Results tagged “jerryangelo”

Just five games into his tenure, Bears GM Jerry Angelo rewarded quarterback Jay Cutler with a two-year, $30 million contract extension. The deal includes about $20 million in guaranteed money. Already under contact through 2011, the team now holds Cutler's rights through 2013. The Bears stopped short, however, of ensuring Cutler will retire a Bear -- he'll still be just 30 years old when his new deal expires. While his deal is nowhere near the six-year deals pushing $100 million that other young franchise QBs have received, if Cutler continues to put up numbers like he has so far, we have a feeling Angelo and Cutler will be making more deals in the future.

The NFL held its annual draft this weekend, but for Bears fans it was a real snoozer. The Bears didn't even make a selection until the draft's second day, when most of the players selected are known only to the NFL scouts and fans of their particular schools. Having already traded away their first round pick to the Denver Broncos as part of the Jay Cutler trade, they shipped their second round selection to Seattle on Saturday in return for a third round pick and a sixth rounder after unsuccessfully trying to trade for Arizona wide receiver Anquan Boldin.

Wow.

Jay Cutler, the Denver Broncos quarterback that the team was quietly shopping before they declared him their quarterback who was not on the market, is now officially on the market. Team owner Pat Bowlen issued a statement announcing that, due to irreconcilable differences, the Broncos were looking to trade Cutler.

Any time a halfway competent starting quarterback hits the market, or rumors that one might be on the move pop up, local sports fans and sports media alike begin fantasizing about what that guy might look like in blue and orange. Only weeks ago, Kurt Warner was all the rage. This time, it's no different -- well, except that the guy in question is used to sporting blue and orange.

The Bears went into this weekend's draft with lots of holes to fill, particularly on offense. They drafted ten new players to fill those needs and improve the team. So were they successful?

Was it really only a year ago that the Bears were coming off a Super Bowl appearance and looking toward the draft simply to shore up some depth at a couple spots and add some minor components that'd help them go all the way?

Bears quarterbacks Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton can be forgiven if they have a extra pint tonight -- or some fruity cocktail in Orton's case, since he's on his honeymoon in Hawaii -- because the Bears finally got them some help at wide receiver.

Chicagoist hopes that IDOT has placed their orders for reinforced guard rails and extra sign posts because Lance Briggs will be remaining with the Bears after signing a 6-year, $36 million deal over the weekend.

The Bears announced what Chicagoist suspected when we saw Cedric Benson remain on the ground following a 21 -ard run in the second quarter of Sunday's game: the injury will cut his season short. Benson will undergo surgery on his ankle that will shelve the Bears running back until next year. The Bears running game was a major area of concern even before the injury. The Bears are averaging only 85.3 yards/game -- third worst...

When we saw Mike Brown leave the game with an injury, Chicagoist feared the worst. Once again, one of the Bears' best defensive players and leaders on the field has a great game going and then has to leave the game prematurely. And the tears in the locker room after the game certainly didn't make us any less worried. Monday evening, our fears were confirmed when the Bears announced that Mike Brown had blown out...

Following his arrest early Friday morning on suspicion of DUI, the Bears waived Tank Johnson on Monday. In the team's release to the media, GM Jerry Angelo said, "We are upset and embarrassed by Tank's actions last week. He compromised the credibility of our organization." So what great crime ultimately lead to Tank's dismissal from the Bears? He was stopped for driving 40 mph in a 25mph zone at 3:30am in Gilbert, Arizona and cited...

The NFL held its annual draft this past weekend, and the Bears attempted to fill the holes on their roster in the hopes of building a team that can return to the Super Bowl next season. On Friday, we outlined what we felt were the biggest needs for the Bears. How'd they do in filling those areas? In the first round, with the 31st overall pick, the Bears filled their need for a tight end...

Just as the local sporting goods stores have finally moved out the last of their Bears NFC Champions merchandise, it's time for the Bears and the NFL teams to restock their roster during the NFL draft, which takes place Saturday and Sunday in New York. The draft begins at 11:00 am on Saturday, but there's no need to get up early to watch. The Bears don't draft until the 31st pick in the first round,...

The name Drew Rosenhaus sends shivers down the spines of football executives -- he's known to be quite the difficult agent to deal with. And he happens to represent the Bears' Lance Briggs, which certainly isn't making the situation between him and the Bears any easier. Briggs had remained fairly quite in recent weeks, following his trade demands and promise to hold out the entire 2007 season. He did meet with Bears officials on Monday,...

Just days after Bears management redeemed themselves by locking up Lovie Smith for the next five years, they once again have us scratching our heads. They traded Thomas Jones, the team's starting running back, to the New York Jets along with their late second-round pick for an early second-round draft pick. Are we missing something? Jones ran for over 1,200 yards in 2006, carrying the ball 296 times and averaging 4.1 yards a carry. He...

