FanHouse RonTurner

The NFL draft is 17 days off, and there's plenty to discuss. Will the Lions take Matthew Stafford with the first-overall pick (or will they pull a "Tice" instead)? Are the Broncos targeting Mark Sanchez? Will B.J. Raji's stock be unnaffected by recent rumors? How long till Jay Cutler demands a trade because Ron Turner hurt his feelings a few years ago?

We'll address these questions as well as the truly important stuff.

Fun starts at 1 PM ET.

The man who Bears fans hope will be the first franchise quarterback in recent memory, Jay Cutler, was introduced officially as a Chicago Bear at a press conference late Friday afternoon.

Earlier in the offseason, Bears GM Jerry Angelo proclaimed that something needed to be done about the quarterback position. It was an odd proclamation at the time. I mean, obviously Kyle Orton isn't a good quarterback at this point, but there are several other areas that needed to be fixed before quarterback.

Now, as the Bears mull over their options for a replacement signal-caller, it doesn't appear Orton's going to have much competition. As the Chicago Sun-Times points out, the 2009 draft -- at least by the time the Bears pick -- is pretty unexciting when it comes to quarterbacks. The free agency class contains little more than Byron Leftwich and Chris Simms.

As we near a full day since the Chicago Bears' season came to end, it's becoming easier to think rationally about the season as a whole instead of wanting to -- as Limp Bizkit once sang -- break stuff.

Really, yesterday was a microcosm for the entire Bears' 2008 season.

The early 10-0 lead was the unexpected win in Indianapolis. Giving the lead away was the Bears' three blown games early in the season. The late surge was the three-game winning streak, where us fans were given hope, and the awful onside kick by Robbie Gould teamed with Tommie Harris' offsides penalty and the allowed first down were losing a game when a win would have placed the Bears in the playoffs. Yep, the Cowboys and Bucs lost, so a Bears victory would have placed them in the playoffs.

Alas, it was not to be. If we can take a few steps back and be honest fans, we need to realize that this team didn't deserve to make the playoffs. There are too many weaknesses to justify a 10-6 record and playoff appearance.

I'll start off with a disclaimer. I obviously don't know as much about football or the Bears' game-plan as Offensive Coordinator Ron Turner. I understand that, but it doesn't make it easier for me to swallow the questionable at best play-calling on the last three offensive plays.

Let's set the scene. The Bears trail by three points, and have one of the most reliable big-game kickers in the NFL. After a Matt Forte nine yard gain, the Bears have 2:05 left and no timeouts. Still, the ball was on the 50 yard line. You likely only need to gain 17 to 20 yards in order to allow Gould to tie the game. As far as I'm concerned, considering all these factors, time shouldn't be an issue. Moving the chains was. When you have second down and one yard to gain, and you have Matt Forte running like he was for the entire first two weeks, I've gotta believe you run the football and get the first down.

Instead, the Bears attempted to throw a quick screen to the outside receiver -- Rashied Davis -- that nearly ended in disaster. If Chris Gamble had jumped the route a half-step sooner, he'd have a pick-six to his name right now.

Apparently, you can wager on anything. In light of Cedric Benson's predilection for beer-bonging while operating a watercraft, bodog.com has the odds for which player will be the Bears' starting running back when the 2008 season begins:

Cedric Benson, 7/2
Garrett Wolf, 12/1
Adrian Peterson, 1/1
Matt Forte, 10/13
Other, 10/1

This would be a perfect opportunity for offensive coordinator Ron Turner to make some easy money, which, I'm assuming, he'll need at some point in the very near future. As for Benson, I wonder if these odds have changed much since the arrest. It wasn't like he was exactly tearing things up before he got pepper sprayed this weekend.

And things couldn't have worked out much better for Matt Forte. The Bears draft a left tackle to help bolster one of the offense's many weak units, and then the starting running back goes off and gets a BWI. Now all that's left is to hope that if "Other" doesn't work out at running back, they promptly move him to quarterback. Somehow it seems like the right thing to do.

The Bears released No. 1 wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad three weeks ago primarily because he wasn't nearly as productive in Chicago as he had been with the Carolina Panthers. Or at least that was the thinking.

