Da Bears - Da Offense

The Bears are done with a very disappointing season but still ahead of off-season trades, the draft, and general rebuilding. There's a cool visual tool for viewing the depth at all of the positions here: http://www.chicagobears.com/team/depthchart.asp

Here's my blueprint for who to dish and who to keep for a successful 2008.

Offense:

Center - Keep Olin Kreutz. Even though the snap issues can pretty easily be attributed to him (since it happened with all three QBs), he's known league-wide as a leader. If we replace the rest of the line, there needs to be one veteran in place. Might as well be a perennial pro-bowler.

Left Guard - I don't know enough about Metcalf or Oakley to know if either can do their job. I haven't noticed anything exclusively wrong with that side, so perhaps this stays as is.

Right Guard - I like Roberto Garza but I'm not sure if he's any good anymore. Don't know enough about Beekman backing him up, either, but I think this spot is okay as is, too.

Left Tackle - John Tait is over. This spot needs a real horse and he's not it. St. Clair doesn't appear to be the answer and he's 30 or 31 this year, too. Could lose Tait, move up St. Clair and draft a new guy for 2009. The new guy has to be great.

Right Tackle - Fred Miller sucks. Ed calls him "the Usher" because it's almost like he's clearing out other o-linesmen so the blitzers can get through. Ridiculous. The bad news? St. Clair is his backup, too. So, we need a starter AND a backup. Draft a second string guy for 2009 and find a good free agent to start this coming year. Sheesh.

Tight End - Solid, three-deep talent. Even Gilmore, who gets forgotten, caught a few tough TDs the prior year.

Full back - McKie has been good but he would have been even better with Femi Ayanbadejo backing him up this past year. There is J.D. Runnels but no idea if he'll be any good off a season-ending injury. Not sure if Polite is any good. Probably don't need too much attention here, but if something came up in the draft, we could probably clean house a little.

Running back - Seems like a no-brainer here. Get Michael Turner at any cost. He's available, he's a proven back, and he's from Northern Illinois University - just like Wolfe. Dump the shit out of Benson - contract be damned. Either money is the most important thing or winning is. Benson is a bust. Maybe some other team will remember his college career and/or have a need for a back that can get you 1.5 to 2 yards per carry. Adrian Peterson and Garrett Wolfe would complement Turner and you have a simple solution to an important problem for a team that likes to make claims about its run game.

Quarterback - This is a tough one. I know there's some real polarity around Rex Grossman, but I think we now know that Orton is no better than he was in 2005 (he didn't win those games, the defense and Thomas Jones did) and Griese is not the answer. We had David Garrard and cut him his rookie year. Somebody suggest a QB that is available that we could feasibly get that would do a better job than Grossman and I'll get off the bandwagon. Otherwise, keep him and Orton but draft a real QB. I would have loved to see Chris Leak get a chance (he looked outstanding in the pre-season) but he's the face of a brand new, small market football league.

Wide Receiver - More easy solutions. Muhammad is done. He needs a pro-bowl receiver (a la Steve Smith) on the other side so he can run undetected. In that case, he's brilliant. Considering he's opposite Berrian, this will never work. Deal both of them. Muhammad probably still has a little credibility in the league and Berrian will probably never be worth more. Maybe we can score a draft pick or a right tackle in the deal. Once Berrian and Moose are gone, you have Rashied Davis (scrapper, great hands) and Mark Bradley (flashes of greatness but injury prone) backed up by Devin Hester (who?) and Mike Hass (the future!). Pick up two more receivers to develop in the draft and we're good. Okay, so spend a little extra time showing Hester where to line up in the offseason. I think he'll be good when he finally learns the routes.

Coaches - I have been unimpressed with Ron Turner since he's been back. He doesn't seem to make adjustments during games. He sits in the press box instead of on the field. He doesn't run a play that works more than once in a game but he'll keep trying that damned end-around every single game. (If I know to keep a spy on Hester when he's in the game, so does every defensive coordinator and player in the league.) We need a coordinator that coordinates. He needs to fight to get the right players on the roster and use them to their potential. He needs to adjust during a game, not just get uber-conservative, to keep moving forward whether we have a lead or not. Turner has done none of this as far as I can tell. It's the very reason why I went from jubilant to totally nervous when Hester ran the opening kickoff back in the Superbowl. I knew we were going immediately into protect and defend mode - not kick their ass mode like we should have.

I'll take a crack at the defense tomorrow.