So with the Packers playing the Bears on Sunday for a superbowl ticket it will be interesting to see which franchise building philosophy wins out.

This offseason the desperate Bears, were the biggest spenders in free agency. They broke the bank for Julius Peppers, and added Chester Taylor and TE Brandon Manumaleuna in the first few days of free agency. Angelo also shipped out premium draft picks on Cutler and the late Gaines Adams leaving the Bears with little ammunition in the draft.

Ted is known to cherish his picks, he's as committed to college scouting as any GM and apart from some well selected players early in his tenure(Woodson, Pickett) has chosen to rummage around in the bargain bin when it comes to free agency rather than overpaying for guys other teams have let go. As a result he has created a young roster made up mainly of guys he chose himself.

Personally I expected the Bears to implode this year and see Lovie and Angelo fired and that may well have happened were it not for some fortunate breaks early in the season which kept the inconsistent Bears rolling. But they have overcome a dodgy start and have evolved into a dangerous team. Paying for Peppers has proven to be the right move and even the erratic Cutler has blossomed under the tutelage of Mike Martz.

I guess it just shows there is more than one way to skin a cat (or reach the NFC Championship Game).

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Luck is always a great way to reach the NFC Championship Game. If the Bears had the critical injuries we have, they would have been fighting with the Vikings for second fiddle.

It seems like the Bears were building their team pretty much like the Packers until they made the Cutler trade two years ago, then signed Peppers this past off-season. (I don't think Chester Taylor and Brandon Manumaleuna count for much.) But yes, they did make those two big moves to try putting their team over the top, and this year it's worked very well so far.

What I like about Ted's approach is that it should provide a larger window for the team to make a surge toward a championship. The Vikings went all in for last year and this year and almost made it to a Super Bowl, but now they will need to retool. The Bears, on the other hand, just went for the big time QB (a young one, which is important) and the big time defensive lineman, so they seem to be getting maximum impact without selling out their future.

And I disagree with Porforis. They're not lucky. They're good.

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My point was that they WOULDN'T be good if they lost Urlacher, Forte, Manning or Tillman, and Olson. They've gotten lucky with injuries and I guarantee you they'd be sub-500 with our injuries. Way to completely misread and misinterpret my post as blind bear hate. I know they're a good team because they've played well enough to reach the championship game. But it's lunacy to not attribute some of their success to luck.

In my opinion the Packers and Bears share one very major similarity. They have gotten better and better throughout the season and are definitely playing their best football now.

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Funny little tid bit.... on the Bears website, they do not show Cutler's INT/season in his stats. :)


CAREER STATISTICS
Year Team G cmp pct yds avg lg td rtg rush avg
2010 CHI 15 261 60.4 3274 12.5 89 23 86.3 50 4.6
2009 CHI 16 336 60.5 3666 10.9 71 27 76.8 41 4.2
2008 DEN 16 384 62.3 4526 11.8 72 25 86 57 3.5
2007 DEN 16 297 63.6 3497 11.8 68 20 88.1 44 4.7
2006 DEN 5 81 59.1 1001 12.4 71 9 88.5 12 1.5

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You wrote, "Luck is always a great way to reach the NFC championship game." That sounds an awful lot like you were attributing their success to luck. But it sounds like what you really meant is not so much that they had good luck, that they didn't have bad luck. I guess you could put the 2007 Packers in that same category, because they also had very few injuries.

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Our lack of bad luck caught up to us in the NFC CG in the form of Brett Favre. Low blow alert.

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If injuries were not the norm, it would be lack of bad luck rather than good luck. The fact of the matter is, injuries happen in the NFL, including to your star players. You can't make excuses for that. I guess I see where you're coming from now but I don't really see it as lack of bad luck. But that's just my perspective, just as valid as yours 🙂

Can't really assume this. Look how we faired with all of the key injuries we had, even the injuries to the second string players, causing the third stringers to be needed.

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