Articles - The Chicago Bears - All The Right Moves

The Chicago Bears: All the Right Moves
By bryan@footballdialogue.com

There are many people out there who have criticized the Bears for some of the choices that they have made during this off season. However, if you take a look at the choices the Bears have made, you will see that they have made all of the right moves in all of the right places. In what might be their best move of the off season, the Bears released the troubled and troubling Tank Johnson and brought in both Anthony Adams and Darwin Walker. Adams will be a great fill-in when needed and Walker, a highly underrated player, could step into the starting spot next to All-Pro Tommie Harris. These moves added depth and power to the defensive line after weeks of wonder about its depth and strength.

Still another good move, or moves, came when the Bears signed both of their starting cornerbacks, Charles Tillman and Nathan Vasher to long term contracts. Both were slated to be free agents at the end of the 2007 season but the Bears now have them locked up for several more seasons to come. They still have several other players to sign before the end of next season including Rex Grossmann and Bernard Berrian. Tommie Harris is also going to need his contract renewed and the Bears should make that a priority. They may also want to rework Brian Urlacher's contract as well.

The Bears had their usual solid NFL draft and picked up some players who will be highly influential to them in the future. Their biggest and their best draft choice this past April was first round pick, tight end Greg Olsen. Olsen helps bring another dimension to the Bears offense by providing them with a player who has the speed of a wide receiver at the tight end position and this will give the Bears a huge offensive advantage. Running back Garrett Wolfe could also come in and be a great contributor on offense. Chicago also selected several defensive players that will help them out with depth at certain positions as well as on special teams.

There was one oddity about this off season came when the Bears allowed their starting running back, Thomas Jones, to be traded. Since most teams are now starting to use a two running back system, this may come back to haunt the Bears in the long run as they will rest their hopes on Cedric Benson and Adrian Peterson. If there is going to be a chink in the Bears armor this season, it will be at the running back position.

Quarterback Rex Grossman has quietly had a solid off season and has improved his play. He desperately needed to work on his mechanics and thanks to new quarterbacks coach Pep Hamilton, he has someone who has been able to show him what he has done wrong in the past. In training camp, to date, he has done very well and the Bears will hope that he can take what he has learned during the off season and turn it over into good production during the regular season.

Also on offense, the Bears have managed to convince All-Pro kick return specialist and former cornerback Devin Hester to switch to the wide receiver position and it appears as if this is really going well. If he can play the wide receiver position like he can returning kicks, the Bears will have it made on offense.

The key for the Bears, on offense, is to make sure that they can put it all together and execute with all of the weapons that they have. Of course, the key will be in the hands of Rex Grossman and if he can play well this season the Bears offense could be unstoppable. However, they will also need to have Cedric Benson ready to go and will have to have him stay healthy if they want their offense to function properly.

So the Bears appear to be pretty well set to make a run at the Super Bowl once again in 2007. They have the tools to get back to the Super Bowl but a lot depends on which teams might be much more improved this season. The New Orleans Saints could be one of those teams, as could the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys (all of these teams will play the Bears during the season), so the Bears will have their work cut out for them. However, they should be able to lead the NFC to the Super Bowl again this season.