There is more to wide receiver Jerome Simpson than a small school background that makes him comparable to Marty Booker.
Simpson, from Coastal Carolina, has some huge mitts like the veteran Booker, who the Bears brought back earlier this month to help solidify the receiver position. Booker, who went to Louisiana-Monroe, has used his large hands and long arms to put together a nice nine-year career.
The Bears are in the market to draft some more help and sent receivers coach Darryl Drake to put Simpson through a workout earlier this month.
Now that the compensatory picks have been released and the Bears were awarded three extra choices in the seventh round we can chart exactly where they will be.
General manager Jerry Angelo has four of the top 90 selections and five of the first 110. The Bears have had good success at the beginning of the fourth round in the past, the first round of the second day.
They tabbed Alex Brown with the 104th overall pick in 2002, Nathan Vasher with the 110th pick in 2004 and Kyle Orton with the 106th pick in 2005. The Bears own the 110th pick this year, but the second day will begin with the third round after the format was shifted for this year.
A look at the their picks:
Round-Pick-Overall
1-14-14
2-13-44
3-7-70 (Briggsgate: Flip-flopping with San Francisco, which is now at 3-12-75)
3-27-90 (from San Diego)
4-11-110
5-7-147 (from Carolina)
6-9-175
7-15-222
7-36-243
7-40-247
7-41-248
The Bears were awarded three compensatory draft picks Monday as the NFL Management Council announced the additional draft picks today at the owners meetings in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Based on the losses of defensive tackles Alfonso Boone and Ian Scott, wide receiver Justin Gage and safety Todd Johnson, and balanced against only the addition of defensive tackle Anthony Adams, the Bears were awarded three additional choices in the seventh round. According to a release by the league, former safety Cameron Worrell was not considered in the equation.
They add the 36th, 40th and 41st picks of the round which are 243, 247 and 248 overall. Conditional draft picks cannot be traded.
The Bears will meet the Indianapolis Colts in a rematch of Super Bowl XLI on Sunday, Sept. 7, in the first regular-season game at the new Lucas Oil Stadium.
The 7:15 game will be telecast on NBC.
The NFL released the nationally televised games for Kickoff Weekend today from the owners meetings in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Don’t expect concrete answers on everything that is put in front of the owners at the NFL meetings that begin Monday morning in West Palm Beach, Fla.
But word is the league will reveal the national television schedule for kickoff weekend on Monday, and possibly the lineup for Thanksgiving Day. The Washington Post already reported the Redskins will open the season at the defending champion New York Giants on Thursday, Sept. 4. The remainder of the schedule could come later in the week with considerable scuttlebutt that an announcement will be made Thursday afternoon.
There are a lot of issues at play heading into the NFL owners meetings next week in West Palm Beach, Fla.
The competition committee has gotten together twice recently for a total of 11 days to hammer out some issues that will be before the teams. Some of them are simple. It looks like one defensive player could finally be green-lighted to get a green sticker on his helmet that would signify he has helmet communication with the sideline like quarterbacks. Bears coach Lovie Smith has said he is in favor of this.
This past postseason, it would have meant the Buccaneers would have traveled to the Giants and the Steelers would have traveled to the Jaguars in wild-card round games. Instead, the division-winning Bucs and Steelers had home games against teams with better records.
If you're interested in wading through it, here is the entire conference call that was led by Atlanta's Rich McKay, who chairs the competition committee, and Ray Anderson, the NFL's vice president of operations. Warning --- this makes even the long posts on here look short.
RICH McKAY: We'll start, as Greg [Aiello] said, we met for probably four days in Indianapolis. We met again in Naples for like seven days. We conducted our annual survey, which we sent to all the teams and got good input. That kind of frames the outline for our report, and then obviously meet and go through it. We also met with the players, got their concerns, proposed some things to them to get their feedback. That kind of forms the basis of our report.
Our report kind of starts this year with the idea of competitive balance, because that is something that we as a League take great pride in and believe should be an object of ours. This year, I think with a fifth seed in the Playoffs, again, winning the Super Bowl, and the sixth seed having won it two years ago shows that competitively we are a very balanced League.
