Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Bears

• Though the Bears have claimed many times that thier draft philosophy hasn’t changed, I think it did.  Here’s a quote from GM Jerry Angelo via the Chicago Tribune which is typical of what I’m talking about:

“There were moments there when we talked about a certain position but we said let’s stay the course, we might not be able to get it done the way we would like to, but we do have free agency so let’s take the value at these positions. The value of the position was a real focus for us today. I think Chris Conte is going to be an excellent football player for us. The position he plays with the athletic traits he has, it’s very, very difficult to find. So we talked long and hard about that and we tried to be pragmatic in our approach and I thought we stayed the course.”

The Bears aren’t looking just to fill needs and they aren’t just looking for the best player available. They’re starting to look at the best player available at “Value” positions. Namely quarterback and free safety this year.  They’ve probably always considered this to some extent but I can’t remember Angelo emphasizing it this much.  I think its a subtle but significant change.

• ChicagoBears.com gives us a look into the Bears draft room:

• Angelo sits down for a one-on-one interview with Larry Mayer at ChicagoBears.com after the draft

• This grim Chicago Sun-Times column makes some good points. There’s no name on the Internet version of the article but it sounds like Mike Mulligan:

“The names have changed, but the positions remain the same.

“That’s the real indictment of the Bears’ 2011 draft class — not the players who were selected, but the feeling of deja vu as the positions were called.

“Offensive tackle Gabe Carimi might have been the steal of the draft when the Bears selected him with their first first-round pick since 2008, the year they took offensive tackle Chris Williams. Second-round pick Stephen Paea is a defensive tackle with a video on YouTube. Sounds like 2009 third-round pick Jarron Gilbert, the Bears’ first selection that year.”

There is something to be said for this. The Bears used this draft in good part to make up for past failures like Gilbert.

• Via Dan Pompei and Chris Hines at the Chicago Tribune Carimi answers a question about his comments claiming to be the best offensive tackle in the draft. He has a point:

“What was I going to say, I don’t think I’m the best tackle? I’m going to be the fifth-best tackle?”

• Mayer interviews Paea:

• Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times thinks the Bears third pick could be the key to evaluating this draft in future years:

“The wild card might turn out to be third-round pick Chris Conte, the Cal cornerback-turned-safety who emerged after three years of obscurity to be an All-Pac-10 performer. While Angelo is convinced he has the skills necessary to succeed in the NFL as a free safety, most other draft experts projected him to be a late-round pick.”

Mayer interviews Conte here:

• Angelo comments on his sixth round pick:

“Our last pick, J.T. Thomas out of West Virginia, again played his full tenure at West Virginia. He fits us perfectly, can play all three positions. He played multi-roles there at West Virginia. Again, we spent a lot of time on him, saw him at an all-star game, he got hurt during that practice week, but we feel very, very good about his fit and picking up a linebacker was a goal today and he was the right one.”

Despite Angelo’s comment, from what I’ve read, Thomas isn’t really going to play in the middle or on the strong side (which was a need). He’ll be a back up, especially on the weak side, but I’m guessing he was really drafted to play special teams, something he seems well suited to do and something which he seems to know quite a bit about.

Here’s what he had to say:

“I played on every special teams [unit] at West Virginia University. When I was younger, I played a lot of different special teams. As I got older, I was a little more valuable to the team, so I didn’t play as many, but I was always on the punt coverage team and punt block team. “

• Nathan Enderle knows what he has to work on:

“Precision and technique and you really need to refine those two things. You can’t make mistakes, you have to have very efficient technique as far as your throwing mechanics and your read progressions and you have to hone those two to a very precise point and those are two things I have to work on.”

From what I can tell, Enderle has a pretty long release which is going to have to be shortened before he plays effectively in the NFL:

• Here’s what Jerry Angelo had to say about Enderle:

• ESPN NFC North blogger Kevin Seifert points out that rumors indicated that quarterback Nathan Enderle was supposed to go to the Vikings not the Bears. I guess Christian Ponder‘s selection put an end to that.
• Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune is looking towards free agency. Here are his needs:

“The offensive line, wide receiver, linebacker and cornerback loom are areas of need. A nickel pass rusher wouldn’t hurt.”

