Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Offseason

In 2010 the Chicago Bears made it to the NFC championship only to be beaten by the Green Bay Packers.

Going into the the offseason I had high hopes for the Bears to improve the team in order to bring a title back to Chicago.  However, I was also scared that their might be no season because of the lockout that occured this year.  Luckely it was resolved and there was a 2011 season.

Going into the offseason there were some major weakness within the team that needed to be addressed.  Most importantly a weak offensive line and lack of a big name wide receiver.  It was obvious that something needed to be done in order to be a contender this season.

Offseason Moves that were done

1.  The NFL Draft

The 2011 draft was very exciting to me because this was the first time in 2 years that Chicago actually had a first round pick due to the deal that gave us quarterback Jay Cutler from Denver.  I was also happy to see that the pick was not wasted and we drafted one of the top offensive line prospects Gabe Carimi from Wisconsin.  The rest of the draft seemed to be rather wasteful in my opinion.  Among other notable picks we selected defensive tackle Stephen Paea and safety Chris Conte.  Overall I feel like the bears did a decent job with the draft, but failed to improve the need for a good wide receiver.

2.  Free Agency

As a after effect of the lockout the free agency period was shortened to just a couple of weeks.  Knowing this I was hoping that the Bears GM Jerry Angelo would take full advantage of this and sign some big name free-agents in order to improve the team.  This was not the case, instead it seemed like we just picked up scraps dropped from other teams.  For example the signing of Roy Williams, Marion Barber, and Chris Spencer.  I was hoping that they would look into adding wide receiver Santonio Holmes or Offensive lineman Harvey Dahl.  Among the big name free-agent we signed none of them.  However, there was one move that made me happy and that was us trading away Greg Olsen in order to improve blacking with bigger tight- ends.  We also let long time offensive lineman Olin Kruetz go which at the time made me worried.  As a result of this going into the season made me rather nervous because it seemed like not all the issues were fixed. 


What this blog is about

This is going to be a blog about the 2011 Chicago Bears season and reflection upon what I saw from them.
I am a big Chicago fan and played football for 7 years so I feel that I could get a good and concise analysis of the season.  Like many Bears fans I was very upset at the outcome of the season and felt that due to bad luck it ruined our playoff chances.  However after looking back at what happened that is not entirely the case why the season ended up so badly.

I will give a analysis of each part of the season and will grade each major player on how they did at the time.  I hope that these posts will help fans understand a little more on what happened to the Bears and to further educate fans about the game and their team.