How is this pronounced? Pih-sa, PEE-sa, PIE-sa?

I would tell you that you are getting a hell of a player, but the last time I said that about a former Ram that went to the Bears, you got this...

Not a bad pickup- he was one of the better players on a bad defense last year and ended up as a "change of scheme" casualty. I don't know if they have plans for him on the strong side, or if he's just injury insurance, but either way not a bad move at all.

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Fire Phil Emery

He will start at OL. The Hunter Hillemeyer experiment is over.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

LOL. A four year productive starter isn't an "experiment".

The job of the Sam linebacker in the Bears system is to eat blockers and plug holes on most plays. Even with perfect play, it's a thankless job. The Mike and Will will always make most of the plays, no matter who the people are filling those roles.

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Fire Phil Emery

+ 2

Hunter is an average player...not great, not bad.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

You must mean the Nick Roach experiement. He has been the starter there until yesterday.

Seems like a solid move.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

It is a solid move.

Ive been complaining about Hillenmeyer for two years now. So I'm loving this. Hillenmeyer has his moments, but the are becoming fewer and fewer. And the Bears knew that. The writing on the wall was Roach.

Point is, how many teams, with a winning attitude, do you see Hillenmeyer starting for? Do you see HH starting in NE, Philly, Pitt, etc?

The Bears could have brought in multiple FA's over the years to finally solidify that pos. Now they did. It doesn't matter how talented your other two LB's were. Good teams would have brought in another talented LB.

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"Mattress technology has come a long way"

- Dan Bernstein, 2016

All the Pisa's are in place.

I said it first. If you see a writer use that line you know it was plagerized.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I don't know what a "winning attitude" is, but New England and Philadelphia are poor examples to give of teams with stellar linebacker play. Hillenmeyer probably would have started for either team- at least the 2007 version. He was also injured for much of 2008, hence you saw a lot more Nick Roach (who was not very good).



I can count on two hands the number of teams with three above-average linebackers, and on one hand the number of teams with multiple potential/probable pro bowlers. Throwing free agent money to make marginal upgrades at your strongest position = salary cap FAIL.

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Fire Phil Emery

no stewart bradley love, huh?

I think he's a very good player. I don't mean to make it sound like they have no one at linebacker, but both Philly and New England have been thin. Either team would have loved to have had a Hunter Hillenmeyer level player in at least one of the LB positions.

Also, now that I think about it, LOL at the "winning attitude" of the Eagles. The Eagles? Does winning attitude build up with every subsequent NFC Championship game loss?

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Fire Phil Emery

now you're speakin my language!

He's playing like a Pisa crap.




Me too.

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Can't wait to hear Nort butcher this guy's name.

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Du hockey comme dans le temps

What do you base that on? If they loved the idea of a Hillenmeyer LB, they should have pried him out of the clutches of the bears...



Attitude in the sense that they don't shoot themselves in the foot in addressing obvious holes. Some teams have the attitude that they can truly win every year, despite the jingoistic nonsense GM's put out there in the media. And they make moves to constantly improve. The Bears could have done so at multiple positions, every year. They saw this kid, and they grabbed him, finally.

If you want to go Bernstein retarded on me for using wining attitude, so be it. Five NFC Championships in 8 years is in essence, a winning football team.

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"Mattress technology has come a long way"

- Dan Bernstein, 2016

They've also, in essence, been in the same number of Super Bowls as the Bears in the past decade. Notice also that the Eagles were a really bad organization until they happened to get the second pick in the draft and picked up a really good QB. That's not a coincidence. It's also not evidence of "winning attitude".

As for Hillenmeyer, I'm not sure how they could have priced him out of range of the Bears, since there's a salary cap, and the Eagles for one have always run right up to the edge of it. Plus, players aren't perfectly transferable. The player you need to play strong side linebacker in the Bears defense is not going to be playing OLB in the 3-4 the Patriots play.

Making moves and "being aggressive" is really fun and it makes people feel good in March when there's nothing going on and their team (probably) didn't win the Super Bowl again. Unfortunately, it adds up quickly, and it doesn't really show results on the field. The Cowboys and Redskins are consistently two of the most active off-season teams in the NFL. When's the last time either one won a playoff game? Meanwhile, what do the Colts, Patriots, Steelers, and Giants have in common (besides from HOF QBs in the case of the first two)? They don't go crazy every time they have a hole and fill it with the most expensive free agents possible. In fact, the one time I can think of that one of these teams did do this, it's backfired pretty badly; Adelius Thomas has looked pretty mediocre with the Patriots. I'm also not counting the Randy Moss trade because they got him for so cheap that the move was a bit of a no-brainer, and Moss was apparantly able to pick his team when the Radiers wanted to unload him, thus tying their hand as to the price of acquisition.

So, what do the teams that have won every Super Bowl since 2003 have in common? That they don't go apeshit every time they have a hole. You need to manage the weaknesses you have, because you're not going to plug them all, no matter how good the team is. You simply cannot afford it. And in the case of the Bears, the cap has been prioritized so that when the single most important weakness became possible to fix (the QB position), they had the flexibility to do it.

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Fire Phil Emery

I lol'd.

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You can't see me because of internet.

The landowner effectively owns part shares in millions of part-time slaves called, "taxpayers." -Roy L
A Personal Relationship with Jesus?

Boopity Beepity Boppity ...

(wtf ... is football turning into hockey with the goofy-assed names?!?)

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George