OK This NFL.com writer talks about the how the Saints use Reggie Bush and Deuce McAllister in packages because ones a in between the tackles runner and ones the speed guy.

I want to know what you guys think about maybe the Bears trying this somehow; maybe with a Benson-Forte backfield or a Wolfe-Benson or even a Wolfe-Forte package. Wolfe has speed and catches the ball well and Forte has some speed and he seems to catch well or so we hear. Could Turner fathom something like this?

Why not? Thoughts?

  I thought it might be a nice change to have something about a Bear doing something good instead of something bad.  What Tommie Harris has done for the town of Killeen, Texas hits “home” with me because I was stationed at Fort Hood (which is right next to Killeen) for seven years and I’m quite familiar with the area. 

  Military children have a rough time growing up, as Tommie Harris probably knows all too well, due to frequent moves and a parent’s (sometimes both) frequent absence because of deployments.  So when I read about a PRO athlete, regardless of what team they play for, contributing time and/or funding to improve the morale and quality of life for a military member and their family it just gives me a greater respect for that player.

  Visits from PRO athletes, like Tommie Harris, in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan make a world of difference for the Soldiers deployed there.  It is not an easy trip to make and the conditions for their stay are far removed from what they are probably accustomed to.  They’ll also make numerous stops, risking their own safety traveling on helicopters through not so friendly skies to see as many service members as possible.  So my hat off to Tommie Harris and all the athletes that take the time and effort to improve the morale of service members and their families.  Story is on the Bear's official site if the link doesn't work:

http://www.chicagobears.com/news/NewsStory.asp?story_id=4681

Yahoo! Sports  usually does (i believe) weekly reports on every team in the NFL, this weeks Bears Report centered mainly on Benson and how the Bears should react to his recent misdemeanors. A little bit of the article and the link below.

And Benson is not a repeat offender in the NFL, although he was arrested for trespassing in college five years ago when he attempted to recover a TV set that had been stolen from him.

And my favorite part of the article...

If the Bears canned every player and coach who didn’t get the job done last season, they could print their roster on a matchbook cover.

Brad Briggs recently ran an article in his blog about Benson's cap situation making it imposssible for the Bears to cut Benson.

He's wrong.

Here are the true ramifications.  This is a somewhat long explanation, and it involves math, so be warned. But you'll understand the cap and the Benson situaiton better if you read it.

First, you must understand the difference between cap number and cap hit, as well as cap dollars and payroll dollars.

Benson's cap number this year is roughly $3.3M. That is comprised of this year's salary (800k) and the prorated portion of his signing bonus (2.5M). Note that he already has the signing bonus, it is just accounted for this year for bookkeeping purposes. So if he plays for the Bears this year, they'll write him a check for 800k (not 3.3M).

If the Bears cut Benson, they would not have to pay him his salary this year (800k) or next year (1M), AND that money would be removed from Benson's cap number. However, they would still have to account for his prorated signing bonus (2.5M this year and next) for cap purposes.

So, if the Bears cut Benson before June 1st, his cap number would be 3.3M MINUS this year's salary (800k) PLUS next year's portion of his signing bonus (2.5M), for a total of 5M. That is 1.7M more than his current cap number of 3.3M, which means cutting Benson costs the Bears a 1.7M cap hit this year. So if they currently have 16M in cap room, that would shrink down to 14.3M.

HOWEVER!!! and this is important, they would GAIN 3.5M in cap room next year. Because Benson would be officially off the Bears books for 2009, they would not have to account for his singing bonus or salary, which amount to 3.5M next year. 

That's just the cap consequences. Cutting Benson would also save the Bears actual dollars. The salary cap is a managed number, and is often very different than the team's payroll (the checks the team writes out to players that year). If the Bears cut Benson, they wouldn't have to pay him a salary this year or next (a total of 1.8M), and they wouldn't have to potentially pay him any of the escalators in his contract for reaching 700 yards (potentially another 3 or 4M. So cutting Benson would save the team actual dollars, with no penalty.

The last point Briggs makes is that if the Bears cut Benson he could file an injury grievance. I believe this is unlikely for a few reasons. First, they would wait until he could pass a physical to cut him, thereby removing his leverage from the situation. Second, this public incident gives the Bears another reason to give for cutting him. Third, he is too young to retire, and he'd have to retire if he wanted to convince an arbiter that the Bears cut him because he was too injured to play. Lastly, even if the Bears lost the case, they would only be out his salary this year of 800k.

1. Click on your UserID at the top of the screen to access settings.

2. Click on "Edit Settings" towards the top right.

3. Go to the Default Comment Format that probably says "expanded"

4. Change it to "closed"

5. Click "Update" at the bottom of the menu to save your changes.

This way, when you open up a thread that has new comments, only the Subject and the "by-line" show up. To get the rest of the comment, you simply click on the bolded subject. (Note: you may click on the subject and sometimes nothing happens-this is because the user only typed something in the subject and not in the text box.)

