The Bears secondary, for most of Lovie Smith's tenure, has been a musical chairs act of playing guys out of position, placing them in situations where they're hard-pressed to excel.
Now that many feel they're in a desperate, must-win-now situation, you'd think they would do anything they could to shore the team up and win now. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
Here's Jerry Angelo talking about the safety position:
"We looked at a veteran safety, but we felt that we wanted to pass on that. We just didn't feel the timing was right. So we'll just wait and see. Again, you're not going to field a Pro Bowler at every position, and you don't have to. The players that we presently have we feel good about. But we always want to create competition and better depth.
But does this mean that they're going to draft? Roll with what they have? Or could comments-favorite O.J. Atogwe still be in play?
There's an interesting article at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat about the status of O.J. Atogwe's contract:
Unless there is permission from their teams, once April 15 passes, restricted free agents are not allowed to negotiate with other teams. However, there can be discussions of potential trades.
Atogwe was tendered at the lowest level for his years of experience -- $1.226 million -- and would have no required compensation if there was an offer sheet that the Rams elected not to match.If the day passes without an offer sheet, June 1 becomes the next key date. By that day, the Rams have to decide whether to issue a new tender at 110 percent of his 2009 salary of $6.342 million, when he was the team's franchise player.
Could the Bears be trying to gambit on this? The idea being, the Rams obviously don't seem that interested in paying Atogwe $7 million, and he doesn't particularly seem interested in signing the low offer. If they offer that tender, and he doesn't accept, he becomes a restricted free agent.
That leaves the small, but possible, chance they could make the play. But will they? Likely not. The more likely scenario at this point, I believe, is the drafting of someone for the position. But what do you think is most likely to happen?