My Friends,
For Jerry Angelo, it just may have been the perfect moment. The strains of "Suicide is Painless" wafted through the Bears draft room. Patchouli oil scented the air. The goop in an orange lava lamp flopped over on itself. His prized autographed picture of Alan Alda sat on his desk, smiling back at him. And Tony Medlin had somehow come up with an authentic pair of zils for Jerry so that he could completely find his zone and play along with the music at just the right time.
“Had to go to Amazon,” Tony said. “Nothing like these on the North Shore.”
And so the cymbals rang out seven times this past weekend, once for each of the damaged collegiates Angelo selected to restock the Bears’ M*A*S*H unit. As he set out to reshape his roster with a bevy of new talent, the only common thread seemed to be the thick hospital charts most brought along from their campus infirmaries.
The list of casualties is impressive, longer than some teams had picks:
Round 2 – RB Matt Forté, torn left meniscus and posterior cruciate ligament in 2006,
Round 3 - DT Marcus Harrison, knee scope in 2006, torn left ACL in spring 2007,
Round 4 – S Craig Steltz, suffered right shoulder stinger in 2008 BCS Championship game that still wasn’t healed by the Combine in late February,
Round 5 – CB Zackary Bowman, torn left ACL in spring 2006; torn right patellar tendon spring 2007,
Round 7 – ORG-ORT Kirk Barton, 2003 left shoulder surgery, right ACL tear 2005, and right knee scoped in 2008 before the Combine,
Round 7 - WR Marcus Monk, torn lateral meniscus and had an articular cartilage fracture of the lateral femoral condyle in his right knee. Don’t know what that is, but it hurts just typing it.
Even the healthy guys couldn't escape the stethoscope, with
freshly-minted starting left tackle Chris Williams the subject of draft
eve talk that he suffered from some sort of spinal cord affliction, a
rumor no doubt being spread by another team drafting behind the Bears if you
would believe the wonks at Halas Hall.
This all comes on the heels of a 2007 draft class that only got quality minutes from two of its group and sent three of its nine selections to injured reserve.
Is the supply of NFL-quality talent so thin that Angelo has to pick guys who show up with a note from their doctor? Or maybe it’s that when he does take someone without any history in the training room the guy forms his own personal M*A*S*H unit in the pros (see Benson and Grossman). Or could it be that the McCaskeys “suggested” Angelo take these guys, with the idea that they’d get a damaged-goods discount on signing day while also making full use of the retainers they pay their medical staff. That’s gotta be it. There’s always a money angle with this team.
Still, Angelo did address the biggest needs on offense (OLT, RB, WR), except for the 800-pound gorilla in the room wondering who will drop the snap under Olin Kreutz’s squatty thighs.
He filled the silhouette at offensive tackle with Williams, who comes with an SEC pedigree but nevertheless will have to learn to yell, “Look out!” as he gets used to the speed of the NFL game. That should make Grossman (Orton?) comfortable, knowing his backside is protected by a rookie cutting his teeth while guys like Dwight Freeney and Jared Allen wipe the drool off their chins.
The rest of this draft is a crapshoot. Angelo is going to look like a hero if half the guys he picked stay healthy.
Forté is someone who can bang between the tackles and make the first guy miss, but I sense a bit of Brad Muster with his upright running style. He’s going to take a beating (and cough it up) unless he learns to drop his pads.
I read where Brandon Lloyd was figuratively “put on notice” when Vandy WR Earl Bennett was taken in the third round, but I think the guy who should be worried is Marty Booker. Bennett has all the makings of an ideal slot receiver – strong, fearless and can catch – everything the Bears counted on Booker to do in his first go-around. Lloyd? He should be looking at Mark Bradley, who will win the outside job if he stays healthy. Big IF.
Who knows what Angelo was thinking when he grabbed the
twice-broken Harrison with his second third-round pick. Did Angelo take
Harrison because he missed Tank Johnson (in so many ways), or was it because he
was afraid the Halas Hall stash would run out now that Johnny Gilmore is gone?
This guy won the Superfecta – speeding, driving on a restricted license, not
wearing a seatbelt, and possession of ecstasy and two cigars that tested
positive for pot. But I hear he was no problem for the police. Kind of mellow.
So following in the dubious legacy of Rashaan Salaam, Alonzo Mayes, Tank and
Gilmore, we now have Harrison. Wasn’t it Santayana who said, “Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it?"
Steltz in round four reminds me of a young Archuleta. He’s a hitter who will make runners pay if he can keep from getting hurt. That shoulder he injured in the championship game hadn’t healed by the Combine seven weeks later. Red flag? We have to figure the Bears checked him out, but didn’t they do the same with Airese Currie?
Same goes for Bowman in round five. He’s fast and can cover, but he’s already had problems with both knees. Can you say boom or bust?
At least their other fifth round pick, TE Kellen Davis, has managed to stay out of the trainer’s room. Staying out of the pokey is another matter, though, as he was arrested for aggravated assault during 2006. Right around that time, on December 15, 2006, Jerry Angelo stood at the Halas Hall podium in the aftermath of the gun raid on Tank Johnson’s house (this was before Johnson’s “bodyguard” was killed) and told us, "I tell players this: It's not their talent that determines their careers, it's their character that determines their careers." To paraphrase Dutchie, Angelo has a good memory – it’s just short.
Rounding out the draft are five final rounders we’ll call “The Magnificent Sevens.” There’s Ervin Baldwin, a tweenerish DE/LB from Michigan State who can room with fellow Spartan Davis during training camp and keep him from beating up summer school students in Bourbonnais, Chester Adams, a stout 6’4”, 323 pound right guard out of Georgia who goes by the nickname Big Cheese and can also play right tackle, Joey LaRocque, a skinny, speed-challenged linebacker who reminds one of Hunter Hillenmeyer on training wheels, the previously mentioned Barton, a starter and captain for Ohio State who can’t stay whole, and Monk, of whom the Pro Football Weekly 2008 Draft Preview wrote, “Could not run away from anyone and moved like an 80-year-old man with arthritis during his senior season. Jammed clear out of bounds against South Carolina.” For that he’s the winner of this year’s Holiday Inn Express award, which is a good thing since last year’s recipient, Trumaine McBride, was the only late-round 2007 pick who made any kind of impact.
That’s the Dirty Dozen, and you know all twelve aren’t going to make the squad. The way I see it Angelo goes through draft picks like cheap toys from the dollar store, but at least this way the Bears will have fewer unsigned free agents to fly in and board during their rookie minicamp this weekend in their quest to fill out the 80-man roster.
No doubt one of the lesser McCaskeys has an Excel spreadsheet to figure out how much that’s worth.
LBF
May 1, 2008