Posts tagged Brandon Lloyd at FanHouse

Training camp is finally here and FanHouse breaks down the most important position battles heading into the season, team by team.

Seriously, I tried to narrow this down and actually spotlight one positional battle like all the rest. Other than just picking the offensive side of the football, where could we even begin? I could simply spotlight the anemic duo at QB like everyone else, or take the easy way out and sort through Kevin Jones vs. Matt Forte at RB.

That's just not good enough. The fact of the matter is that half the offense is up for grabs in training camp. Let's take a little stroll through Halas Hall's proud offense ...

For those of you holding out hope for the Bears to trade Devin Hester (at last count, we were up to one person), well, it ain't happenin'. Instead, the team, which had been in negotiations with the Pro Bowl returner before he abruptly staged a two-day holdout, announced he wouldn't play for $445,000, and promptly returned to practice and tweaked his hammy, signed Hester to a new contract a few hours ago.

No word on the how much the team forked over to keep Hester in Chicago through 2013, but I'll guess it'll pay him more than the near-half-million he was scheduled to make in 2008, which must make this dude very, very angry. (Economics: 1, Insane Rambling Diatribe: 0)

[Update, via Football Outsiders: Hester gets $15 million guaranteed, $30 million total, with up to $10 million in bonuses depending upon whether Hester becomes a #1 receiver.]

Whatever, the Bears now have the only guy capable of scoring more than three points at a time under contract, which, if nothing else, should guarantee they don't lose every game by way of shutout. In the meantime, Chicago will look for new and exciting ways to get Hester involved in the offense.

First up: teaching him how to play wide receiver.

Usually, such a transition can be a difficult one, but the Bears currently have Brandon Lloyd and Marty Booker as its starting wideouts. Hester should be the team's No. 1 by the middle of next week. That's not necessarily a compliment.

Let me take you back 24 hours, when Devin Hester, return dude extraordinaire, declared that he wasn't playing for $445,000 this season. He's worth way more than that, and until the Bears gave him a new deal, he wasn't showing up for work.

It's a popular strategy for disgruntled players looking for more money, and one that seldom works (Devin, Lance. Lance, Devin). Not so much because contract talks might stall, but because it cost Hester $30,000 in fines to hold out for two days, which, when you don't want to live on less than half a million, sorta hurts. And that probably has something to do with this:

There was a change of heart between then and now, and this puts Hester in position to compete for a starting job as a receiver. He was slated to work with the first team on Wednesday and will not be far behind now.

Teammates and coaches were understanding of his position as he's scheduled to earn $445,000 this season. General manager Jerry Angelo spoke with Hester's agent Eugene Parker on Thursday and expressed that he didn't want Hester to feel slighted that the club got a slew of contracts done and not his, that it remained a top priority for the club.

In most professions, if a co-worker announces that he can't do his job for $445,000 a year, you'd punch him in the face. Professional sports is different -- a half-million bucks is blue-collar money -- and that's why the Chicago Bears' only scoring threat, Devin Hester, has declared he is sitting out training camp until he gets a new deal.

Viva La Revolución! Or something.

"I'm not coming," [Hester] said by phone. "I have to make a statement. I showed by going to [organized team activities] that I was a team player. But then, I just felt they weren't taking it seriously that I wanted to get a new deal.

"I can't go out and play this year making $445,000. Come on, man."

The Bears were surprised by Hester's decision, primarily because they were in the middle of working on an extension. The problem, it seems, is that the organization is having trouble measuring Hester's worth because he's a man without a true position.

Hear that? It's the pitter-patter of fantasy football season approaching. Fantasy FanHouse is here to get you ready by previewing every team from a fantasy perspective.

Meet The ...

Most maligned offense in the league, even after the departure of Cedric Benson. Over the past two to three seasons it has become so popular to hate on Rex Grossman even my mother-in-law knows who he is. Kyle Orton backs up Rexy, and he's awful. The receiving corps was decimated in the off-season with the departures of Muhsin Muhammed and Bernard Berrian while being replaced with uninspired choices Marty Booker and Brandon Lloyd. The team was also criticized -- in addition to not drafting a QB -- for passing on Rashard Mendenhall in the first round of the draft and instead settling on a 2nd rounder to replace push Benson before his arrest(s). The offensive line was pathetic last year, and minimal work was done to repair it in the off-season (though getting rid of Fred Miller within itself should vastly improve things). About the only part not under scrutiny is tight end, with Greg Olsen and Desmond Clark.

The Bears' top receivers last year were Bernard Berrian and Muhsin Muhammad. Both are now gone.

So why on earth would Chicago wide receivers coach Darryl Drake say he thinks the team is in better shape at receiver this year than last year? That's what he suggested in talking to the Chicago Sun-Times.

But when you also consider that he said his best receiver right now is Rashied Davis, you realize that the team is sorely lacking in experienced wide receivers. Yes, Davis and Devin Hester and Brandon Lloyd and Mark Bradley and Earl Bennett all have talent, but Marty Booker is the only guy on the roster who has accomplished much of anything as an NFL wide receiver.