I would say a veteran offensive lineman is likely.  They’re going to have to be signing or resigning a lot of guys at linebacker as well.

• Its apparent from Angelo’s comments that Caleb Hanie has the back up quarterback job.

“It [the selection of Enderle] has nothing to do with Caleb [Hanie]. We went into this in all likelihood – anything is subject to be change when you get into training camp, players still have to earn their position on the football team. There is no entitlement here, irrelevant of where we draft players. We are assuming we are going to keep three quarterbacks this year on our roster and we are assuming that we are not going out into the free agent market place. That in essence is why we drafted the player where we did. He certainly has the pole position and I just want to express how good we feel about him in terms of our scouts and our coaches and we did spend a lot of time on this player.”

“The only position I would think we would [look into free agency for] is the quarterback position. Other than that, we are going to look, no more than that.”

Given that offensive coordinator Mike Martz has never expressed much enthusiasm for Hanie, there was some question in my mind about whther they’d bring a veteran in to compete with him. I guess this is unlikely at this point.

EDIT:  I forgot about Matt Gutierrez who could be seen as competition for Hanie.  Though most people apparently don’t.

One Final Thought

One of the many things I’ve I disliked about this offseason (read “a lot of litigation and lockout and not much free agency”) is the fact that the Bears Expo was on draft weekend. I wanted to go but like most fairly hard core football fans, I wanted to see the draft.

I don’t know what was behind the decision to schedule it this way but I hope the Bears don’t do it again.

Bears

• Let’s start with video of the Halas Hall draft press conference yesterday from the Bears website:

• Bears west coast area scout Marty Barrett talk s about second round selection of Oregon State defensive tackle Stephen Paea:

• GM Jerry Angelo talks Paea as well:

• Dan Pompei at the Chicago Tribune indicates that the Bears has Paea targeted:

“The Bears were so enamored with Paea that if Gabe Carimi had been off the board when their turn came up in the first round, Paea might have been their highest draft choice perhaps through a trade-down. Bears player personnel director Tim Ruskell said there was a draft room consensus on how well Paea fit what the Bears needed.”

When the Bears traded up I really wondered if they had actually wanted Marvin Austin and the Giants stole him out from under them. But Pompei’s comment jibs with that of his Tribune colleague Brad Biggs, who actually wrote yesterday morning that the Bears were prepare to take Paea had Carmi not been there at #29. The Bears were lucky he was still there for them in the second round.

• Pompei indicates that the Bears like Paea because of his combination of strength and quickness:

“And he is exceptionally strong. At the combine, he bench-pressed 225 pounds 49 times, the most by any player in a dozen years.”

I’ve got a little problem with judging strength by the bench press. He looks to me in the video below like he’s got short arms. That let’s you bench press a lot more weight than a guy who is stronger but has longer arms. I’m not saying he isn’t strong but I’m not buying the bench press as an indicator.

Having said that, here’s what Angelo had to say on the topic (via the Chicago Tribune):

“It does transcend, a lot of times it doesn’t, but in his case it does and not because we picked him with our pick. We call it functional strength, not weight room strength. In his case, he has been blessed.”

• Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times says that Angelo weighed the opinions of the college coaches more heavily than usual when he chose the draft’s second day prospects:

“Oregon State coach Mike Riley coached with Bears defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli at USC and gave Paea the highest possible recommendation, resulting in the Bears sending a fourth-round pick to the Washington Redskins for the right to move up nine spots to select the Tongan strongman 53rd overall. It took a similar vote of confidence from longtime NFL defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast, now coordinating Cal’s defense, to convince secondary coach John Hoke and Angelo that [safety Chris] Conte‘s rare skill set made him the best bet in the third round.