Sure, the inability to create separation and the butter fingers didn't help make a case for keeping him, but neither did his attitude, apparently:

True, the Bears could have kept Muhsin Muhammad for about the same money they will pay Booker. But Booker fits better in a locker room where Muhammad practically had strained his rotator cuff throwing Bears quarterbacks under the bus. Not to mention that, behind the scenes, the Bears had grown tired of Muhammad questioning offensive coordinator Ron Turner.

That certainly helps explain the Marty Booker signing, but there's still the little issue of why the Bears let Bernard Berrian get away -- and worse, signed Brandon Lloyd. I'm not convinced Berrian's a true No. 1 receiver but, hell, neither was Muhammad. And Berrian's younger, faster, and less likely to have footballs honk off his hands.

If nothing else, though, Chicago has one less birdie chirping in Rex Grossman's or Kyle Orton's ear (it's still an open competition for the starting job) about all of their shortcomings. I'm sure they're well aware, although there's a case to be made for Ron Turner being on the business end of a verbal beatdown. More than just about anybody else in the organization, I'd say he's earned it.

Hat tip: Pancake Blocks

Maybe Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner didn't need to see any film of Brandon Lloyd's NFL exploits since he coached the former fourth-round pick at the University of Illinois. This would be ironic since this is how the Redskins did much of their scouting in recent seasons, and they were the team that released Lloyd last week.

The Sacramento Bee's Matt Barrows goes all "1998 internets" on us and busts out an animated .gif of Lloyd during those heady 49ers days. The clip shows, over and over and over, Lloyd running a crossing route and ducking as the pass whizzes by his ear. I guess it never occurred to him to try to, you know, catch the thing.

Anyway, after hearing Barrows recount some of Lloyd's finer moments in San Francisco, you have to wonder why the Bears signed him at any price.

If there are any teams that know Lloyd's true colors, it's the 49ers, the Redskins (where Lloyd was to receiving what Joseph Hazelwood was to seamanship) and the Bears. After all, it was in that stunningly windy game in Chicago in 2005 that Lloyd famously alligator-armed two Cody Pickett passes, including one on the goal line that would have put the 49ers right back in the game. At least Lloyd had the guts and the self-awareness to man up and take the blame afterward. "The ball was thrown too early," he said at the time. "That wasn't the route. I still had more of the route to run. It was thrown way too soon."

The Chicago Bears have announced the signing of wide receiver Brandon Lloyd, and it says a lot about the Bears that adding Lloyd to their receiving corps actually represents an upgrade.

Lloyd makes just enough highlight-reel catches, and has just a colorful enough personality, that there are still people who think of him as a good NFL wide receiver. But if any of those people are Bears fans, they're going to be seriously disappointed when they actually get a look at him this season. Lloyd caught a whopping two passes for 14 yards in 2007, and even in his best year, he managed just 48 catches for 733 yards. Lloyd and Marty Booker are not an NFL-caliber pair of starters.

In the right system, though, it's possible that Lloyd could be a serviceable third or fourth receiver, and it should be noted that "the right system" might be the one run by Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner, who was Lloyd's head coach in college at Illinois. Maybe the Bears can get the most out of Lloyd's athletic talents, but I still say they should have franchised Bernard Berrian.

Before yesterday's season ended with a 33-25 win over the Saints, FanHouse's Ryan Wilson cautioned Bears fans to expect some big changes on the team heading into next season. While there will certainly be new faces in the lineup next year, it didn't take Lovie Smith long to assure the masses that there wouldn't be any changes at the top. He was asked if he anticipated making a change at either coordinator position and you didn't need a linguistics degree to parse his answer.

''No, I don't.''

That settles that, I guess. If the Bears are smart, though, they won't be so complacent with their roster.

The offensive line needs to be upgraded, starting with Fred Miller at right tackle. Cedric Benson struggled as the starting tailback before getting hurt but the team wasn't exactly giving him wide open spaces to scamper through on his way to a good season. Obviously quarterback remains a position of uncertainty as well, but if they had All-Pros at both positions behind this line they would still be 7-9. At least Ron Turner finally got the message about getting Devin Hester more involved in the offensive game plan.