| 15 February 2010
With just under two weeks until the start of the NFL free agency period the Bears are rid of Director of Pro Personnel Bobby DePaul. DePaul was a nine year veteran at Halas Hall who was one of the main engineers of the Jay Cutler trade but also the main evaluator of free agents.
Early in his tenure DePaul was successful in landing players like RB Thomas Jones, LG Ruben Brown, OT John Tait, and RG Roberto Garza a solid resume of success stories.
Recently though DePaul's success stories began to taper off as he missed on players like OL Frank Omiyale, FS Josh Bullocks, DT Darwin Walker, TE Michael Gaines, WR Marty Booker and OT Orlando Pace.
Reports coming out of Halas suggest that DePaul had a solid working relationship with Jerry Angelo but wasn't in the best of relationships with Lovie Smith. The thought now is DePaul's departure opens the door more for Lovie Smith to have stronger influence over free agency decisions.
Not surprisingly Smith is trying to gather in as much power and loyalty as he possibly can in which is likely his final season in Chicago. Smith is likely going to go out big and Angelo will be more than happy to oblige given that his stance seems to be that everything is in place and working, it's just the team needs to be coached better.
That type of stance to me underlies the main problem the Bears have, not coaching but overall lack of talent and the inability to hit on any value in free agency of late.
To say that Lovie Smith's defensive scheme no longer works is foolish, to say that Ron Turner's offense failed solely because of his ability as a coach lacks the foresight of a football mind.
Certainly there is plenty of blame to go around on the coaching staff, but forcing a player like Frank Omiyale to come in and play left guard, when he has never played guard is silly. Most definitely it wasn't Lovie Smith who scouted Omiyale as a guard prospect and gave him money worthy of a five-year NFL starting veteran.
Smith wasn't responsible for alienating John St. Clair by signing Frank Omiyale thus leading to St. Clair's departure and there by putting the Bears in the unenviable position of going after the old and washed up Orlando Pace. Kevin Shaffer was booted out of Cleveland in favor of John St. Clair, yet DePaul felt it best to fill the empty spot by signing Shaffer.
The problems on offense start directly in the trenches, the Bears' biggest failures have been in signing players via free agency along the offensive line. That finger points directly to DePaul and the finger gets longer and pointier when considering the lack of talent at wide receiver.
The Bears were left in the worst position in the NFL with their wide receiver problems prior to the start of the 2009 season. They were impotent in their pursuit of a veteran wide receiver to come in and help mentor the younger players, again a failure of DePaul.
Time after time the Bears have been left with huge holes via a lack of solid evaluation in the free agent market, now things have clearly changed and the direction of the Bears has changed.
So the question is now can Lovie Smith succeed on his own if he has more power? With a solid core of former NFL head coaches surrounding him, including Mike Tice and Mike Martz, it appears Smith will have one final chance to right the ship, with his own hands full on the rudder, and men surrounding him he trusts.
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