Bears Keep Making Moves!

I was going to take it easy on the Bears offseason talk, but it's hard to do that when the Bears have made moves every day. Even better is that the moves are being made in the right areas. Over the last couple of days the Bears have added a starting quality defensive end in in Willie Young, someone to compete for the kick returner job at a sub $1 million price tag in Domenik Hixon, and of course I'm sure everyone heard today's news, the Bears are bringing Charles Tillman back at a very good price for the team. So it's not like they were just making moves to make moves, they were filling in areas of concern for the team.

I had said in my last post that getting Tillman was the best case scenario for the team. However, I didn't foresee them getting him back for $3.5 million. I was thinking in the neighborhood of $6 million, at very least, so I guess there is a better case scenario out there. What this means is that not only will the Bears have one of the better corners in the league back (and as classy of an individual as you will find at that), but they still have $4 million in cap room. With 6 picks in this upcoming draft, that gives them plenty of room to get the draft picks signed as well as pick up another veteran player or two That's huge for the Bears in making sure they have plenty of wiggle room, especially when you consider that the current Bears roster now has 62 players on it (in other words, guys will have to be cut, clearing even more cap room, a minimum of $3,780,000. That's a very good situation for the Bears to be in.

The other signings, first, Domenik Hixon. There's a good chance that he doesn't make the final roster, but he's someone to come in there and compete for the vacancy left by Devin Hester. He does have a history of being a very solid returner, and his legs should still be pretty fresh since he never did play a whole lot of receiver. He's 29 years old, so he may not be young, but he's not old either. The bottom line is that this was a low risk, potentially decent reward type of signing.

With the Willie Young signing the Bears got a still relatively young defensive end who can be a starter. Of course you hope that David Bass or Cornelius Washington breaks out, but having someone like Young to fall back on is not a bad option. The bad news is that he's not a great pass rusher, but he is good enough to be disruptive regularly, he just doesn't always finish the play up. While you obviously want that sack, putting pressure on the quarterback is still a good thing. He's not going to go to the Pro Bowl or push a team to a Superbowl, but he is a solid player.

So, with those signings, where are the Bears now?

On offense it's the same as last time. A little depth on the offensive line would be nice, but there's nothing overly urgent right now.

On defense there are still a few thing that could use some work. First is that I'd like to see a cheap backup corner, unless Hayden or Frey can fill that void. They could use one more DT for depth, and of course there's the Safety spot that still needs at least one good starter. It does make me hopeful that the Bears will add a safety early in the draft though. As for the ends, while it doesn't look like a great pass rushing group (unless Washington and/or Bass have a breakout year), it's a group that at least doesn't put a team in a bad place. With what they have on defense right now we can at least be sure that they will have a better defense than they did last year, assuming everyone stays relatively healthy (which is a big assumption after last year).

The front office continues to build the team up, especially on defense, and are getting value for their dollar as well. There's still things that need to be addressed, and just remember, having players that fit needs doesn't mean they have the best guys for those positions, they just have guys that can handle the positions. Of course they won't have the best player at every spot, that's impossible, but they at least have guys that should be able to handle those spots.