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Starting lineups/depth chart has been named for Game 1:

Offense

WR Johnny Knox; Devin Hester
LT Chris Williams
LG Roberto Garza
C. Olin Kreutz
RG Lance Louis
RT Frank Omiyale
TE Greg Olsen
QB Jay Cutler
RB Matt Forte
HB Desmond Clark

Defense

DT Tommie Harris
NT Anthony Adams
LDE Mark Anderson/Israel Idonije
RDE Julius Peppers

WLB Lance Briggs
MLB Brian Urlacher
SLB Nick Roach/Pisa Tinoisamoa

LCB Zack Bowman
RCB Charles Tillman
FS Chris Harris
SS Danieal Manning

Other spots on the depth chart:

Second team offensive line
LT Kevin Shaffer
LG Johan Asiata
C Josh Beekman
RG James Marten
RT J'Marcus Webb


Wide receivers
No. 2 Rashied Davis and Devin Aromashodu
No. 3 Earl Bennett and Juaquin Iglesias

No. 2 RB Chester Taylor

No. 2 SS Craig Steltz
No. 2 FS Josh Bullocks and Major Wright


1. I'm really hoping Louis and Asiata aren't complete crap as we may need them to take over the 2 guard spots at some point. Garza just got moved to LG after playing RG for years to make room for Louis to start at RG.

2. Chris Harris at FS?? I still don't get it. He's played SS his whole career and his coverage skills weren't that great at Carolina. Should be interesting to see how many differnet starting combinations we use at safety this year. Hopefully we can find a match that sticks.

3. It looks like Anderson/Izzy and Roach/Pisa are still battling because they were both named starters at the same position. Should be a very healthy battle pushing the best player to win the job. I see Anderson starting early with Izzy taking over eventually.

4. Dez at H-Back? I guess they had to put some of these TE's somewhere.

5. Rashied got the nod over Earl on the depth chart as well. That's a huge punch to the stomach for him. Looks like it's going to be Knox/Hester/Aroma as our 1-3 punch this year.

6. I read Harrison might be losing ground to Toeina at backup NT. I wish Harrison had the will to get into shape and win that starting NT spot, but it doesn't look like it.

7. If Favre comes back it's going to be a ridiculously hard schedule for us this year. We need to start fast so I'm guessing that we leave some of the starters out there longer than usual this preseason to get these reps in.

Bears

I think that the D-line will be the weak spot for this team.

Julius Peppers has been criticized for having motivation issues and he just signed a huge contract.

Mark Anderson hasn't done anything since his rookie year when he was playing with the best D-line in the NFL...Tommie Harris hasn't done anything since 2005 either and at some point age + injuries don't equal successs.

I don't think that anyone will argue that Israel Idonije or Anthony Adams are above average at their positions...

Other weak spots for the Bears include Lance Louis at RG and Zack Bowman at CB.

But other than that I like the Bears this season. I like Jay Cutler in his second season...I like the young group of recievers with another year under their belt...I like our offensive line which looked better the last 4 weeks of the season when we made some changes...I like Urlacher playing more than one game...I adding Chris Harris and Major Wright to the secondary...should be an interesting season.

Phillip Rivers and Jay Cutler meeting up is always interesting. Should be a good one.

Why couldn't they just have put Louis at LG and left Garza at right where he's been since he got here? Ah well, hopefully it means he's pretty damn good at RG.

Idonije probably makes more sense than Anderson to start. Pepper brings the heat while Idonije doesn't just run past the RT every play, allowing them to gash us with the run. Let's see if Anderson can reclaim a little of that magic he had as a 3rd down rusher.

Hopefully Pisa can stay healthy on on the strong side. The couple games he was healthy for, he played great.

Cliff Levingston guesses that Harris is better in coverage than Manning, which is why he's at FS, but who knows. Hopefully in the end, it's Harris/Wright, and we finally have a decent set of safeties.

i have some faith in louis. he could become a nice peice.

and i dont quite get the move to fs for harris either, hes not fast enough imo

I don't know why Louis replaced Garza while Garza flipped to the other side neither but I trust that Mike Tice knows what he's doing. He has been successful in the past when his sole responsibilty was the O-Line.

As far as the safety positions, Lovie always says that they are inter-changeable so maybe he has something different strategically that he will unveil this yr. Hopefully.

My biggest concern is still the Offense in general. I am not sure how long it is going to take them to get comfortable with Martz's complicated scheme.

my main concern is that the rest of the league is getting too comfortable with the simple cover 2 d

Really not gonna learn much about the offense in this game unless they're ahead of schedule with understanding the playbook. But certainly the offensive line will be a focal point, especially the right side.

Defense has questions all around, might learn something about that tomorrow.

ChronicKerr wrote:Chris Harris at FS?? I still don't get it. He's played SS his whole career and his coverage skills weren't that great at Carolina. Should be interesting to see how many differnet starting combinations we use at safety this year. Hopefully we can find a match that sticks.

I really think this is a smart move. The coaches know Manning can't play FS and Harris is excellent there. Harris played some FS here at times and he knows the SS position. If they think Major Wright is a better overall player than Manning, this makes a lot of sense. I think by the start of the season, Harris will move over to SS and Wright will be the starting FS. Steltz will be the backup FS and Manning will have learned the SS position and will be a solid backup there & can play the nickel. I like a nickel package with Manning, Harris & Wright. Very physical.

Cliff Levingston wrote:Why couldn't they just have put Louis at LG and left Garza at right where he's been since he got here? Ah well, hopefully it means he's pretty damn good at RG.

They seem to think Louis is a mauler with a mean streak which would bode well on the right side for the running game. I'm really excited about this move. If they're right, its absolutely huge for us. We could possibly have a rebuilt OL "IF" Frank O works out at RT. He has got to be solid if they're moving Garza out of his entrenched LG spot.

Our secondary is depressing.

It should be our primary concern to clean our secondary up by next year, along with the offensive line.

Maybe only Charles TIllman has the talent to be a starter in this league, and even he's shown signs of slowing down while in coverage. Lately his saving grace has been his superb tackling in open field, and run support and his weird knack of forcing fumbles. I can give Bowman the benefit of the doubt for a year since last year he was a rookie, but the rest clearly don't belong. Chris Harris is a fringe starter, and Danieal is just an athletic specimen.

Here we go. Time to see the defense for the first time.

This season already looks different. 3 and out to start the game for the defense.

Cutler and Knox look good so far. Run block and Forte look bad.

First injury of 2010: Craig Steltz.

Erik Kramer mispronouncing Gould's name is quite disturbing.

SportsWorld wrote:First injury of 2010: Craig Steltz.

Well, that'll make the secondary battle a little clearer.

no pressure whatsoever from that front 4

CjayC wrote:Our secondary is depressing.

It should be our primary concern to clean our secondary up by next year, along with the offensive line.

You got that right. Uggghhh.

Defense looks awful again. I don't really care though. I kind of am waiting to see how McFevour does.

And Cutler's done.

Welp, this game is far less interesting to me