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Well in the fine tradition of “where the hell did that come from”, Brian Urlacher apparently had surgery on his neck recently.

Now we all know that Urlacher went through the season with chronic back issues. It caused a lot of debate about whether or not Brian would be worth resigning either at the end of his current deal or tearing up his current one to make it closer to his market value. Now Urlacher is having “routine” surgery done on one of the most sensitive and crucial part of the body. Seriously, outside of drilling a hole into his head does anything scare you as much as neck surgery?

The Bears are trying to pass this whole thing off as routine. Just a minor problem that was found during a post-season physical and kept under wraps until after he went under the knife. They seem to think people will just move on because he won’t miss training camp. I think it’s arrogant of them to act like it’s not a big deal an apparently do as much as they could to keep it from the public. I was really hoping this off-season might have a little less drama than last year… so far the Bears are not off to a good start.

Well mercifully the 2007 season came to a close. It ended about 3 or 4 weeks earlier than most of us expected but at least the torture is over. Looking back with some perspective has only proved more frustrating for me personally. It was a year with so many missed opportunities, so many games that should’ve been won. There were still plenty of heart pounding moments, and Devin Hester is still ridiculous, but if it doesn’t get you to the playoffs it doesn’t really matter.

Offense—D : Considering the carousel at Quarterback it’s impressive the Bears scored as many points as they did. Then again there is no excuse for a “running team” to average 3.4 yards per carry for an entire season. There are too many frustrations to go into but for some personal therapy I am going to list a few: Rex throwing into double coverage, Mushin Muhammad, Benson falling down on his own, Brian Griese “protecting the football”, Hester’s “involvement”, Fred Miller pretending to block, dropped passes, Greg Olson’s “involvement”, and Kyle Orton not being able to find a razor blade. Whew… ok I feel a lot better now. Looking towards the off-season the Bears need a lot of help. Orton will be in the discussion but I doubt he’s the solution, who else can we bring in? Berrian is likely to walk and Moose is past his prime (putting it lightly) so we need something at WR and for Bradley and Hester to step up big in the offseason. Benson got hurt the moment he finally showed some promise and Peterson and Wolfe are both 3rd down backs so we should be looking 2nd or 3rd round for some competition like Steve Slaton or Ray Rice. And as for the offensive line… just a major overhaul. Fred Miller and Ruben Brown both need to go and probably will or be reduced to backups. Then somehow, by some unforeseen miracle, Ron Turner is going to keep his job. This team must be able to run the ball. Our running game probably cost us 3 wins this season and even more than the Quarterback situation that MUST be fixed.

Defense—C+: Amazingly enough even with how bad we played I almost gave them a B-. I guess perhaps my judgment was initially clouded by our improved play the last 3 weeks. Then I remembered this laundry list: Adrian Peterson’s 224 yards, letting Eli Manning engineer a game winning drive, giving up 34 fourth quarter points to Detroit, losing to Tavaris Jackson TWICE!, allowing six 100 yard rushers, giving up 30+ points five times, and losing to Todd FREAKING Collins. Again, I feel better but not by much. I give these guys a lot of slack for the injuries they endured. At one point Bob Babich’s defense was a complete shell of itself. Still that does not justify the above list. The loss of Mike Brown does not excuse Adam Archuleta and Danieal Manning’s in ability to tackle. That aside some guys did have outstanding seasons. Charles Tillman was a beast and should’ve been a Pro Bowler. Adewale Ogunleye had his best season in Chicago and was downright dominant at times. Tommy Harris managed 8 sacks on one leg. And Lance Briggs proved to be worth every penny of the franchise tag. The pieces for a dominant unit are still there. Harris needs his sidekick, Dvoracek, to stay healthy. Jamar Williams need to prove to be a competent replacement for Briggs. Vasher needs to come back at 100%. And we need a safety who can actually make a tackle, but compared to list of needs on offense this unit really isn’t all that far away. It’ll be interesting to see if Mike Brown comes back and how much of their resources they can afford to put into this defense. But just with a little better luck on the injury front this group should be a lot better next year.

Special Teams—B+: This is the hands down, no doubt, no argument, not even a discussion best part of this team. Unlike the other 2 phases of the game this is one the Bears not only won but routinely dominated. Hester was somehow even more ridiculous managing to take back 6 kicks for TDs even with how much teams were trying to stay away from him. Maynard had another solid season and in my opinion could’ve warranted a trip to Hawaii simply for how he handled the weather in the second Packers game. But there were some things that we not as good. Gould had a good but not great season and missed some makable field goals. And most glaring of course were the coverage units. Our punt unit it was outstanding again but we gave up too many big kickoff returns, including one to Adrian Peterson that cost us a victory. But even with those negatives this was by far the most fun part of the team to watch and grade.

So there you have it. Some final thoughts on a completely unfulfilling season.

View more of Jeran’s work here.

Kyle Orton will be the starting QB for Chicago Monday night at the Minnesota Vikings

What a sad sad day it is that the Bears have been reduced to voluntarily going to Kyle Orton to finish their season. But then again at 5-8 with Rex hurt what other options do we have? I am sure we will here plenty this week about Orton going 10-5 as the starter his rookie year. Which is all well and good until you also realize he completed 52% of his passes and had a 59.7 QB rating during those same 15 games. Granted that was two years ago now and it seems that Orton came into this year on a mission. I am going to take a wait and see approach with this but odds are he’s auditioning to be traded more than be next year’s starting QB.

