Anderson vs. Brown: The Prestige

Sometimes I kind of like the stuff David Haugh writes for the Tribune, but a lot of his stuff is just too focused on analyzing the personalities of Bears players. And sometimes his articles leave me wondering if he even watches the games.

His analysis of five position battles to watch in Bears training camp mentions two spots on the line. In discussing the promotion of Anderson to starting right end over Brown, he says, "Anderson did have 12 sacks in limited time as a rookie, and likely will improve against the run. But how will he fare playing every down and being a pass-rusher offenses double-team or chip with a running back?" I've heard a few places that Bears coaches treat the line as more of a rotation than being necessarily about who starts and who's a backup, so this statement coming from Haugh seems really strange to me.

In later discussion of Dvoracek versus Adams, Haugh seems to express skepticism about Smith calling the line a "rotation." I have no idea where I'd find any statistics about the percentage of snaps each d-lineman saw, but from what I remember from the games last season, Anderson did see significant time on the field while he was technically a backup. I mean, it was amazing that he got 12 sacks, but it's not like he was getting a sack every other play he was on the field or anything. I expect that the same will hold for this season, and that Anderson's promotion to "starter" will really mean that Anderson and Brown will come closer to splitting time evenly at the position, with it being more likely that Anderson will play slightly more than Brown.

So, sure, it will be interesting to watch the battle between Anderson and Brown for the starting position, but any close observer of the Bears should know that it's not going be too significant of a thing w/r/t playing time for either player. It's mainly a matter of pride and, eventually, of contracts. So why doesn't Haugh just characterize it as that, instead of trying to drum it up into being about who gets to play and who has to watch all season from the sidelines?

Plus, his article would be way more interesting and informative if it had contained interviews or even quotes from the position coaches who'll be assessing these position battles during training camp. If I were a sportswriter I would be doing whatever I could to get to ask those guys a few questions, especially at this point in the season. Why is there exactly none of that in any coverage of the Bears that I've ever been able to find. Is it that papers think readers will be bored when they see an assistant-level coach quoted or something? Why is sports reporting so consistently shallow and uncurious?

When Men were (smaller) Men

I think Mike Tomlin is going to be a really effing good coach, and I couldn't be happier that the Stillers scooped him out of the clutches of the evil Vikings, and I can sort of understand the impulse as a new coach to assert your "I ain't goin' soft on nobody" attitude at the kickoff of training camp which apparently has caused Tomlin to run full-contact drills on the first day of camp. I seem to remember Lovie did something like that during his first training camp as coach of the Bears, which pretty quickly backfired when Mike Brown suffered the first of his season-destroying injuries and Brian Urlacher pulled a hamstring that bothered him for most of that season. I guess no one questioned Lovie's toughness, but part of the reason most training camps are not as intense as they apparently used to be is because present-age football players are way the fuck more gigantic and fast than they were back then, so they tend to get hurt more when they are made to run into each other repeatedly. It's not that they're a bunch of pussies. So, y'know, be careful Mike Tomlin.

ESPN is Dumb: Reason 47

And this one isn't even complaining about their Bears analysis. This is just about what they apparently think is the type of sports coverage they should be bragging about. This is from their front page today: "Today is Michael Vick Day on Hashmarks. Pinch-blogger Mike Sando will be live blogging MV throughout the day. And we'll have more than five hours of Vick coverage on ESPN and ESPNEWS." That's supposed to make me want to watch ESPN? Actually it made me glad that I don't have cable or ESPN just because that means there's no way that I might accidentally flip through it and be exposed to any more Michael Vick than I already have. Seriously, ESPN folks, wait until the story's happened, and then write about it. Just because Michael Vick is involved doesn't mean this is actually a sporting event that needs to be covered with play-by-play... Actually, now that I think about it, it would be pretty funny if they had Joe Buck doing play-by-play on Michael Vick's pre-trial hearing or whatever the hell is going on today. You'd probably have to alert the Guinness people because I'm sure Buck would reach new unheard of levels of righteous indignation. At least in this case it would kind of be appropriate...

