Bears QB Jay Cutler to have pins removed from throwing hand today

I know he’s been around for a while, but some picks Angelo gets credit for bringing in and didn’t … Urlacher, Azumah (short lived success), Mike Brown.

He did draft Briggs, Tillman, Vasher, Forte and Hester … but the list of “good” draft picks doesn’t really extend beyond there. (A host of people will point to Tommie Harris, Alex Brown, Berrian, etc.) He did get Peppers and Cutler and I’m thankful he was able to pull both into the fold – but then what? You don’t grab top talent and FA and then stop trying to build a team. You continue to build on that.

Teams like: Packers, Lions, Saints, Patriots, 49ers, Pittsburgh, Houston and Baltimore have primarily built through the draft and supplemented those picks with FA signings. Packers have done it this way for a while now and the Lions recently started doing it this way and it’s paid off well in the short term so far. The Pats probably do this the best, which is why they contend year in and year out. That team always has depth and most importantly – they develop their talent. I can’t stress that part of it enough – player development is important. Just because they’re pros doesn’t mean they don’t need to be coached and have potential tapped.

Angelo and Lovie were all but done last year until they made it into the NFC Championship game. 2006 was years ago. Conference titles and division championships are all well and good – but does the season end there? Do you think the players are content with winning the division, but losing the conference championship? Is losing the Super Bowl ok? (obvious answers to these is no). Angelo and Lovie fall back on all those things as – “good starts” and “being on the right track” and all that feel good stuff that coaches and GMs like to point to after an almost but not quite type of season.

What can you say after this abortion of a season? Not much. Injuries. Sure, every team has them. Some worse than others – the Chiefs were destroyed by injuries and guess what, they beat the Bears. I’m tired of Angelo’s half-baked ideas and theories on how to build a CONSISTENT winner. If we were making the playoffs every year and competing for a championship – then he’d have some rope to hang himself with – but he hasn’t done that. 13-3 and then 7-9 doesn’t speak consistency to me.

I know he’s not going anywhere and neither is Lovie (and really, I don’t think this is as much his fault as it is Angelo’s). But I’m not going to sit here and think that in 5 months this guy is going to score big in the draft, because historically he hasn’t. In a year where he needed to score big time for our offensive line he didn’t. Carimi has a lot of potential, but so did Chris Williams, and we’re all watching that soap opera play out. Lance Louis? Oy. There are too many weaknesses on this team to expect him to fill it out in one draft of FA period – but he’s got to start hitting on his picks – early and late. You’re going to have some “project” picks in there now and again – but Angelo’s have been terrible and too often.

But I suppose there’s worse things than Josh McCown as a backup. One of them was here last year.

I really need to see him do it again before I’m fully comfortable having him back as a backup, though. Then again, I don’t like bringing in guys off the street and giving them the backup job immediately.

He did do some good things when he played here, but it is tough to have success on teams that don’t have much talent unless you are such a good QB that you can make wine out of ****.