Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Perloffs of Wisdom

CNNSI is doing their best to keep their finger on the pulse of the Lance Briggs situation, or at least pump some pulse into an otherwise dormant story. As expected, Briggs is nowhere near Bear training confines.

Over the weekend, the Tribune's David Haugh updated us on Briggs's replacement, 2nd-year man, 4th-round draft pick Jamar Williams, whose season was very short last year due to injury. Williams has taken Briggs's place on the depth chart, joined by 2007 third-rounder Michael Okwo.

"I spoke with [Briggs] a couple of weeks ago," Williams said Sunday. "I told him, 'You've got to do what you've got to do.' He said, 'Go and show them I'm replaceable.' "

Haugh also noted that Williams made a better impression on teammates than last year's Briggs-holdout stand-in, Leon Joe. Haugh says some "irreverent" teammates called Joe "Not-Lance," to hurtfully express that he'd never be starting material.

Brian Urlacher, although on record as wanting to see Briggs get paid, has adopted the Lovie Smith philosophy of talking and worrying about only those who are in uniform. Urlacher stated that Williams has looked good, all he's missing is the field experience.

Back to CNNSI now, Peter King brought unqualified hope in his Monday Morning QB column. With no prior or further ado, King wrote as thing he thinks he thinks #9:

I think the Bears will have Lance Briggs playing for them by opening day. Just a hunch.

But the real reason I called you three readers here today is another link on CNNSI that swings the opposite direction: Exploring possible trade scenarios for Lance Briggs. How could I resist clicking that link?

Disappointed!

It seems to me that the author, Andrew Perloff (pictured above), should have knocked on his editor's door after two minutes of thinking about this and asked for a different assignment, rather than apologizing through 5 "scenarios" that make little sense for anyone.

To summarize the scenarios:

1. Briggs for McNabb - Creative way to blow some more on two overblown storylines, the McNabb one stemming from the Eagles' audacity in drafting a QB and the resulting outrage. Perloff writes: "Chicago would probably love to have McNabb even if he wasn't 100 percent, no matter how many positive reports you read about Rex Grossman at minicamp." You think so? Probably?

2. Briggs for Larry Johnson - Herm Edwards handed LJ the ball 4000 times in 2006 and LJ's a free agent after 2007. KC may not plan to pay the big $ for his new contract, but the Bears certainly wouldn't either. Contrary to popular opinion, the Bears are all set with Benson and the original Adrian Peterson. RB isn't an immediate need.

3. Briggs for Clinton Portis - Again, RB's not an immediate need. The colorful Portis just went off-color to get Mike Vick's back. "You want to hunt down Mike Vick over fighting some dogs? I think people should mind their own business. I know a lot of back roads that have the dog fighting if you want to go see it." Uh, yeah, no thanks. Better start working on some new wacky characters, Clint, because this one's downright scary. Where Dolemite Jenkins at? That was a better one.

4. Briggs for Mike Vick - Andrew, Andrew. There's no trade scenario that involves any team being interested in Mike Vick. Just terrible work.

5. Briggs for Chris Simms - Oooh, THE Chris Simms with the bony girl arms and no spleen? The Bears have had a team of monkeys working around the clock trying to figure out how to get him. Problem solved. But not so fast, Perloff confuses matters with other Tampa wares: "Obviously, they'd love to ship Jake Plummer to Chicago." Oh, WOULD they? Listen up, the Bears haven't gotten much return from the Brian Griese investment yet, but what they did buy is dignity enough to not pay for the right to sift through the turd pile in Gruden's stable.

So those are the scenarios. The Bears can trade for dogfighters, fans of dogfighters, the injured, the indigent, and the weakest of the huddled masses. But only at QB or RB, which doesn't make any sense.

The immediate hole is LB. We weren't looking for an answer, but Perloff gave us one anyway and it's not even close. I'd even have accepted WR. With Chris Henry failing another drug test and Brian Finneran blowing out his last ACL, they've got to be on the short list of trade options for the Pro Bowl LB.

Andrew, you get rewrite on the blower, I'll give my barber Tony a call, and together we'll get the worst bits cleaned up before next Picture Day.

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