MVN - Most Valuable Network

Playoffs Gone…Time To Experiment

So basically I am hoping that this Bears season can make its way towards a .500 record, but I no longer have any type of expectations for what is to come from this season.  We have learned several things during this season however, as we now know that Devin Hester is our savior and that almost no position on the offensive side of the ball should be considered safe.  I hope that Kyle Orton makes good use of his start, as it would be nice to have at least one returning quarterback next year.  Right now, I’m not sure I would like that to be the case.

The offensive line is one of the features of this Bears team that I feel needs to be addressed.  Over the course of 13 games the Bears O-line has given up 40 sacs on our Quarterbacks.  40.  4-0.  Only four teams in the league have given up more this year.  We only had 24 sacs in last year’s regular season.  Honestly, that’s a ridiculously high increase.  With the exception of Roberto Garza, who is 28, everyone else on the starting line is 30 or over.  Our boys are aging fast, and its time to start thinking about drafting potential replacements for players who are clearly starting to show signs of their age.

Now the running game?  I am not entirely sure I would like to rest that responsibility on Garrett Wolfe just yet.  For one thing, he is a rookie with only 44 rushing yards on the year.  Secondly…he’s 5ft 7″ and 186 pounds…not exactly the power back that I would like out on the field.  Cedric Benson doesn’t seem to be able to handle the workload that we were all expecting from him, and I would have no problem cutting our losses with what I think was a mistake.  There are many good backs coming out for this year’s draft.  Being an Illinois man myself, I wouldn’t mind if the Bears were to draft Rashard Mendenhall if indeed he were to declare himself eligible.  He’s a mix of both speed and power, and has clearly developed into a back willing to carry the weight of an offense.

Wide Receivers?  Well this is an area I don’t have too much of a problem with.  Besides the fact that we have dropped more passes than I would like to mention, Bernard Berrian is still very solid and Mushin Muhammad probably has the best hands on the team.  The problem is finding someone to throw to these guys.  Draft, but draft appropriately according to your priorities of helping other areas of team deficiency.

I pray that the poor play and defensive injuries have only come at an inopportune time, as I don’t really know if there are enough rounds in the draft to completely revamp all of the problems that we have had this year.

As for this Monday, I am hoping that we make a game of it.  Minnesota has been playing very well as of late, and I expect there to be a lot of experimentation of the offensive side of the ball for the Bears.  At this point in the season, there is no harm in testing out some of your rookies or seeing who can take some pressure.  As always, GO BEARS!

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Transactions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.