The Bears Den: February 22, 2012

by Pete Dixon on Feb 22, 2012 7:02 AM CST in The Bears Den

"...where we display our feats of strength."

Bears players share odd Combine tales Mayer: NFL teams go to great lengths to learn as much as they can about prospects during interviews at the combine, sometimes using intimidation or other unusual methods.

Cutler eager to work with Tice and Bates Mayer: Bears quarterback Jay Cutler is looking forward to working with new offensive coordinator Mike Tice and first-year quarterbacks coach Jeremy Bates.

Breaking down Bears and the salary cap Brad Biggs takes a look at what the Bears have right now in the way of salary cap figures for individual players for the coming season.

Follow WCG on Twitter: Air your grievances.

Silverman: NFL Combine Is Overrated The NFL’s annual meat market, better known as the Scouting Combine, gets underway Wednesday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Here's why you don't care.

Would you make a run at Mike Wallace? Bowen: Steelers '60 minute man' could be available for a first-round pick.

Bears Can Take Advantage of Chargers' Reluctance with Jackson Hendricks: The Bears pursuit of a top-level wide receiver was just made a little easier. The San Diego Chargers are showing reluctance to use the franchise tag to hold on to their top wideout, Vincent Jackson.

Pack' backing up to the NFC North Moon: The Bears are trying to narrow the gap between the Packers and themselves, but Green Bay may be doing that on its own.

NFC North playing-time tidbits Kevin Seifert sifts though some figures that don't demand dramatic conclusions but are of interest nonetheless.

2011 Pass Blocking Efficiency: Guards and Centers PFF's Khaled Elsayed examines the 2011 Pass Blocking Efficiency of interior offensive linemen.

Panthers', Dolphins', Seahawks', Chiefs' drafts could be altered by coin flips Peter King's mailbag addresses this and more.

Pre-combine position rankings for 2012 NFL Draft For those playing along at home, here's Mike Mayock's position-by-position rankings for the 2012 NFL Draft.

"I Don't Care":

Tweet Comment 45 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

I see Roberto Garza in the bottom 10

for passing blocking centers. All the talk about receivers, yeah fine we need it, but I would be okay if we got Peter Konz in the first or second round. Even if we traded down in the first to get him. There are plenty of good receivers to be had in the second or third round, but a good center/guard is something that could really solidify this team.

...because Cutty does it.

by Sam Householder on Feb 22, 2012 7:40 AM CST reply actions

Right....

Because Spencer certainly wouldn’t cut it, and we can certainly get by another year with below average receivers.

C’mon man! A center in the 1st round?! You’ve got to be kidding me. That is not a premium position, so you can’t pay that sort of money for it. And the need at WR is dramatically greater than at C.

by Th3T1ck on Feb 22, 2012 8:06 AM CST up reply actions

On the contrary

The Center position has grown more important in this league as it gradually became a passing league. Peter Konz would make sense as a 1st rounder. But, there’s also another great talent in Ben Jones, who should be available anywhere from rounds 2-4.

Jay Cutler is our QB, and I for one am proud of that

Follow me @EDuerrwaechter

by Erik Christopher Duerrwaechter on Feb 22, 2012 8:19 AM CST up reply actions

Now we're picking sleeper center prospects?

I don’t even want to ask how you’re judging his talent to be great.

For what it’s worth, I really like the immediate impact recent 1st round centers have made. Alex Mack was a top tier center as a rookie. Both Pounceys were league average as rookies. All three were picked mid to late 1st, and I’d be very happy with Konz first round if he’s as NFL-ready. Huge difference in the learning curve at C vs LT it looks like.

by YaoPau on Feb 22, 2012 8:54 AM CST up reply actions

It all depends how FA shapes up, then we’ll know more about what the Bears are going to look for in the draft. If they manage to have a success full FA , draft should be supplementary, and vice versa . The cap spending will be affected by the current players on the roster and new acquisitions, so I just hope it is enough for at least one good signing.

by transylvanian bear on Feb 22, 2012 10:25 AM CST up reply actions

Look at some of the first round centers of recent

Nick Mangold, the Pouncey brothers, Alex Mack, etc. The best center in the draft can far and away be a valuable pick in round 1.

Not glorious, but important.

...because Cutty does it.

by Sam Householder on Feb 22, 2012 10:28 PM CST up reply actions

I wonder how much it would cost to sign Scott Wells from Green Bay to be our new Center?

He is big and nasty, just like how Tice likes ’em.

I honestly feel if the Bears add more weapons into the arsenal for Cutler while figuring out the OL and improve the pass rush, they will overtake the Packers in the NFC North. Quite a sizable amount of work is needed, but it’s also not out of the relhm of possibility.