On BlogaBull, for fun, I let FasterFox time the loading for a huge 447 comment thread.

Time to load:

Expanded comments, Avatar shown: 153.3 seconds

Expanded comments, No avatars shown: 109.7 seconds

Closed comments, Avatar shown: 15.8 seconds

Closed comments, No avatars shown: 15.2 seconds

As you can see, this has significantly reduced loading time. For me, the 400+ comments in the last thread took about 1min30 sec the old way, but only around 15 secs. this way. Hope it helps.

MTD and WCG have had a bumpy start when the whole selection of Rashard Mendenhall and their draft grade of an F, but they see quite a lot of good in the Bears actual draft .

Pick 70: WR Earl Bennett, Vanderbilt (Scouting Report)
Scout It: Bennett left Vanderbilt as the SEC's all time leading receiver. His production cannot be ignored. He is a good sized receiver with amazing hands and consistency. He was my favorite receiver in the entire 2008 NFL Draft class. Bennett's combination of athleticism, agility and pass catching will make him an early favorite to win the #1 job in Chicago. The Bears lost their deep threat when Bernard Berrian signed in Minnesota, Bennett will give them a vertical player opposite Rashied Davis, and could move either Marty Booker or Mark Bradley to a third receiver position. This will also free up Devin Hester, should be improve greatly, to play more in the slot.

Perhaps the Bears like rookie safety Craig Steltz more than they let on.  Today they might have helped pave his way to a starting job. 

The Bears have released safety Adam Archuleta .

With the Bears, Archuleta struggled in run support and pass coverage. He broke his hand in a Week 3 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, sat out one game, and then returned the following week. He eventually lost his starting job in late November to Brandon McGowan.

In his lone season in Chicago, Archuleta failed to revert to the form he displayed in St. Louis when Bears coach Lovie Smith and defensive coordinator Bob Babich were Rams assistants.

After an absolutely horrible season last year, the only thing that might have saved his spot was if the Bears could not find somebody they thought could come in and start.  Between Danieal Manning, Mike Brown, Kevin Payne and Craig Steltz they must have decided they had the guns to do so.

Now I know we have a show to be great on defense.

The Bears on Tuesday released Adam Archuleta . Playing in 14 games with 10 starts in 2007, the veteran safety registered 63 tackles, two sacks, one interception and one forced fumble.

This was one of our worst mistakes last year. Moose is gone, Arch is gone, Fred Miller is gone, the only guy I still want them to cut is Ricky Mannning Jr. Wow, what an offseason!

Editors Note:

I actually kind of regret the way I titled this, so I changed it.  The reason being I didn't think the guy played well for us, but I think that he played hard and did the best he could.  He also appears to be a real decent guy.  My apologies if he read this.   I was really rooting for him when he got here.

According to this ESPN.com article , the police officer who arrested Benson said that he appeared drunk, was combative and was "cocky"

Sgt. Leonard Snyder, who sprayed and arrested Benson, wrote in his report that he believed Benson was intoxicated because he was "combative," "cocky," "insulting," and used "profanity," and at other times was "crying" and "cooperative."

So now its a real case of he said-he said and the truth may never be found. Who is more credible though? A Bears player who has had a sense of entitlement and seems to have an air about him or some cop who works hard and might want some recognition?

I read this article today and it definitely made our new DT, Marcus Harrison , look like a changed man.  It seems like he is a religious guy who hit a low in his life.  It is hard to say if it is just a writer with a bias or real journalism, but the article does share more details of the event and Harrison's perspective.

According to a Fayetteville police report, Harrison stopped at a gas station and bought drugs from a man he had never met, he later admitted.

When police pulled over Harrison a few minutes later for speeding, they smelled marijuana smoke as he rolled down the window of his gray Chevy Caprice.

An officer asked Harrison to step out of the vehicle, and a search of the car revealed two cigars under the seat containing a total of two grams of marijuana. When an officer asked Harrison if he had anything else illegal on him, he volunteered that he had a blue pill wrapped in a plastic bag in the right cargo pocket of his pants.

The pill was Ecstasy, a synthetic drug popular on the college party scene.

"Once I saw the lights on behind me, it wasn't like I was going to lie to police or anyone," Harrison recalled. "I knew I had made a mistake, so I told them up front where [the drugs] were."

When asked is he knew about Tank Johnson's history with the Bears:

"I know all about Tank and I respect him as a player, I respect him as a person, but I'm not Tank Johnson," Harrison said. "The one thing Chicago won't have to worry about is me getting into trouble. That was a one-time thing.

You have to give the guy credit for being honest. The article also mentioned his religious and military family background.