The Bears Wide Receivers From The 2010-2011 Season

Before the season started everyone thought with the new Bears pass happy offense orchestrated by Mike Martz that Jay Cutler would throw for a ridiculous amount of yards on the season spread out to a few receivers. This was because the Bears had no number one receiver so it seemed feasible that the Bears could have a few receivers hitting the 1,000 yards plateau on the season. With the regular season in the books let’s take a look at how the Bears receivers did stack up this season. Coming into this season we didn’t know who would emerge as the Bears number one wide receiver. Some thought it could be Devin Hester, Jonny Knox, and even Devin Aromashodu.

Well Knox emerged as the Bears number one receiver with 960 yards. He had 100 targets and averaged 18.8 yards per catch. He ranked 21st overall among wide receivers at the position. Not very good in the Martz pass happy offense. Knox showed this season he is never going to be a DeSean Jackson who ranked 12th among wide receivers with 1056 yards or Mike Wallace who ranked 5th among WR with 1257 yards. He is not a complete wide out like either of the mentioned elite players. Knox showed he is a one dimensional player who can run the deep route. This makes him a good second receiver, but not a number one.

Earl Bennett surprised most people by his strong play this season. Before the season started Sexy Rexy and I both agreed that Bennett was a good third receiver because he is solely a possession receiver, but he performs that job well. He emerged as a favorite target of Jay Cutler building off of the Vanderbilt connection and had 46 catches on 70 targets for 561 yards. Bennett came on in the 2nd half of the season, so his numbers next year should be better over the entire season.

When Mike Martz came he said he envisioned Devin Hester in a 3rd down role Lovie Smith quickly rejected that. However, in the long run Martz got what he wanted because it was best for the team. Hester is not a receiver and will never be a good one. He is fine on 3rd downs, and as a backup, but not as a Bears top three receiver. Hester caught 40 passes on way too many targets of 73 for 475 yards.

Two other Bears that were big in the receiving game were not wide receivers- tight end Greg Olsen and running back Matt Forte. Olsen caught 41 passes on 70 targets for 404 yards. Forte had slightly better numbers of 51 receptions on 70 targets for 547 yards with an average of 10.7 per yard.

My love for Devin Aromashodu is well documented. I thought he would emerge as the number one receiver if the Bears gave him the chance. The Bears wanted DA to play the slot and there is some controversy if he just wasn’t good in the slot or if he didn’t want to play it, but either way he lost the little respect the coaching staff had for him and got buried deeper on the bench. His chance of ever being good as a Bear is over so they may as well cut him so he has a chance to sign on with another team before his career is over before it ever got started. That makes me sad because he has tremendous talent.

Thus, the Bears have very good number two and three wide receivers in Johnny Knox and Earl Bennett. All they are missing is that number one receiver which hopefully they will find in free agency. That is a recap of the Bears wide receivers from the 2010-2011 season.

My Quick Thoughts On The Chicago Bears

• Jay Cutler looked awesome. The interception was his fault (he under threw the receiver, which I believe was Aromashodu) and one of his two TDs was all Matt Forte (if you saw the game you know which one), but Cutler still looked good. He looked very mobile, made great decisions (something he didn't do last year), took the sack/hit instead of trying to make a play, and overall looked awesome. But we need to take this game in stride, it was against then Lions. Also, Cutler needs to do what no other QB in Bears history has seemed to do- create scoring drives. Putting up stats is all fine dandy but at the end of the day I need him to throw TDs and not play awful when he smells the red zone.
  
• Matt Forte was like my abusive boyfriend. Every time he hit me (i.e fumbled, made a bad play) he does something to make me fall back in love with him (i.e. 151 receiving yards and 2 TDs)
  
• Speaking of Forte, in his 2 years in Chicago he has NEVER been able to get that one tough yard on the goal line to get a TD. In fact, last year Forte was third among backs getting carries inside the opponents 10 (36) and 5^th among back getting carries inside the opponent's five yard line (19). Yet Forte only ended up with FOUR rushing TDs. Last year, Aaron Rodgers had more rushing TDs than Forte. At this point I blame Lovie Smith for sticking with Forte
  
• SIDENOTE: I LOVE the fact that Lovie went for it on 4^th and goal. It sucks that the Bears didn't get away with any points, but I love the cahones.
  
• Chester Taylor looked awesome as well. I wanted him to get more touches but with Forte being so awesome, I'm conflicted
  
• This offensive line is pure garbage. I'm extremely concerned Cutler doesn't play more than 8 games because he's taking his lumps.
  
