Jerry Angelo, Lovie Smith and the rest of the Bears’ brain trust will be pondering these questions in the 20 days left until the NFL draft:
1. Will Nick Saban and the Miami Dolphins, drafting second, beat the Bears to the punch in trading down in the first round?
The Bears, drafting fourth, and the Dolphins would like to add choices. The Minnesota Vikings (7 and 18), Dallas Cowboys (11 and 20) and San Diego (12 and 28) are the only teams with multiple first-round picks and thus the ammunition to trade up. But are any of those teams interested?
2. Would the Bears be interested in helping the Vikings move up? Haven’t the Bears already helped them enough by passing up Randy Moss and Daunte Culpepper in recent drafts?
3. Was running back Cedric Benson’s subpar workout at Texas enough to knock him out of Angelo’s fourth-spot thinking?
Two years ago, when the Bears also were drafting fourth, a slow 40-yard dash time by Arizona State pass rusher Terrell Suggs disappointed Angelo, who understandably believes a fourth pick and a $15 million signing bonus better be “special.”
Benson’s times from high 4.5s and mid-4.6s were not special, but he is a big back who could complement Thomas Jones. Benson remains the predicted Bears choice by the respected Pro Football Weekly.
4. Would bigger, faster, more-versatile but less-experienced Ronnie Brown of Auburn interest the Bears if he is still available?
Brown is projected to go to Miami if the Dolphins don’t trade.
The San Francisco 49ers are drafting first for the first time since the 1970 merger and are expected to take a quarterback, with home-grown Aaron Rodgers of Cal the favorite over Alex Smith of Utah.
“Aaron is certainly ahead of Alex because of the style of offense he ran,” said new 49ers coach Mike Nolan, who added he doesn’t expect the 49ers to trade.
5. Who will the Cleveland Browns take at the third spot?
A running back would be surprising after the Browns obtained Reuben Droughns from Denver to compete with Lee Suggs. They also have William Green, but probably not for long.
Rodgers or Smith is the most likely candidate, which is fine by the Bears because they don’t seem interested in a quarterback this high.
6. If top receivers Braylon Edwards of Michigan, Mike Williams of USC and Troy Williamson of South Carolina are all available to the Bears, do they dare pass one up and trade down, hoping to land one later?
Ignoring quarterback, the only positions that make sense for the offensively challenged Bears with their first pick are running back and receiver.
Because they have added running back Jones and receiver Muhsin Muhammad in free agency the last two off-seasons, the biggest question Angelo and Smith must answer is: Which one needs more help?
Jones has Adrian Peterson now that former 1,000-yard rusher Anthony Thomas apparently is out of the picture. Muhammad has Justin Gage, Bobby Wade and Bernard Berrian.
Because two receivers play at the same time and only one running back, a case could be made for receiver. But because Jones never has carried more than 240 times in a season, and because Smith wants to return to the Bears’ running roots, this is the coach’s take: “I think it’s a given we’d like to have two running backs we feel good about playing. Every team needs a couple good running backs if you want to be a running team. We really like Thomas Jones and when Adrian Peterson got a chance to play, he was good, but you can make a case that we still need another running back? Yes.”
7. Do they take Benson ahead of the top receivers?
That’s a gamble, but the Bears already are proven gamblers by the way they are approaching their quarterback dilemma.
The 3-4 phenomenon
With the Patriots playing the 3-4 defense and the AFC dominating the league with the only six basically 3-4 teams, there is a natural trend to copy.
Former Patriots defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel wants to install the 3-4 in Cleveland. Former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Nolan wants to do likewise in San Francisco. The Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins are considering similar moves and other teams claim to have 3-4 looks in their playbooks.
The irony is the Patriots may be heading the opposite direction after releasing inside linebacker Roman Phifer and probably losing inside linebacker Tedy Bruschi after a stroke.
“The Patriots really don’t sit there and play just a 3-4 anyway,” Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera said.
The Patriots have so many versatile players it was difficult to tell how they were lining up, which is exactly what coach Bill Belichick wants. In the Super Bowl, they played more 4-3 and 5-2–even 2-5–alignments to contain Philadelphia quarterback Donovan McNabb.
“The defensive ends look like linebackers and the linebackers look like defensive ends,” Rivera said.
It’s premature to think the 3-4 is going to become the rediscovered rage.
“I remember when the `46′ was hot,” Rivera said. “Other teams tried to do some things with it and never had the success. The defenses that had success were all Buddy Ryan-coached defenses. To say everybody has to become 3-4 coaches, it could be disaster.”
Personnel usually dictates strategy, so it’s interesting that the Patriots had so much success the last two years by plugging players from the 4-3 of the Bears into their 3-4, led by nose tackles Ted Washington and Keith Traylor. Then linebacker-pass rusher Rosevelt Colvin joined up. Washington and Traylor had good years playing side by side in 2001 but are better as nose tackles.
Rivera said the Bears can give 3-4 looks because athletic ends Alex Brown and Adewale Ogunleye can drop into coverage the way Richard Dent used to do.
Rivera and Smith didn’t get to coach Colvin, who would make the “perfect” strong-side linebacker the Bears now want, Rivera said.
“Put him on the tight end and he whips the tight end. Put him in the bubble [over nobody] and tell him to blow the fullback up, he’s going to do that. He’s a big physical guy who can run,” Rivera said.
“Can he fit in the 4-3? Absolutely. Can he fit in the 3-4? Absolutely. Brian Urlacher could play in the 3-4. Lance Briggs could play in the 3-4. We’re a 4-3 defense because of our philosophy and the players we have. Tommie Harris (defensive tackle) would not be a 3-4 player.”
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dpierson@tribune.com
