Book(er)-ed

Fuck You THREE Times

Told ya.

Marty Booker inked to a two-year contract (one year too many) with the Bears yesterday, giving the Bears a body that they can call their WR#1 to avoid giving Hester a huge payday as the best receiver on the squad. He should provide some friendly experience for Hester and Davis, and probably came cheap (contract terms were not disclosed).

That's pretty much it for the good news. The bad news is, this means the Bears are done upgrading the receiving core. This is a desperation "well, we better do SOMEthing" move, and signals a shift in planning. If Booker is the answer to our receiving problems, lord knows the answer to our O-Line problems.

Hopefully we trade our pick and Mark Bradley to get a slightly higher pick with which to take Otah or Long. Bradley was demoted to 8th (?) receiver last year, can't stay healthy, and makes Peter Warrick look like a success.

Please -- do it.

In other news, The Grudge Match of the Damned has been delayed due to a lack of contestants. If you have any ideas for competitors, leave them in the comments and I'll post one as soon as I get something to work with.

Drafting Offense is for Pussies

Last seen working at a car repair shop

The Bears have a pretty bad track record of drafting offensive skill players early in the draft. My memory is scarred with the names Curtis Enis, Rashaan Salaam, Cade McNown and David Terrell. On the other hand, the Bears have an exceptionally good track record of drafting good defensive players both early and late in a given draft.

If we look at the top few picks from the last few drafts, it’s pretty obvious where our GM and scout team excel:

2006
2 42 Danieal Manning
2 57 Devin Hester

2005
1 4 Cedric Benson
2 39 Mark Bradley
4 106 Kyle Orton

2004
1 14 Tommie Harris
2 47 Tank Johnson
3 78 Bernard Berrian
4 110 Nathan Vasher

2003
1 14 Michael Haynes
1 22 Rex Grossman
2 35 Charles Tillman
3 68 Lance Briggs

2002
1 29 Marc Colombo

2001
1 8 David Terrell
2 38 Anthony Thomas

2000
1 9 Brian Urlacher
2 39 Mike Brown

With the exception of Michael Haynes, every defensive player picked in the first few rounds has been an absolute stud. (Hester was drafted as a DB by the way…) I mean, this is REALLY impressive.

Our best RB since Walter Payton was signed as a free agent (Thomas Jones) as was our most consistent WR (Muhammad). The best trade we’ve made in the last 10 years was sending our top WR at the time Marty Booker to the Fins for Ogunleye (which has panned out pretty well).

The obvious take-away here is that the Bears should draft only defensive players and trade or sign position players. Given that getting a QB on the open market is pretty tough, I understand the occasional QB pick although the odds for the Bears (and most teams for that matter) are pretty bad.

I say we take the beast on Michigan. (See http://luolsdong.blogspot.com/2007/12/going-long.html for my thoughts on this gigantic monster.)

And yes, this whole post is just an excuse to post another picture of this behemoth:

Tommy hungry. Tommy want wingy.

Going Long

Since it’s apparently never too early to start looking at the 08 draft, here are the top O-line prospects.

Jake Long OT Michigan
Jeff Otah OT Pittsburgh
Gosder Cherilus OT Boston College
Sam Baker OT USC

Long is going to be a top 5 pick (he’s been a stud at Michigan) and the others will probably be late 1st or early 2nd round picks. I figure if we keep losing, we might have a shot at that massive freak of nature and with Tait still able to walk, we might even be able to play him at RT instead (or move Tait to RT).

Take a look at this pancake loving, cow-tipping honkey:





The dude is massive. Rumor has it that his diet consists of whole eggs, pancakes, trees and small defensive lineman. The guy is just an absolute behemoth, Look at how he dwarfs the other dude in this photo:

Wowzers.

I still say we need to take a hard look at Brohm if we have a chance at him but I think Long could be the real deal. I also promise to walk to Soldier Field and drop a steamy pile of corn-riddled shit on Jerry Angelo’s desk if we draft Darren McFadden. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I am a man of my word and have been known to store up a good deuce for 2+ weeks when the occasion warrants.