Posts tagged JerryAngelo at FanHouse

Good news hasn't been all that common in Cedric Benson's inbox of late but he did get a little from general manager Jerry Angelo. The Bears will not cut Benson before training camp, Angelo said, and expect him to battle for the starting job. So he's got that going for him.

What he doesn't have going for him, though, is Angelo's robust support. The GM, while claiming an aversion to rushing to judgment, says that he's disappointed in Benson.

"The thing that I am most disappointed in is the fact that he put himself in a position to be the victim. That's the disappointment. He's done a real fine job in the off-season, (but) obviously this makes big story lines. That's not good for business. Unfortunately we're having to deal with it, and we'll just wait and see how all the facts present themselves."

If you aren't rushing to judgment, Benson did absolutely nothing that would qualify putting himself in position to be a victim. If Benson's telling the truth about what happened on Lake Travis, Angelo is basically saying he was asking for it. That's a little too close to saying that a rape victim was asking for it because of what she wore or how she acted.

If Benson's not telling the truth, however, he wasn't a victim but was, in fact, breaking the law and suffered the consequences. There's no middle ground here and, until the case works itself out, anything else is a rush to judgment.

I've spent most of the offseason being critical of the Bears failure to address their offensive line needs. The team isn't going to improve their 2007 record with the group of players they've got at the point of attack. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Sun-Times disagrees with that assessment, however.

Biggs writes that the Bears were wise to sit on the sidelines during the free agent spending frenzy. It was a weak market, he reasons, and Jerry Angelo was wise not to spend elite player money on non-elite players. That's a fair argument, although would be a fairer one if he'd brought Bernard Berrian back as the franchise player. All the money in the world isn't going to make anyone happy with a 6-10 record. That's not where Biggs seems to think the team's headed, though.

The last three Super Bowl winners-the New York Giants, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh-sat on their wallets in the free agency period leading in to their championship seasons.

The last three Super Bowl winners also all made the playoffs the season before they won the Super Bowl. They also all had established starting quarterbacks (Eli might not have been much, but he wasn't Rex Orton either), talented offensive lines and playmakers on offense. None of the above is true of the Bears.

The little comparison also conveniently ignores the Patriots spending like crazy and making the Super Bowl. Not spending money on mediocre players is all well and good but it has very little to do with making a champion.

The return of Lance Briggs to Chicago was a pleasant surprise for the Bears and their fans this weekend. It assures the return of a talented defense and, if Nathan Vasher, Tommie Harris and Brian Urlacher are all healthy, one that could dominate the way it did during the 2006 Super Bowl run. Put a feather in Jerry Angelo's cap for making it happen for about the same amount the team was offering Briggs last season but don't hurt your shoulder patting him on the back just yet.

As Michael David Smith pointed out yesterday, the Bears have the league's worst assortment of wide receivers at the moment. With many top free agents accounted for already, any upgrade will be minimal. But it gets worse. The same feeding frenzy has happened along the offensive line, which is a bad sign for Chicago. They need two starters but the cupboard is pretty bare. They could sign Pittsburgh's Max Starks to an offer sheet but $7 million a year is a lot for a player who isn't much of an upgrade from the released Fred Miller.

When you throw in the need for a better running back, you have to wonder how the Bears will get it all done.

If Bernard Berrian is back with the Bears next season it will be as the owner of a shiny, new long-term contract. GM Jerry Angelo confirmed that the team won't be tagging Berrian as their franchise player before today's deadline which means the wideout will likely be hitting the open market. The Bears have made what Angelo terms as an "aggressive" offer to Berrian and his agents but he would be crazy to sign any deal before hearing what other teams might be offering.

They've made an offer to sign Berrian for several more years even after a season which saw him drop too many balls. That's not a positive development, even if you want to write it off to the revolving door at quarterback. I don't think it's crazy to bring Berrian back, I'm just not sure why you wouldn't do it under the one-year contract afforded by franchising him. It's a bit expensive but the Bears have the cap room and it gives them some stability on offense.

Stability would seem to be important since they also want to bring Rex Grossman back. It's clear the Bears want to give Ron Turner's offense another year to work itself out and Grossman works well with Berrian. But Grossman without Berrian leaves the Bears empty at wideout and Berrian with a long-term deal is an albatross if the offense doesn't improve. It's a moot point now but I don't really get what the Bears are doing here.

NFL Offseason Roadmap is a series focused on the needs of NFL teams as they begin the offseason.

After the Chicago Bears lost in the Super Bowl to the Indianapolis Colts, they made several decisions before trying to defend their NFC crown. They gave Cedric Benson the starting tailback job, kept the quarterback position intact, signed Adam Archuleta to play safety and fired defensive coordinator Ron Rivera. It's hard to imagine any of them could have gone worse and each played a big part of the trip to a 7-9 record. The early word out of Chicago is that there won't be any big moves this time around but it's hard to see how such an approach would make for a markedly better 2008.

1. Quarterback – GM Jerry Angelo has been talking up a competition for the starting job in 2008 and that's certainly a good idea. None of the three quarterbacks who started for the Bears this season deserve an unfettered move to the top of the chain but the team won't do well to stand pat with the players they have. Rex Grossman is a free agent but unlikely to find big money offers and guaranteed starting jobs flooding his inbox.