At least I'm housebroken

Here's hoping it's true that Briggs signed a deal with the Bears and won't be holding out after all, if for no other reason than that all the members of the Chicago sports media will have to find something else to write about than the impending doom of the Bears defense without Lance Briggs. Now we will get to see if they'll try to stick with their angle and claim that the defense is going to truly drop a notch because of the loss of Terry Johnson, Alfonso Boone, and Ian Scott. Maybe their arguments will go something like this: Much like the Dude's rug, those three average tackles reeeeally tied the defense, which for the sake of this analogy is like a room, together. Now that they're gone, the defense, which is now like the Dude, will embark on some pointless quest which will put them in greater danger of peril before finally realizing after it's too late and Donny (Maybe Babich? No, Rivera!) is already dead that they just didn't need the fucking rug (Scott, Boone, Johnson) in the first place.

Football Outsiders hates on the Bears some more

Football Outsiders just ranked the Bears defensive line at ninth in the league, which makes me pissed off beyond any reasonable level. Of course it's not too surprising to see New England at the top of the list. They're total Patriots homers over at FO, and are at least generally willing to admit that it might affect their analysis of the Patriots, so I'm willing to allow that since the Pats d-line probably does belong in the top five you might as well put them at number one if you're a fan. But ranking the Vikings at sixth? The Vikings are supposed to have a better d-line than the Bears? That is just utter bullshit. They've got two linemen who are worth anything: the Williams fellows. And, sure, because of them, you can't really run up the middle against the Vikes. But Kevin Williams' major selling point is that he shares a last name with the All-Pro playing next to him. The Vikes' ends could be traded out with ends from half a dozen other teams around the league and no one would notice or care. So, if the Vikes are ranked sixth for being Pat Williams and a bunch of mediocre to better than average guys, why are the Bears, who have Tommie Harris playing the Pat Williams roles, not to mention Mark Anderson, Alex Brown, and Adewale Ogunleye rotating in and out on the ends, why are they ranked ninth? Well, according to Mr. Macey's explanation, it seems to be that the Bears have been ranked at the average of where they would be ranked with Tommie Harris and without Tommie Harris, since their line clearly declined with Tommie Harris sidelined during the second half of the season last year. Actually, I think ninth is more like where they should be ranked if you just figure that Harris isn't going to play this year, which would be stupid to figure, but how come the Bears' hypothetical ranking is suffering based on a hypothetical injury? Especially when, say, Carolina, who Macey ranks third and then goes on to describe every single member of their line as being surrounded by injury questions, is ranked where they'd be if their whole line suddenly got way better. So, Chicago's d-line loses rank because their best player was injured last year, but Carolina, whose entire line has problems staying healthy, is given the benefit of every doubt?

Man, I can't wait for football season.

ESPN is Dumb: Reasons 45 & 46

45:So, I was bored, and I wanted to see some more football coverage, so I thought I'd check out ESPN's Scouts, Inc.'s rankings of teams by position, and the only link anywhere I could find was the one for special teams. Of course the Bears are ranked number one; anyone who would even bother trying to argue just obviously doesn't know what they're talking about. But ESPN's reasoning for why Bears special teams are good mentions three names before they even get to mentioning Dave Toub. Robbie Gould, Brendon Ayenbadejo, and Devin Hester. I suppose there's not too much of a problem with putting Devin Hester in there, since he, at least last season, was playing on a completely different level than any other returner. So, fine. But what I think is annoying about this is that the Bears special teams is so good primarily because of how Dave Toub coaches and how the organization in general treats special teams. A player's ability to contribute on special teams makes a major difference in where the Bears draft him, even for early-round picks. The Bears coaching staff sees special teams as nearly or just as important as defense and offense. ST is not just this afterthought that you let your bench players do so they can feel like they're contributing. So, anyway, the fact that there's not even a mention of the major difference between Bears special teams philosophy and nearly every other team in the league is, I think, a really stupid absence.

46:ESPN is having this sportsnation vote thing about each NFL Team, and in their "Key Additions" column for the Bears, they mention Obafami Ayenbadejo, Dan Bazuin, and Greg Olsen. No mention of Adam Archuleta? wtf? I know he didn't work in Washington's system, but he was great under Smith in Smith's system at St. Louis. No reason to assume he won't at least be an upgrade at the position for the Bears, behind Brown. And given the importance of the Safety position in Smith's defense, Archuleta surely merits mention before Ayenbadejo. Dumb.

re: ESPN's Hashmarks Offseason Power Rankings

Well, I had a dream last night wherein I was reading some misguided analysis of the Bears defense, centering largely on the possible absence of Lance Briggs, which is an interesting variation on the Bears dreams I've had during past summers. But apparently I'm caring about this again. And then while fiddling around on the internet I stumbled across ESPN's little pre-preseason power rankings thing by Matt Mosley. So I'm just going to correct a few things he seems to think.

