Game 8 - Bears at Patriots - Halfway point to hell?

[CBS7]

Playoff hopes are pretty much gone, so I'll be rooting for Forte to be the 2nd guy to get 1k rushing + 1k receiving yards in the same season. Currently on pace for 1120 rushing yards and 980 receiving yards.

He's fun to watch.

[blumeany]

Chargers: 5-3, McCoy
Cardinals: 6-1, Arians
Bears: 3-5, Trestman

Bad gamble, Emery.

[BullHeaded]

Honestly, you do all of that and you're still not a Super Bowl team. You're just an above average, sometimes in the playoffs but out in the first two rounds football team.

But we are better than we are now and in much better cap shape going forward and we went from a tough resilient team to a soft team and it just doesn't fit .

Wouldnt it have been nice to have built a foundation that when Manning was available we had the pieces in place to actually attract and sign him ?

Sure... if we swap Cutler for Manning we're better. But looking at what you have there, the offensive line would be marginally better with Loadholt over Mills (although he's not on a rookie contract, remember, we tried signing him the first day of FA when we ended up with Bennett and Bushrod)... and our WR corps is marginally worse with Wallace and Maclin instead of Marshall and Jeffrey. I think Martellus Bennett is outright better than Olsen.

[chitownsports4ever]

Honestly, you do all of that and you're still not a Super Bowl team. You're just an above average, sometimes in the playoffs but out in the first two rounds football team.

But we are better than we are now and in much better cap shape going forward and we went from a tough resilient team to a soft team and it just doesn't fit .

Wouldnt it have been nice to have built a foundation that when Manning was available we had the pieces in place to actually attract and sign him ?

Sure... if we swap Cutler for Manning we're better. But looking at what you have there, the offensive line would be marginally better with Loadholt over Mills (although he's not on a rookie contract, remember, we tried signing him the first day of FA when we ended up with Bennett and Bushrod)... and our WR corps is marginally worse with Wallace and Maclin instead of Marshall and Jeffrey. I think Martellus Bennett is outright better than Olsen.

the point is that we could still be building instead of at the final product . What are seeing is 5 years of building a team around Cutler who had never won anything to find out what we already knew . That we could win with a Grossman type of QB . We went all in on the wrong guy the people I picked aren't exclusive just that I would have preferred us recognize the need and then do our due diligence instead of raising our skirt to the first person who came up .

[City of Trees]

I didnt liked the Trestman signing although I have always hoped he would be successful. A number of things concerned me but none more than Trestman' s ability to control the locker room.

[BullHeaded]

But we are better than we are now and in much better cap shape going forward and we went from a tough resilient team to a soft team and it just doesn't fit .

Wouldnt it have been nice to have built a foundation that when Manning was available we had the pieces in place to actually attract and sign him ?

Sure... if we swap Cutler for Manning we're better. But looking at what you have there, the offensive line would be marginally better with Loadholt over Mills (although he's not on a rookie contract, remember, we tried signing him the first day of FA when we ended up with Bennett and Bushrod)... and our WR corps is marginally worse with Wallace and Maclin instead of Marshall and Jeffrey. I think Martellus Bennett is outright better than Olsen.

the point is that we could still be building instead of at the final product . What are seeing is 5 years of building a team around Cutler who had never won anything to find out what we already knew . That we could win with a Grossman type of QB . We went all in on the wrong guy the people I picked aren't exclusive just that I would have preferred us recognize the need and then do our due diligence instead of raising our skirt to the first person who came up .

I hear you. Lets look forward though for a second. We elected to take the entire hit on Peppers this year instead of over two years, so we'll have a modest windfall there. Tillman... God love him... Is either not getting resigned or will come back on a short term lower cost deal. Briggs is probably gone and this may sound controversial but it would be addition by subtraction IMHO. He's a good player with diminishing skills, but he gets the leader by tenure title and he is a piss poor leader. Anyway, that will be more money off the books. McClellan will either be gone or will be back cheaper than his first rounder contract pays him. On the other end of the spectrum, the only current player who will become a lot more expensive is Alshon Jeffrey.

If we treat the second half of 2014 as the first part of the 2015 preseason and focus on evaluating and developing guys like Christian Jones, Vereen, Bostic, Greene, Sharpton, Ego, Sutton, etc, then we can make better educated decisions for next year with some reasonably strong resources. It sucks, but I think this year is shot.