When the season started, we ‘d pictured ourselves walking down state street celebrating a Superbowl victory. Now we will still walk down that same state street, but to only return that tie your kids brought for you on Christmas.

Just as Bears fans have felt after a tough loss, today loss  to the New York Giants 21-16 will led you to drink . Moving the Bears record to 5-7 on the year.

This loss hurts that much more when you see Detroit get off to a 6-2 start, with the help of two victories over the Bears. and to see them get run over 42-10 today. It just leaves a feeling in the pit of my stomach.

This game hurts even that much more due to Rex Grossman outstanding play today, but the coaches did not put the players in the position to succeed. Now we’re out of the playoffs and looking toward an off season that will bring changes around.

My choice is to remove Lovie Smith and call Bill Cowher

This week’s preview will have a bit of a fairy tale theme. In part because I still can’t believe we actually won last week and also because the thought that we’ll make the playoffs is still a bit of a fantasy. Either way this will be a game that goes a long way to determining both teams fate. At 8-5 the Giants could take a deep breath and feel the playoffs are within their grasp, but at 7-6 the shadow of another 2nd half collapse begins to grow. For the Bears a loss means 5-7 and the crack in the playoff window gets slammed shut, but 6-6 leaves them right in the thick of things and I can continue to live in my fantasy land for one more week.

Bears Offense vs. Giants Defense: The Giants defense seems like it would be ideally built to give Rex and Co. a lot of problems. They lead the league in sacks and will be attacking an offensive line that has struggled in pass protection all year. Additionally the Bears will be without Cedric Benson, which could limit their ability to pound the ball inside (please hold the laughing) but more importantly might limit the effectiveness of play-action. But there is reason for hope considering this Giants team just gave up 139 QB rating to Tarvaris Jackson, at least the Vikings beat us with the Evil Twin (Adrian Peterson). This game will undoubtedly come down to the Bears ability to protect Rex and run the ball a little bit. With a little help from his receivers (by finally catching the ball consistently) Rex just might cut down the bean stalk in time to bring this Giants Defense down.

Bears Defense vs. Giants Offense: The Giants come to town with the only Quarterback in the NFL who might be more criticized than our own Rex Grossman. Eli Manning has become the Wizard in the “Wizard of Oz”, and last weekend against the Vikings might have finally pulled back the curtain. He had enticed the people of New York with the mirage that he might become his brother and is instead nothing but an average Quarterback. The problem in this game is the Bears once vaunted Defense has gone a long way this year to making average team look like juggernauts. Add in that they may be without Harris and a slowed Briggs and Vasher and you can see another frustrating performance coming. The Bears must stuff the run and apply pressure to force Eli into the rushed decisions that cause his mistakes. Wally Ogunleye has been on a tear over the last few weeks and if someone else can step up (:cough: Mark Anderson :cough:) to apply pressure from the other side the Bears might finally force some turnovers and give us a little peak back in time.

Special Teams Glance: Ok… I’ll admit it. The only reason I ever added this section was so I could devote an entire paragraph to talking about Devin Hester. Can you blame me? Maybe some of it is because the rest of the Bears outstanding special teams has been so consistent it’s seems rather repetitive to write every week that Maynard and Gould are amongst the best at what they do. Throw in Tillman’s punt block (has there been a more valuable Bear this year) and Izzy and the boys creating lanes for Hester and it just brings a smile to your face. The big question will be how the Giants handle kicking to Hester, but whether they give him the chance to burn them or not the field position will swing big in the Bears favor. Is this enough for our struggling offense? I think somehow Superman comes to the rescue again.

Prediction: Bears 24, Giants 17. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

A memo to Jerry Angelo and his draft crew. Please take a offensive lineman with the Bears first pick and please move up to get Jeff Long 6-7 330 pounds out of the University of Michigan. A winning program, Jeff will come in as a winner and bring bear football back.

We need to look no further get this man in uniform to replace the what we have now.

Imagine seeing a guy who can any position along the line with Olin Kruetz and John Tait.   

The Bears family has given out very few big contract, but when they do you have to wonder if they ever live to regret it. Take for example Dick Jarun, Cade Mcnown, Curtis Enis, Phillip Daniels just to name a few.

So when signing Lovie Smith to the extension making him one the top ten highest paid coaches. Do you get the feeling in the pit of your stomach that Ted Phillips is taking a lot stomach  medication  after giving Lovie the big extension and now seeing it come back to possibly haunt the Bears  in the long run.

Bill Cowher is siting out there, along with Bill Parcels and hey even Jimmy Johnson could have come back for the right price.

Now, don’t get me wrong the Bears family backed themseleves into a corner by saying to Lovie prove it, that you can win two years in a row and that’s when he took them to the SuperBowl last year, but with one year left on his old deal. They had to make the deal.  You have to wonder, if the bears fail this year will Lovie be on the hot seat next year.

View more of Jeran’s work here.

What will it take for teams to realize that Devin Hester is in a league of his own. If you kick to Hester you will lose and lose big.Two return by Hester were the the key  in the Bears  37-34 victory and keeping the Bears playoff hopes alive for another week as they  play the New York Giants next Sunday.

 The thing for the offense to do is make Hester the focal point.His skills are needed to bring excitement to offense that is needed to bring stability to a team with the defense that is sputtering. Hester can be the difference maker on offense. “Please Ron Turner, give Hester the Ball.