Not surprisingly the entire entry on the Bears, whom he ranks 6th, 3rd best in the NFC, is concerned only with Briggs and Tank Johnson. No mention of picking up Archuleta, which will allow the Bears to either have the best Safety tandem in the league (Archuleta/Brown), or at the very least, not to have a significant fall-off in that area should either suffer an injury. Smith's whole scheme is built pretty heavily around the safety, so an upgrade like this easily balances out the potential loss of Briggs. Briggs is an amazing player who plays a position that on this defense is largely about being in the right spot. Having Briggs in that spot is actually more gaudy than essential. Which is kind of why I can understand why, from his position, he might want to go play on a different team, where he could make full use of his potential. But, whatever. A potential holdout by Briggs would at worst be a mild distraction for a game or two, until it becomes obvious that he wasn't necessary for the proper running of the defense.

As far as Tank goes. The Bears were totally stacked at the line with Tank, and they're still pretty much stacked at the line without him. None of their tackles are as good as Tank was. Except, of course, for Tommie Harris. Who is the best in the league. So it's not like they're really hurting. No one knows how good Dvoracek will be, but it seems about an even bet that he'll end up being at least as good as Tank going by Angelos track record in drafting defensive linemen. Just like with Briggs, losing Tank merely downgrades the Bears defense at one position from gaudy to easily in the top four or five in the league, and with the type of upgrade they got at safety, I'd say that overall the changes in the defense amount to--at worst--a wash.

They were pretty clearly the best team in the NFC for the majority of the season, and proved it when it mattered. How exactly the Tank and Briggs thing is supposed to be big enough of a deal that they could be moved down below New Orleans and Philadelphia is not exactly clear to me. New Orleans will likely be as good as they were last season; maybe even better. They'll not have the huge emotional boost they had at the beginning of the season, but they'll be able to build on what was obviously a really good team after that wore off. So I couldn't say for sure that the Bears deserve a higher spot than New Orleans, although I'm pretty sure they do. But Philadelphia is three or four years removed from their peak, and have had two seasons in a row killed by a serious injury to McNabb. If McNabb stays healthy for the whole season, they'll be in the competition with New Orleans and Chicago for the top spot, but I think they have to prove it.

People are so disappointing sometimes

The new little "poll" on the chicagosports website asks the question, "Who do you want starting at strong safety for the Bears?" (it should be "whom," but whatever... I guess it wouldn't bother me in spoken language...) the options are Archuleta and Brown. Nearly 75% of the answerers said Brown. what? Do they not really understand the question? It's not like a zero-sum thing of Brown or Archuleta starting, although the stupidly worded question does kind of sound that way... obviously, ideally both Brown and Archuleta will be starters, and Brown would clearly be better at free safety than would Archuleta. And Archuleta was clearly brought in to be a strong safety anyway; that's what he excells at. Are the people who answered the question thinking that only one of them can be on the field or something? I just don't get it...

I just have to say that the possibility of having Archuleta at strong safety and Brown at free safety is just about giving me wet dreams. Seriously, that defense would be amazing. Regardless of just about anything else that happens on their defense. And then Urlacher in the middle, Tommie Harris, Alex Brown, Mark Anderson, and Ogunleye on the line... (and I actually even forgot to mention Tillman and Vasher, who made an insanely small number of mistakes this last season and are probably the least appreciated members of the defense (maybe because their jobs seem to be geared more for containment than any other part of the defense?) ...) I know there are more question marks elsewhere than I really expected there to be in the off-season, but with those players as the core for the defense? Wow. I can hardly imagine the Bears defense not being a better unit this year, whether or not Briggs decides to hold out for the imaginary billions he thinks he deserves. He'd be an idiot not to want to play for that kind of defense. (Seriously. I get pretty annoyed when people get mad at players for wanting more money, and Briggs has every right to do so, but I mean, this defense is very much within grasping distance of being Historic, and he's going to get enough money anyway that with just a tiny bit of smart investing, he would have more money for the rest of his life than he could possibly figure out what to do with... so, really, he would be stupid not to play for these guys, and play fucking hard. Not immoral or anything, just stupid.)