The deadline for restricted free agents to sign an offer sheet with another club is April 18, three weeks from today.
The Bears have two RFA’s who have yet to sign their tenders. Safety Brandon McGowan will probably do so soon. He received the mid-level tender for $1.417 million that would require a team to send the Bears a second-round draft pick if it signed McGowan to an offer sheet and the Bears declined to match it. Quite simply, that’s not going to happen. McGowan figures to be in the mix for a starting job after improving at the end of last season. A lot at safety will depend on what happens with Mike Brown, who’s coming off his third serious injury and will be entering the final year of his contract.
There has been enough venting in comments posted on here to last a car ride from Halas Hall to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, and back.
The Bears are cheap and they never spend any money. Just look at what’s left to do for an offense in need of a tackle, guard, running back, receiver and, oh yeah, quarterback. (Those needs, by the way, are in no particular order of priority).
The club brought back linebacker Lance Briggs at its price, got out of the bidding for wide receiver Bernard Berrian when the money escalated far above what it was willing to pay. And then waited. While some rank-and-file offensive linemen signed elsewhere, the Bears stood pat. Then, they brought back Marty Booker for essentially the money they had earmarked for fellow receiver Muhsin Muhammad before he was released. And they added another receiver in Brandon Lloyd for the minimum-salary benefit. If he goes bonkers on the sidelines as he once did in Washington, he’s gone.
What’s left in terms of needs will be filled mostly through the draft.
Otah, who said the ankle nagged him all last season, will work out for scouts April 9.
“Several teams have called me so far,” Otah told the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat. “The Bears, the Panthers, the Eagles, the Steelers, definitely are looking at me, and I just talked to Kansas City (Monday). But you never know how this things are going to work out.
“It’s all about team needs and how things play out on draft day. So, I just want to keep working hard and get some good measurables. I’ve got good film, but now I’ve got to get the other stuff, running, weightlifting and agility.”
Perhaps the voters—the special teams coaches themselves—figured Toub had plenty of advantage with Devin Hester, who is on pace to shatter scoring records for special teams after only two seasons. How else do you explain the coach of the top unit not winning?
The Division III All-American made a visit to the Baltimore Ravens today. He’s already been to Buffalo and has pre-draft trips lined up to Indianapolis, Jacksonville and Kansas City. Studebaker, who is from Downstate Congerville and went to Eureka High, is still rehabilitating his foot injury and that makes his draft status a little iffy.
Here's a guard to keep in mind ... the Bears are believed to have keen interest in Southern Cal's Chilo Rachal, who figures to be picked anywhere from the end of the first round to the beginning of the third round.
Rachal, a self-described glass eater who played right guard last season. could have been the top-rated guard in next year’s class had he returned to school, but pressing family medical needs led to his early exit from Pete Carroll’s program. So he’s a little raw and rough around the edges, but the Trojans run a pro-style attack and Rachal is a physical force with a high ceiling.
Plus, the Bears like drafting underclassmen. You get a player that’s younger and with less wear and tear. That means he’s younger when it comes time for a second contract and you can feel better about a longterm investment if he pans out.
At 6-5, 315, Rachal is very athletic. He ran the 40 in 5.16 seconds at the combine and did 28 reps at 225 pounds on the bench press. He missed three games last season with a right knee injury, but did not allow a sack and was an all-Pac 10 selection. The Trojans pro day is Wednesday.
That was the word coming from Baton Rouge, La., where the Tigers had some lead in their shoes according to one source.
``That was the worst pro day I can remember here,’’ one source said. ``Nobody ran [well].’’
Defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, considered the best of the bunch and a potential top-five pick, ran 5.12 or 5.15 seconds in the 40-yard dash, depending on who you listen to. He weighed in at 297 pounds and looked a little light.
If it sounds like a description of Bears Pro Bowl tackle Tommie Harris, that’s because Dorsey had long been compared to him. Right down to the injury history. That’s the thing that has dogged Dorsey lately with reports recently that he had arthroscopic knee surgery, something he has denied. Harris fell to the Bears at No. 14 in 2004 because of concerns about his knees. Don’t count on Dorsey dropping into the Bears lap.
