| 06 June 2010
A seventh round draft pick and an undrafted college free agent signee, are the future of the offensive line in Chicago according to Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo. Much has been made of the success and the failures of the two men in charge of the Bears over the last three season failures in Chicago. We all know how far off the defense has fallen since it was one of the best in the NFL and was so strong it carried a Rex Grossman led offense into the Super Bowl. Affixing the blame for the success and the failures of this franchise has become a two way street, blame that should be heaped upon both Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith. With the need for the Bears to sign Lovie Smith to a long term contract, Angelo released some of the responsibilities for personnel decisions to Lovie Smith. Decisions that have mostly come on the defensive side of the ball.
The results have been disastrous as the Bears traded away Chris Harris after they signed Adam Archuleta a Smith protégé in St. Louis that failed miserably. Harris is back in Chicago, but the damage in the secondary may already be too permanent to fix with all the shuffling of personnel that has gone on since 2006. The Bears have played Danieal Manning at two positions in the secondary already and are adding a third with him moving to strong safety.
The logic behind all this shuffling is more than a little mind boggling, as is some of the other personnel moves. You can point to one suspect thinking starting with the last legitimate offensive lineman drafted being Josh Beekman in 2007. From there the Bears have gone the last three drafts without drafting an offensive lineman before round seven.
Whether it is a result of Angelo seceding power to Smith as part of the contract extension negotiations or a lack of asserting his authority, or plain stupidity the Bears now find themselves in the position where it’s very likely that a third round draft pick and a fourth round draft pick could be gone before the start of the 2010 season or WILL be gone by the start of the 2011 season.
This incredible lack of foresight on both the part of Angelo and Smith is the most damning verification of their ineptitude as football minds. Two offensive line selections in those two slots almost assuredly puts the Bears in an enviable position for the future of the offensive line.
Imagine two second year players who have spent the better part of the last year learning and developing and honing their NFL level skills. A left guard who could push for a starting job this year and a right tackle that at worse would be a capable backup that perhaps could push Frank Omiyale at RT. This is I know assuming that Angelo and Smith wouldn’t have misevaluated two prospects at each of these positions, but it’s almost a numbers game. As it stands with Gilbert and Melton will almost undoubtedly be amongst the inactive players for most of the season for the second year in a row. Meanwhile the Bears will hope and pray Johan Asiata and Lance Louis can hone their skills enough to be backups or perhaps start.
Of the two Louis has shown the most promise having already made the 53-man roster limit last year after showing some promise in the pre-season. If Louis pans out he only slightly helps stem the tide of outrage to the slightest degree. Partially the tide of anger may grow if either Garza or Kreutz’s play falls off which is at a 50-50 level of possibility as it stands right now. Both players are on the wrong side of 30-years-old with Kreutz coming off of off-season surgery.
More evidence of the idiocy shared by these collective pigskin professors reared it’s ugly head again this year when Corey Wootton was drafted. Again with a chance to address the offensive line early the Bears chose to go defensive line another wasted draft pick since Wootton likely won’t see the field as an active player this year. Smith has proven over and over he prefers three active defensive ends as part of his game day rotation and Wootton most definitely doesn’t belong in that mix. Through no fault of his own mind you, it just boils down to the players ahead of him being better prepared on top of being more experienced.
For me personally I almost can’t hold back the amount of disgust I have for the sheer stupidity shown by the collective minds of these two football men. There may be no plausible way for this mistake to be righted and it may prove too costly to overcome. When the obituary is written for both Smith and Angelo you won’t have to look any further than failure to address the offensive line and too much importance being placed on the defense. The defense has failed miserably, but drafting players who are no longer on the roster or are not in a position to make a future impact destroys a franchise from the inside out. The irreversible damage to the heart of this team is why these two savants are on life support, and most Bears fans would happily pull the plug.
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