Without too much distance from the disappointing end I wanted to take a bit to gather my thoughts.
I think more than anything, more even than Rex's turnovers the Bears lost this game due to poor game planning. It's time to put faith back into the secondary and stop calling conservative cover 2 defences in big games. This strategy obviously works throughout most of the regular season, but any good, experienced QB in the league knows how to pick it apart by now. Either Ron Rivera must go, or he has to bring the blitzing edge he had his first two years back. Leslie Frazier would also make a perfect replacement for him if he heads to Dallas.
On the other side, the most important decision facing the Bears of 2007 is who to name as starting QB. They have three QB's with varied talent and experience who have all proven that they are capable of winning in the NFL. Wade Wilson has five years of coaching experience and has yet to show that he knows what he's doing. I would love to see someone with a track record brought in to develop all three QB's. This off- and pre-season must be looked at as an straight-up tryout for the starting QB job. It's up to Lovie and Turner to decide which QB gives this team the best chance to win every single game that they play.
The RB situation should be simple. If Jones wants to come back, offer him a one year extension in which he makes the exact same over the next two seasons as Benson. Get rid of the starting/reserve idea and play Jones and Benson completely interchangeably, and sometimes at the same time. After next season, if the price is too steep, trade one of them and commit to the other.
As for WR's, Lovie needs to sit down with Hester and have a conversation with him about how he can most help the Bears. I know he wants to play DB, but Lovie needs to decide if he can help the team more at WR. I'm sure he could make a hell of a fifth receiver. I like Moose, Berrian, Bradly, Davis, Hester, and Currie as a receiving corps. But there's always room for a rookie if Hester or Currie aren't available.
The TE's and OL are fine, not a lot of depth so finding more of that would be nice.
On the defensive side the DT's are the biggest area of concern. Tommie Harris is obviously irreplaceable and I really like Tank DD and Idonije. That leaves room for a first day DT to slot into the rotation.
The DE's are great, but there's definitely room on the roster for an outside rush specialist/outside LB to add some depth.
Briggs and Urlacher are the best in the league, unfortunately Hillenmeyer is not. I'd love to see Wilson, Joe, Williams, Ayanbadejo and a first day LB battle for the third LB spot. Hillenmeyer adds great depth and could probably turn into a pretty decent Special teamer.
The secondary is top notch. Peanut, Vash and Manning are the probably the top three DB's on one team in the entire league. Wesley looked like he could play last summer. And Daniel Manning, Vash or Todd Johnson can fill in at nickel. Brown is irreplaceable, but McGowen did a much better job than Harris or Johnson.
I think Brown and Manning with McGowen as backup to both is about as good as we can hope for. Let Harris, Johnson and Worell battle a first day rookie for roster spots and see what happens.
This is still the top team in the NFC; they only need a few tweaks to turn into a full-season steamroller and make everyone forget yesterday and the "dominance of the AFC."

This is this week's comment from the DVOA's for the Chargers: "That's about as bad as their quarterback can play, and they won the game convincingly. Super Bowl, here we come."

This is a comment about the Bears from a few weeks ago: "Here's my opinion on the Chicago quarterback controversy: Brian Griese is going to be much more consistent than Rex Grossman. But just as the lows won't be as low, the highs won't be as high. The Bears have almost no chance of winning the Super Bowl if Evil Rex shows up during the playoffs, but their deep passing game becomes useless with Griese under center. To win it all, the Bears need to figure out how to get the Good Rex every week."

Fuck. You. Football. Sportswriters. Everywhere. The only reason that everyone is raving about how awesome San Diego is that they can when even when their new great quarterback sucks it up like a giant black hole is that there isn't there isn't a big media frenzy about whether or not Rivers's backup (who is who, exactly? exactly.) should be starting in his place. Well, maybe that and LaDanian Tomlinson. But, anyway, because the Chicago sportswriters are fucking d-bags and think the only way to cover a team is to act at all times like it is falling apart unless it's blowing away all of its opponents by thirty points, because that, they write all this useless shit about how Grossman needs to be benched because he had some bad games, which then makes it so the Bears coaches have to address that bullshit in press conferences so then national writers and tv folks use those as their cues to talk about it like its actually an issue, which of course then managed to visibly eat away at Grossman's confidence until he almost literally shit his pants on the field against Minnesota, so then instead of people talking about how incredible the Bears defense and special teams are and that they have a solid enough running game now that they actually have a fucking offense for the first time since like 1993, all anyone says is that they probably can't win the Super Bowl with Rex as their quarterback because he's not a great quarterback. Bullshit.

