I’ll have a full recap of the third preseason game for Monday morning.  In the meantime, go vote DaBearsBlog as Chicago’s most value sports blog: CLICK HERE.

You walk into a diner.  Order your cocktail and open up the menu.  Under Specials you see bacon-wrapped scallops.  You love bacon-wrapped scallops.  You had bacon-wrapped scallops on Martha’s Vineyard a few years earlier and it was the finest meal you’ve ever had.  And those bacon-wrapped scallops were expensive.  These are only a few bucks.  You have to order them.  Maybe they’ll be as good as those scallops you had on the Vineyard!  You know it’s a diner, and a diner is not known for its seafood, but at that price what’s the harm?

That should have been Roy Williams.  At worst, he’d put you on the toilet for forty-five minutes but your wallet wouldn’t mind.

The difference?  Your buddy Mike Martz, also ordering the scallops, told you he’s had them before at this diner and they’re going to be the best meal of your life.  He also told that to the table beside you, where Brad Biggs and Jeff Hughes are questioning your choosing nostalgic seafood when there was reliable Rice available.

One thing became abundantly clear watching the Chicago Bears third preseason game: they have no #1 receiver.  They are a WR collective and the quarterback does not mind.  (The quarterback, by the way, looks primed for a pretty spectacular year.)  Earl Bennett will make the big catch.  Johnny Knox will make the big play.  Devin Hester and Williams and perhaps Sanzenbacher or Hurd or the tight ends will find the ball in their hands in key situations.  The screen game will be the offense’s backbone.

Is that preferable?  No.  My belief is that you always want a player on the outside opposing defensive coordinator’s need to game plan against.  Someone to draw the opposition’s best corner for sixty minutes.  Someone who forces a safety away from the box.  The elite wide receiver, prima donna or not, can make an ordinary offense seem spectacular at times.

Is it sustainable?  Absolutely.  If Duke of Earl and Jackass and Skunk take logical strides during their second year in a complicated offense, the Bears passing game will be improved significantly.  They are more than capable, professional wide receivers.  And all it might really take it the five guys up front giving the quarterback enough time to allow them to finish their routes.