By Jim Coffman
People – repeat after me: Training camp is meaningless. Of course the Bears have to get their work in, but in terms of people watching the practices or media talking to players and coaches and determining anything definitive about the team? Does not happen.
Over the weekend, the news out of Bourbonnais was that the second-year man out of Nebraska, Zack Bowman, who had that one great game last year (a special teams TD and defensive interception) before tearing his biceps and sitting down for the season, looks like the hottest thing since sliced olive loaf out at cornerback (which is especially important now that veteran Peanut Tillman has been sidelined for most of camp by a back injury).
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Let’s see what Bowman does in exhibitions – and even those barely matter because of the dumbed down schemes teams run to avoid giving away anything about what they really plan to do when the games start to matter.
Bowman had a good practice on Saturday, Lovie gushed about how good he’s been in the off-season and the wishful thinking (we don’t need Tillman – we’ve got Bowman!) kicked into high gear. Cut the hype with a scythe.
Of course everyone wants to get a good look at the Savior from Santa Claus (Ind.) otherwise known as Jay Cutler at the camp that officially started last Friday. And if he just heaves a few to Devin Hester every day and signs a few autographs, everyone should go home happy. But we won’t really know anything about how quickly Cutler will be able to start leading the Bears to success until the season starts.
Another weekend story was based on former Bear Erik Kramer gushing about Cutler’s raw talent. But we already knew the guy has the goods. We didn’t need Kramer to tell us. On the other hand, Kramer in the news reminded fans of something concrete: the 1995 season. That was the one year during both of Ron Turner’s stints as Bears offensive coordinator when he had a legitimate shot at working with a good quarterback experiencing the height of his powers. Kramer was enough of a veteran to really know what he was doing but not so old that he was on the verge of breaking down physically (although it was close – in 1996 he couldn’t avoid it any longer).
And that season, Turner set Kramer up to break just about all of the Bears’ significant single-season passing records. Ever since, Turner hasn’t worked with a quarterback that talented – and healthy . . . until now.
The most interesting bit of information about the Bears right now, which was reiterated in one of the dailies Sunday, is the fact that they are $25 million under the salary cap. Besides the fact that this is another indication the NFL is absolutely printing money, it also makes you wonder again why the heck Jerry Angelo didn’t sign a veteran wide receiver and in particular, why he didn’t sign a certain former St. Louis Ram star.
This has been said several times in several other places already but it must be said again. It is absolutely indefensible that Angelo allowed Jacksonville to sign veteran wideout Torry Holt to a free agent contract toward the end of the off-season.
I don’t care if signing him would have thrown the Bears salary scale out of whack (and come on, no significant damage would have been done – they’re $25 million under the cap!) or if Angelo simply felt he wasn’t worth the money. Holt is an accomplished veteran.
Even if you believe he probably doesn’t have anything left, a small chance that he does would have still been worth a significant expenditure.
Angelo believes that the quarterback makes the receivers and that Jay Cutler will lift the games of young wideouts Earl Bennett or Brandon Rideau or rookies Juaquin Iglesias or Johnny Knox and make at least a couple of them solid NFL receivers.
But that isn’t going to happen this time around. Perhaps one of those four will have a solid season in 2009 and catch maybe 30 passes. Perhaps two of them will develop into decent receivers in 2010 or later (when they have some absolutely necessary experience). And that won’t change no matter how many times Cutler hits them with pinpoint passes in practices.
One guy who doesn’t believe the quarterback makes the receivers by the way? That would be Bill Belichick, who brought Randy Moss to the New England Patriots a couple years ago despite the Pats, led by ultra-QB Tom Brady, having won three Super Bowls in the six years prior.
The Bears just better pray that Hester (who is perfectly positioned for a big-time breakout year after experiencing the kind of prelude performance last season that we hope one of the young receivers will have this season), and Greg Olsen and Matt Forte, can stay healthy – because they will have the ball all the time.
To return to the NFL’s finances . . . I think this is the season the league goes over the $100 million per team, per season mark in terms of the basic TV deal (if it didn’t already do so last year).
What I mean by that is that at some point this year, each team receives a check for over $100 million to pay for its share of this year’s rights fees (although I don’t think that includes the money DirecTV pays for the rights to put all the games on the satellites – that’s yet another check).
That’s $100 million in the bank, before a luxury suite is leased, or an $8 beer is sold. $100 million! In the past few years, the Bears have extended the contracts of so many veterans; there wasn’t a murmur of a possible hold-out coming into camp. Yet they are still $25 million under the cap.
And the numbers will just get bigger in the next few seasons. There has been some chatter that the NFL owners might try to lock-out the players if they don’t give the owners what they want in the collective bargaining negotiations that will heat up in the coming year – but there is just too much money there for everyone in the NFL to imagine that actually happening.
If Cutler, who still has three years left on his rookie contract, should happen to take the Bears to the promised land in the next few years (which will certainly be tough – they need receivers to get older but the defense is running out of time quickly), he might end up signing a contract extension that would make A-Rod jealous.
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Jim Coffman rounds up the sports weekend in this space every Monday. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on August 3, 2009