| 26 February 2010
Day two coverage started out with Lovie
Smith taking to the podium at 9:00am this morning to talk about the Bears and what needs to change and what will be upgraded in the off-season. Smith spoke to reporters about numerous of the teams most pressing issues and discussed what he's seen on film since the end of the season. As you will recall the last time Smith spoke to reporters was just after the season ended so he had yet to see his team and review it's performance fully on tape. Now that he's seen that some of the brief tidbits covering what Lovie Smith spoke about at his press conference.
Frank Omiyale will either wind up staying at left guard or moving out to right tackle based upon the player the Bears bring in, whether it's a guard or a tackle. They plan to upgrade the offensive line this off-season and if they bring in a guard, Omiyale moves out to tackle, if they bring in a tackle he stays at guard. That gives a quick idea of the type of versatility and flexibility the Bears have with Omiyale, they're not pigeon holed into going after a specific player they have two options. This will make it easier to find the player that best fits the needs of the team, both LG and RT need to be upgraded but both Shaffer and Omiyale played well enough at the end of the season that there will be stability at that position.
Next to be addressed was the need at the safety position and Lovie Smith went out of his way to say the Bears need to upgrade the safety position. There was no specifics given on how the Bears plan to address it whether via the draft or free agency, but the NEED WAS CLEARLY EMPHASIZED by Smith and how disappointed he is in the fact there have been so few plays made at the safety position. The Bears obviously can't discuss other teams' players so Smith couldn't speak to any speculation about Antrel Rolle or Julius Peppers or he would face tampering chargers. Suffice to say it's hard to believe that Smith wouldn't have both Rolle and Peppers in mind to come in and help the Bears on defense.
Smith then went on to talk about what is the most important part of his defense that makes it successful, that would be a pass rushing DT. Smith said it's the DT position that makes the defense "tick". Obviously a pass rusher is needed either on the outside or the inside although Smith indicated that he still have faith that Tommie Harris can be a star in this league. A constant point of frustration is Tommie Harris and his knee problems especially after what went down during Mini-Camp and OTAs leading up to camp in 2009. Smith held back on revealing Harris' off-season arthroscopic knee surgery that happened in March of 2009. He held back to the point that Harris took a beating from the fans and the media, an unfair beating at that. When your coach says you're 100-percent after having off-season knee surgery but doesn't reveal the surgery as the reason why you're standing on the side lines through mini-camp then there's a major problem. Smith left Harris hung out to dry in 2009, unfairly leaving him to deal with SEVERE media scrutiny. The scrutiny was compounded by Jerry Angelo's insistence that Harris was completely healthy as well. 
Now there is a fine line that has to be walked regarding Tommie Harris and the future impact he can have on this team, Smith was right to say there were flashes from Harris in 2009, because there were flashes. In the same token there wasn't ever the level of consistency you would expect to see from Harris. The question is how much of that can be attributed to his knee surgery and will he finally go an entire off-season without having a surgery on that knee. Is this finally the year where Harris' focuses enough as a player to heal his knee, can his knee even be healed in the first place? That's obviously another point of contention that the Bears will be faced with year after year until Harris is either gone or he proves himself to be ready to go.
The persistent rumor now circulating around the combine media room is that the Bears will make a run at Aaron Kampman, although this his hardly a revelation given the original Peppers report said the Bears would consider Peppers and Kampman, with Kampman being plan B.
Based on comments Lovie made the Bears won't be looking into adding a wide receiver to the team during the off-season. Smith stated that he felt that the receivers were the deepest position on the team and based on the production they showed last year he is right. As I pointed out in the WR review Hester had the highest pass reception percentage among the receivers based on times targeted and times he hauled in a pass. Hester also had a solid number yardage games based on how often he was able to haul in passes. Jay Cutler obviously prefers to spread the ball around equally and everyone was equal in the way they were consistently productive last year.
Smith expressed that the receivers are young and should really take off in 2010, and that's a fair assessment to make with no smoke and mirrors to try and take away from a weakness or sugar coat. Certainly if you had a chance at a big physical young receiver you would have to consider him, but there are only so many teams that have a Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Brandon Marshall, etc. Every team would like that player but not all the teams can land a player like that.
Smith also expressed that Greg Olsen will like his role in the new offense and that the offense under Martz will be very exciting. He also stated that Olsen is aware that he needs to improve his blocking and that he'll do that. During one of Mike Tice's first interviews, Tice stated that anyone who needs to improve at blocking on the inside part of the formation whether it's an OL or TE will fall under his guidance in learning to better his blocking. Olsen will be working with Tice to improve his blocking and hopefully Tice can have an impact on Olsen. Whether Olsen can develop a more consistent effort and desire to be a blocker, well that remains to be seen.
On the staff adjustments on defense Smith stated that a player has to be capable of doing three things, dropping into zone, playing man coverage or blitzing, that's the type of versatility the defense has. Smith also defended hiring Rod Marinelli as the new defensive coordinator stating that there's plenty of fresh eyes on defense and the rest of the offense to bring things together and be successful. The defense's concept will remain the same but they will do more to add things to the defense. Meaning the Bears will stay with the one gap scheme (that's the personnel they have that fits the scheme) and the Cover-2 will remain the base set, but together that encompasses what best fits the personnel on the field, they are all one gap players primarily. The basis of Smith defense, know your gap, and attack your gap hard and don't worry about the blocker and occupying that blocker or worry about the gap beside you, take care of your responsibility and trust that the guy next to you, will take care of his.
So to wrap up what Smith spoke about today during his press conference at the podium the Bears will obviously, more than any other position on the team look to upgrade the safety position. Safety appears to be the number one concern the Bears have and then finding a pass rusher is a very close second. Rumors will obviously abound regarding Peppers and Kampman until the fifth of March.
I hope the Bears are willing to do more in free agency than maybe Ted Phillips has led us to believe. Adding a player like Antrel Rolle would be good so long as it's in a cost effective manner, although I'm hesitant to think the Bears can land Rolle in a cost effective manner with Drew Rosenhaus as his agent and Rosenhaus using the leverage of Rolle's Pro Bowl status.
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