Full Court Press

Marriotti wanted them to take Mendenhall...which means I REALLY like this pick!

How could the Bears pass up on Mendenhall? It's almost as if they think Benson is good, sometimes it requires a great running back to help improve an offensive line it's not always the o-line's job to make a running back look good. On top of that we desperately need a playmaker on offense, we passed up on that in Mendenhall as well.

I would have preferred Albert (flexibility) or Otah (strength and aggressiveness), but now that he's one of our guys I'm rooting for him. Who knows, maybe they can get him in the weight room and get him hanging around Kreutz and maybe some of his agressiveness will rub off on him.

2nd rd should be interesting. RB, QB, WR, or another OL?

I guess the Bears figured the weak offensive line was the reason for their offensive woes. After rebuilding the O line, Benson and Grossman will have no excuses.

Hopefully Benson will be fine if he gets motivated, but obviously Mystery, you don't have any idea of what good linemen do for bad running backs, not saying that Benson is bad. Benson just needs some motivation. It's amazing what motivation does for people in general. My biggest concern with Williams is his strength and that baby face that he has. He just doesn't look intimidating. His size might be intimidating but when the opposing DE looks at that baby face through the bars of that helmet, I'd be thinking sack. Being more optimistic, hopefully he can make us better in a hurry. I do like the pick though. The O line was need 1 in my book.

Roscoe | April 26, 2008 05:00 PM - I AGREE!

So happy they addressed the line. Benson and Grossman are getting more passes than our tight ends!

Move over Ced....FORTE' IS IN THE HOUSE!!!!!

Hmmmmm...

Someone must be reading this blog over at Halas Hall...I may need a commission on this one.

Ricky responds: Pretty soon they'll be playing 'Where is my mind' after timeouts.

What about Henne?

I wasn't saying that the line doesn't help bad running backs look good, but Benson will never be 100% anymore and he took a beating in college, Mendenhall has the all around ability to succeed and he has fresh legs after only playing one great year in college, sometimes that's all you need in football (ie Barry Sanders). On top of that he has great character and would not have issues that Benson has. But regardless this team needs playmakers at their skill positions, and we definitely don't have that, it's difficult to rebuild an offense when you pass up on talented players.

Forte in the 2nd rd seems like a little bit of a reach. He probably wouldn't have been around in the 3rd rd though, too bad they couldn't trade down. He should be a good challenge for Benson. It will be interesting to see if Benson sulks and crys or rises to the challenge.

The Bears seem to be resolving needs.

I would have preferred Nicks OL in the 2nd rd. I bet they grab the QB in the 3rd tommorrow.

How do people expect Mendenhall to have a hole open up? With a Jedi mind-trick? There are two openings on the line for cryin' out loud. A solid like will make all of the offense better.

Bears need a quarterback! as i write this brohm and henne is being drafted so lets go for josh david booty.

there u go Angelo dropped the ball again, why did he missed on Henne can some one plz explain to me what did he see in Forte ??, can we already let go of Angelo he is a failure of monumental proportion, i am sick of Bears acting like a small town team!!

How do you not take Brohm in the 2nd then Forte,Rice or Kevin Smith in the 3rd. I hope the Bears make up for their total incompetence to pick in the early rounds with good middle and late round picks---------AGAIN !!!!

and in the third round the bears address their qb needs and select jonathon quinn.

I like these first two picks...Mariotti is an idiot...I love the Forte pick, Push Benson and with Williams at LT and Tait moved to RT and St. Clair can play LG we will be much better at OL! HAVE you seen that highlight tape of FORTE? WOW! Go Bears, and before we fire Angelo, lets FIRE MARIOTTI!

I agree with you on that Mystery. think drafting a RB in the second round was a good move because it will help motivate Benson and if he doesn't get motivated, then you have some one to replace him. I just thought that drafting a LT was more important with that 14th selection than a RB. I think the bears are doing good so far. The thing about the draft is that you don't know who is going to become what in this league.

YES! I like this first day of the draft! Williams will move right in at LT and Tait will move over to RT and St.Clair can LG and the line is better already! I LOVE the Forte pick...Mariotti is an idiot! if we picked a RB in the first WHO would block for him? DUMB... Jay, you never like anything the bears do so who cares what you think. Instead of having people write in for the firing of Angelo lets trade Mariotti!

2nd round was the perfect example why Chicago never had any good QB's in a while. You had Henne & Brohm and Angelo chose Forte....yea Forte is good, but.......Why??????

Typical inept picks by Angelo.

123 and the rest of you Bears fools, Some the QB nonsense. This team needed to draft O-Lineman first and foremost. Stop the crap. Everytime I read this garbage my blood pressure is rising. I would have drafted Smith instead of Forte or better yet I would have taken another Lineman in the 2nd round.

I also agree with Bino when he made a comment about the draft because it is a crapshoot.

Paul you are right about O-Line. Did you see the run on O-Line after Clady got picked? Brown went in the first round, Baker too! The OG/ORT Rachal went before the Bears picked in the 2nd rd. It illustrates how important NFL personel think linemen are. The SB was won with teams that traditionally draft linemen in the first two rds.

