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Free Agency has wound down. We will likely sign a veteran backup QB and a few more fill ins. So give your grade now. Happy with the way he's set us up for the draft? What could have been done better, or did we do too much?

Bears Offseason Moves: http://www.chicagobears.com/multimedia/ ... 27eb2d94ae

Bringing back Cutler, Jennings, Slauson, Gould, Garza and Tillman was key. Then the little guys like Collins, Rosario, Steltz and Britton. The addition of Mundy, Jennings and especially de la Puente are crucial for competition and depth. But its the work that was done to the defensive line that gets Emery the A.

Lamarr Houston was one of the top five in qb pressures this season with 41, Willie Young had more than any Bear last season I believe, and Jared Allen had 11 sacks in a (down year). Defensive line was by far the worst in the NFL last year after Melton and Collins went down.

MAJOR upgrade from Wootton to Houston, upgrade from Peppers to Allen, and upgrade from McClellin to Young. All we need to do is replace Melton, which I believe we have been setup for perfectly in the draft. There are four pass rushing DTs that are worthy of the 14th pick (Donald, Tuitt, Hageman and Jernigan), and Emery made sure not to let a need at any other position interfere with that.

If Emery can sign Josh Freeman for less than what McCown got, the he deserves bragging rights for best Free Agency period of any NFL GM this offseason.

A

heir_jordan22 wrote:Bringing back Cutler, Jennings, Slauson, Gould, Garza and Tillman was key. Then the little guys like Collins, Rosario, Steltz and Britton. The addition of Mundy, Jennings and especially de la Puente are crucial for competition and depth. But its the work that was done to the defensive line that gets Emery the A.

Lamarr Houston was one of the top five in qb pressures this season with 41, Willie Young had more than any Bear last season I believe, and Jared Allen had 11 sacks in a (down year). Defensive line was by far the worst in the NFL last year after Melton and Collins went down.

MAJOR upgrade from Wootton to Houston, upgrade from Peppers to Allen, and upgrade from McClellin to Young. All we need to do is replace Melton, which I believe we have been setup for perfectly in the draft. There are four pass rushing DTs that are worthy of the 14th pick (Donald, Tuitt, Hageman and Jernigan), and Emery made sure not to let a need at any other position interfere with that.

If Emery can sign Josh Freeman for less than what McCown got, the he deserves bragging rights for best Free Agency period of any NFL GM this offseason.

Well said and I completely agree.

He gets an A from me as well.

Emery didn't mess around. He had a plan and executed perfectly. When he struck out on Bennett on the first day, he jump right to his 2nd choice in Houston and signed him up. He was on a mission from day 1 of FA and got likely close to exactly what he wanted.

Also was impressive with the sneaky way he signed up Allen under everyone's nose.

There's no way he can't get an "A". We went to having one of the worst d-lines in the NFL to potentially a top 5. Added depth everywhere. Looks like we'll get Freeman.

Even though he did a spectacular job I think it could have been better. We needed a Safety (two after Conte had surgery). Chris Clemons got 2 years 2.7mil only 450k guaranteed. That's great value for a pro bowl caliber guy. We need a back up RB, Andre Brown only got 645k. I'd also like to see the Bears add another LB. I'm not sure If Williams can stay healthy and I'm not sure if Bostic is ready to start or if Shea can play LB in the NFL. We could have afforded all these guys so I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get them but Emery still did an excellent job.

It looks like we'll only have to rookie starters on our team which is pretty good because our 1st rounder will most likely be contending for ROY. And Emery finds gold in the later rounds.

At worst Emery has made one of the worst defenses into an average one. Paired with This offense, we should be serious SB contenders.

patryk7754 wrote:There's no way he can't get an "A". We went to having one of the worst d-lines in the NFL to potentially a top 5. Added depth everywhere.

I think top 5 is a big reach. It's certainly respectable at a minimum though.

* Essentially swapping Peppers for Allen was a good move.
* Getting Houston, Idjonie, and Young in exchange for Melton and Wootton was decent, although I' rather have the younger Wootton
* Keeping Tillman, Jennings, and Cutler in the fold was a good move as well.

What brings the grade down to a C was who they let get away:
* Zack Bowman was a very good backup CB. Why let him walk?
* Devin Hester. We let a future Hall-of-Famer walk Yeah, we'd overpaid him due to a poorly-thought out experiment to make him a #1 WR (he really was more of a slot guy), but you don't drop the best KR/PR of all time unless you have a replacement plan. I don't see that.
* NOT extending McCown was the real down-check. The last two years, Jay Cutler's missed serious time with injuries. The Bears had a superb backup in McCown and didn't lock him up, blowing far too much on Cutler now, rather than getting McCown a deal then signing Cutler.
* Corey Wootton - worst case, a solid backup DE/DT, and younger than Idjonie.
* Also, while swapping Pepper for Allen was not a bad move, imagine if they could have re-negotiated with Peppers to have BOTH Peppers and Allen.

Guess he's good at getting names and achievers...let's see if Tresty can put it together

What brings the grade down to a C was who they let get away:
* Zack Bowman was a very good backup CB. Why let him walk?

-----> Bowman is mediocre at best. I actually was a big fan of his coming out of nebraska but he leveled off some time ago and is easily replacable by a younger corner in the draft.

* Devin Hester. We let a future Hall-of-Famer walk Yeah, we'd overpaid him due to a poorly-thought out experiment to make him a #1 WR (he really was more of a slot guy), but you don't drop the best KR/PR of all time unless you have a replacement plan. I don't see that.

-----> Hester was never overpaid IMO. Jerry signed him to an incentive deal, but the guy was making $2.1m which was a steal when he was producing, but too high for what he gave the last couple of years. Still, I would like to have kept him too. I think we could have afforded him for at least 2014.

* NOT extending McCown was the real down-check. The last two years, Jay Cutler's missed serious time with injuries. The Bears had a superb backup in McCown and didn't lock him up, blowing far too much on Cutler now, rather than getting McCown a deal then signing Cutler.

-------> Just too much cash against the cap needed to keep him.

* Corey Wootton - worst case, a solid backup DE/DT, and younger than Idjonie.

-------> Wooten is being replaced in the starting lineup by Houston, not Idjonie. Our Top 3 DE rotation is going from Peppers, Wooten, Shea to Allen, Houston, Young.

* Also, while swapping Pepper for Allen was not a bad move, imagine if they could have re-negotiated with Peppers to have BOTH Peppers and Allen.

-------> Takes two to tango and there no way Pepper's would drop down as low as we would have needed to get something like that done. Great resource on team salaries at http://www.overthecap.com