Talking Football With Jerry Angelo

FROM MATT BOWEN:

Late last week, I spent some time talking with Chicago Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo on a wide range of topics, from Jay Cutler and the draft to coaching and his thoughts about the NFC North. Here’s my conversation with Angelo, who gave an exclusive interview to the National Football Post.

Talking Football, Cutler

It isn’t hard to talk football with Jerry Angelo.

And it isn’t hard to listen to him talk for almost an hour when you talk Chicago Bears football.

But it wouldn’t be an interview without asking Angelo, or anyone associated with the Bears, about new quarterback Jay Cutler — who has made the Bears the talk of Chicago in the middle of a Chicago Blackhawks run in the Stanley Cup playoffs and with North and South Side baseball heating up.

“There’s a lot of excitement in the building right now,” Angelo said. “Jay is a guy who is always asking for more. He has a big arm and good mobility, and he has looked good with our receivers.”

It wouldn’t be a fair interview to Bears fans without asking about the wide receivers — who have come under plenty of scrutiny, as has Angelo himself, for not chasing after high-profile wide receivers on the free-agent market. However, Angelo has his own theories.

“Our assumption is that it starts with the quarterback, and not the wide receivers,” he said. “All you have to do is look north and see what Favre did with his receivers in Green Bay. I don’t care who you gave Favre because they always looked good.”

Is Cutler in the same mold as a guy like Favre? And do the Bears have the type of receivers, such as Devin Hester — who Angelo thinks needs to take another step forward at the position — who can come together as a group and excel under a talent like Cutler?

Angelo thinks they can. “We have a good receiving corps that complements one another,” he said. They also added Oklahoma rookie Juaquin Iglesias, whom Angelo is high on after selecting him in the third round of the draft. “Iglesias gives us that big guy across the middle.”

The verdict is still out on this group, and I’m on the fence too, but Angelo believes he has the tight ends in Greg Olsen and Desmond Clark to complete the package. “When you talk wide receivers, you have to count the tight ends,” he said, something he discovered when talking with Patriots coach Bill Belichick about the struggles the Patriots had trying to contain Chargers TE Antonio Gates.

But it all comes back to Cutler. We can plug in numerous names at wide receiver and tight end, but this city, these fans and this team are counting on the best from Cutler every Sunday starting in September. “Jay has to meet expectations, and he has done that before,” said Angelo.

Talking Divisional Opponents

Suddenly, as we look at our notes on the NFC North in May, we have to agree that there’s no clear front-runner in the division. But it’s improved. There is more talent, and it should be a division that comes down to December football.

“The division is going to be a lot better,” Angelo said, and he had no problem rattling off the strengths of the Packers, Vikings and Lions.

“Looking at Green Bay, I think Aaron Rodgers will make a jump this year, and they are a tough match-up on offense from a personnel and a scheme perspective,” he said. He’s also very aware of the additions Green Bay made defensively in the draft with their first-round picks, DT B.J. Raji and LB Clay Matthews. “You look at the Packers’ draft, and they are now a lot stronger up front.”  

What about the Vikings, who some experts say are playoff bound? Without talking about the Brett Favre rumors, Angelo was quick to point out that Minnesota needs “more consistent play at the quarterback position.” But in his mind, the Vikings took a big step forward on draft day.

“Percy Harvin is a special player,” he said, believing that Harvin is a playmaking wide receiver who will complement Bernard Berrian on the outside. He’s also not hesitant to talk about the Vikings’ drafting of OT Phil Loadholt, who Angelo believes could have been a first rounder last year if he had come out. “The Vikings filled two need spots when Loadholt fell to them in the second,” he said.

Even Detroit, a team that went 0-16 last year but is now under the coaching of Jim Schwartz, has improved in Angelo’s mind. “They will be better on defense, they’ve added some big guys on defense, but they will still experience some growing pains along the way,” he said. And we all know that Calvin Johnson is the most feared receiver in the NFC North when it comes to the deep ball.

So, who’s the favorite? Has Green Bay done enough on defense to make it a contender? Can the Vikings win with questions marks at quarterback and Favre lurking in the background? Can the Lions actually be a much better football team in ’09?

According to Angelo, the division is up for grabs, but each team brings something different. “Each team has a unique identity in our division,” he said.

