Posts tagged BernardBerrian at FanHouse

The Chicago Bears have been lambasted by everyone this offseason for their offensive personnel, specifically the air attack. QB wasn't really addressed in the off-season, and letting Bernard Berrian walk to division rival Minnesota made the receiving corps the most maligned in the NFL.

Well, General Manager Jerry Angelo shed some light on the subject today with the inclusion of pro-bowler Lance Briggs:

''It would have been Berrian or Briggs,'' Angelo said. ''We made a decision. We tried to do Bernard; didn't work."

Look, it's pretty obvious the Bears aren't being cheap this off-season in keeping their own guys after splurging to ensure Brian Urlacher, Devin Hester, and Tommie Harris are happy campers. Angelo also stated within the same piece that they believed Hester could replace Berrian's production.

The real question here is, do you make sure your strength remains just as strong as ever while sacrificing an important cog to your weakness? The flip-side would be allowing one of the most important members of the strength walk while retaining an important part of the weakness.

With the external factors being as they are, I'd definitely keep Briggs over Berrian in a heartbeat. The QB situation isn't resolved, so the possibility that Berrian would be wasted is real. The way the Bears are going to have to try and win football games this season is by grinding the clock with the running game and playing stellar defense. You need Briggs on the field alongside Urlacher to make sure this happens. Offensively, the threat of Hester going deep is enough to stretch the defense. He did catch two long TDs last year in limited duty.

The Bears' top receivers last year were Bernard Berrian and Muhsin Muhammad. Both are now gone.

So why on earth would Chicago wide receivers coach Darryl Drake say he thinks the team is in better shape at receiver this year than last year? That's what he suggested in talking to the Chicago Sun-Times.

But when you also consider that he said his best receiver right now is Rashied Davis, you realize that the team is sorely lacking in experienced wide receivers. Yes, Davis and Devin Hester and Brandon Lloyd and Mark Bradley and Earl Bennett all have talent, but Marty Booker is the only guy on the roster who has accomplished much of anything as an NFL wide receiver.

Although the Bears' quarterback controversy will be the talk of training camp, the wide receiver situation may be the team's biggest question mark. Neither Rex Grossman nor Kyle Orton can be confident that he'll have any good receivers catching his passes.

The Vikings have had a pretty successful off-season, signing wide receiver Bernard Berrian and safety Madieu Williams. But the recent news that Gus Frerotte will join the team as Tarvaris Jackson's backup has been met with "WTF?" incredulity from a relatively tolerant fanbase.

Generally speaking, the quarterback position is a sore spot for this team, and at the NFL owner's meeting, head coach Brad Childress talked about why Minnesota passed on Brady Quinn last year.

"I think people valued another position obviously more,'' Childress said. "There was some common thinking if he got past Miami there [at No. 9], as you looked at the teams that were after, they weren't really lined up to take a quarterback. That's probably the biggest reason.''

Not all that insightful, but it's not like a coach makes it a habit of spilling his guts to the media about the organization's draft philosophy. Fair enough. One reason the Vikings may have shied away from Quinn last year is because Jackson had just one season in the league. There's plenty of upside for a guy long on athleticism and short on experience. Plus, with other needs (like, say, running back), Minnesota could address the quarterback position at some point in the future.

Now, though, I wonder what the Vikings would do if they had the seventh-overall pick this April. There's a change Matt Ryan could be on the board, and while Jackson showed glimpses of ability in 2007, I think it would be much tougher for the organization to pass on a potential franchise quarterback twice in as many drafts.

Generally, the idea is to get better in the off-season. It doesn't always happen, of course -- salary-cap constraints, seller's free-agency market, poor front-office decisions -- but it's something to strive for.

The Vikings have taken strides to be more competitive in 2008 -- Bernard Berrian and Madieu Williams are the two most obvious examples -- but there's still some trepidation about the quarterback position. Tarvaris Jackson is penciled in as the starter but his career to date can best be described as inconsistent.

Ideally, Minnesota would be able to work a deal for a solid veteran back-up, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Sage Rosenfels was apparently the front-runner, but the Texans, in no uncertain terms, ain't interested.

Logically, the Vikings are turning to, well, just keep reading:

With the Houston Texans apparently intent on keeping QB Sage Rosenfels, indications are strong this morning that the Vikings are nearing an agreement with free agent QB Gus Frerotte.

Oh, yeah, feel the Gus-mentum. Or something equally as lame. It's hard to say just how bad Frerotte is because he played on a hapless Rams team last year, but according to Football Outsiders, he finished 46th among 49 quarterbacks in terms of value per play (Jackson was 35th).

Maybe Frerotte would be marginally better behind Minnesota's offensive line, but here's the question: is he any better than Brooks Bollinger? If not, why even sign him?

The Minnesota Vikings have re-signed wide receiver Robert Ferguson, meaning they will keep the nucleus of their receiving corps from last year intact, and gain a solid starter in Bernard Berrian.

If you're a Vikings fan looking at the offense heading into the 2008 season, you have to like a lot of what you see. Berrian, Ferguson, Bobby Wade and Sidney Rice could make for some very threatening four-receiver formations. Stretching the field with those receivers should open up some room for Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor to run. The offensive line is one of the best in the league.

And that brings us to the quarterback, Tarvaris Jackson. It's baffling that the Vikings appear perfectly content to head into the 2008 season with Jackson, who had a 70.8 quarterback rating last year, as their unquestioned starter. Barring some kind of surprise move in the draft, or a major trade, Brad Childress will had his offense to Jackson.

And handing this offense to Jackson is like handing the keys to your Ferrari to a 15-year-old with a learner's permit. Maybe he'll be a good enough driver to trust him some day, but is it worth the risk that he'll crash and burn?

