Ok, we get it. We have some problems over here on our ship, but for some reason tis the season to speak ill of the Bears.
First, Hines Ward comes to the defense of Darryl Drake, our wide receivers coach. He has taken some criticism for the performance of our receivers.
"Any criticism of him is not fair,'' Ward said. ``Look at the quarterback situation. They don't have a stable quarterback. I know the quarterback situation there and I don't care who you bring in to catch the ball. You could bring in the best receiver in the league. Look at Randy Moss going out to Oakland and what happened there. His stats went down. It wasn't based on Randy, it was based on the quarterback play.''
My first though upon reading that quote is "Well, duh!" Nobody is disputing that, but he is the coach and his guys are not performing. He has to take some hit for that. If he can't get Rashied Davis to catch a ball, maybe that is his fault. Or maybe it is his fault for not telling the other coaches to keep him off the field.
Next, the new creative genius behind the " Bring Vick to Chicago" theory, Carol Slezack, sat down for a talk with ex-Bears player Brandon Ayanbadejo to talk about the differences between Chicago and Baltimore.
I don't have any knocks against what was said, some of it may even be true, but Slezack ran with some of this, like this little nugget right here.
Did general manager Jerry Angelo put his faith in the wrong players? It sure has looked that way. Consider a guy like Ayanbadejo, who played with heart -- and a good amount of talent -- for three years. He wanted to stay in Chicago, but Angelo was busy tying up other players such as Harris and pacifying malcontents such as Urlacher for big bucks. Angelo decided Ayanbadejo wasn't worth $4.9 million over four years. But Marty Booker was worth $3.5 million over two years?
Really! You are going to go to the press suggesting that the Bears should have not paid Urlacher or Harris, so they could have signed a special teams guy?
BA did do a little fighting in defense of Devin Hester:
''You can't expect to have the best receiver in the league and the best returner in the league,'' Ayanbadejo said. ''It's such a specialized league. Just look at the Ravens -- we have three kickers. We have a guy who does kickoffs, a guy that does field goals and a punter. You're asking [Hester] to be the best punt returner in the league, the best kick returner in the league and the best receiver in the league? ... They asked a whole lot of Devin, which I thought was kind of unfair.''
Again, this is more talking out of your backside. Jerry Angelo has publicly stated that he is willing to sacrifice Hester's productivity as a return man for his increasing role as a receiver. That said, Hester himself has admitted that his lack of productivity as a return man had nothing to do with his inclusion on the offense. He said he was just not clicking and something was missing. We all saw it, he was hesitant, undecisive and perhaps scared.