FanHouse DaniealManning

Training camps have wrapped up, the NFL season is right around the corner, and it's still hot as sin outside. But instead of cooling you off with a warm island song, FanHouse break out ye old heat check for our 2009 NFL Season Previews. " We'll rate each club in 5 categories on a scale of 1 to 10, high score wins.

Expectations in the Windy City are sky-high, coming off an offseason in which the Bears acquired who should be their first franchise quarterback in ages: Jay Cutler. He's doing photoshoots, selling jerseys with ease and playing well in preseason games. Can it translate into a playoff run ... or more?

Tuesday afternoon, the Chicago Bears announced via press release they have agreed to a one-year contract with cornerback Roderick Hood. In and of itself, this isn't terribly huge news, considering Hood was recently cut from the Cleveland Browns. The issue at hand, though, is the overall health of the Bears' secondary.

Between Charles Tillman, Nathan Vasher and Zackary Bowman, the Bears were expected to have their two starting cornerbacks and one solid backup. Instead, both Bowman and Tillman are hurt. Tillman doesn't expect to be ready for the final preseason game and he's even worried he won't be ready for the Week 1 tilt in Green Bay.

While those truly following the Bears' every move this offseason know the defensive backfield is a much greater concern than wide receiver, the masses are left trying to figure out who newly acquired quarterback Jay Cutler will be throwing to (the sheep can now insert, "no one!" and feel good about themselves).

After all, the leading receivers -- in terms of catches -- last season were running back Matt Forte and tight end Greg Olsen. Devin Hester was the top wideout, with 51 catches and 665 yards. Rashied Davis caught 35 balls, but no other wide receiver in training camp caught a single NFL pass in 2008.

With the departure of Mike Brown from the Bears, a hole was left in the Windy City secondary. Adding Josh Bullocks via free agency and drafting Al Afalava in the sixth round of the draft don't appear to be answers. With the roster seemingly set for the 2009 season, the Bears will have to find a free safety starter in-house. They have many cornerbacks, so moving one to safety could work well.

After wrapping up the first rookie mini-camp, Lovie Smith discussed some of the options.

After the Bears made the announcement of their franchise-shattering acquisition of Jay Cutler, they didn't rest. Within a few hours, they announced they had also agreed to terms with venerable left tackle Orlando Pace. I'll admit, I was overly excited about the two new Bears, as were all my Bears fans friends -- which is weird, usually at least one of us disagrees about player movement. Make no mistake about it, though. We aren't delusional. This team is far from complete and the die-hards know it.

With the team still a decent amount below the salary cap and several holes left to fill for 2009, here's what I think the Bears should do.

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.

FanHouse's resident referee will chime in weekly with thoughts on major topics relating to officiating. We call it The Zebra Report. Matt Snyder is a high school official with eight years experience. While this is like a third-year resident critiquing the work of a world-renowned surgeon, it's still better than someone who has never worn the stripes.

Twice during the Monday night game this week, fans were up in arms about when the whistle was blown on a slow-moving pile when the ball-carrier was still on his feet.

This is probably the most difficult judgment an official will ever make. When there is a pile and the guy with the football has not gone down, and he does not show any signs of doing so, the situation becomes tenuous immediately. In every instance like this, the downsides drastically outnumber the upsides.

If you blow the whistle too soon, you may have given one side an advantage. Say the ball-carrier is still moving forward, and would have either broken free from the crowd for a long gain, or fumbled before his forward progress was stopped.

David Garrard's passer rating hovered around the temperature for much of the game. When the players can see their breath, this is definitely not a good thing. He set the tone early with an interception that was so bad it actually appeared he intended to throw the pass to Danieal Manning. Manning nearly takes it to the house, and the Bears score a touchdown two plays later. So there were only two minutes and 24 seconds in this game where the Bears did not lead.

After a 20-3 halftime lead, the Bears offense was very stagnant in the second half. You actually have to go more than a month to find a second half in which the Bears offense was clicking. This concerns me, but you can use the excuse that it wasn't really needed today.

Also concerning to me -- as a Bears fan -- was the poor production in the red zone, in terms of touchdowns. This isn't going to cut it against good teams, scoring a touchdown only once in four red zone tries.

I don't care if the Lions go 0-16 -- and they probably will. There is no way they are worse than the St. Louis Rams. The Chicago Bears dominated every facet of the game this week, but the Rams are getting pretty used to being embarrassed, as this is the third straight week they've faced a deficit of at least 21 points at halftime. The score could have been much worse, but the Bears completely shut it down in the second half.

I believe the overall futility of the team was nicely summed up at the 11:15 mark of the fourth quarter. The Rams were trailing by 24 points, and faced a 4th-and-2 from the Bears' 28-yard line. It would have done very little to impact the game if they tacked on three points. Regardless, Jim Haslett sent out the field goal unit. The crowd booed quite loudly -- it was actually the most noise made by Rams' fans all game -- so Haslett reacted and sent the offense back out on the field. Only now they didn't have enough time on the play clock to run a play, so they had to use a timeout.

After the timeout, the Rams did gain the first down, but then threw an interception a few plays later.