IS 2014 DL BETTER THAN 2013 ON PAPER?

Moon Mullin opens his CSN column, which dropped late Wednesday night, with a statement:

And now for a cold splash of perspective, one which I strongly suspect Bears general manager Phil Emery understands from painful experience:

Jared Allen or no Jared Allen, the Bears’ projected defensive line going into 2014 is arguably not as good as the one positioned to take the opening opponent’s snap in 2013.

I quite literally can’t disagree with this statement more. Here’s why:

• Everyone needs to stop with the Corey Wootton/Stephen Paea stuff. Without seeing these two players as overwhelming positives there was no way for Moon to make the statement his column makes and neither Wootton nor Paea is an overwhelming anything. They were and are below average defensive linemen who’ve been overly celebrated due to a dearth of talent along the line.
• The Bears now have three defensive ends (Houston, Young, Idonije) better than their second best defensive end a year ago.
• 2014 Jared Allen is an upgrade over 2013 Julius Peppers.

What do the Bears still lack? An interior pass rusher. That is why I stand by my belief that Phil Emery should swallow his mysterious medicine and draft the best defensive player in college football last year, Aaron Donald.

EBEN BRITTON RETURNING?

From Brad Biggs:

“Eben is a guy that we have great confidence in because he can do a lot of different things, obviously,” Trestman said. “He can play a lot of different positions. He knows all the positions so his value is he can do a lot of different things and do them sufficiently to allow us to win a game and that is how we look at him. He is very good in the meeting room. He’s a very good teammate and a guy in the locker room and when he is in a game we trust him he will do his job.

“He did a good job in the last game for us, assignment-wise he played hard and so that is how we look at him. In that position, he is very good for our roster.”

Britton is still a free agent and its rare for a coach to heap praise on a player while one would imagine he’s still assessing his market value. From these comments it doesn’t seem he’s going anywhere.

 PADDY POWER: BEARS 33-1 TO WIN SUPER BOWL

You’ll be surprised who the Bears are trailing when it comes to the Irish oddsmakers. (Dallas and San Diego certainly make no sense.) CLICK HERE to see the current odds.