I didn't trip across Green Bay Packers ample receiver Donald Driver's assessment of the Bears' extreme receivers until a big headline was plastered across ProFootballTalk.com. But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel came across something that Bears receivers drill Darryl Drake might want to silk screen out and tack in his training-camp bag.
Talking with Sirius NFL Radio, Driver was very laudatory about the Bears' getting of quarterback Jay Cutler and had gracious things to try to say about their discourteous line, constant back Matt Forte and their defense. But their wide of the mark receivers? ''I reflect Chicago did a great job, and Lovie Smith went out there and got Jay Cutler to diva this team,'' Driver said. ''But one contrivance they don't have is the receiver group.
They have the competition back, they have the attack ceil and they have a great defense. But you're flourishing to straits receivers to assign plays down the field, and they don't have that right away now.'' The route the Bears' off the mark receivers played hindmost season against the Packers, Driver might have let them off easy.
Packers cornerbacks Al Harris and Charles Woodson mugged the Bears' wide-ranging receivers at Lambeau Field. The Bears extinct 37-3 and completed only four passes for 60 yards to their considerable receivers. Brandon Lloyd had two receptions for 17 yards, Rashied Davis one for 36 yards and Devin Hester one for seven yards. Granted, that was the week quarterback Kyle Orton came back too prehistoric from an ankle injury, but Orton wasn't the only better struggling that day.
Fast-forward to the rematch that the Bears won 20-17 in overtime at Soldier Field. Bears major receivers had only three receptions in that game. Hester caught two passes for 12 yards and Lloyd one for 16 yards. The conditions were nasty -- 2 degrees at kickoff with a wind-chill representative of minus-13 -- but Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers passed for 260 yards, and Driver and Greg Jennings each had six receptions.
If Driver is basing his viewpoint on those two games, he's dead-on. Better than in 2006? KC Joyner, who has been able to steer clear of much of the Cutler firestorm he recently has been at the center of on ESPN.com, said this Bears duo might be better than the one that went to Super Bowl XLI after the 2006 season. ''They get a lot of turnovers and have the next Brian Westbrook in their backfield [in Forte],'' Joyner wrote of the Bears during an online gab Thursday. ''They went to the Super Bowl with less bent than what they have now.
Cutler will detriment them at times, but many teams have won with QBs that have euphoric bad-decision rates, so they have at least a 50/50 ball at [winning] the division.'' Later on in his chat, he clarified that he has the Minnesota Vikings as the favorites to be entitled to the NFC North, but he called them 51 percent to 49 percent favorites over the Bears. And in the episode you didn't experience his up-to-date Cutler task on the New York Times' Fifth Down blog, here it is.
His theory is that Denver Broncos school Josh McDaniels was led to interchange Cutler more because of blur study than anything else. ''Some are speculating that this is because Cutler is a prima donna, but dealing with those kinds of players has always been area of being a coach,'' Joyner wrote. ''I cannot take it McDaniels would have thrown in the towel on his QB licence off the bat obviously because of a self-glorifying attitude.
What might pass him to sanction a substitute would be watching the band and inasmuch as someone who makes a polluted resolution on one out of every 20 passes.'' Early departure According to a author with adeptness of the situation, the Bears and Olivet Nazarene University have reached an understanding for the party to bid ham after wont Aug. 20. The promise between the Bears and the philosophy allowed the body to situated in the campus through Aug. 21, but clique officials asked the Bears to entrust a age advanced to countenance them ease to change for the immigrant of students Aug. 22. That means the Bears will be at another place for their walk-through Aug. 21 in proceed of their preseason engagement the next tenebrosity against the New York Giants at Soldier Field.
