NFL Free Agency

The biggest news about the Free agency in the NFL has been the Bears picking up Julius Peppers, as well as Chester Taylor and Brandon Manumaleuna. Now granted, these pickups have drastically improved the team and not to many people will argue that point, but lets look at the players that the Bears picked up last year. We have Jay Cutler, Orlando Pace, Frank Omiyale, Josh Bullocks, and Kevin Shaffer. Obviously the pickup of Cutler and Pace were the biggest news for the Chicago Bears and pretty much all around the league with the Bears finally snagging a great quarterback. Supposedly those two, in addition of the other singings made the Bears a much better team, and granted we do not know how the season would have gone with Orton as our quarterback, but I do not think it would have been all that much better.

Now although this is my first post and no way for you to know this, I have been talking about our offensive line for the past couple of years and how we need to improve it. Last year, the Jay Cutler was sacked 35 times. His last year with the Broncos he was sacked only 11 times. Kyle Orton's last year with the Bears gave him 27 sacks. It doesn't matter who the quarterback is trying to throw the ball too if he cant even complete a three-step drop and release the ball. So forget about talking about picking up a free agent wide receiver or even finding one in the draft, we have 5 wide receivers. And that's not including Devin Hester because he is not a wide receiver, he is a return man, that was tried to be made a receiver. But the Bears failed at that, just like they failed to see that Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo need to be fired.

There are not too many names in the free agency list for offensive line, but one is Chester Pitts at guard. If we don't pick him up we should try for Darren Sharper for FS and then forget about the defense unless something else big falls into our lap. The addition of Peppers, and the return of Urlacher should greatly improve our defense from last year. We should focus our few picks in the draft and get some more players for the offensive line. While we might not be able to find starters for the O-line that late into the draft, its still a possibility and who knows, it might light a fire under the current O-lines to get themselves in shape and pick up a block or two.

Strength of Teams for Next Year

With so few players eligible for the free agency this year, there is not that much talent shifting around. So far there hasn't been too many trades either. So with that being said, most teams should repeat their performance from last year. Yes, there will be differences from last year's teams, mostly the teams that have had the biggest changes from last year, namely the Bears with their free agent signings, the Vikings, depending on Farve and which way he is going to sway this year, the Cardinals, losing Warner, Boldin, and Rolle but picking up Rhodes. The Bears will improve this year to a second spot in their devision behind the Packers, The Vikings will drop to third in the NFC North with or without Farve, and the Cardinals will not fare so well this year. The only thing that they are thankful for is their division. But they better watch out for the 49ers.

The Jets have improved their secondary with the addition of Cromartie, which pretty much means the only team in their division that might, and I repeat, might have a chance at beating the Jets are the Patriots, but Welker better rush that healing along, because then the Jets might just sweep their division.

The Ravens have also improved their receiving group with taking Boldin from the Cardinals. They also resigned Mason, so that should give Joe Flacco plenty to throw towards when he's not giving the ball to Ray Rice, who should have another great season this next year. The Baltimore Ravens will run into some small problems with the Steelers who will be motivated to get back to the top of the division and might hit a speed bump with the Bengals, but shouldn't have too much of a problem with them.

The rest of the teams did not make too much moves so far during this free agency period and we will have to wait until the draft to see what they do. But don't look for your team to change from the bottom of your division to the top from the draft picks that they have, because even though a great draft pick might be a very valuable player, they can only play one position. They can't bring you to the superbowl. Teams that were on the bubble last season or lost early on, lets see who you pick up and how they will make a difference for you.