Who stays, who goes amongst Bears free agents

Not in my memory has a team had as many players unrestricted free agents as the Bears and General Manager Phil Emery have this offseason. Last offseason Emery made the offense a focal point, retooling the offensive line and taking it from the worst units in the league to the strongest unit of the team.

He has promised to do the same this offseason. He has to start in deciding if Defensive Coordinator Mel Tucker will be back and beyond that has some tough choices to make starting with the players that played in Chicago this season.

Before the team signed kicker Robbie Gould and fullback Tony Fiammetta signed contracts before the Week 17 showdown with the Packers, the Bears had 29 players eligible for free agency after this season.

The list of players is long, but contains some big names, including Jay Cutler and Charles "Peanut" Tillman. I've been clear how I feel about Cutler and backup quarterback Josh McCown, who is also a free agent, but things seem to be taking shape on some of the other players. Tillman's injuries the last couple seasons make him a guy that could be on his way out. He says he's not done playing football, but might be a guy the Bears are willing to let go.

The biggest name outside of Cutler and Tillman is Devin Hester, who still has ability to be a game changer and did so throughout this year. It was his first season as just a return man and he seemed to do well. He earned just $2 million this season and if they can agree on something around that this year, I would be behind bringing him back. Otherwise, Hester has been clear he'd like to reunite with Lovie Smith, where ever he ends up this winter.

Cornerback Tim Jennings, who plays opposite Tillman, should be a guy the Bears look at signing. He's young enough and is a great playmaker. Whether he can play man coverage is something that could play a role in that.

Linebackers D.J. Williams and James Anderson are free agents, as well. Williams was the starting middle linebacker at the start of the season, but injury ended his season early on. He makes just $1 million and has been clear he wants to be back. For that salary, it would be hard to let him walk away, for depth purposes alone. Anderson could be a casualty with rookie James Bostic showing himself worth in Lance Briggs' absence during the year.

Along the offensive line center Roberto Garza was the lone holdover from last season and proved himself worthy this season. I'd be inclined to keep this group together for another season as they started all 16 games this season. Left guard Matt Slauson has said he wants to be back and I'd like to see him back, too.

Finally, Julius Peppers is an interesting name that's been brought up this week. He's not a free agent, but is set to make $18.133 million next season. If the Bears are looking to find dollars to spread around to the free agents and draft picks, that might be a spot they look to make a move. Peppers led the team with 7.5 sacks this season, but was not nearly the force he's been in past year.

I'm glad I'm not the guy crunching the numbers and dealing with the agents, but it will be interesting to see fall into place as Emery and Trestman put a team together over the next six months.

Could you call that a Flying Jay-bird?

Hello all. I'm back after a big of a long weekend, had to run to catch Favreapalooza last night, so I'm back.
Let me first chime on in the big Bears win Sunday afternoon. I was sober enough to recount all of the game and the first half left something to be desired. The defensive play was horrible. Twenty-one points in the first half is way too much to give up to anyone, let alone the Lions.
Just as the Bears had done in the first half of the previous two wins, the third quarter was where they tore the heart out of opponents. All thanks to a little thing Lovie and the coaches call "coach 'em up."
As this story, from Monday's Chicago Tribune said, the Bears made two big coach decisions that paved the way for change. The first was on the opening kickoff of the second half as Johnny Knox went 102 yards for a touchdown. That's a hat tip to special teams coach Dave Toub.
The other adjustment was one I was calling for in the first half as Calvin Johnson shredded the Bears' secondary for 5 catches and 119 yards. At halftime, Lovie made the move to have Charles Tillman shadow him to whichever side he went on and it ended up paying off as Johnson had just 3 catches for 14 yards.
In fact, the defense as a whole was on in the second half, especially the defensive line, which gave position coach Rod Marinelli the game ball in helping beat his old team (you know the one he led to an 0-16 record last year).
Jay Cutler was not overly impressive on this day, but he was good enough and didn't do anything to lose the game for the Bears. Plus, he made an amazing dive into the endzone (above) which looked a lot like the John Elway play from Super Bowl 31 against the Packers. (Yes the Elway comparisons must continue).



And I'm checking on Tuesday so I figured I'd weigh in on this Brett Favre BS. I'll make it short and sweet, I swear.
I thought Brent, I mean Brett, looked rather good. He was on point in this one. He made the big play when he needed to and that led to the win. His offensive line was on point and that was probably the biggest difference. To me it looked like Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers was going to make Favre beat him and not let Adrian Peterson do it.
The one play I thought Favre messed up on was an attempt at a 40-yard bomb with 3 minutes left that stopped the clock with an incomplete pass instead of taking 40 more seconds off the clock. Aside from that I thought he and Aaron Rodgers were rather even, minus what the stats will tell you (Rodgers does have more yards).
Rodgers was doing it with a downright AWFUL offensive line. I do not know where the Packers coaching staff got off saying these guys were ready to play during training camp and the preseason because both tackles have been worked through four games.
As a Bears fan, I thought we saw enough from both teams to get a good gameplan together and see how one would go about exploiting them.

I'm a little late on this, but with Rio de Jenero winning the 2016 Summer Olympics hosting bid, I thought it would be great to show this here. One of Brazil's own, Giselle, is doing a celebratory dance. No, this is not the Nussie Hunter, I have something big planned for you there.



NOW, it's time for the Nussie Hunter portion of the blog. I wanted to do this yesterday, but couldn't get one up. It's still good though. Allow me to introduce you to Natalin Acvi (Follow her on Twitter). She is smoking hot and was asked to pose for a photoshoot with new L.A. Laker Ron Artest. (He actually set it up for himself, actually, which is a baller move if you ask me). It was actually featured on SI.com's Hot Clicks and it made her the No. 1 trending topic on Google yesterday. Asking who she is? Well, she's starting in the movie Couple's Retreat which comes out this week. Enjoy this and additional photos, here.