I'm surprised Nicks is still available. I'm hoping the Bears grab another O-Lineman in the 3rd rd.

For all you guys clamoring about taking a RB at 1, what OT would you have taken at 2??? Nicks and Collins are both still on the board in round 3. Give JA some credit.

For all you guys clamoring about taking a RB at 1, what OT would you have taken at 2??? Nicks and Collins are both still on the board in round 3. Give JA some credit.

I keep hearing how the Bears will be improving two O line positions at once by moving John Tait to the right side now.
Did I miss something or did Tait suddenly find a time machine and turn back the clock 8 or 10 years?
Well now they have their rookie lineman to block for a guy who looks like another Cedric Benson who will be competing with the real live Cedric Benson. Yuk!

Funny how there will be no competition at QB once again. If they would have drafted Brohm then Rex would have had to actually play well and not just show up and Jerry can't have that nonsense now can he?

Can Angelo take advantage of opportunities. The Lions did when KC offered the #17 + #66 picks for Lions #15. KC took Albert after Bears took Williams. I'll bet KC offered the same deal to Angelo for our #14 pick. KC would have taken Albert with our #14 pick. That would have left Williams, Otah, & Cherilus still on the board with #15, #16 & #17 to go. We would have gotten at least one of those 3 OTs. plus #66. The 4th pick (#66) in the 3rd round would look good tomorrow. Instead the Lions have it. Crap!

Draft a RB at # 2 to "motivate" Benson?
Hell... I wanted them to draft a RB to REPLACE Benson. Not to be a cattle prod to try and wake him from his slumber.
Cut Benson now because even if Forte is a bust you already know that Benson is a major failure and should only be worse coming off a broken leg.
No QB, no great RB, no WR at all.... not a very good draft so far.

Ricky responds: Pretty soon they'll be playing 'Where is my mind' after timeouts.

Posted by: bculz | April 26, 2008 06:35 PM

Over my head? I dont get it??

Ricky responds: The other day you said you were a Pixies fan!

I like the first 2 picks. Williams a lineman from Vandy is obviously intelligent and is the best lineman from that school since Wilford. Forte was the MVP of the Senior Bowl and was highly productive on a terrible team that had only him. I wish, however, that they would have packaged 1 or 2 of their 3rd round picks for Brohm or Henne. I thought they were the 2 best qb in the draft and they could have got them cheap. Seeing Brohm go to the Pack makes matters worse. Hopefully they will pick up Booty and either Manningham or Doucet in round 3. I think the Bears are doing well, but if they were more aggressive they would have done much better. The Bears need a back who can make his own holes and make cuts in small ones as our line has shown they are a below average line. Forte is a much better fit. If we would have drafted Mendenhall he would have been a bust. He needs a hole and can make a guy miss in the next level. When there was no hole or not allowed to go downhill, he was very average. Unfortunately, that was the Bears situation all season last year. Forte will make more of an impact on this poor blocking team as he has been playing on an equally poor offensive team for 4 years and doing well.

good job today bears!!! i think your picks were good ones. i know everyone wanted a QB, like brohm or henne. who cares that we didnt get them, they wouldnt have started this year anyway. so maybe JA & LS are already looking at QB's for next years draft that might already look better to them. i had a draft party here today and i was the only one who wanted the bears to pick williams over mendenhall, man, that was great!!! i'm getting pretty excited about this year, we have our whole defense back, lets hope brown doesnt get horse collared again! i think DD will do a great job at DT. i think one thing we need to get us there is to draft a WR and a O-guard.......GO BEARS

I don't like Williams as much as Otah but he is a good pick. Forte is a great back. Angelo so far looks like he has done a decent job. He will be doing a great job if he cuts Benson tommorrow. Benson sucked when he was healthy, no chance he comes back from a broken leg. Cut him now and save money on the rest of the contract. I don't miss him picking Brohm because I think he was a system quarterback and not very athletic. I think you pick Andre Woodson in the 3rd round. He is big and athletic even though he has kind of an odd throwing motion. With Ron Turner calling the plays you'll need a quarteback who can take a hit. Get Doucet, Andre Caldwell or Manningham in the 4th and we'll forget Berrian ever played here. Get Zibokowski in the 6th round and Jacob Hester in the 7th and we'll have had a good draft. Then fire Lovie, Turner and Babich. Hire a real coaching staff and we'll see if they can make a team with all this talent. Otherwise it'll be the same old story 6-10.

Good draft but we needed great after last years debacle. I would have taken Rice over Forte, but that is splitting hairs. All of the bloggers begging for one of these mediocre back-up QBs in the draft (and that includes Matt Ryan) would have been really dissappointed. Wait a year and hopefully there will be a better crop of QBs next year. I am most upset that when Limus Sweed dropped we didn't trade some #3 or 4 picks up to take him. LT/WR with 1st round grades and a solid 2nd round RB in a deep RB draft would have closed a lot of ground.