It is probably true that the only team with a similar shot at winning the Super Bowl this year as the Bears is the San Diego. And both teams are in that position because the entire teams are really good so it just doesn't matter all that much if the quarterback has an off day. Any part of either team can win a game for the team.

I don't know why, but I've never been so pissed off about sports coverage as I am this week. I haven't read any article, anywhere, talking about how now that the Bears have given themselves home field through the playoffs they've done everything they could've done up to this point to give them a good shot through to the super bowl. It would not matter if they'd won every single game that they've won by two hundred points and if they'd not given up a single yard in any of those games. Their defense has been dominating most of the time that it has needed to be, and even when it wasn't dominating it has been one of the top three defenses in the league. Their special teams has actually won a few games for them, which is probably more than any other team in the league could hope for. And their offense has even chipped in a few times. All of that adds up, quite reasonably, to the best record in the league.

Yes. The Bears can be beaten. But why is it that being a beatable team means, for the Bears, that they are actually terrible and don't deserve to have their record, whereas other teams are allowed to be beatable and destined for the Super Bowl at the same time? AAAUUUGGGHHH!!! Why are sportswriters all so goddamn worthless!!!

Every single one of the Tribune's and the Sun-Times' columnists write today that the Bears need to cut/fire/nix/git rid of Tank Johnson. Aside from the fact that sportswriters tend to relish every opportunity to take the "moral high ground" and condemn the players they write about, I don't quite understand why they're all so uppity about the Tank thing. Yes, he had a bunch of guns that he failed to procure a license for, although the licenses that he didn't have are licenses that aren't even required by most states. They weren't purchases illegally or anything; it's just that Illinois has this extra gun-licensing thing and he didn't get that license. If he lived in Utah, people would by getting ready to storm the police station if they tried to charge a guy for gun possession--except that he's black, so, who knows... His only other crime was having a pot-smoking friend and owning some pitbulls... I mean, yeah, all of it might seem kind of stupid if you're an educated urbane white guy, but none of it is actually illegal, or even, really, in violation of any moral standards, either. I mean, Ricky Manning Jr. actually helped his friends beat up a guy, and there was nothing like this journalistic outcry for his head.

It seems weirdest to me that the fact that Johnson's friend got killed is being written about as clinching proof that the Bears need to get rid of him, even though the police have gone out of their way to state that it appears Johnson had nothing to do with the shooting. I suppose it probably just makes them feel better to write about how Johnson is a terrible person as they reflect on the fact that they themselves aren't friends with any black felons and they don't go to those types of clubs... I mean, just look at this garbage:

"The team employs nutritionists, masseuses, security guards and all sorts of other personnel intended to meet their players' every need. They could use more baby-sitters.

They need to consider restricting the independence of players who lose the benefit of the doubt the way Johnson did after he was arrested twice before Thursday's incident. Johnson evidently is not as equipped to handle adulthood as many of his teammates. It's one thing to tell him to just grow up. It's another to show him how.

The shooting death early Saturday morning of Posey, who described himself as Johnson's bodyguard, sadly reinforced how concerned the Bears need to be about the company Johnson keeps."

I'm still pulling for SF to win their division. And with their convincing victory over Seattle, it could still happen! Now all SF has to do is beat Arizona, which shouldn't be a problem, and then beat Denver, which would be a little tougher, but Denver won't be playing for anything since they'll likely be out of wild card contention at that point (cross fingers!). Also, Seattle has to lose to San Diego, who'll be playing to clinch home-field in the playoffs, and then they have to lose to Tampa... That last one is probably the most unlikely, and I'd really hate to see Seattle win their division because they beat a shitty team like Tampa... but, then again, they are playing at Tampa, and that's a pretty long trip to make, and I wouldn't put it past Seattle to lose to pretty much anyone... I don't know why I want this to happen so badly, but, for some reason, I just hate Seattle this year...

Um... so Tank had a bunch of guns that he didn't properly obtain a permit for, and he kept some of them loaded and without proper safety things, etc., and possibly was shooting them in his backyard. So, um, he's kinda dumb and he loves guns, and apparently is too stupid to bother buying the guns by legal means, or to file the proper paperwork or whatever. But, um, why is the Chicago press acting like this is the hugest deal ever, but they were pretty silent about Ricky Manning Jr. actually beating up a guy for no reason? And also, people on the message boards seem angrier about this than they did about Manning. Um. What?