When the Bears and Lance Briggs were at a contract impasse last year, there were some pretty serious rumors about a trade to the Washington Redskins. It didn't happen, of course, and Briggs played for the franchise tender with an agreement that the Bears wouldn't slap him with the tag again this year. Now, as Briggs closes in on free agency, it appears the 'Skins are readying for another run at the Pro Bowl linebacker.

Now, the Redskins have a lot of salary cap issues they need to iron out before adding a player who will command as much money as Briggs. If they did sign him it would leave some egg on the face of Jerry Angelo. The trade didn't get consumated because the two sides couldn't agree on trade terms beyond Briggs and Washington's sixth overall pick. As Windy City Gridiron points out, that pick turned out to be LaRon Landry, who played a heckuva safety during his rookie year.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20, and who knows what the Bears would have done with the pick, but Landry would have looked a lot better in a Bears uniform than Adam Archuleta. He'd also give them one less position to worry about filling this offseason. You can understand the desire to keep together a championship defense but, now that it looks like Briggs is going to walk away with no one coming back in return, the Bears are worse off for the trade not made.

Earlier this week when Lovie Smith gave his post mortem on the Bears season he said that he would be happy if all the players on this year's team came back. His loyalty is laudable as is his unwillingness to scapegoat one player over another for contributing to a poor season but the lack of accountability is a bit troubling. His boss, Jerry Angelo, didn't have any such problems when he gave his own wrap on the season past. He said he wanted robust competition for the quarterback and running back jobs and then went even further when asked about who he wanted to build the offense around in 2008.

"Who are the building blocks? I can't sit here and say I feel 100 percent about anybody."

It's not the first time Angelo has been critical of his team's offense. He referred to it as "inept" in a late-season interview. While his most pointed criticism was for the offense, he also cast aspersions on Smith's assertions about how well the defense played at the end of the season.

"Our defense isn't really, in my opinion, set up to be a run-stuffing defense. But those things definitely got our attention, got my attention. We have our work cut out for us in the off-season."

It should go without saying that defenses that aren't set up to stuff the run are rarely successful in the NFL.

Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo met with the media in Chicago today and his mantra of the day was competition. Whether talking about quarterbacks or running backs, he stressed the need for one player to stand out among many before the team names its starter for 2008. He began by discussing Rex Grossman's future with the team.

"We would like to have Rex back. Rex showed some good play, particularly when he was coming back off his little sabbatical. We'd like to have as much competition as we can there."

I realize he's being cute with the sabbatical comment, but Grossman wasn't off studying the indigenous quarterbacking styles of the Nile Delta. He was benched and the team suffered because Brian Griese wasn't able to do any better. Kyle Orton is a fine backup option but Griese doesn't fill any need for this team going forward. That means the team needs to bring in someone who can push Grossman, rather than be a fallback if he fails again.

Angelo seems open to that idea and is open to new faces at tailback as well.

"If something were to arise and there's a good back in the marketplace or in the draft that we feel can complement the backs or give us the kind of competition that we feel [is needed], then we're going to look at that as well."

For Jerry Angelo and the Chicago Bears, April's draft is an important one. There are big questions at quarterback, running back and along the offensive line while safety is a bigger mess than any of those spots. Lance Briggs could leave a huge hole at linebacker and Bernard Berrian could do the same at wide receiver, leaving much work to be done in remaking the roster for an improvement on this year's 7-9 record.

Angelo may have to do it without his scouting director Greg Gabriel. Gabriel was a candidate for the Bills GM job before Marv Levy rejoined the team in January 2006 and could find himself in the mix again this time around according to the Chicago Tribune. He started his career in the Bills organization before heading to the Giants where he met Angelo and began their long working relationship. The Bears have had mixed results with the draft but Gabriel's hits - Briggs, Devin Hester, Nathan Vasher - have been home runs.

The Bills haven't started interviews yet and may be gunshy about going outside the club after the Tom Donahue debacle but they don't have an ideal candidate in house. Additionally, Gabriel may not sit well with Dick Jauron, who's expected to gain influence after outperforming expectations this season. When Gabriel and Angelo came to Chicago, they clashed with Jauron before firing him and any remaining bad blood could spoil Gabriel's chances at the job. That could be a winning scenario for his current team.

The Monday after the end of a playoff-less football season is never a happy time. Players clean out their lockers, say their goodbyes and, for many, wonder if they will get another chance to make an impression in the NFL. Lance Briggs isn't one of those players. He knows that when training camp begins he'll be one of the highest-paid players in the sport, he just doesn't know who is going to be signing his checks.

Briggs is going to be on the open market and Pro Bowl linebackers with 140 tackles do well in such situations. His current teammates seem resigned to a Briggs-less 2008 in Chicago because they don't believe that the Bears will open their wallet to bring him back.

Brian Urlacher - "I don't think he'll be here. I don't think the Bears will pay him what he wants."
Adewale Ogunleye - "No matter what offer the Bears give Lance, there's going to be another team that's probably going to give a better deal than that."

It's a tough spot for the Bears. They've got a lot of holes that need patching and only so much money to spend on one player. Losing Briggs obviously hurts the defense but $7.25 million could do a lot to help the offense. Spent wisely, Briggs' money could land two or three players who make the Bears better in 2008. It's asking a lot of Jerry Angelo to do that but new years can mean new beginnings.