Faith in Lovie

I understand the need to keep things close to the vest, but I feel like I'm closer to the Bengals than the Bears these days. Even beyond the television show during training camp, they have guys talking the talk and walking the walk.

It's a little dangerous letting Ochocinco blather on, but on the other hand, he's also great at his job, interesting in interviews, and respectful of the game at the end of the day. Between the lines, you get some personality from him, and by extension, the Bengals.

Even as idiotic and misguided as Benson's speeches were, I got more of a look into the Bears operation from that than I do from the Bears themselves. Lovie gives stock, boring answers to questions. Urlacher only talks to one guy, apparently. The only person on the Bears team to talk and back it up is Lance Briggs, and you have to catch him off guard to get that quote.

What's worse, when you look at player development, you start seeing a trend. I'm sure one way to look at it is that Lovie gives a player a job and that player can feel secure in keeping the job. I can see how this would foster an environment of trust and loyalty. But, the other way of looking at it is that Johnny Knox never sees the field if Aromashadu doesn't get injured. Aromashadu doesn't see the field if Rashied Davis steps it up in training camp, and so on.

Josh Beekman played pretty well last year, but for some reason can't get in a game where the Bears are getting owned by 30+ points. Cutler finally gets replaced in the fourth quarter (game was over long before that) and Hanie gets to run a few running plays. We might be sitting on players that could fill in some of our gaps, but how would we ever know?

I feel like Lovie is a good defensive coordinator, but that's with established, healthy players. Beyond that, I don't trust him to develop talent, foster a positive locker room environment, or get us back into the playoffs.

I believe that coaches have success in waves. I believe Lovie's wave crested in 2006, and it'll be a while before it crests again. I don't know if I have the patience to wait for it. It's certainly less fun watching a .500 team, and that's really what the Bears are. At best.