• Angelo thinks he may have gotten lucky in an unusual way with Conte. Via Pompei:

“Conte was scheduled to play in the East-West Shrine game, but pulled out because he thought he had a chance to play in the Senior Bowl. The Senior Bowl invitation fell through, and Conte subsequently did not play in an all star game.

“Angelo indicated that might have worked to the Bears’ favor, because his athleticism on display in an all star game might have heated up Conte’s draft stock.”

• Angelo also had this to say about Conte:

“When you watch him on tape because he did play two years of corner they did play him outside in man-to-man coverage, they use him inside on the slot, so he has a lot of versatility and that is really what you look for in the safety position.”

I’ve been arguing that the Bears need a third corner to cover receivers in the slot man-to-man since the New England game. Looks like the coaches might be looking to Conte to fill that role when they’re in the nickel. Should be interesting.

• Conte talks about the difficulty of playing safety Vs. cornerback:

“For me it was actually pretty easy. Playing safety I always felt I was much more natural at. Coming in I had a great coach, coach Clancy Pendergast, who came from the NFL. He just really helped with my transition. He came in on the first day, he was like, ‘You’re playing safety from now on’ and really took me under his wing and really just showed me what it took to be a great football player and possibly an NFL-type player.”

I love this quote. I really think the key to the position is good instincts and if the position feels “natural”, then I think that’s a good sign.

• Ballard discusses about Conte in this video from ChicagoBears.com:

• Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times quotes offensive line coach Mike Tice, who apparently understands at least one thing that needs to happen with Carimi:

“I think he’s an outside player, and we=92ll make sure the day he walks into the building the spot we put him at is the spot he’s going to play for the next 10 years.”

Former first round pick Chris Williams has been moved around quite a bit and I think its hurt his development.

• Sean Jensen at the Chicago Sun-Times writes that Carimi shares at least one characteristic with every great athlete:

“‘He’s one of the most unbelievably competitive people I’ve ever met,’ [Wisconsin center Peter] Konz said, recalling the endless debates they had just to see who could make better arguments. ‘It doesn’t matter what it is. Whatever it takes, however long it takes, he’s going to get the job done.'”

• Tice has invented a new word. Via Pompei:

“‘There is a lot of familiarity,’ Tice said. We’re going to have to convert that family over to Bearism and knock off that Cheesehead stuff.'”

• Larry Mayer at ChicagoBears.com says that the Bears also liked Alabama’s James Carpenter. Most analysts thought the Seahawks drafteed Carpeneter too high at #25.
• Looks like the Bears won’t be having that team meeting on Monday.

One Final Thought

Mike Mulligan at the Chicago Sun-Times indicates that turn about might be fair play when it comes to the Bears botched trade with Baltimore:

“Maybe the final word on the subject should come from Newsome himself, by way of Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, who unearthed an old quote from eight years ago when Baltimore failed to trade up with Minnesota in a similar situation.

“The deal was not consummated,’ [Raven’s GM Ozzie] Newsome said at the time. A deal is not a deal until I talk to [league executive] Joel Bussert, and I never talked to Joel Bussert.’

“Angelo couldn’t have said it any better himself.”

There’s so much Bears news today that I won’t be saying much about the rest of the draft. But over the weekend as I catch up you can bet the James Carpenter, Jake Locker and Christian Ponder will be addressed. I also foudn the pick of Nick Fairley to be intereesting. He didn’t look happy.

• The Bears first round pick of offensive tackle Gabe Carimi seems to be a popular one. The reaction of Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times was typical:

“It was obvious the Bears offensive line was missing a quality left tackle last season. It also lacked the one intangible that can allow a unit to overcome such a handicap.”

“By landing Carimi with the 29th overall pick, he injected attitude into a toothless unit that not only allowed a league-high 56 sacks but failed to consistently open holes in the running game. “

Maybe. Carimi is commonly perceived as a right tackle or guard (see comments below). But I’ll say this: he’s got as good a chance of being a solid left tackle as J’Marcus Webb.

