New Year, New Team?

Despite being 2009 not much seems to have changed. The Big Ten still sucks at football, Hell (MI) is still cold, and the Chicago Bears are applying Band-Aids to fatal wounds. Alright, so the latest changes in the coaching staff have actually been excellent moves. Rod Marinelli may not be able to coach a franchise with no fervor to a winning record, but what team that starts three or more quarterbacks in a season can even hope to be mediocre (no experience in Chicago with that, right?). His defensive line tenure speaks for itself, and I will definitely withhold judgment until I've seen how the highly paid defensive line plays after some remedial catch-up time with Rod. Likewise with the secondary, I'm sure Hokes won't be able to do any worse with the secondary that looks and stinks like Wisconsin cheese given their abject failure at certain points and the ridiculous number of holes. These moves are nothing compared to the CYA move that Lovie Smith pulled with Babich's demotion that allows him to keep his title. It brings Babich back to what he does well, gives Lovie more to do than deal poorly with the media, and hopefully brings a bit of cohesion back to a defense that commands more salary cap space than thirty other defensive units. Despite the opinions of Bears-bear (in the financial sense) Steve Rosenbloom, I am happy so far with the choices that the front office have made.

Staff is easier to handle than the gorillas in the closet approaching quickly: free agency and the draft. With a name like TJ Houshmandzadeh expected on the open market Jerry had better make an aggressive play for the explosive playmaker who could legitimize Kyle Orton by giving him someone who can actually get separation from cornerbacks. Though I won't get into the draft just yet, at least we know which underclassmen are forgoing the remainder of their education for the hope of a solid signing bonus and an NFL career. The offense is once again the primary need, so Jerry will be playing outside of his comfort zone. An early mock draft has the Bears taking Michael Johnson, an End out of Georgia Tech. I disagree, especially given that Maclin and Harvin are still on the table in the mock. Regardless, there's still a lot of time to wheel and deal before youngsters futures are decided. I'll be watching closely.