trade for Boldin, give big contract
trade for Cutler, give big contract
draft best OL in draft?

No chance.

As much as it pains me to say it you can’t argue against it. Larry Meyer has been saying it for months on the Bears official site too. We reward our own before dipping into the open market. Is that right or wrong? Who is to say? I am glad the Bears don’t give huge contract to aging vets who most likely will be declining and cause a big cap hit down the road.

That being said I still think that JA needs to negotiate more and go make some moves. Dealing for Boldin or Cutler is not overpaying for guys who are aging. That is talent that is in or on the brink of their prime. That is not a bad thing.

that we go into over-drive with “rewarding” our own. But, I have to believe that while building through the draft is the best way to build a foundation, a successful team has to be able to make moves in Free Agency as well. We may very well hit a couple of homeruns in the draft this season… but that is only 1 phase of building a good roster.

I really think it is best to reward your own, they have the right idea here. They implemented absolutely horribly at times. The outright refusal to let some of the younger players see the field, no matter how good they look in practice/preseason absolutely drives me crazy. There is no way McKie has been our best option. Bennett/Rideau/various practice squad wr here all should have seen playing time over the past two years with the horrible state of our WR.

Reward your own, but for the love of Da Bears reward first with playing time, and then with cash.

I can’t believe we didn’t resign him. It’s like Jerry learns his lesson too late about over paying your own players and then refuses to do it for a guy the team is in dire need of at the moment. And cutting the Ohio State kid from last year? I have avoided actually calling out J.A., I just ridicule him in jest, but the handling and lack of vision with the o-line is the largest debacle in his tenure. Case and point, losing John St. Clair is what put me over. John St. Clair!!! How can I be this disappointed we lost John St. Clair? Yes this is even worse than Benson, at least he drafted Forte. So now we have to rely on J.A. to find another quality rookie starter. Great, and I really didn’t want to use 18 for a right tackle but now we almost have to.

I read this from the tribune post from dave m and it pretty much sums up how i feel about the McCaskeys:

“This is great, because it removes any and all legitimacy to the notion that the Bears aren’t cheap since they award their own with generous extensions. St. Clair did as good of a job as could be expected the past two+ seasons, and we now have no tackles with even ONE start in the NFL. The only reason the Bears didn’t re-sign the guy is because they are owned by the miserly, penny-pinching, shamefully CHEAP McCaskey family, the Ebenezer Scrooge of the NFL. The fact of the matter is the Bears have a gaping hole on their line, and St. Clair was not only best for the Bears, he was among the cheapest tackles on the market. But that was good enough for the McScrooges. Now we have an undrafted Division II practice squad player (Montana’s Cody Balogh) penciled in at starter. The McCaskeys reward their intensely loyal and devoted fans, those who feed their hard-earned dollars into the McCaskeys’ ever-growing coffers, with pure garbage. Can NFL owners be disciplined by the league for not reinvesting in the franchise? Can the people of Chicago organize a coup and seize ownership of their team? Because until there are changes at the very top, frustration and disappointment will be the fate of Bears fans everywhere. Now, just wait for the Vikings to get Cutler for Sage Rosenfels and a 2nd-rounder.”

P.S I also have a problem with Reinsdorf owning the Bulls. If you say that 1 White Soxs world series win means more than 6 Bulls NBA championships you shoulden’ have the privilege of owning the team.

But what we really are is risk-averse. For all the great Bears tradition, the culture of the post-Jerry Vanisi franchise always seems to cycle back to penny-parsing sanctimony and self-satisfied mismanagement.

We were in a good spot three years ago, but things change. Those young promising players are now mid-career and older guys on the downward slope. And who have we added since? Locking up a few defensive stars clearly isn’t the brilliant move the Bears keep contending it is. Our defense hasn’t even qualified as statistically mediocre for the past two years.

Let’s judge them on effectiveness, not motive or philosophy. And that verdict is obvious: The Bears prefer safely mediocre to taking a risk on success.

… maybe a tracker of how far under the salary cap the Bears are… maybe with comparisons/rankings with the rest of the league and the NFC North