Although the Bears' quarterback controversy will be the talk of training camp, the wide receiver situation may be the team's biggest question mark. Neither Rex Grossman nor Kyle Orton can be confident that he'll have any good receivers catching his passes.

Marty Booker is going into the 2008 season with the right mindset: expect the worse and you won't be disappointed. Or maybe I'm just projecting. Whatever, the Bear-turned-Dolphin-turned-Bear doesn't have a preference for who ends up under center in Chicago, and that's been his M.O. for most of his NFL career:

Booker has made a successful career of adapting to whatever situation he has been thrown into, regardless of who's throwing the football.

Since 1999, Booker's first season with the Bears -- when he had to adjust to Shane Matthews, Cade McNown and Jim Miller all starting games -- playing with multiple quarterbacks has been routine for Booker.

In all, on NFL fields over nine seasons he has played catch with 17 different quarterbacks, some of them no longer in the NFL.

As much fun as it is to point and gawk in Rex Grossman's general direction, he's an improvement over Matthews, McNown, and Miller (at least when Miller couldn't lift his throwing arm over his head). So for Booker, it'll be like playing with a Hall of Famer (but very, very different).

Of course, there are plenty of holes on the Bears offense outside of quarterback, and wideout is pretty high on the list. Booker is a nice No. 2 receiver, but he's not a No. 1. Then again, it's debatable whether Brandon Lloyd even deserves to be in the league, so by comparison, Booker seems like some combination of Wille Gault and Tom Waddle.

So, yeah, Redskins rookie tight end Fred Davis likes to sleep. Unfortunately, his raging case of narcolepsy struck during last weekend's minicamp. This is generally frowned upon, particularly when starting a new job.

The Washington Post's Jason Reid writes that "some draft evaluators reported that USC tight end Fred Davis exhibited poor work habits and made questionable decisions at times." The Redskins considered him too much of a talent to pass up, and three days into his NFL career, Davis missed practice. The team reported that Davis had overslept, and his brother, Kedran, confirmed as much ... before adding: that he overslept after a late night on Saturday.

Front-office bigwig Vinny Cerrato, the man responsible for drafting Davis*, isn't worried:

"The biggest thing is, as long as they learn from their mistakes, that's the biggest thing," Cerrato said. "The kid felt awful. Jim got a chance to talk to him and Jim's handling it internally. I've talked to his agents and the kid feels horrible, which he should.

"Anytime you miss anything, to me it's important. Especially when you're here to ... he's making his first impression. Do what's right. He made a mistake. Now, he's got to fight back from the mistake."

In the scheme of things, this is nothing. Of course, that's what people said when Brandon Lloyd first starting acting out. If there's a lesson in all of this, it's this: make Davis start a blog. It builds character.

* possibly not entirely true

No matter what you think of the Jerome Mathis signing, at least it won't cost the Redskins much. According to the Washington Post's Jason La Canfora, Mathis got a one-year, veteran minimum deal and no bonus. Which means he could earn $520,000 if he makes it through the season.

La Canfora, like the Washington Times' Ryan O'Halloran (and me), questions the signing, even suggesting that there "ain't no way Mathis gets in the building on [Joe Gibbs'] watch, not even for a workout. Not even to deliver the mail."

The Redskins may have had more players off their draft board last year for character issues than any club in the league. Gibbs blew it on Brandon Lloyd - and Vinny Cerrato, after all his years in San Fran, should have had the goods on that one - but otherwise proved that character and attitude mattered. Owner Daniel Snyder has a rep for reaching for players, and the Skins were never known much for their overall character and team-first ethos before Gibbs returned.

La Canfora throws out the obligatory "Is Chris Henry next?" reference before writing that the Redskins were apparently high on Kenny Wright before he signed with the Browns. The point, I think, is that the team is a more willing to take chances on players with character concerns now that Gibbs has retired.

The Bears decision to sign Brandon Lloyd as a replacement for the departed Bernard Berrian hasn't been lauded as the greatest move of the offseason. Lloyd has spent more time earning the ire of his coaches and teammates than making meaningful catches in NFL games. In fact, during his time with the 49ers he was accused of spending too much time concentrating on his rap career. So it's probably not cheerful news for Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith that Lloyd has a new gig writing for the video game site Gametap.

It seems that while Lloyd was being left at home on Redskin road trips for disciplinary reasons, he was filling his time with Rainbow Six and Call of Duty. Who knows, maybe he was even playing Madden seasons which ended with Lloyd on top of the football world instead of at the bottom of the team's depth chart with two whole catches to his name. That could be how he knew Rex Grossman would be the team's QB this season. He simulated ahead and knows the horrible fate that awaits Kyle Orton.

The writing should provide Lloyd with a safety net if he flops with his third NFL team in as many tries. It's an engaging article about his history as a gamer and he comes off as a likable guy who knows what he's writing about.

(H/T The Big Lead)