FanHouse MartyBooker

As the season grows closer and closer, the malign on the Bears receiving corps gains steam. It seems as though everyone in the world believes the receiving corps is so bad that Jay Cutler can't be successful. Nevermind the fact that the vastly inferior Kyle Orton threw for almost 3,000 yards and 18 touchdowns (in 15 games) in the same offense last season. It's not as though the losses of Marty Booker and a handful of games from Brandon Lloyd are irreplaceable.

Still, Bears general manager Jerry Angelo just can't escape the question of whether or not the Bears will pursue help at wide receiver. Inevitably, Plaxico Burress' name arises.

Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith had an interesting response when asked this week about the production of his wide receivers, who have combined for a whopping nine catches in the Bears' back-to-back losses against the Titans and Packers:

"Other teams covered us," Smith said. "It's kind of as simple as that. We haven't been able to get them the ball. If you look at our receiver play throughout, it's been pretty good. You go through spells where you are not as productive as you would like. But in the big picture we have gotten a lot of production from our receivers."

Smith always defends his players when they're criticized in the media, but for him to say the Bears have gotten "a lot of production" from the wide receivers is just wrong.

For a brief moment there early in the season, it appeared that Brandon Lloyd was finally going to make good on his promise. He had been a colossal bust at every stop in his early career, but he showed flashes of brilliance for the Bears, including a gem in Week 3 where he caught six balls for 124 yards and a touchdown.

Like everyone else with a brain, I figured his knee injury was still lingering when I saw Lloyd on the inactive list this past weekend when the Bears faced the NFL's lone unbeaten team.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Lloyd explained that it was coach Lovie Smith's "strategy decision," to sit him against the NFL's stingiest scoring defense.

"I've been champing at the bit to get out there," Lloyd said.

Um, seriously? Well, then I'd like to have a few words with Lovie Smith. Earl Bennett -- who only plays special teams -- was on the active roster instead of a fully-healed Brandon Lloyd? Someone, anyone, please make sense of this for me. He has more talent than Rashied Davis and Marty Booker. Unlike the speedy Devin Hester, he's actually a wide receiver by trade.

You don't think Rex Grossman could have used another weapon?

If this is true, it's an absolutely absurd decision by the Bears coaching staff. Let's hope it doesn't happen again.

What a crazy game.

You've got an old-school NFC North -- formerly NFC Central -- battle. The black and blue division. Two foes who like to use the "run and defense/smash mouth" method to win football games.

Or not.

Let's try 558 yards passing as opposed to 208 yards rushing. Or think about the 72 passing attempts compared to 54 rushes.

People who bet the "under" in this game could see the writing on the wall before the first quarter was over.

Let's try to sort out this mess of a game, which was by far the most fun game I've seen this season. Obviously my being a Bears fan helped, but there were so many wacky occurrences. Like ...

- The Vikings lost the turnover battle five to one, yet still only lost by a touchdown.

- Gus Frerotte threw four interceptions to a Bears secondary that has been decimated with injuries -- Nathan Vasher, Charles Tillman, and Danieal Manning all missed the game.

- It was Gus Frerotte and Kyle Orton at QB. Glance back up above at those passing vs. rushing numbers.

Every week when the dinner bell rings on Friday evening, we'll be here to provide you a comprehensive injury report for the NFL weekend to follow. For those injuries that go right down to the wire, drop by our Fantasy Fanhouse expert live chat from 10am to 1pm EST every Sunday and we'll take care of you on those bloody game-time decisions. As always, please feel free to chime in with opinions, updates, and rumors in the comments.

The Arizona Cardinals

Anquan Boldin - After the last Sunday's vicious hit, Boldin came away with a fractured sinus membrane, which I believe means he broke his face. While he is lucky that is the worst of it after what looked like a neck injury, he is very unlikely to play on Sunday at this point. It has not yet been ruled out however, so keep an eye on his progress.

The Baltimore Ravens

Willis McGahee - McGahee continues to keep things interesting as now he has injured ribs, which limited his playing time on Monday night. His efforts in practice this week have been limited, but he did practice on Friday, so he should be good to at least split carries.

The Buffalo Bills

Roscoe Parrish - Parrish is definitely out for three to five more weeks with a thumb injury. While this is not material for many people, it opens the door for James Hardy to gain some playing time and for Lee Evans to put up a couple of his sporadic breakout games.

The Carolina Panthers

Jonathan Stewart - Stewart is still on the injury report, but he will be fine to go this week.

Jake Delhomme - Delhomme is listed as probable with a thigh injury, but he will be ready for week 5. With Steve Smith back and Muhsin Muhammad getting involved, Delhomme's value is on the up and up.

Training camps are underway, the NFL season is a month off, and to get you ready for 2008, FanHouse previews all 32 teams, "heat index" style. We'll rate each club in 10 categories on a scale of 1 to 10, high score wins.

Quarterback: It's an open competition between Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton. Cue the laugh track. I'll try to be positive. In 2006, Grossman led the team to a 13-3 record and an NFC Championship to boot. He led the NFL in 100+ QB rating games (yes, I know he led in games below 40 and also had a zero rating once ... remember I was being positive), and threw for over 3000 yards with 23 TD passes for a running-and-defense team. Orton went 10-5 as a starter in the previous season with atrocious numbers (seriously, he didn't even throw for 2,000 yards or ten TDs in 15 games). Look for Grossman to start, unless the Bears want to completely take away the threat of Devin Hester. And they can't do that. Heat Index: 2

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.

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.