Jay Cutler is our QB, and I for one am proud of that

Follow me @EDuerrwaechter

by Erik Christopher Duerrwaechter on Feb 22, 2012 8:17 AM CST reply actions

he's a little fella 6'2" 300

When Mike Ditka calculates pi it's decimal representation ends. | @wiltfongjr

by Lester A. Wiltfong Jr. on Feb 22, 2012 9:55 AM CST up reply actions

Blasted!

He always looked big in the games lol. Thanks for the correction.

Jay Cutler is our QB, and I for one am proud of that

Follow me @EDuerrwaechter

by Erik Christopher Duerrwaechter on Feb 22, 2012 10:53 AM CST up reply actions

Most offensive linemen do! These guys are basically 300 pounds and up lol

by frenchbears113 on Feb 22, 2012 11:15 AM CST up reply actions

I have to agree

With Troy

And now they are trying to shove the combine down our throats like it’s entertainment. The NFL draft used to be a nice little mid-spring event, and now they’ve overhyped it so much I don’t even watch, but rather find the results via the ultraweb. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I’d like them to scale back a little bit, won’t ever happen though.

by Jim Ribs on Feb 22, 2012 8:19 AM CST reply actions

If it's so bad...

then don’t watch it. The NFL is a self-promoting hype machine of the most successful magnitude. It’s what they do. And it’s still more interesting than watching the first 5 months of any baseball season. That said, I won’t watch that over-hyped crap either!

There's a fine line between stupid...and clever!

by LostInSTL on Feb 22, 2012 8:53 AM CST up reply actions

Here's an apple

Here’s an orange.

by Jim Ribs on Feb 22, 2012 9:03 AM CST up reply actions

Hey now...

that’s like comparing apples and orang…..Curse you Ribs!!!

There's a fine line between stupid...and clever!

by LostInSTL on Feb 22, 2012 1:30 PM CST up reply actions

Aha! Per Biggs's article...

…this is where the $22M cap figure comes from. Interesting. They are including players who won’t be on the roster, but I guess aren’t cut yet, and since the offseason factors in the top 51 player salaries on the 53-man… makes sense now.

Also did not know about the Tillman “bonus”.

Also I’m a bit perplexed about the dead cap space. I thought that applied to the year people were cut and all of the unpaid guaranteed money/pro-rated signing bonus rushed to that year. I’ll have to look at that closer… since that’s about $3M+ I didn’t account for.

Outside of Tillman’s bonus and the dead cap space, though, my salary cap with the 19 “open” roster spots (17 when applying the 51-man cap vs. 53) was nearly spot on.

So I guess it’s how you look at it since many of those salaries are not guaranteed and not cap hits if they are cut. This makes a lot more sense now, however that $22M figure (adding it all up) is a bit misleading.

by IOftenPanic on Feb 22, 2012 8:49 AM CST reply actions

So what would you say is the official cap total

using only players who will definitely be on the roster next year. And without Omiyale/Adams/whoever else will likely get cut.

Honestly, this should be another FanPost, it was my favorite one posted here in the past couple months, and I appreciate the work you did on it.

by YaoPau on Feb 22, 2012 8:59 AM CST up reply actions

Thank you.

Did another one. Unfortunately for some of the guys who won’t be around, the info on their contracts is unreliable that I can find. Take Wrotto ($700K) and C.Davis ($825K). If those guys are replaced by rookies/minimum guys… and they don’t have any guaranteed money… that’s about $725K or so in cap savings. The only guy that I am sure is gone is Omiyale and Biggs had his figure at $2.8M instead of $2.3M… not sure why. He’ll be over $1M in cap savings, though, and we currently have 11 OL players on the cap.

I’ll have to re-review the minor differences and see where they are and then work from there.

by IOftenPanic on Feb 22, 2012 9:38 AM CST up reply actions

You know what would b interesting

The Bears sign Johnson/Jackson/ or Colston THEN use the 1st round pick to snatch Wallace from Pittsburgh. Wr corp reloaded and we used a mid 1st to snatch a proven gamebreaker.win/win

See me on Twitter follow me @ EddieCheeze, Catch me on FB friend me Eddie Cheeze, See my group on youtube listen to us Hood Platinum, want me ta kill a track email me Cheeze2k11@gmail.com....Im errwhere

by EmmCeee on Feb 22, 2012 10:29 AM CST via Android app reply actions

Doesn't the WR Corp

need to be loaded before it can be reloaded?

by Hoosier Glenn on Feb 22, 2012 10:45 AM CST up reply actions

Interesting and expensively awesome.

by oripunk3485 on Feb 22, 2012 2:15 PM CST up reply actions

Huge cap investment on one position

While I’d love seeing Vjax and Wallace in Bears’ uniforms, I think it’s highly unlikely considering some other holes on offense (LT) and defense (DE and LB).