• Larry Mayer at chicagobears.com got GM Jerry Angelo for this interview after the pick:

Bears midwest scout Jeff Shiver talks about Carimi:

Here’s are the highights from the Bears press conference:

• Todd McShay‘s opinion at ESPN on Carimi is consistent with my own:

• I don’t know how much there is to this statement from Dan Pompei at the Chicago Tribune:

“It’s possible Carimi dropped a bit because he rubbed some NFL talent evaluators the wrong way in interviews. Some said he came across as overconfident. But a heavy dose of confidence may be welcome in the Bears’ offensive line room.”

If that’s true they’re fools. But since they aren’t fools (generally), I’m guessing it had more to do with the fact that not enough of them thought he was going to be a left tackle and that’s where you generally want your first round talent to play.

• Michael C. Wright at ESPNChicago.com notes that the Bears benefited from the fact that four quarterbacks were taken in the first round.
• Sean Jensen at the Chicago Sun-Times notes that 60 percent of teams that drafted offensive linemen in the first round and had him start 10 games increased something called their “New York Life Protection Index”.  Apparently we’re sponsoring statistics now.
• Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune notes that had Carimi not been there, the Bears would have taken Oregon defensive tackle Stephen Paea. He also thinks that Carimi will go to right tackle while J’Marcus Webb will get the first shot at playing on the left.
• Here’s hoping the Bears do a better job of settling Carimi into a position and keeping him there than they did with 2008 first rounder Chris Williams. Bears head coach Lovie Smith comments (via the Chicago Tribune):

“We wouldn’t move a guy [as a rookie]. We never try to move a guy from guard to tackle, unless we have to. When you look at our history a little bit, we’ve had to make some tough moves, asking a guy like Chris Williams to play tackle and guard, but that’s not the plan. Once we lock a player into a position we would like to keep him there and that’s what we will do.”

• Smith on whether Carimi will play left tackle:

“It is tough to find a left tackle, but he has of course started. So again, it is easy for me to say that we are going to put him at the left tackle position, but he has done more and when you have the type of ability that he has, he does give you more options. But looking at our offensive line, J’Marcus Webb can play a couple different positions, so I can’t wait to get that group together and they will tell us exactly where they need to play.”

• Jensen rarely sticks his neck out to express an opinion but when he does it is usually worth listening to. He thinks Carimi will be playing right tackle:

“One of the pre-Combine knocks on Carimi is that he may not be athletic enough to play left tackle in the NFL. But at the Combine, Carimi did a very solid 29 reps on the bench press, a 31 1/2 inch vertical leap, and his best 40-time was a 5.18. Only six offensive tackles had a faster time than him, including Nate Solder, who ran a Combine-best 4.96.

Still, this is clear: Carimi isn’t the athlete that Webb is.

• Jensen quotes Angelo on a botched trade with Baltimore that really seemed to throw the end of the draft a little bit of a loop:

“‘We dropped the ball, I dropped the ball,’ Angelo said. ‘What has been done can’t be undone.

“‘[Baltimore] did everything according to the rules.”

Biggs notes that in the end no harm was done and both teams took the players they wanted. But had the trade happened that also would have been the case so one wonders if Baltimore won’t ask the Bears to give the 127th pick they offered to move up anyway. Biggs also invokes the “checkbox” errors in 2002 and the error contacting James Starks only to not draft him in last year as examples of how the Bears have made a bit more of a habit of botching things on draft day than usual.

• Jeff Dickerson at ESPNChicago.com thnks the Bears will most likely be targeting defensive tackle and cornerback today in the second and third rounds.
• Smith sounds like he expects Olin Kreutz to be back in this statement:

“We are not looking for a rookie to come in and set the tempo in that room, Olin [Kreutz] sets the tempo in that room and our vets, and I think he can learn from them but we would like for tough guys to come in and add something to the room. We only ask rookies to come add to the room, they are not going to be in a leadership role right away.”