• I'm done with Greg Olson. I can handle fumbles (sort of) when you play like DeSean Jackson. But you can't play poorly AND cough up the ball.
  
• Cutler seems to be looking for D.A. a lot and I'm thinking my prediction of Knox being a better fantasy WR than D.A. won't come true. But as a Bears fan I'm glad. D.A. could be a legit #1 wide out and he needs the targets like a legit number one.
  
• This rushing defense looked amazing. I know Best had 2 rushing TDs but only 20 yards on 14 carries. And the D looked awesome.
  
• I might have been a bit premature on calling Brian Urlacher done. Again, it's the Lions, but Urlacher looked really good along with this linebacking corps.
  
• I don't know what to think about this passing D. Shaun Hill looked AWFUL, but he's also Shaun Hill. Stafford didn't look THAT much better but he's also Matthew Stafford. Calvin Johnson could have and should have (and did on his TD) had his way with Chicago's defensive backs because he's so much taller, faster, and stronger than all of them. This worries me when guys like Greg Jennings, Brandon Marshall, Randy Moss and Miles Austin come to town. I still have a little faith in Zack Bowman. But very very little.
  

Greg Olson Sighting

On Sunday afternoon Greg Olson was at Joe’s bar in Chicago attending a Keith Urban concert. This was a small concert where you had to win tickets through Verizon Wireless and America’s country station US 99.5. Last Tuesday I went to a Verizon Wireless store in Lake Zurich with my girlfriend and she won tickets to this concert. I was surprised when she told me that Greg Olson was there. I didn’t have him pegged for a country music fan. I doubt he had to wait hours at Verizon Wireless stores waiting for his name to be drawn though……………………

Ochocinco joins the gay sex

Greg Olson Sucks

Greg Olson was supposed to be an elite TE. He had the size, build, and talent to be in the class of Witten or Gates or Clark or Gonzales, but where has he been. More stats will come, but seriously, just by watching him, why isn't he as good!? It's not the fact he isn't getting thrown to that's the problem (although it is a problem), he's doing well well with the limited targets that he's getting. After seeing him and Cutler become butt buddies this off season, I expected Olson to have a monster season. Yet, this hasn't manifested. I expect Olson is entering Vernon Davis territory, huge expectations and a lot of talent, yet not performing on the field. I've seen Olson drop some key, good catches from both Kyle Orton and Jay Cutler. I'm sorry to say, that if Olson doesn't start performing in the next couple weeks, I'm calling him another offensive Bears bust.

So anyways, here's some stats on Olson. This year, he ranks about 8th to last among all active TE's. In fact, Kellen Davis, the third string Bears TE is technically better than Olson because he so far has done amazing with the limited catches he's gotten. Guys I've never heard of like Stephen Spach, Sean Ryan, Will Heller, and Daniel Fells are all doing better than Olson right now. Detriot, New England, Carolina, Denver, and Tenneessee all have two TE's that have performed better than Olson this year. He only has a 50% catch rate this year and only one TD. Kellen Davis this year has two. Now last year he had 66% catch rate, which sounds good. But most TE last year had a catch rate above 70%. Last year Olson ranked about 23rd among all TE according to football sabermetrics. Guys ahead of him were Viscanthe Shaincoe, Tony Scheffler, Anthony Faisano, Daniel Graham, and Kevin Boss- just to name a few. Now those guys aren't really per se a bad clas of TE to be grouped in with, but Olson is supposed to be better than all of those guys.

I don't buy the "he has a bad QB throwing to him argument" because Schiancoe had an even worse QB throwing to him last year and he was great. Plus, Olson has sucked with both Orton and Cutler throwing to him. I also don't buy the "he hasn't been thrown to enough" argument. While I agree he should get thrown to as much as guys like Gates or Clark, it doesn't matter because the reason Olson sucks is not becaus he hasn't been thrown to enough. First, I believe the best receivers make sure they gte thrown to and make receptions because their good. Secondly, Olson hasn't done shit with the receptions and targets he's gotten.

This year, Olson is 18th among all TE's on the Yahoo! player rater. In 2008, he ranked 11th, and in 2007 he ranked 19th. There's no reason Olson should not be top six.

I think Olson has entered the "he's good solely based on reputaion- and is college one at that." I think there's no reason he can't improve, but I need to see drastic improvements.