"I'm sore and I'm pissed off. I'm a baller. I want to feel the leather. I love thumb wars. 6-8 weeks? 6. follow me for healing, Jay Cutler does" - Jaysthumb twitter acct

by propheteer on Feb 22, 2012 6:37 PM CST up reply actions

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2012/02/22/ranking-the-2011-offensive-lines-part-1/

Solidly the worst O-Line in the league.

"With all due respect, and I mean with ALL due respect...that idea ain't worth a velvet paintin' of a whale and a dolphin gettin' it on."

by CurtisEnisFan on Feb 22, 2012 10:42 AM CST reply actions

Sad but true

missing number 6

by Jessica312 on Feb 22, 2012 10:52 AM CST up reply actions

And as far as their analysis of individual performances, their grade of Webb just reaffirms what I have been convinced of since mid-season...this dude is NOT a starting LT.

"With all due respect, and I mean with ALL due respect...that idea ain't worth a velvet paintin' of a whale and a dolphin gettin' it on."

by CurtisEnisFan on Feb 22, 2012 12:08 PM CST up reply actions

And yet there he is every game....

Well…..we all knew an idiot had control over our roster.

Cacti are prickly.

by crackedcactus on Feb 23, 2012 11:34 AM CST up reply actions

I'm really skeptical of their rushing grades though.

The Bears had 2,015 yards on the ground (9th in the NFL). They had 4.4 yards per carry (10th in the NFL). I know Forte’s good, but the worst (31st ranked by PFF) run blocking unit football does NOT have that kind of success. It just doesn’t add up.

They are really bad vs. the pass. No question there.

@mike992

by Mike Mueller on Feb 22, 2012 11:15 AM CST up reply actions

how many runs were stuffed behind the line

Without looking I seem to remember a lot of -1, 0, 1, 2 yard runs followed with a 20+

WCG's Resident Nickelback and Boy Band fan

Also rated Worst WCG Blogger by Dr. Steven Schweickert's extensive "Total BR" (Blogger Rating)

follow
@ThorCo34

by ThorCo on Feb 22, 2012 11:29 AM CST up reply actions

24% of the time, which is real bad (30th in the NFL)

LINK

My point is that they are not the 2nd worst run blocking unit in the NFL. They did achieve a 2,000 yard season and a 4.4 y/c average. Are they good or great? I didn’t say that, but they also don’t suck at run blocking in my opinion.

@mike992

by Mike Mueller on Feb 22, 2012 11:40 AM CST up reply actions

no

I’m just thinking of why it would be ranked so low, I personally think for run blocking they were in the middle of the pack

WCG's Resident Nickelback and Boy Band fan

Also rated Worst WCG Blogger by Dr. Steven Schweickert's extensive "Total BR" (Blogger Rating)

follow
@ThorCo34

by ThorCo on Feb 23, 2012 8:03 AM CST up reply actions

I agree with that.

They were bad with getting stuffed behind the line at times. They opened up some big holes too. They were inconsistent, but you don’t rush for 2,000 yards if you suck. It just doesn’t happen.

@mike992

by Mike Mueller on Feb 23, 2012 8:42 AM CST up reply actions

Peyton Hillis?

Cacti are prickly.

by crackedcactus on Feb 23, 2012 11:35 AM CST up reply actions

The difference is that when Forte got into the open field...

…he did a lot of damage. But the success rate at the LOS was terrible.

by IOftenPanic on Feb 22, 2012 11:39 AM CST up reply actions

He had lots of big holes to run through

I saw a ton of daylight for him to get to the second level. Having a lot of negative plays shouldn’t give them that low of ranking. Like Mike mentioned, they were 11th in the league in running yards and 10th in ypc. Ypc is a lot like points score versus yards allowed. Points are all that really matters.

"I'm sore and I'm pissed off. I'm a baller. I want to feel the leather. I love thumb wars. 6-8 weeks? 6. follow me for healing, Jay Cutler does" - Jaysthumb twitter acct

by propheteer on Feb 22, 2012 6:39 PM CST up reply actions

And those big holes were aided by two to three extra blockers.

without those extra blockers, the Bears frequently came up in the negative on runs. Extra blockers aren’t counted against those statistics, and quite frankly, as big into stats as I am, this is a case of stats hiding the true story on paper.

in•san•i•ty \in-ˈsa-nə-tē\ noun
1 : The practice of repeating the same action while expecting different results.

by Timothy Hockemeyer on Feb 22, 2012 9:15 PM CST up reply actions

good point Tim

. "Most football teams are temperamental. That's 90% temper and 10% mental."
--Doug Plank

by ed_brown on Feb 23, 2012 12:53 AM CST up reply actions

Can you back that up?