• The  league intends to more or less return to regular business by Monday after a judge put an end to the lockout. Players are working out today and rules for free agency will be announced.
• Dickerson also notes that the Bears have scheduled a team meeting for Monday.
• The Bears will start their voluntary offseason workout program May 9.  Rookie minicamp will May 6-8 and mandatory veteran minicamp will run June 3-5.

One Final Thought

The Bears did something that they rarely do in the first round last night – they fell in love with one player.  To the point where they actually tried to trade up instead of trading down as they usually do.  Here’s Angelo, again, via the Chicago Tribune:

“We got a good handful of offers, mostly with trades of people wanting to come up to our spot. We entertained those. We had a couple of linemen that we thought were going to be on the board to maybe give us the flexibility to do that. But once they started to come off as quickly as they did, we just felt like we were going to stay where we were put and hopefully get the player that we got. We did try to move up in the draft and get a deal done with a team in front of us. We weren’t able to get that done. So we sat and we got the player we wanted.”

Biggs also noted the unusual move:

“The Bears wanted Gabe Carimi so badly they set out to do something general manager Jerry Angelo hadn’t done in nine drafts with the club.

“They tried to trade up in the first round. Fearing the Chiefs were targeting Carimi at No. 27, the Bears worked to swing a deal with the Ravens to move up three spots to 26.”

One wonders what is behind the change in philosophy. It could be new player personnel boss Tim Ruskell. But my guess is that it was offensive line coach Mike Tice whose presence was being being felt.

It isn’t that the Bears picked Carimi that’s unusual. He was probably the guy they would have taken in any number of scenarios. Its the way they did it that might represent a major shift of influence within the organization that may have begun last season when Tice reportedly convinced offensive coordinator Mike Martz to run the ball more.

It’s something to keep an eye on.

Bears

• Mike Mulligan at the Chicago Sun-Times says that the Bears have to do a better job of drafting defensive players, something which should be their forte and isn’t.  A couple excerpts stood out:

“Oddly, [GM Jerry] Angelo was a better at drafting defensive players before [head coach Lovie] Smith arrived despite the seeming advantage the two should share by working off a different blueprint than other teams.”

Insert your thoughts about Smith’s influence in the draft room here.

“One league source with a stellar track record for predicting the Bears’ drafts said the defensive coaching staff will be pressuring Angelo and [player personnel boss Tim] Ruskell to take a cornerback.”

Too many people are ignoring this need. The Bears need a third corner and they could very well take one early if the right guy is there.

• Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times has the Bears taking Marvin Austin.
• Dan Pompei at the Chicago Tribune has OT Gabe Carimi falling to them:

“This huge blocker will be a good fit on Mike Tice’s line. The Bears will be fortunate if he falls to them.”

Pompei’s probably right in that they will take him if he’s there. But I’m not sure he’s a good fit on a team that really needs a left tackle.

• The rest of the Tribune’s contributors make their picks. A wide variety of choices which seems to be typical of the unpredictable nature of this draft, especially when considering such a late pick. Most of the picks reflect one of the six scenarios which Pompei describes here.
• Mike Mayock at NFL.com has the Bears taking WR Jonathan Baldwin in the draft:

“The Bears want offensive or defensive line help, but at this point in the draft, those spots have been hit hard. If a trade down isn’t an option, they try to give Jay Cutler another target in the passing game. Baldwin is a talented wideout.”

Baldwin’s going to be a good player but I’m not sure he fits offensive coordinatorMike Matz‘s offense. And he’s a reach at that point. I’m not seing it.

• Jeff Dickerson at ESPNChicago.com has the Bears taking guard Danny Watkins:

“High character guy who fixes huge problem for Bears at guard. Age (26) not an issue.”

See One Final Thought below.

Meanwhile, Dickerson’s colleague Michael C. Wright has them jumping for joy at the chance of getting OT Anthony Castonzo.

“This could happen. Graded by some as a second-rounder.”

Dave Birkett at the Detroit Free Press disagrees (along with most of the rest of the world). He says that he woud be consider Costanzo a steal at 13. I don’t know about that but needless to say it would be the crime of the century at #29.

