Recently in Bobby DePaul Category

By this time Saturday night, Jay Cutler's work will be done in Buffalo.

The Bears are expected to play their starters into the second quarter and Lovie Smith might be eyeing about 20 snaps or so for the first unit. All eyes will be on the new quarterback in his debut, and it is an entirely different team with Cutler, not just a different offense.

"This might be the perfect fit,'' said retired Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks, Friday morning on the Mully & Hanley Show on 670-AM. "Here you have a very talented quarterback that's coming to a place that plays great defense, I know because I've been there. I've had my nose bloodied a few times by that defense. So you would think this will be the match made in heaven. You got a guy that's going to make a bunch of plays on offense and in reality the greatest place to play quarterback is what? It's a place where you have a great defense. And you don't have to make it happen all the time yourself, but you certainly may think that. I would say Chicago made a heck of a move here and I think [pro personnel director] Bobby [DePaul] and and everybody else in the organization should be applauded.''

DePaul began his career in the NFL under Gibbs on his coaching staff in Washington 20 years ago. General manager Jerry Angelo identified DePaul as a point man for the Bears in the Cutler trade because of relationships he had with those in the Denver front office. Gibbs says DePaul is someone who has a future as a general manager.

It all starts up front.

That is what general manager Jerry Angelo has always said and that is the way the Bears went around constructing this offseason, even if the blockbuster trade to acquire Jay Cutler is the move that still dominates the spotlight. But Angelo didn't want to lose sight of the line on Tuesday afternoon when discussing the club's moves to this point.

"Obviously, the quarterback position speaks volumes,'' Angelo said. "I think we all sleep better at night. He saves lives. But going forward, we've got to do other things to help him. We feel our offensive line, and I want you all to understand this to, when you're building on offense or defense, you have to have a philosophy. Our philosophy was to build that offensive line. We want to protect the quarterback first and then we want to supply him with the needed weapons. So I felt like we were able to do that.

"Our pro department [Bobby DePaul] did an excellent job of identifying some players young and old and we feel real good about our offensive line and that was a concern coming out of the season. Now, we're building inside-out and we're going to look at some of the perimeter people. Yes, we feel real good about having our quarterback and running back in place."