This is from the FO forums, about the possibility of putting Hester in on offense as well: "They should just replace their entire offense with their kick/punt return unit whenever Evil Rex shows up. The long snapper could just hike the ball deep to Hester on each play! Think about it! He would even get three chances." The funniest thing about it is that it almost seems like an actually good idea...

In the middle of the Dallas NO game it has just occured to me that there really isn't a team in the NFC that is capable of beating the bears. NO is crushing Dallas because the NO offence is pretty good and the Dallas defence isn't great. These are the two other best teams but their both good because of offence. The great thing about the Bears is that their defence is simply amazing. No one can put up more than 20 points on them and if they have to they can score 21 with help from Hester. The AFC is a little more tricky because New England and Baltimore have very good defences, not as good as the Bears but close enough that Chicago might need a competent offence, at least one that can stay on the field and punt, to beat them. The NFC is a complete lock though, the Bears are already in the Super Bowl. The only question will be if Rex can settle down and get them there or if Griese will have to do it.
I have a good feeling about Grossman as well. The thing I don't like is that we have no idea how practice has looked for Grossman the last month. It would be nice to know if he's struggling all the time or only on game days. It sounds to me, based upon last week's interviews that he spent all week struggling before the Minnesota game. I think this because no one really sounded like they were too surprised with his performance. It was as if they knew that he had been feeling pressure and simply wasn't playing like he had been and it sounded like he was really questioning what was going on, why he sucked. Turner said after the first practice this week that Grossman had had a very loose and good practice so hopefully that has continued. My prediction is that the day off watching early-season film combined with last weekend's total collapse will have Rex playing without pressure. I think that he'll feel like he just needs to play and if he's good he'll do well if not he simply isn't good enough to finish out the season.
Either way this season has been amazing, but most of the actual games have been weirdly boring because I absolutely believe that the Bears will be in the superbowl and it's almost like the games don't matter because I already know the result. All year it's been like the games are on delay and the score already flashed on the bottom of screen.

As if out of an attempt to hold my prediction bravado in check, last night I had a dream that Grossman went out against the Rams, threw two passes for two touchdowns, and after the second one he was hit by a lineman and ended up lying on the ground with with both of his knees bent completely backwards. And then Griese went on to dominate the Rams for the rest of the game. So... I guess now we get to find out whether my intuition or my dreams have the greater predictive power!

Not for any reason other than that I have a "feeling" about it, I'm going to go ahead and call Monday's game to be a huge rebound game for Grossman. Mainly because, there's not really any way a quarterback could have a worse game than he had last week, so he's got to have realized he's basically hit bottom, and also that he's just really not actually that bad, so he doesn't really have anything to lose. I'm imagining him throwing an interception on the first drive of the game because of some weird fluke, and then suddenly it will click again. The last three quarters of the game will look like the first halves of the games against the Bills and the 49ers. That's what I see happening.

It's funny, because there's no way that anything could possibly convince me that that won't happen until the game actually happens. It's one of those weird things where I just feel like it's an objective fact, even though I have no really good reason to believe that it's true. Exactly like the belief I've had since they lost to the Panthers in the playoffs last year that they are going to win the Super Bowl this year.

The Bears have a two game lead over the entire NFC and if Dallas beats NO sunday they have the tie breaker over any team that is two games behind allowing them to loose two games without dropping in the standings. Rex Grossman is the quarterback unless he has three turnovers that are definitely his fault in the first half of any game until they loose or, more likely, clinch homefield in the NFC. Lovie knows that this defence and special teams are the best in the leauge and can probably win any of their remaining regardless of the offence. Lovie has the luxury of allowing Rex at least two more games to prove he can still play. If Rex sucks the move to Griese will be made for the final two games of the season ensuring homefield in the NFC or just allowing Griese to work the rust off.

Possibly the most worthwhile thing Aaron Schatz has ever said about the Bears? "I'm sure he's a nice fellow, but is it possibly time to question Wade Wilson's qualifications as a quarterback coach? In three years in Chicago, he's had bad middle-aged quarterbacks (Jonathan Quinn), bad young quarterbacks (Craig Krenzel, Kyle Orton), and imploding young quarterbacks (Rex Grossman). He was also quarterbacks coach in Dallas from 2000-2002, where he mentored (so to say) Ryan Leaf, Quincy Carter, Anthony Wright, Clint Stoerner, and Chad Hutchinson."