October 31, 2007
Bears general manager provides mid-term report
By Larry Mayer
LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Bears general manager Jerry Angelo met with the media Wednesday at Halas Hall to discuss his team’s performance during the first half of the season:
“We’re at the halfway point as we all know and I’m certainly very disappointed where we’re at. I can get into a lot of reasons why; certainly not excuses [but] reasons. For whatever reason, it’s just not happening really on either side of the ball. Our special teams have been very good. I believe we’re ranked third overall in the league. That’s really the only thing that’s been anything like last year. Offensively, the turnovers, the inability to really sustain the kind of running game that we need; all those things have really come back and have bitten us all year. Defensively, we’re not creating the turnovers that we normally do. We’ve let teams control the ball on us more than has been done in the past. It’s just not clicking. There’s no real rhythm to either side of the ball. Hopefully this time off will give us a chance to reflect—our coaches, our players—and as long as mathematically we’re not out of it, we’re in it, and we’re looking forward to the second half of the season.”
How tough has it been to see top draft picks Rex Grossman and Cedric Benson not perform as expected?
“It’s disappointing, but I’m not going to pin it that they can’t play. Are you saying that they’re the guys that we’re winning because of? That’s not the case, at least thus far. So it is what it is. You win as a team. It’s not one player. You don’t build a team around one player. We didn’t last year and we’re not this year.”
Was having to switch quarterbacks the biggest disappointment in the first half of the season?
“Certainly at that time it was our biggest disappointment, but we did it based on the results, not based on emotion. We needed to make a change and we needed to make a major change and obviously that position speaks for itself.”
Is there any way you could have foreseen having a 3-5 record coming off the Super Bowl appearance and with all the talent on this team?
“Nothing surprises me. Every year when we go into a year I always say this to you, certainly to myself, and I know this through experience: Your team takes on its own identity. You don’t look at what you did last year whether it was good or bad and say, ‘Well, we’re going to pick up where we left off.’ That’s not the case. Each team has to establish its own identity. It’s an intangible. It’s a unique dynamic in sport with all teams, particularly in football because it’s such a team sport given the number of players that we have. Did we expect this? Certainly not. It’s certainly not where we thought we would be, but we’re here. We’re dealing with it and we still have hope, and that’s what we’re going to play on.”
What do you expect your team leaders to do during the second half of the season?
“Just what they have been. It’s not a matter of effort. I can really only think of one time in one game that I would question a little bit of what our effort was. But we’ve been getting good effort. The leaders have been leading our team in terms of the focus on the practice field. We’ve done all those things. We just haven’t clicked. It’s that simple. I wish I could give you a simple reason why it hasn’t happened. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be in this boat.”
As an organization, does it bother you how Brian Urlacher has been handling himself away from the field [in terms of dealing with the Chicago media?
“We understand the territory, all of us do. We’re the frontline people. I’m talking about our marquee players, talking about myself, the head coach. But to my knowledge he hasn’t violated or broken any rules, so I’ll leave it at that. You talked to Brian. I’m certainly not encouraging any of our players not to talk to the media. I can assure that.”
Are you going to have to make the quarterback situation a top priority in the offseason?
“I want to wait until the offseason to decide that.”
What needs to change for this predicament to change?
“We need to play with consistency on both sides of the ball. What we need to do we’ve done, and we’ve done this year. I’m not going to keep going back to last year. Last year’s in the past. We know what we have to do and we know we need to do it together and we know we need to do it now, but we need to play with more consistency. Nobody has to play outside of his box. Just take care of your own backyard, take ownership of what you have to do—your responsibilities—and everything will fall into place. You always need a little bit of luck—luck’s part of the game—but right now we’re shooting ourselves in the foot, and we can control that.”
Have you second-guessed yourself during the first half of the season?
“No. Unless you talk about a specific … I certainly can’t look at anything from a personnel standpoint that we look back at and we would have done a little bit differently. I’m not really one to do that as we’re living in the present and certainly as we’re moving forward.”
How concerned are you with Urlacher’s back situation?
“No more so than I am any other player that’s playing with pain. That’s unfortunate how all that snowballed in the last few days. But we do what 31 other teams do with injuries. Brian’s playing with some pain. We’re understanding of that, and it’s difficult for any player. It’s something that he’s having to deal with, and he’s performing good on the field and he’s practicing and we’ll leave it at that.”
How has Lance Briggs performed?
“Lance has played well, yes.”
Has there been any talk about a possible contract extension for him?
“No, we haven’t talked to Lance about that. We’ll just wait until that time presents itself and then we’ll make our decisions.”
Would you hesitate to sign someone off the street if you felt he could come in and help the team?
“We wouldn’t hesitate to do anything if we felt it was in our best interest, but I’m not naïve enough to think that that player’s going to be out in the street that’s going to change the destiny of our football team today.”
Why hasn’t the run game been able to get going?
“Part of it is because we haven’t been able to score early in games and we’ve been playing from behind and so our game plan has altered. We’re throwing the ball much more than what I thought we’d be throwing this year. Our game plan is not to throw it 40 times a game. That’s part of it. The turnovers tie into it, too. When you turn the ball over, obviously it stops your drives. When you have given up long drives as we have—we’ve had five-six minute drives against our defense—that kills time of possession. That all impacts the running game. It’s not one person, guys. And I would hate to think that you’re going to single out one person and say, ‘This is the reason why they can’t run the ball.’ It’s a team sport. There are a lot of things that are involved in that.”
Has Cedric Benson performed the way you expected?
“Cedric is performing to the best of his abilities. He’s giving us top effort. That’s all I can ask of any player.”
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Bears general manager provides mid-term report - Chicago Bears
Bears general manager Angelo provides mid-term report
Bears general manager Angelo provides mid-term report
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