I like the first two picks. Da Bears REALLY needed a left tackle. They got a pretty good one. No one is perfect and Chris Williams might not be perfect, but after Jake Long he is probably the best pass blocker. He played against pretty good competition in a major conference and excelled. He just needs to hit the weight room a little and he will be a good tackle for a long time. I don't know about anyone else out there, but I got tired of watching Da Bears QB's getting sacked and pressured all the time. I thought Williams might be gone by this pick as most predicted and Otah would be the pick. Some scouting reports had Otah better off at Right tackle. I also liked the pick of Matt Fortay. I watched the Utube tape of him and read the draft reports on him and he looks like a winner. He seems to be able to make people miss in the open field and has good vision. Both things Cedric Benson does not seem to have. He can catch the ball and picked up blitzes well too. It's always a good thing to have a versatile back. Either way no one was going to do much running if the line played like it did last year. Adrian Peterson had the same yards per carry as Benson after he took over full time saying a little something about the line play. Many wanted the Bears to draft a QB in the second round. Drafting a QB in the second round does nothing for the next couple of seasons. It takes until about the 3rd season to reap the benefits of a QB. None of the QB's were going to push Grossman or Orton next season and the Bears just have too many needs to fill to wait three years to get anything out of their second round pick. Both QB's on the roster are still young and I have high hopes that Orton can develop into a decent QB given the chance. He has good size and a good arm and seems to take better care of the ball than Grossman. Orton was actually a Heisman hopeful his senior season before injuries hurt his play. I think two needs were filled by two good players. The two third round picks will make or brake this draft. Maybe they can get a QB to develop with one of the third round pics or later. They need to get at least one of them to be a contributor next season and one or two more that can develop and still be on the roster in a few years and not out of football like too many past draft picks. So far a solid B for the draft. Stay tuned.

Making a joke about Frank Black and having lyrics to Pixies songs memorized....two totally different lifestyles my man!!

Sorry..I couldnt hang with you here.

Hopefully next season. A rookie LT on this team, wow!!! Put him on the right side and let him get a little angry, and if he fails, he can always move to Guard. Forte, still don't know, like his speed, but I wanna see how he does with the short yardage plays, he looked good on the film you had though.

culzie - "where is my mind" is probably the most popular pixies song in existence. it's not an issue of having lyrics memorized.

josh johnson's gone...woodson would be a good pick, so the bears are going to take matt flynn.

I guess 3 offensive players in a row was too much for Angelo that he HAD to take a defensive player with his 4th selection even though he still had glaring needs at QB and OG.

Im still concerned that this team did not get better in overall speed.

hEY dARYL....TAKE A CHILL..

i MADE A fRANk BLACK JOKE PAL...BY THE WAY..I ONLY OWN A FRANK BLACK ALBULM..NO PIXIES

ANYWAYS...LETS NOT STEP ALL OVER A GOOD JOKE..FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO TRY TO TAKE ME ON OVER.

ANY THOUGHTS ON YOUR BOY PAC MAN JONES?

Time for street free agents:

Pedro Sosa, G Rutgers
Robert Felton, G Arkansas
Eric Young, G Tennessee
David Roach, S TCU
J Leman, LB Illinois
Franklin Dunbar, OT Middle Tennessee State
Tommy Blake, DE TCU
Marcus Dixon, DE Hampton

That should get us started. We also need to come up with a couple of QBs for camp, unless they plan on bringing back Chris Leak, which may not be worthwhile...

Jerry did a pretty good job these last two days, but he still leaves himself with a lot of holes to fill, and he needs to stock up where he can at positions of need to make sure he can fill the holes. The offensive line needs to be priority #1, and getting 3-4 street free agents will help make camp a lot more competitive, and should re-make the depth chart in the trenches.

It does make me wonder though...Do the draft picks at some of the positions signal the end of the road for veterans? Drafting Bowman means R. Manning hits the road, or Steltz spells the end of the Archuleta experiment? Does Marcus Harrison's presence mean that Anthony Adams will struggle to stay on the roster? It is about time our depth got better, and I hope this draft helps them accomplish that.

Ken Stathos:

"I like the first two picks. Da Bears REALLY needed a left tackle."

Word.

Carl:

"Marriotti wanted them to take Mendenhall...which means I REALLY like this pick!"

It's funny how Mariotti is tearing into the Bears for not selecting Mendenhall. I thought that Angelo had been knocked out and replaced by a body double (a la Mission Impossible). He actaully picked the spots that we needed, like left tackle and running back, instead of tripling up on untested Quarterbacks. For those who think that we rely on another draft for our first string QB, I can think of another talented QB who was drafted high out of college: Rex Grossman(1). If you Grossman doubters really hate Grossman; If you think that he was an overrated college QB who shouldn't have started so quickly; if you hate relying on untested draft picks, you'll stick with Rex Grossman at starting QB.

Its funny how all the Marriotti haters feel the same way as Marriotti....hmmmmmmmm....are apologies due?

they could of gotten mike hart he has to be better thatn benson atleast