When we heard that Bears president Ted Phillips planned to meet face-to-face with head coach Lovie Smith this afternoon, we had a bad feeling. We feared that a bad situation over Lovie's contract extension would only deteriorate. These types of meetings have a way of getting too personal. What could be said that would make things better? Either Phillips would make up excuses about why the Bears couldn't offer more as much as they really...

Chicagoist has lost a lot of respect for Bears management this week. They talked a tough game, but when push came to shove they backed down. At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Bears GM Jerry Angelo announced that the Bears will suspend Tank Johnson for one game for "conduct detrimental to the team." ONE GAME!?!?! Talk about caving to the pressure to win at all costs. After serving his suspension, he'll be eligible to return...

Tank Johnson was already having a pretty bad week. His house was raided by Gurnee police, his stash of guns was confiscated and he was charged for illegal possession of firearms. His bodyguard Willie Posey was arrested for felony pot possession during the raid. And as a result of Thursday's run-in with the police, Bears coach Lovie Smith announced that Johnson would be inactive for Sunday's game against Tampa Bay. Yet somehow, Tank Johnson's personal...

Coming off an 11-5 season, with all 22 starters returning, the Bears entered this weekend's draft without the glaring holes of recent years. None-the-less, they did have some areas in which upgrades clearly would help the team. With one of the league's worst offenses, and the best defense, clearly they needed to address their offensive holes. Especially with this week's signing of Ricky Manning Jr., which helped fill a void created by Jerry Azumah's retirement....

Last season, a Rex Grossman injury resulted in one of the most painful displays of offensive ineptitude in the history of the NFL. GM Jerry Angelo didn't sign any of the veteran QB free agents on the market this past off season, so when Rex Grossman went down with a broken ankle on August 12th during a preseason game, many feared a similar debacle this year. Not at all confident with Chad Hutchinson, we stated...

While the Bears had a pretty bad week that included blowing a game to the Browns in the final minutes and cutting ties with their kicker, the Vikings had a much worse week. Combine that with the Vikings 1-3 record despite being picked by most to win the NFC North, and Chicagoist felt this week's matchup might be an opportunity for the Bears to turn things around. That's just what the Bears did, beating the...

Last week Chicagoist theorized that perhaps a little TLC is the best way to improve schools. And whaddya know, here comes a 15-year research study to prove it. The report, sponsored by Chicago-based educational reform organization Designs for Change, shows that the best-performing schools in the city are those who have taken advantage of their local autonomy--not the schools saddled with disciplinary mandates from central administration. In fact, many of the corrective measures applied to...

As many predicted, the Bears cut QB Chad Hutchinson yesterday, just days after naming Kyle Orton the new starting QB and dropping Hutchinson to 4th on the depth chart. Hutchinson signed with the Bears following Rex Grossman's season-ending knee injury. Slow to pick up Terry Shea's overly complex playbook, he didn't see action until Dec. 5th. That was the high point of his Bears career as he went 18-30 with 3 TD passes (115.0 rating)....

Chicagoist has been pretty clear that were we stand on the Cedric Benson holdout. His holdout has now reached 32 days, he's missed 3 preseason games and he hasn't even spoken to the Bears in 11 days. Late this afternoon, news broke that Benson had come to Chicago and met with Bears GM Jerry Angelo. Talks ended with no progress, however. The fact that Benson has put his new Lake Forest home on the market...

Chicagoist wonders whether the Bears did enough homework on first round draft pick Cedric Benson before selecting him with the 4th pick in last spring's NFL Draft. While he demonstrated his tremendous talent on the field while at the University of Texas, his recent behavior leads Chicagoist to question whether somebody else may have been a better fit for the Bears. The Bears training camp ended the other day, and it ended with Benson still...

Chicagoist knows it OK to make mistakes so long as we use them as learning experiences. That's what we heard from parents, teachers and bosses through the years. Unfortunately, the Bears brass didn't seem to learn that lesson. Last year's fiasco of a season resulted primarily because the team lacked capable backups at quarterback when Rex Grossman went down in week 3 with torn knee ligaments. Bears fans endured watching Jonathan Quinn, Craig Krenzel...

The Bears released two veteran players this week, granting Paul Edinger's request to be released while also parting ways with cornerback R.W. R.W. McQuarters.

Following a season in which the Bears ranked last in the NFL in total yards and points, offensive coordinator Terry Shea was fired on Tuesday. Having previously served as quarterbacks coach within the high-powered Kansas City Chiefs offensive sytem, Bears fans cheered his hiring less than one year ago when new coach Lovie Smith named him the successor to John Shoop. But when the team goes 5-11 and ranks last offensively, somebody had to be...

Chicagoist prefers hearing "Bear Down" as the first words of the Chicago Bears' fight song, not a panicked shout on the practice field. But that's what happened within the first hour of the first practice on Wednesday, as All Pro middle linebacker Brian Urlacher went down with an injury.