the supplemental draft. The wide receiver is returning to Notre Dame despite the fact that he was the highest rated receiver among seniors to be. His 6.5 grade put him ahead of Texas A&M’s Jeff Fuller and Wisconsin’s Nick Toon.

“Terrelle Pryor of Ohio State did decide to enter the supplemental draft, but the rankings indicate he could have used another year in school. Nine quarterbacks were rated ahead of him.”

In my opinion all of these players made the wrong decision, at least financially.  As Pompei points out, a lot will change in terms of these ratings over the next year.  What that tells me is that Jenkins and especially Floyd have nowhere to go but down.  Off-field priorities aside, Pryor on the other hand could have really used an extra year to boost his stock.

But Pryor’s real error in my opinion was made years ago when he decided to go to Ohio State to begin with.  I held at the time and still believe that the right decision would have been to take advantage of his physical talents in a spread offense.  Instead he chose to go to a pro style offense at Ohio State and (somewhat arrogantly) look ahead to a pro career which was years in the future and which might nor might not ever materialize.

The question to ask is this.  If Pryor had taken advantage of his natural talents in a spread offense, would he still be tenth on the list of quarterbacks?  I’m not so sure.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune explains why the Bears still have training camp in southern Illinois:

“While only half of the teams in the league go away for training camp, the Bears remain committed to the experience for a number of reasons, one of which is allowing fans a closer look at the team. It also gives the Bears a chance to sell merchandise as fans must enter and exit the ONU fields through a pro shop.”

I’m pretty sure they could find a way to allow fans access at Lake Forest and I know they could set up a pro shop.  The guess here is that this has more to do with a promise to the state legislature to have training camp somewhere in Illinois (presumably not in Chicago) in exchange for stadium funding.  And they’re a traditional franchise that probably doesn’t like to change the experience.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune thinks the Bears might have a problem if, as expected, the new free agency rules revert back to 2009 rules.  Under those conditions players with four or more years of service will be unrestricted free agents.

“How will it affect the Bears? If you are cornerback Corey Graham, safety Danieal Manning or linebacker Nick Roach, it’s good news. Although the Bears tendered a qualifying RFA offer to all three, under these guidelines they will be unrestricted.”

I mildly disagree with the premise that this will be a big deal for the Bears in that I don’t think they will miss any of these guys all that much.  Corey Graham is a role player, Danieal Manning is an easily replaceable strong safety.  You could make an argument for Roach as being the one who would hurt the most to lose but a healthy Pisa Tinoisamoa is, in my opinion, every bit as good (the key being the “healthy” part of that sentence).  Admittedly Tiniosamoa isn’t under contract either but it isn’t expected that he’ll be hard to re-sign.

All in all I don’t see this as being a big problem and, if I were to guess, I’d say its less of a problem for the Bears than for most other teams in the league.  The odds are good that the Bears put as high or a higher priority on re-signing Anthony Adams and Olin Kreutz.

Authors note:  Most of you will note the inactivity on the blog lately.  I’ve been working on putting in government grants for my real job.  The light is near the end of the tunnel though and you can expect to see many more posts starting late next week.  With any luck, that will co-incide with an end or near-end to the lockout, anyway.

Football Outsiders has taken a look at percentages of broken tackles.  This statistic is defined as:

“Either the ballcarrier escapes from the grasp of the defender, or the defender is in good position for a tackle but the ballcarrier jukes him out of his shoes. If the ballcarrier sped by a slow defender who dived and missed, that didn’t count as a broken tackle.”

The Bears ranked 12th on this list which isn’t good enough for a cover two team that must tackle well and execute.  But the statistic is biased against speed teams because they have more opportunities to make tackles that can be broken.

What really stood out to me was the Lions spot.  ESPN‘s NFC North blogger Kevin Seifert compared their number to the ranking in 2009, pointing out that they improved by only one spot, moving from 32 to 31 on the list.

The Lions are a very popular pick to make the playoffs this year amongst the “experts”.  Players like Ndamukong Suh are already claiming the status of contender, in his case even suggesting the possibility of a 16-0 season.  A lot of that  confidence stems from an influx of talented players like Nick Fairley.

That’s a good thing for them.  But it isn’t everything.  People think the primary problem with the Lions has been lack of talent don’t know football.  Their problem is that they make too many mistakes.  They don’t play they game with good fundamentals.  Yes, the Lions finished the season strong last year and they should be better.  But if they can’t catch the ball (and hang on to it all of the way through the catch), if they can’t run without fumbling, and if they can’t tackle, its all moonshine.  Its because of statistics like this that bad teams lose.

The “experts” can proclaim the Lions the team of the year all they want.  I’ll believe the Lions are winners only when I see them improve not just their talent, but in the way that talent plays the game.

Congratulations to NBC Chicago‘s Peggy Kusinski for asking new Bears Chairman George McCaskey the first interesting question since he took over:

“Does he ever see the McCaskeys no longer being majority shareholders of the Chicago Bears?

“‘No,’ he replied.

“The goal is to hang on to the team and pass it on to the fourth generation.  And that poses its own problem.  There are 11 McCaskey children now owning the Bears, but there are nearly two dozen grandchildren to groom.

“‘The numbers present a challenge just by themselves.  We’ll be up for it.  The goal is to hold onto the team for the second coming,’ he said.”

No surprise there, right?  Not so fast, my friend.

Its hard for media members to top toe around this because no one really wants to suggest such a morbid topic but what happens to the Bears after current majority owner Virginia McCaskey dies is a serious issue for the family.  The franchise is currently valued at at least $800 million and the estate tax is 55% plus a 5% surcharge.  That’s a lot of cash.

So when George McCaskey talks about the numbers presenting a challenge, he’s not just talking about children and grandchildren.  He’s thinking about the financial realities behind just keeping the franchise within the family’s control.

[EDIT – It turns out I posted this too quickly.  This 2006 ESPN article by Darren Rovell explains how the Bears will get around the estate tax issue:

“Unlike most of the rest of us who are plowing through the IRS code and crunching our own tax numbers right now, today’s franchise owners can afford to make themselves privy to the most sophisticated techniques in existence that might lighten the tax burden for the next generation in their families.

Take the Chicago Bears as an example. George Halas bought the team in 1920 for $100; and when he died in 1983, he transferred ownership to Virginia McCaskey, his daughter. McCaskey, who is now in her 80’s, reportedly has a controlling interest with an 80 percent share in the club. But technically, those shares were at some point gifted to her 11 children; so that when she passes away, there will be a minimal transference and therefore few estate taxes related to the club. Bears spokesman Roger Hacker said the percentage owned by each of the children is not public information and would not be released, but it appears that we can expect the McCaskeys to own the Bears for a while longer, at least.”]