6 Questions Surrounding the Bears this Offseason

Before I talk about the Bears and their off season I have to ask you one thing. Please keep Japanese people in your prayers and thank God that the LCMS missionaries are ALL okay in Japan and if you have time thank God for how blessed you are that you are safe. That is all.

The Bears. Today's post is very similar to the Mike&Mike off season two-a-days and that is where I got the idea from, but I gave it a little Bears twist by changing the normal question number (5) to 6 for Jay Cutler.


1. Will the Bears sign Plaxico Buress?
When I first heard that there would be thoughts to sign him I was excited because I know he is a great receiver. The problem is that the Bears don't like to have any bad character on their team. They have a clean locker room and they want to keep it that way. The Bears will find a way to sign a big aggressive receiver, but they will not sign Buress because of his character issues and the stupid stuff he does. The Bears are strict on the character thing and so no matter how good the receiver is they won't sign him if he has shown character issues in the past or might in the future. Final answer to this question is no.

2. Will the Lovie Smith Extension Pay Off?
I have contradicted myself about this over and over again. When I first started to post about whether or not he should get an extension I was for him. Then, I read a really well written article about the opposing opinion and that totally switched my opinion. I think this will blow up in the Bears' face. Lovie Smith is a good coach and has been for years, but out of the years he has been with the Bears he has had two good years. After the first good year he dropped. I hope that the team doesn't drop after this good season, but it seems like whenever you give lovie a new contract he has a better year. I know the players like him, but if he doesn't get the job done, you eventually have to get rid of him. I do understand the point that keeping him will keep the Bears rolling, because if you fire the coach it stops the whole team's momentum. My thing is that I don't want what happened to the Vikings this year to happen to the Bears this coming year. My final answer is that I hope so, but I honestly think that it won't pay off.

3. Will Jay Cutler be Better or Worse Next Year?
The injury is the one problem that might slow his progress. He is progressing. You can tell by looking at the beginning of this season and the end that he progressed a lot over the course of the season. When he gets healthy, this off season he can improve even more. I truly believe that he has the talent to be a great quarterback. The problem is that he doesn't have good footwork and sometimes he gets over-confident or under-confident. This off season he can workout three times a week on footwork and improving his football IQ and he will be 100% better. If he does all that during the off season and then goes to training camp with the right footwork and being a little smarter he can focus on timing with receivers and overall teamwork. If he does all that he will be a very good quarterback next year, but the problem is that Jay Cutler will probably never have enough motivation to do all that. I am one of the Bears fans that supports jay cutler, not burns his jersey, so don't get me wrong I like that he is our quarterback. I'm just stating the fact that he doesn't have very much motivation. I still think he will improve, but not as much as he possibly could. Final answer is that he will be better but not a whole lot better.

4. Will the Bears Draft Wisely or Foolishly?
I want to believe that they will be smart in this draft, but judging from the past few years they won't be wise. They aren't going to be foolish, but I don't think they are going to get everything they want and need. Right now they are probably going to get a defensive lineman first, but they really need an offensive lineman more than anything and if they can get their hands on a good receiver that would be a huge plus. I think picking a defensive lineman would be a huge mistake. Right now we have a good line. Yes, they could be improved but the top priority is our offensive lineman. I could be wrong about what they are going to pick. I got the idea that they would sign a defensive lineman from mock drafts and we all know that mock drafts aren't always right. I hope the Bears are very wise in this draft, because it could make a huge impact on the Bears season. My final answer is that they will be somewhere in between wise and foolish.

5. Will there be a Lockout?
There have been ups and downs of this process recently. There was a plus when they agreed on the rookie salary cap. Then, there was an all-out twitter war and things got bad again. Today the NFLPA decided they would not sign a new agreement. This means if there is a lockout the players can sue. The thing that people need to know is that this does not mean there will be a lockout. It means that the NFLPA will take the NFL to court. I think the NFLPA has a good case and all football fans should be hoping that they win. A loss would mean a 99.99% chance of a lockout and would cause major chaos in the NFL. I want NFL football next year. There has never been a year in my whole life where there hasn't been an NFL season and I would like to keep that streak alive. My final answer is reluctantly yes.

6. Are the Bears going Up or Down?
This is the toughest question of them all. My problem is that they had a really good season last year and won a few of those games because they got a little lucky. I do like this team. I think they are going to be a good team. Going up will be hard for them to do so I think they may go down, but not by a lot. It will be hard to win the division again over the Super Bowl champs. The Packers and the Lions are both going to be good teams next year. I don't see the Bears having the same dominance in their division as they did this year, but I think they can make it in through the Wild Card and make a run like the Packers did this year. My final answer is down, but barely and will still be contenders.


I'm going to start adding a new feature to my blog posts and that is the Youtube video of the day.

YouTube Video Of The Day
------------------------


Can these black and yellow remixes please stop?

Love Smith

At the beginning of the year Lovie Smith's job was a question mark. A lot of people thought that he should have been fired after last year, but Angelo gave him one more year and Smith lead the Bears to a 11-4 season and an NFC North Championship. I don't know about you, but I think think thats pretty good for a guy who was supposed to be hired. I don't always like the things that Lovie does. He leaves me scratching my head often. I still think that having him as the head coach is better than taking a chance with a guy who will do worse. I say that Angelo should give him another year and if he screws it up, he should be fired. I think the Bears are headed in the right direction and hiring the coach stops that momentum. The boys in the locker room like this coach and as long as they are winning while playing for him and they like him the GM should be happy. The situation in Minnesota is the opposite of what a GM wants. They want a coach that wins games and is loved, or at least liked, by the players. Right now Lovie is doing that so there is no reason to fire him. That would just add negative attention to the team and stop the progress they are making as a team. If you fire him right now you lose what could be a really good season next year and I don't want to see that happen. No fan should want to see that happen.

The Future of Lovie Smith

Coming into this season Lovie Smith was on a major hot-seat. If he didn't have a winning record he would be out. He had one good year in 2006 and after that he did nothing. This year was his major test to see if the defense would get back to being dominant, and overall if the team could be a winning team. He accomplished both of those goals. I'm not sure what that means for his future now because, Jerry Angelo may have wanted to get rid of him anyone and was looking for a reason. My personal opinion of him is that he needs to be a little more excited about the game, then again him and Jay Cutler are a match made in heaven. Both love the game and are probably very excited and pumped before each game, but they never show their excitement. They have very boring faces. I think he is a good coach, but part of being a coach is yelling and I don't think I have ever seen him yell at someone for doing something wrong.
Don't get me wrong I like him, but I think he has a lot of things that make him different and that can be a good thing at times and a bad thing at other times. He knows how to coach a defense and that's why the Bears got him, because we are a team that thrives on our defense year after year.
So, what will his future look like? I think Jerry Angelo will extend his contract 3 years and if we don't do anything then I think he will fire him. If they did fire him this year they would look ungrateful and no coach would want to go there, so if you are Angelo you should just wait for him to make a big mistake if you really want him out. I think he can do great things with this Bears team, so I think he will be here for a long time and have a successful career with Jay Cutler, Matt Forte, and Brian Urlacher by his side.