FanHouse BrianUrlacher

In 2003, Pisa Tinoisamoa led the 12-4 St. Louis Rams in total tackles as a 22-year-old rookie. His defensive coordinator was Lovie Smith. After five seasons apart, the two will once again be working together in 2009, as the Chicago Bears have agreed to a one-year deal with the linebacker.

At first glance, due to the hulking presence of Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs, you might think there's no way the Bears need a linebacker. Tinoisamoa does, however, represent an upgrade to the serviceable yet unspectacular duo of Hunter Hillenmeyer and Nick Roach at the strong side linebacker position. It will be a two-down job on many possessions, as Urlacher and Briggs never leave the field.

Jay Cutler is going to the Bears for three draft picks and Kyle Orton. Jay Mariotti has already discussed how much it means to have a good quarterback in Chicago. Still, I bring the voice of the fan, and I've got something to say: I love this move. One thing that's great about sports, though, is there are always opposing fans trying to bring you down.

I've taken time to check out many message boards and comments sections across the internet. What I'm finding, for the most part, is that fans of teams other than the Bears think this is a terrible deal. Their "evidence," though, is usually incredibly flawed. Here are some of the reasons people think the deal is poor for the Bears, followed by my rebuttals.

CHICAGO -- So the Summer Olympics must be coming in 2016. And a minefield of potholes soon will be magically filled. And the Cubs will win a World Series for the first time since, oh, your grandparents' grandparents were double-dating in Henry Ford's Model T. And those wicked, face-eating winters will be replaced by pleasant, sunny, balmy, gorgeous ... all right, I'm obviously overcome by shock.

That didn't take long. Jay Cutler has been a member of the Chicago Bears for approximately three hours and the local media are already questioning his leadership skills. From the Chicago Tribune's Rick Morrissey:

I don't know about you, but when one of my bosses urgently needs me, he either calls or yanks me by the earlobe into his office. We're still waiting for Pat Bowlen to have such contact with Jay Cutler, which shocks me. For a quarter-century, Bowlen has been among the dynamic owners in American sports, a primary reason why the Denver Broncos have been an elite NFL franchise.

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Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

The Bears surprised everyone by being a respectable football team in 2008. Most expected them to completely unravel, winning maybe three of four games. Instead, they took down the Colts in Indianapolis to kick off a winning season.

Along the way, though, they blew several key games and ended up severely disappointing their own fans by not winning a very winnable division -- not to mention one additional win would have garnered a wild card.

In the NFC Championship game two years ago, Reggie Bush took a swing pass 88 yards to the house. The last ten or so were accompanied by Bush pointing back at the Bears defense before doing a flip into the end-zone and dancing the night away. Of course, the Saints had only cut the Bears lead to two, and didn't score another point en route to a 39-14 loss.

Several Bears were a bit peeved by this at the time. Adewale Ogunleye was in the field, and got the chance to tell Bush what he thought. "I told Reggie that was unprofessional," Ogunleye said.

"He's a rookie and he's going to be a hell of a player in this league. But for him to point back and taunt, that was no class. I swear I was a second away from punching him. I'm glad I didn't. I ran right to him and said, 'Be professional in this league.'"

Olin Kreutz -- who was fortunately on the sideline or he certainly would have punched Bush, just ask former teammates* -- didn't like the act either.

For a long time, it seemed like we couldn't go a week without hearing something having to do with Brian Urlacher but not having something to do with how he played football. Whether it was about his desire for a new contract, his acrimonious child support battle, his frisky hands or his hostile text messaging, it got far too easy to forget that Urlacher was still playing football for the Bears.

This season, though, Urlacher has faded from view. That may be a bad sign for the Bears defense, but it's a good one for Urlacher's personal sanity. I'd give thanks tomorrow, but Urlacher's luck ran out today. The mother of Urlacher's son was in court threatening to stop Urlacher from seeing his son because Urlacher has painted the boy's toenails and has him wearing pink diapers.

"He says he can do whatever he wants," (the boy's mother Tyna) Robertson said. "(Urlacher said), 'It doesn't make him feminine. It doesn't make him gay.'

"You're confusing him, if he's a boy or a girl," she said.

Whether or not he's confused about his gender, he's certainly gotten screwed in the parenting department. In case you've forgotten, Urlacher's infamous text message to Robertson accused her of "raising a little p___y, and these two have gone back and forth in the public forum for years with the little boy stuck in the middle. Hopefully Urlacher's new contract pays enough to cover therapy.

(H/T PFT)

As a Bears fan, I can tell you the defense has been frustrating this year. The offense -- as long as Kyle Orton's under center -- has been more productive, despite the fact that the team has sunk enormous resources into their vaunted defense. The production of the guys on Brian Urlacher's side of the ball has been far from their reputation, which was established in Lovie Smith's early tenure. The two biggest scapegoats for this disappointment have been defensive coordinator Bob Babich and franchise figure-head Urlacher.

On Babich, it's really a lazy theory of convenience to blame him. He took over last season for Ron Rivera, who ran the defense for '05-'06 when the unit was elite. Obviously, if the personnel is virtually the same and all of a sudden the team gets worse, it must be his fault, right? I'm not ready to blame Babich for this. First of all, last season the defense was put in all kinds of bad positions due to awful offense ... not to mention they were decimated by injuries. This year, however, the offense has been better than the defense, and the injuries have been limited (though, to be fair, most injuries have come in the secondary, and the defense isn't exactly struggling against the run ... it's all been through the air).

The stigma attached to Rex Grossman nowadays is nearly palpable. Last night in the chat, I simply typed, "Rex Grossman is not as bad as most people think." In the ensuing exchange, I was bombarded with messages telling me how much he sucks. I never even said he was good. My point was proven. He's not a good quarterback, I'll agree. He'd also presently be the best quarterback on the Niners, Chiefs, Raiders, and Lions. There could be more, but those are the obvious ones.

This stigma isn't just reserved for opposing fans. Legions of Bears fans act like he's the worst QB ever, which is saying a lot from people who have watched Jonathan "The Mighty" Quinn, Moses Moreno, and Cade McNever (among about a thousand other stiffs). It wasn't one iota surprising on Sunday when Grossman was booed. Immediately when Kyle Orton hit the turf, I texted my brother with: "Great, now a bunch of idiots are gonna boo after every incompletion." Sure enough, flocks of boos were heard in Grossman's direction in the third quarter.

It did not please Brian Urlacher.