The Bears released No. 1 wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad three weeks ago primarily because he wasn't nearly as productive in Chicago as he had been with the Carolina Panthers. Or at least that was the thinking.

Sure, the inability to create separation and the butter fingers didn't help make a case for keeping him, but neither did his attitude, apparently:

True, the Bears could have kept Muhsin Muhammad for about the same money they will pay Booker. But Booker fits better in a locker room where Muhammad practically had strained his rotator cuff throwing Bears quarterbacks under the bus. Not to mention that, behind the scenes, the Bears had grown tired of Muhammad questioning offensive coordinator Ron Turner.

That certainly helps explain the Marty Booker signing, but there's still the little issue of why the Bears let Bernard Berrian get away -- and worse, signed Brandon Lloyd. I'm not convinced Berrian's a true No. 1 receiver but, hell, neither was Muhammad. And Berrian's younger, faster, and less likely to have footballs honk off his hands.

If nothing else, though, Chicago has one less birdie chirping in Rex Grossman's or Kyle Orton's ear (it's still an open competition for the starting job) about all of their shortcomings. I'm sure they're well aware, although there's a case to be made for Ron Turner being on the business end of a verbal beatdown. More than just about anybody else in the organization, I'd say he's earned it.

Hat tip: Pancake Blocks

Maybe Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner didn't need to see any film of Brandon Lloyd's NFL exploits since he coached the former fourth-round pick at the University of Illinois. This would be ironic since this is how the Redskins did much of their scouting in recent seasons, and they were the team that released Lloyd last week.

The Sacramento Bee's Matt Barrows goes all "1998 internets" on us and busts out an animated .gif of Lloyd during those heady 49ers days. The clip shows, over and over and over, Lloyd running a crossing route and ducking as the pass whizzes by his ear. I guess it never occurred to him to try to, you know, catch the thing.

Anyway, after hearing Barrows recount some of Lloyd's finer moments in San Francisco, you have to wonder why the Bears signed him at any price.

If there are any teams that know Lloyd's true colors, it's the 49ers, the Redskins (where Lloyd was to receiving what Joseph Hazelwood was to seamanship) and the Bears. After all, it was in that stunningly windy game in Chicago in 2005 that Lloyd famously alligator-armed two Cody Pickett passes, including one on the goal line that would have put the 49ers right back in the game. At least Lloyd had the guts and the self-awareness to man up and take the blame afterward. "The ball was thrown too early," he said at the time. "That wasn't the route. I still had more of the route to run. It was thrown way too soon."

The Chicago Bears have announced the signing of wide receiver Brandon Lloyd, and it says a lot about the Bears that adding Lloyd to their receiving corps actually represents an upgrade.

Lloyd makes just enough highlight-reel catches, and has just a colorful enough personality, that there are still people who think of him as a good NFL wide receiver. But if any of those people are Bears fans, they're going to be seriously disappointed when they actually get a look at him this season. Lloyd caught a whopping two passes for 14 yards in 2007, and even in his best year, he managed just 48 catches for 733 yards. Lloyd and Marty Booker are not an NFL-caliber pair of starters.

In the right system, though, it's possible that Lloyd could be a serviceable third or fourth receiver, and it should be noted that "the right system" might be the one run by Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner, who was Lloyd's head coach in college at Illinois. Maybe the Bears can get the most out of Lloyd's athletic talents, but I still say they should have franchised Bernard Berrian.

The Chicago Bears have signed free agent wide receiver Marty Booker, a veteran who spent his first five NFL seasons with Chicago before spending the last four with the Miami Dolphins.

The signing of Booker answers, to an extent, my question, who will catch passes in Chicago? But it doesn't answer my next question: Why didn't the Bears apply the franchise tag to Bernard Berrian?

As FanHouse's Josh Alper wrote last month, the one-year franchise tag would have been expensive -- $7.8 million for a wide receiver, which might be more than Berrian is really worth. But the Bears have the cap room needed to pay Berrian that much, and keeping Berrian would have given the Bears some stability on offense. It also would have kept Berrian from signing with the Vikings, where he could help beat the Bears next year.

Overall, the Bears would be a better team in 2008 with Berrian starting at wide receiver than with Booker, even taking into account that Berrian's cap hit might have cost them some depth elsewhere. Chicago fans will wish they had Berrian next year.

If there's one word that best describes Randy Moss, it's teammate. I mean, the guy took a discount to come to New England last off-season, giving up an opportunity to bring a championship to Oakland. And according to his agent, Tim DiPiero, Moss has done the same to re-up with the Patriots. What a thoughtful dude. Here's what DiPiero said to reporters via e-mail:

"I am pleased to confirm that Randy Moss has signed a three year contract with the New England Patriots. The contract calls for a total payout of $27 million with $15 million guaranteed, $12 million of which is in the form of a signing bonus. Randy is grateful to Mr. Kraft, Coach Belichick and Scott Pioli for agreeing to the terms of this contract.

Randy was serious about wanting to stay. Because of Randy's record-breaking year, the interest in him was very high. Randy took less than he could have to rejoin his teammates."

With every story, no matter how mundane, subjected to the 24-hour news cycle, it's always important to have the PR peeps spinning. I get that. But we're supposed to believe that "Randy took less than he could have to rejoin his teammates"? Did DiPiero forget one of these jazzy emoticons somewhere?

UPDATE: And the Patriots screw me again. No sooner than I hit "publish" I come across this Boston Herald story suggesting that ... Moss took less dough to stay in New England (waves fist, curses evil genius, Bill Belichick).