"I'm sore and I'm pissed off. I'm a baller. I want to feel the leather. I love thumb wars. 6-8 weeks? 6. follow me for healing, Jay Cutler does" - Jaysthumb twitter acct

by propheteer on Feb 23, 2012 7:16 PM CST up reply actions

No, unfortunately. That's kind of the point. (or maybe i can.........)

Other than our constant discussions of the max protections, extra blockers and the value of Tyler Clutts, Matt Spaeth and Kellen Davis as blockers, there really is no statistics for number of blockers left behind.

And that was my point. We discussed all year what Tice was doing with blocking. We’ve discussed why Greg Olsen was released. We talked all season about the value of adding Tyler Clutts. You can run through game threads and catch plenty of reference to fine run-blocking by the tight ends. But specific statistics are not available to support the position.

But then…… :-)

…….the same question would have applied to your post that I replied to. And the same answer would have been called for, which is why I didn’t go that route. There are no statistics readily available that support your theory that there were a lot of big holes and even fewer that suggest any big holes were opened by the just the five offensive linemen.

And I didn’t even bother with asking for some backing information on the YPC/score vs yards comparison that I completely disagree with. For a RB, production is everything but it isn’t all attributable the the back. Tons of factors to take into account. Barry Sanders 5.0 career YPC is far more inpressive than Emmitt Smith’s career 4.2 YPC because Barry played behind a terrible line while Emmitt played behind the Dallas dynasty line.

But wait…..maybe there are some statistics to back that up…….gimme a minute. I’m on my phone.

in•san•i•ty \in-ˈsa-nə-tē\ noun
1 : The practice of repeating the same action while expecting different results.

by Timothy Hockemeyer on Feb 25, 2012 5:37 PM CST up reply actions

Correction.....Why yes, I actually can!

Kellen Davis was on the field 702 snaps. He was in to run block on 402 of those (out of 469 total rushing plays. So the vast majority of plays, there were at least six blockers in the box. Funny enough, he only was held back to pass-block 119 times.

But wait! Matt Spaeth logged 209 snaps run-blocking (and 91 times to pass-block) and Tyler Clutts logged 194 snaps doing the same (and 30 pass-blocking snaps).

That would seem to indicate that the Bears averaged around two extra blockers per run play (and funny only one extra blocker even including Forte, Barber and Bells pass-blocking snaps during passing downs. I would have thought they were in max protection more than that).

(Linky)

in•san•i•ty \in-ˈsa-nə-tē\ noun
1 : The practice of repeating the same action while expecting different results.

by Timothy Hockemeyer on Feb 25, 2012 5:51 PM CST up reply actions

Paid subscription

It definitely skews the Bears run-blocking numbers, but it still seems out of whack for them to grade them so low. Keeping a FB and/or a TE in to block shouldn’t effect what the line did- 2,015 yards and 4.4 per carry.

"I'm sore and I'm pissed off. I'm a baller. I want to feel the leather. I love thumb wars. 6-8 weeks? 6. follow me for healing, Jay Cutler does" - Jaysthumb twitter acct

by propheteer on Feb 26, 2012 12:00 PM CST up reply actions

We have to remember that TFL's are not as celebrated by spectators, but for LB's and DE's, Tackles for Loss (TFL's) are just below sacks and ints as far as personal statistics go.

And people had TFL FIELD DAYS against us.

Don’t get me wrong, we would go no gain, TFL and then +35 yards, but still…we need to eliminate TFL’s all together to be a complete offense.

"With all due respect, and I mean with ALL due respect...that idea ain't worth a velvet paintin' of a whale and a dolphin gettin' it on."

by CurtisEnisFan on Feb 22, 2012 12:05 PM CST up reply actions

But you have to consider the additional help the line received in run and pass-blocking, as well...

frequent use of max-protection and fullobacks for clocking in pass and run situations help create those numbers, yet still allowed for huge tackle for loss numbers.

The line wasn’t good against the run. They had a ton of help and some very good play from the running back position. The fact that the line needed so much help to secure holes is a factor.

in•san•i•ty \in-ˈsa-nə-tē\ noun
1 : The practice of repeating the same action while expecting different results.

by Timothy Hockemeyer on Feb 22, 2012 9:13 PM CST up reply actions

Sgin Vjax

and then draft Floyd, Wright or Sanu. The team would go from some of the worst receiving options to one of the best.

"I'm sore and I'm pissed off. I'm a baller. I want to feel the leather. I love thumb wars. 6-8 weeks? 6. follow me for healing, Jay Cutler does" - Jaysthumb twitter acct

by propheteer on Feb 22, 2012 6:41 PM CST reply actions