I was asked in a bar the other night what I believed the Bears needed to do to make the postseason.  I quickly rambled off a list of eight or nine things and spent the following morning attempting to put that drunken incoherence into a tangible column for you, my blog buddies. 

First, there is one rule.  Everything on the list needs to be a plausible improvement over something done last year.  (Arguing that Tommie Harris needs 12 sacks or Jay Cutler needs to go sixteen interception-less weeks are simply not going to get it done.)  That being said, here’s my three.  Add yours below…

#1 Jay Cutler needs to reduce his interceptions by half.  What would you think of Cutler’s 2009 season if it read 60.5%, 3,666 yards, 27-13 (as opposed to 27-26).  You know what you’d think?  It’s the greatest single season performance at the position in the history of the organization.  Cutler needs to take his shots down the field but he simply needs to be more willing to toss the ball to the sideline when the offensive line forces him into uncomfortable situations.  Robbie Gould three-pointers have been sustaining the club for years.  They’ll continue to do so.

#2 Reduce Opposing Rushing Percentage.  I was actually surprised when studying the Bears’ defensive stats of a year ago.  They’re bad but the league actually had much worse.  However, the Bears were tenth worst against the run and thirteenth worst against the pass.  You can do one of them poorly but if you do both poorly, you’re just poor.  The Bears have been a successful defensive unit when they force opponents to be one-dimensional and the healthy trio of Urlacher, Briggs and Tinoisamoa must be charged with forcing opponents to throw, throw, throw.  What’s this mean?  Take the 126.4 yards per game down to 106.4.

#3 Bears Must Develop a Deep Threat.  With the speed of Hester and Knox at wide receiver, the mismatches created with Olsen and the arm strength of Cutler, the Bears had no reason to be tied with five teams for 20th in passing plays over 40 yards.  (Seriously?  San Francisco beat us in long passing plays?)  If the Bears can make teams respect their ability to go deep down the field, the offense might finally be able to reach its potential.  This is why Mike Martz was hired.  6 passing plays of 40+ needs to hit double-digits.  

So a minicamp is in the book and now comes the long peaceful wait for training camp.

“I’m excited,” Smith said. “There’s nothing to not like about what we did. Getting Brian (Urlacher) back at his position and seeing Brian and Lance (Briggs) back together, and Pisa Tinoisamoa also coming back. Then seeing Chris Harris back on the field and hearing his voice, along with seeing Julius Peppers. I see Tommie Harris in the best health he’s been in. Mark Anderson … seeing Zack Bowman continuing to make progress … it kind of goes on and on. We like what we saw out there.”

Who else is booking their hotel rooms for Dallas in February?  It’s nice to see Lovie Smith excited about the defensive outlook for the 2010 season but I’ll temper my enthusiasm for the time being.  Unless Julius Peppers produces at a Pro Bowl level and Chris Harris stays healthy, the Bears will have a difficult time improving arguably the worst defensive unit in franchise history.

First, somehow I knew Brian Urlacher’s criticism of Gale Sayers’ comments would have legs and the national attention being paid is proof of just that.  Second, I am the last person on earth most expect to come to the defense of Urlacher – a player who has worn out his welcome with me since the Super Bowl campaign of 2006.  But, you know, I’m doing just that.

“Ultimately, [the Bears] haven’t been successful in three years. However you want to cut it, those are the facts. Gale Sayers just had the audacity to point it out.”

I’ve thought something had gone fishing from Brian Urlacher’s game since his early, dominant days at middle linebacker.  The days when his being called overrated were just the jealous exclamations of a league that hadn’t seen a combination of his athletic ability and skin color.  Since those days his game has taken a dip, mostly due to injury, and he’s allowed himself to be the punching bag of media, fans and everybody who thinks that it’s Butkus or bust at the position in Chicago.

“Let me ask you a question: ‘How many championships did Gale Sayers win?”’ Urlacher told the Tribune. “How many playoff games did he win when he played? None. None. None.
“Does it bother me? There are enough people throwing daggers at us right now, why does one of our ex-players have to jump in? There are enough experts talking (crap) about us, so why does a Bear, an all-time great, have to jump in? I just don’t like that.”
“… Does (Sayers) know how to win football games? Does he? No. How are you going to criticize someone else when you haven’t done it yourself? He’s one of our own, so that’s why it’s so frustrating.”

There are some who’ll argue these are just words.  And maybe that’s true.  But they are words from an unlikely source.  Urlacher has never been the vocal leader of this organization, leaving those duties to Mike Brown, Thomas Jones and Olin Kreutz through the years.  Maybe his time has come.

There’s no way I wouldn’t be attending this.  If any of you decide to go, please send me reports.

Peter King supports the AP’s decision to re-vote on the Defensive ROY Award given to Brian Cushing for his 2009 performance.  (For those who don’t know, Cushing tested positive for the same hCG Manny Ramirez missed fifty games last year for.)  He doesn’t give too many ideological reasons outside of his clear disdain for the use of PEDs in sports and his lack of concern for setting a difficult precedent.  That precedent, says King’s colleague Don Banks, is not worth ignoring:

It may not always be a nice, neat, easy call, and that’s why you don’t toss out the principle of precedent every time you feel the whim. It may not be the case of the moment that requires much foresight, but the case that we don’t yet know about, and is still unimagined, just might.

The truth?  It’s somewhere in the middle.

My overwhelming feeling has been to look the other way on the use of performance enhancers in football.  None of us can imagine the wear and tear that the human body experiences over the course of a sixty-minute gridiron battle and if these guys need a couple hormones to be able to wake up on Monday morning, fine.  The stats in football don’t matter, no matter what the fantasy geeks tell you.  And I don’t believe for half-a-second that hCG made Brian Cushing better at rushing the passer or wrapping up Joseph Addai.  Did it make him faster and stronger?  Probably.  But until someone in the sport of football begins to do things that seem impossible, I just can’t hop atop the soap box.

Hey folks.  Trying to weigh in on issues when they’re of interest but May and June are essentially the only down months of the NFL season.  

The Bears trading for Chris Harris yesterday solidified the strong safety position for the 2010 season and and even has Steve “Optimism Ain’t Nothin’ But a Thang” Rosenbloom admitting the “defense is starting to look like a defense”.  The move was both a mea culpa for a deal made in error and an acknowledgement that entering 2010 with the same back line would be tantamount to seasonal suicide.