Lance Briggs

On the weakside is Lance Briggs, in the midst of another money play. Coming off a less-than-stellar year, if Briggs can stay relatively healthy there’s no reason to not expect his returning to form. Starting at the strongside, Nick Roach takes over after the Bears’ free agent search turned up bupkis. Getting older, this unit doesn’t have a ton of depth, so any injuries could be extremely problematic as we saw last year with Hunter Hillenmeyer and the year before with Urlacher’s wrist.

Continue reading "Joe's 2011 Chicago Bears Season Preview: ..."

Playing at home, the returning Lance Briggs and the other Bear defenders must control their gaps Sunday. Ryan Torain is a bruising running back that ran over and through the Colt defense last week. Other than Torain, the Redskins have nary a threat on offense. Tight end Chris Cooley suffered a concussion in last week's outing but will be active today. Still, he's no deep ball receiver. If the Bear secondary can just keep track of Santana Moss and Anthony Armstrong, they should be in good shape to keep the score low. Watch Julius Peppers match up with rookie Trent Williams, who handled Dwight Freeney with surprising regularity. Keeping Donovan McNabb from completing the deep pass will be the Bears' biggest concern, and a pass rush from Peppers will help that goal.

Continue reading "Joe's Gameday Preview: Redskins at Bears"

However, it is after a Lance Briggs-caused turnover that I found the most troubling moment of the day.

Briggs had great penetration on a play deep in Lions territory, knocking the ball loose from back-up Shaun Hill before he could hand it off and giving the Bears possession inside the one yard line down one point. From there the Bears handed off, threw away the ball after a Lion came in unblocked, and then handed it off again. Using the QB sneak from inside the one is football 101, so don't ask me how Mike "Genius" Martz missed that one. After failing to score on three tries, Lovie Smith broke character and decided to go for the touchdown instead of kicking the field goal. Keep in mind the Lions were without their starting QB and hadn't registered a first down in the entire second half. So Martz called yet another run to the right and got stuffed, ending the drive without any points to show for it. If Lovie had lost this game, he would have been grilled on that call. Instead, he'll avoid responsibility and point to the "W" column. For shame.

Continue reading "Controversial call helps Bears squeeze ..."

eason, the Bears linebacking unit is healthy (for the most part) and ready to party like it's 2009. Lance Briggs is now the star of the trio, racking up tackles on the runner and showing great awareness in pass coverage. Pisa Tinoisamoa will start the season at the strong-side after missing most of last year with injuries. Pisa was the leading tackler in St. Louis for years and he should be an addition to the Bears in 2010 that he should have been in 2009. The wildcard of the linebackers is Brian Urlacher. At his age, Urlacher doesn't have many years left in his career. He's become injury-prone and just doesn't make the same impact he once did. If he can stay healthy an entire season, he could be a difference-maker on a defense that sorely missed him. While he's no longer a great player, he's certainly a good one.

Continue reading "Joe's 2010 Chicago Bears Preview: ..."

Well, if this third preseason game was any indication of how the regular season will look, Bears fans are in for a bumpy ride. The Bears' offensive woes continued against the Cardinals as the first-team unit failed to score any points. Here are my notes from Saturday night's 14-9 loss to the Cardinals.

Continue reading "Bears' offense can't finish against the Cardinals"

>Two takeaways in the second half helped the Bears either maintain their lead or quickly regain it. Lance Briggs’ diving interception and Danieal Manning’s strip were just more examples of this team’s never-ending ability to get turnovers. 

Continue reading "Cutler leads Bears to 25-19 win in Seattle"

n Trent Green replaced him and was sacked four times and picked off four times by the Bear defense. Lance Briggs snagged two interceptions, and Brian Urlacher and Charles Tillman each added with one of their own. St. Louis only ran the ball for 14 total yards on 19 carries, so the defense did its job on both fronts. No one should be pounding their chests over thumping a two-win team though. 

Continue reading "Bears Defense Shines in Win Over Rams"

According to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, San Francisco illegally contacted Chicago linebacker Lance Briggs’ uber-agent, Drew Rosenhaus, during the 2007 season – a “blatant, outright, stupid, stupid, stupid violation of NFL anti-tampering policy,” he remarked. “We basically caught [San Francisco GM] Scot McCloughan with his hands in the proverbial cookie jar. If you know what I mean.” This attempt at humor left many witnesses baffled and appalled, especially when the commissioner followed it up with a series of erratic winks.

Continue reading ""Get Your Hands Off My Linebacker!""

t exactly Ditka vs Walsh, but the battle between the Bears and the 49ers over the proposed trade of Lance Briggs does have some drama to it.

     According to Fox Sports' Jay Glazer , the Bears will bring a case to the commissioner's office regarding potential tampering problems between the 49ers and Brigg's agent Drew Rosenhaus.  At issue was a proposed trade between the two teams involving Briggs heading out west.  The problem is, according to the Bears, the 49ers began talks with Rosenhaus about the deal before the team granted permission to do so.

Continue reading "Bears and 49ers Contract Troubles"

Brian Griese was traded back to his old team today for an undisclosed 2009 draft pick. We all knew this was coming, especially since he was due a $300,000 roster bonus tomorrow and wouldn’t have stayed on the roster even if he hadn’t been traded. This is comforting news for Angelo, who got something, anything, for Greesee rather than just giving him the ol’ das boot. I don’t really understand what the Bucs were thinking. Take a gander at their current QB roster for ‘08:

Continue reading "Griese traded to Bucs for '09 draft ..."

So the prodigal son has returned without ever having left. Lance Briggs agreed to a six-year contract with the Bears today worth about $36 million with $13 million in guaranteed bonuses. After all the fuss and drama of last season, it’s good to see Briggs finally get the huge contract he deserves. Briggs played like a possessed man in ’07, ranking second on the team in tackles with 140, including ten tackles-for-loss. He also added two sacks, two forced fumbles, and a fumble recovery. If you watched any game last year, you know this guy was always leaving it all on the field every game, holding down the weak side position and providing a great complement to Urlacher. And now that he’s coming back, we can be certain Lovie will keep Urlacher in the middle instead of experimenting with him on the weak side (He’s also incredibly smart. Remember when he crashed his Lamborghini on the Edens at 4 AM the night before practice and inexplicably left the scene? I mean, come oooonnnnn, talk about intangibles). More importantly, with a healthy Harris and Dvoracek holding down the interior of the D-Line, Urlacher and Briggs will be able to move more effectively throughout the second level instead of constantly having to inch up and provide run support. Come to think of it, this should come as no surprise. Briggs had stated a desire to remain in Chicago towards the end of the season, and the front office is famous for its loyalty and inclination to re-sign players rather than explore options through free agency. You had Tillman and Vasher re-signed during the regular season and now Briggs, in addition to Grossman, Orton, Clark, and Brown over the past few weeks. Clearly, they’re viewing consistency as the best course of direction for the immediate future and I think it will serve us well (That is, except with Benson, who as one enlightened colleague notes should just be flat-out dropped, like a bad habit).

Continue reading "Briggs decides to stay in Chitown, ..."

Signing Lance Briggs, or Karlos Dansby
(although Dansby might get a long term deal from the Cardinals, while
Briggs will most likely never talk to anyone from Chicago again) would

Continue reading "Champ's Offseason Plans"