Pompei Has Warped Priorities

As Texans right tackle Eric Winston explained earlier this week on PFT Live, the NFL could easily grow the pie by selling the Thursday night package to the highest bidder, in lieu of using it to prop up a league-owned network with far less distribution than it deserves.  The other easy answer would be to eliminate the playoff byes, adding four games to the wild-card round that could be sold to the networks.

While the overwhelming majority of NFL coaches will be forced to accept pay cuts in the event of a labor stoppage, Bears assistants have been assured their pay won’t be docked unless a lockout forces NFL games to be canceled, team president Ted Phillips said Friday.

Good for the Bears.  

It’s the slowest time of the NFL season, unless you get excited about franchise tags and press releases from the mediators of collective bargaining sessions.  In Bearsland, it’s no different.  

Some might argue the top half of the Bears’ board should be heavy with defensive players, given the age of some of the key defenders. But Ruskell doesn’t see it that way.

 Can someone explain to me the essence of this “argument”?  Are the Bears simply content to plod along offensively while focusing all their attention on defensive depth.  They have, right now, in place, a defense that can hold the world champions to three scores or less.  They need to score points.  They need to block.

Some fans have written their protest songs about the contract extension given to Lovie Smith by Jerry Angelo and the Chicago Bears.  Some believe we have entered into a deal with the world’s most boring devil – a devil that has no concept of game management or the correct use of challenge flags.  Some believe the surprising 2010 campaign, capped off with a trip to the NFC title game, had nothing to do with the head coach from Big Sandy, Texas. 

Barring a surprising move by the Minnesota Vikings, many believe wide receiver Sidney Rice will be dipping his wick into free agency waters next months.  There will be other receivers sure to draw interest from Chicago Bears management, regardless of Dan Pompei’s inane belief that the position is not a necessity for the club.  Braylon Edwards and Vincent Jackson are almost assuredly out of their current homes, with VJ requiring a mid-round pick before April.  But Sidney Rice is the prize of the market.  And if the Bears want to pair their franchise quarterback with a franchise receiver, they’ll break the bank and bring him in.

So You Don’t Like Jerry Angelo?

“This game is special. It brings people together. It galvanizes cities. And during the tough times in this economy … I’m not saying sports is the elixir, but it kind of helps people just have some fun in tough times.”

“This game has been everything to me, personally,” Angelo said. “I love this game. I’ve done everything I’ve could to respect the game, to make it better, like you want to do with anything you’re a part of in your life.

“That’s the part that’s bothersome. It’s not about people losing jobs. It’s not about anything other than we’re in an entertainment world. It’s a business. I know it’s a big pie. How that pie is distributed, people will determine that. But I’m more concerned with our game and that it doesn’t get tainted.”

Angelo comes across mild-mannered, balanced and likable.  He comes across like a man that’s easy to root for.

Jerry Angelo Says Chester Taylor Might Stay in Chicago

My entire experience with Dave Duerson is on DVD these days; a set of DVDs chronicling the 1985 Chicago Bears season the Reverend’s parents had made.  I can only say that when hard times hit members of the ’85 team, we all hurt a little deeper and the outpouring of emotion from his teammates is well documented in the Trib.  The 1985 Chicago Bears, for some, are the pinnacle of success for a proud franchise.  For others they are the beginning of a life-long commitment.  But for all of us, they are family.  And a family member has passed.  RIP Dave Duerson.  You’ll be missed.

The NFL, as it stands today, is the most successful sports league in the history of the civilization.  It laughs at the NBA, mocks NCAA everything sports in its diary and pays the NHL clean its bathroom every other weekend.  Baseball is only referred to as our “national pastime” because the people who write that phrase in newspaper and speak it on television are of a certain generation and usually a pale-like complexion.  (Ask a 40 year-old black man in one of the shitty parts of Newark, NJ if baseball is his national pastime?  Then get the hell out of the shitty part of Newark, believe me.)  You don’t need to trust me on this.  When a Monday night football game between two mid-market clubs like the Tennessee Titans and the Jacksonville Jaguars beats an ALCS game featuring the New York Yankees, one corner has to throw in the towel.

Nobody wants a work stoppage.  Nobody wants to see free agency delayed in March or an inability to trade talent during the April draft.  Nobody wants OTAs or training camp time reduced, as we’ve already seen teams struggle enough to start seasons with their abundance of prep time.  The NFL has become a full-year endeavor and for those of us who love it, there’s never enough.  My beliefs and opinions are not merely academic and almost never objective.  They are heartfelt and wildly subjective when it comes to the Chicago Bears.

I’m willing to state unequivocally that the NFLPA needs to stand firm, stay resilient and refuse to work under their current economic conditions.  There is just so much wrong with how NFL players are handled. 

• Because of salary cap restrictions and the lack of a rookie pay scale, the day-to-day NFL player makes less than Kyle Farnsworth while unproven rookies enter the league with 20+ million signing bonuses. 
• Because of roster rules, teams are forced to put players with a broken arm in Week One on IR even if they might be able to return in December for meaningful games.  (It is time for baseball-style 4 game, 8 game and full season injured lists.)
• The NFL needs to increase roster sizes and practice squads and they need to alter rules to allow teams to protect the players on the practice squad.  This should also be an interest for owners who’d prefer not having injuries cripple a season.
• The NFL pension/health care system post-career is absurd.  In order to earn post-career benefits a player must become vested with four credited seasons.  These are men who put their brains and bodies at risk for the enjoyment of us and the pocket books of owners and it should be legally demanded that their health care needs be protected after a single full season in the league.  (We’re often talking about pensions of only about ten grand or so.)

Editor’s Note: The 2011 t-shirt designs will be out in the next few weeks.  We’re just getting things ready in order to present them in the best way possible.

“In this offense if you run a slant and a defender is coming down on you then you have to cross his face,” he said Tuesday on “Chicago Tribune Live.”

“But every time I see Johnny Knox run a slant he goes behind the defender and you see an interception go the other way and everyone looks at Jay Cutler and says, ‘How did he throw that pass?’ That is going to be a mistake no matter who the quarterback is.”

On the quality of the Bears wide receivers: “I see no pure wideout. When we ran Martz’ offense in St. Louis we had three or four pure wideouts. … If you are still teaching that stuff to your wide receivers then in this offense you can’t blame the QB.”

If the Bears are going to successfully run the Mad Mike offense, they must add a big target wide receiver in the mold of Torry Holt or Isaac Bruce.  They must add an experience route runner.  And they must do so before the summer.

The Bears had serious issues on the offensive line at the end of the 2009 season.  In mid-January they hired one of the best line coaches in the sport, Mike Tice.  They believed their second-year, first-round draft pick would assume the role of top tier left tackle.  They believed Frank Omiyale’s versatility would be an asset for them, not for the dozens of edge rushers who treated him as a subway turnstile.  They were wrong.  They turned to a hundred different combinations and rookies in various roles.  The turned everywhere.

Roberto Garza