• No one should be surprised by the news but Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune got a statement from an unidentified team executive that says that the Bears have made it known that they are willing to trade down. The executive represents a team picking higher than #42.  I doubt anyone volunteers information like this without an ulterior motive.
• Michael C. Wright and Tom Waddle at ESPNChicago.com talk Bears draft needs and how they match up with who might be available to them:

• Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune reviews the 2008 NFL draft 3 years later. He believes it came up short:

“When the flurry of activity at Halas Hall ended, the Bears didn’t assign themselves a letter grade, but they did say they believed the draft would produce six starters for them. It was a lofty prediction, exceeding the usual goal [of four] Angelo has.”

“Unfortunately, the team can’t claim six starters from this group. Right now, it can’t claim four starters from an original group of 12. That’s not meeting the mark for Angelo.”

Biggs is judging this class according to what Angelo said and I think that’s more than fair. But I’m more inclined to judge it based upon my own expectations. I see four picks in the first three rounds. I expect a minimum of four starters from a draft which has that figuring some hits late and some misses early. I see three starters: Matt Forte, Earl Bennett and Chris Williams. I see two more solid contributors: Zack Bowman, Kellen Davis. All of the players from the 5th round up are still on the team. Its very debatable but I don’t think it was a bad draft.

• John Mullin at CSNChicago.com says that Green Bay defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins is expected to be targeted by the Bears in free agency.
• ESPN NFC North blogger Kevin Seifert had this interesting exchange regarding Bears quarterback Jay Cutler in a chat Tuesday afternoon. I think Seifert’s got the right on this one.  Your opinion may vary but remember the first half f the NFC Championship game (pre-injury) before answering to quickly.
• New Hall of Famer Richard Dent apparently forgot to pay his taxes. A lot.

One Final Thought

John Mullin at CSNChicago.com comes through with the pick which I personally think would be both the right one and the one which is most likely: Watkins.

“If Derek Sherrod somehow is there, the Bears will happily take him and start Mike Tice working J’Marcus Webb and Sherrod at left tackle as soon as lockout terms permit. But tackles go fast and the Bears will be satisfied with Watkins even at age 27 because he will be a day-one starter at guard and could be a factor at tackle even at 6-3.”

Mullin’s mock draft looks very realistic to me and, though he makes Watkins sound like a consolation prize, I think its the right pick.  Watkins is likely going to be the best overall blocker available (even if Sherrod is there).

True it leaves the Bears trying to fill a hole at left tackle with the younger guys they’ve got and/or a free agent.  But the’d be far from the only team in the NFL trying to make do at the position, which traditionally offers only limited options every year.  Sometimes you do what you have to to get the best five guys on the field.

Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times says that there have been discussions at Halas Hall about moving offensive tackle/guard Chris Williams to center. Its an interesting idea but I really question whether it will work.

As we consider this possibility, its worth noting the comments that Dolphins head coach Tony Sparano made about moving guards to the center position last month:

“It legitimately is the hardest position up front to play. People are going to tell you left tackle because of who they are going against, but if you draft the right left tackle, which we’ve been fortunate to do, that really isn’t the case.  If you’re trying to put a squad peg into a round hole then that makes left tackle a hard position. Not many of us try to do that.

“With center, everyone has this guard and can make him a center, or you can take this undersized (guy) and make him a center. That really isn’t the case. It doesn’t work in a lot of situations.

“You have to have some kind of center background in their history, in their past, for that to work well.”

“From a mental standpoint it’s challenging. Practice is one thing. In the game it’s a completely different, much like the quarterback. When it starts to hit the fan out there at that position things speed up and you need it to slow down.”

I’m not saying that the Bears shouldn’t try Williams at center. But I’m very wary of the idea.

Williams didn’t make the transition to guard very well and the move to center would be tougher. He really needs to be settled into a position and allowed to develop.  This kind of change would set his timetable back even further.  Williams may never reach his potential as the Bears shuffle him from position to position.

Its a big risk.