Talking Coaching, Defense, the Draft

One of the biggest moves this offseason, in Angelo’s mind, wasn’t the trade for Cutler or the players the Bears added through the draft, but the addition of former Lions head coach Rod Marinelli to Lovie Smith’s staff.

I’ve talked to former Lions players who have told me that Marinelli is the best teacher in the league, and Angelo has the same opinion. “He is a special coach who drives these guys, pushes the envelope, and guys respond to that,” he said. “All great coaches are great teachers, and they get guys who want to please them.”

I can attest to that, as I wrote Tuesday about the effect new defensive coordinator Gregg Williams will have in New Orleans. Williams was a coach who rode me every day in camp, at every practice and every time out on Sundays, but I respected him then, and I still wanted to make plays for him.

I asked Angelo if he would take a coach like Marinelli over any player in free agency. “Coaches are harder to find than players,” he answered.

But Marinelli has his work cut out for him in ’09. The Bears are a Tampa 2 team, and you can’t win on defense with that scheme without a pass rush from your front four. Can he make former Pro Bowler DT Tommie Harris a dominant force again? And will the players respond to his demanding style of coaching?

“If you want to be great, he (Marinelli) is a blessing, and if you don’t, he is a curse,” said Angelo. That’s something I also experienced with Williams. They push, they demand, and they expect production. All you have to do as a player is accept the coaching and act like a pro. But it’s easier said than done with a lot of NFL players who think they’ve arrived and don’t need the coaching.

And having Marinelli on the staff gives Angelo and the Bears even more reason to be excited about their first pick in the draft, San Jose State DT Jarron Gilbert.

“He’s a good fit for us on third down, but he also can make a difference on first downs,” said Angelo. “He plays with good leverage, has a huge wingspan, and he does things the right way.”

But more importantly in a city that loves tough, defensive football, Angelo added, “You are not going to punch this guy in the mouth and expect him to walk away.”

And you still need the players at safety to complete the Tampa 2 scheme. The Bears decided not to re-sign defensive captain Mike Brown this offseason and brought in former Saints FS Josh Bullocks, someone Angelo calls a “center field guy,” to compete for a starting role. They expect last year’s starter at strong safety, Kevin Payne, to fill that role again, but don’t count out former LSU star Craig Steltz, who could fight for a job as well after showing up on special teams, which is always a “good sign,” according to Angelo.

But it’s obvious that Angelo sees the safety position as a concern heading into this summer, and not just in Chicago.

“It’s the poorest-played position in football right now,” he said. “It’s very hard to find a safety that can tackle high to low,” meaning players who can tackle from the free safety spot in the open field.  As Angelo said, there’s so much emphasis placed on athleticism and ball skills at the position that sound tackling has become a thing of the past.

Which makes us wonder if the Bears have a player who can step up and fill the role vacated by Brown — because in the Tampa 2 you need playmakers at safety, but you also need players who can tackle. Or, it is time to strike up the band after a breakaway run for a touchdown.

Talking Forte, the Running Game

It’s no secret that RB Matt Forte was the Bears’ offense in 2008. But at what cost? They rode their rookie, who finished the season with an eye-popping 316 carries and 63 receptions. Was it too much of a workload?

Angelo thinks so, saying, “We got into a comfort level with Fotre last season, and we didn’t want to take him off the field.”

But Angelo and offensive coordinator Ron Turner expect that to change. The Bears re-signed RB Kevin Jones and expect him to play a bigger role in the offense. Jones, who was coming off a knee injury last year, is expected to pair with Forte in what Angelo calls a “tandem backfield.”

And there is also some hope for Garrett Wolfe, the 5-foot-7 scat back who tore up the competition in college at Northern Illinois. Angelo said Turner wants to get Wolfe involved, adding, “He (Turner) wants to find a niche for him.”

But we all know whenever we talk about Bears football here at the NFP, or at the Cubby Bear Tavern across the street from Wrigley Field, the discussion will always stop when it comes to the Bears’ ability to throw the ball -- and who’s going to catch it.

This is a defensive football town, but the Bears just gave up a ton in terms of price to get Cutler into a Chicago uniform. Is it enough?

“Our receiving corps has a chance to be decent,” said Angelo. “But we feel good about our offense.”

Yes, there are expectations galore, and from the sound of it, Cutler will not only have to carry this team on his shoulders, but the entire city of Chicago as well.

Are they big enough?

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