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http://www.profootballweekly.com/2012/1 ... s-gm-emery

Attention shifting to Bears GM Emery

Posted Dec. 17, 2012 @ 10:11 a.m. ET
By Dan Parr

With the Bears fading — they could miss the playoffs even if they win their final two games — it might be only a couple weeks before Phil Emery makes his biggest decision yet as general manager.

If the Bears’ season ends in Week 17, they will become the first team since 1996 to start the season 7-1 and fail to advance to the postseason. A collapse of that magnitude would put just about any head coach on notice, and for Lovie Smith, who has led the Bears to one playoff win since the start of the 2007 season, it very well could cost him his job.

It has seemed like a near certainty that Smith would be returning to the Bears in 2013 for most of this season. In fact, there was talk around midseason that the Bears had opened contract-extension talks with Smith, but that was when they were leading the division and appeared to be headed back to the playoffs.

Emery had to agree to work with Smith for a season before the Bears hired the GM, but the handcuffs are about to be removed and it won’t be much longer until Emery makes a major statement about his vision for the organization.

If it's me, I give him one more year. I think that if you look at their talent it fits their current record.

He won't have any trouble finding work as a HC again. That is a bad collapse though. What's been their primary problem?

I've never been a huge fan of Lovie Smith from the get go, but he's a solid coach. I think you do keep him for another year. Unless maybe you hire Jon Gruden or someone.

But I do think talent-wise the Bears and Falcons are on the same level. But their OC, Mike Tice is similar to Mularkey in that his style of offense is predicated by having a strong running game, which they don't have and won't ever will because they stupidly re-signed Matt Forte.

They are in for a long rebuilding process ahead at some point. Could they keep SMith for another year and hope to delay that for a bit? Sure. But it's coming. Trading those picks for Cutler, limited their ability to upgrade the overall talent of their roster over the past 3 years.

I know your mantra is roster-centric but I think the Cutler move was a good one. Of course, they could have done like Denver and just held on for Peyton! Lovie is from the Dungy tree and I really like that steady hand approach. Would be somewhat ironic if Gruden were to succeed Smith as well as Dungy but I look at what Jon did with TB and it always seemed to me that he did it with TD's players and soon thereafter things went down hill due to the sort of personality stuff we have been discussing in the Ryan thread. He is not nearly as caustic as Rex but sort of over the top as well. FWIW, I really think Gruden does a great job on MNF and have always kind of liked him.

I think the main problem with the Bears is that once the defense stopped scoring for them it really exposed thier offense. Matt Forte cant run because he is toting a pigskin in one hand and a sack of money in the other. Brandon Marshall is thier only legitimate recieving option and Cutler locks on and throws it to him in double and triple coverage sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt. Devin Hester is not a reciever he is fast and quick but hardly ever impacts the game outside of special teams. The offensive line is still weak and Cutler takes two or three shots (on top of the four or five sacks) a game that makes Bears' fans cringe. When they were 7-1 the only two teams they beat that were worth a damn were the Colts and the Cowboys.

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I said back in 2009, that I didn't think the Cutler trade would work out because I didn't believe that Cutler was this top-level QB then and that the team would be significantly better with him than it was with Kyle Orton.

Orton was 21-12 as a starter in Chicago (64%). Cutler is 32-22 (59%). A base comparison, but it gets the point across.

I don't think the Cutler trade was a bad trade. But as I've suggested with the Jones trade and other personnel moves, it's simple physics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When you trade a bunch of draft picks to upgrade a single position that reaction often is a downgrade of multiple other positions. IMHO, that trade-off is almost never worth it. Few exceptions would be to get a rare talent like RG3 or Luck at QB. Other than that, teams should NEVER give up future #1 picks.

That was the issue I pointed out back in 2009. The Bears had a lot of aging talent on their defense, and without 1st round picks to replace them they could be in trouble. And if you intend to replace perennial Pro Bowlers and future HOFers, you MUST have 1st round picks to even have a chance at doing so. And even when you do, it's more than likely going to be Booger McFarland taking over for Warren Sapp, and thus it ain't gonna work out.

Melton, Paea, Nick Roach, McClellin, Chris Conte, D.J. Moore. Some of them can/will be good players. But they aren't going to be replacing Peppers, Idonijie, Briggs, Tillman, Urlacher, etc.