Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Gleeful News

Right now this brief post over at Brad Biggs's flipping amazing Inside the Bears blog is all that's up, but he reports that Lovie's just announced what I thought of as one of the best-case options for next years defense, though one I didn't suspect could actually happen: Lovie is going to call the defense. Babich will retain his defensive coordinator title, but he's going to be more of just the LBs coach--I assume he's retaining the title so Lovie can help his friend save a bit of face. Fine with me.

Lovie calling the defense is wonderful news. Not only does he have a ridiculously solid history as a defensive coach, and his years as the defensive coordinator in St. Louis proved him to be one of the best defensive callers in the league, but it's will mean he overall will be taking a much more hands-on approach to the defense. Essentially, Lovie saw what was happening over the last couple years and decided that if you can't find someone else to do the job the way you want it, it's best to just do it yourself. I frankly haven't been this excited about a Bears move since some time before the 2006 season. Our defense, I predict, is going to be back next year--with a vengeance.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

QB LOL

Courtesy of Biggs, here's the list of free agent QBs:

Unrestricted free agents

Charlie Batch, Pittsburgh Steelers
Kyle Boller, Baltimore Ravens
Brooks Bollinger, Dallas Cowboys
Todd Bouman, Baltimore Ravens
David Carr, New York Giants
Matt Cassel, New England Patriots
Kerry Collins, Tennessee Titans
Ryan Fitzpatrick, Cincinnati Bengals
Charlie Frye, Seattle Seahawks
Jeff Garcia, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Rex Grossman, Bears
Gibran Hamdan, Buffalo Bills
Joey Harrington, New Orleans Saints
Byron Leftwich, Pittsburgh Steelers
J.P. Losman, Buffalo Bills
Jamie Martin, San Francisco 49ers
Luke McCown, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Dan Orlovsky, Detroit Lions
J.T. O'Sullivan, San Francisco 49ers
Patrick Ramsey, Denver Broncos
Chris Simms, Tennessee Titans
Brian St. Pierre, Arizona Cardinals
Marques Tuaisosopo, Oakland Raiders
Kurt Warner, Arizona Cardinals
Anthony Wright, New York Giants

Restricted free agent

Jeff Otis, Oakland Raiders


Boy am I glad that we have Kyle Orton. With the possible exception of Matt Cassell (who's gonna be franchised and won't be worth what it'd take to bring him) I'd take Kyle Orton over any of these guys in a second. If you are a team hoping to find your answer to QB through free agency this year, yr frickin' screwed. Garcia might make a decent veteran backup to bring in, but it's not like anyobody's gonna be really itchin' to bring him in. Honestly, I would be kinda happy to see Orlovsky end up here. Despite making the all-time dumbest NFL play ever, he actually settled in pretty well at QB for the Lions, and if he hadn't gotten injured he might have made them look really dumb for bringing in Culpepper. I'd say that if it's possible to bring him in he'd be a better option than wasting a draft pick on a QB, and he just might actually represent somebody worth taking a look at if Orton disappoints next year.

I'm really anxious to find out about the crop of defensive line free agents and free agent defensive backs, though. The team obviously needs a strong pass rusher--and I also think we're one strong pass rusher away from having a dominant line. We've got enough guys that on our line that have all been extremely good before, that having that one overpowering presence there could really open it up for the rest of them. And maybe Tommie Harris will return to form, too, in which case our line could be downright scary. I want that scary line. And we also need a scary safety. That's just not Mike Brown anymore, unfortunately. I hope he stays and gets to play, but we need to find someone else to be the heart&soul back there--it just is a fact that Brown will not make it through a season and we can't have that kind of dropoff there anymore, plus he never looked like the Mike Brown of '03 or even '06 at any point this year. We need a dominating safety to make the other team afraid.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

:O

Wow. Carol Slezak, the same lady who tried to character-assassinate Greg Olsen for making a dumb rap song when he was a freshman in college, just wrote an article for the Sun-Times saying the Bears should look into Michael Vick when he gets out of prison. She's not sure if people will be able to "get past the whole dogfighting thing," though it's obvious she thinks they should. What a complete bitch. Why the hell are people like this paid to write about sports? This is just a terrible idea in every way it's possible for an idea to be terrible...