I am heading away into the mountains of Colorado for the next 5 days. Reverend Dave does not return from Malaria Malawi until the end of my trip. Being that we are less than a week or so away from DaBearsBlog becoming my full-time job, I figured why not give my brain the rest for the week. But that means I need a writer.

Enter Andrew Dannehy. I’ve conversed and debated with Andrew on Twitter for about a year now and while I don’t always agree with his opinions, I respect them. He is a diligent collector of information and passionate defender of his beliefs. I believe he will be an asset to this site and hope the following week won’t be his only contributions moving forward.

From Monday to Friday of this week, this site will be run by someone not me for the very first time. I may come back from Colorado and say never again. Or…I may not.

Be nice, people. My next column will post on Monday, August 25th. It will be my 50 predictions for the 2014 season column. I will still be somewhat active on Twitter.

Here are some thoughts on last night’s “game”.

• Starting with the pregame interview, it isn’t easy to adapt to Jared Allen in a Chicago Bears uniform.
• I think we saw a few clues last night as to how Shea McClellin is going to be deployed. DJ and Lance will be behind the defensive line and Shea will be sent at the quarterback.
• Both McClellin and Bostic made excellent pursuit tackles. Good to see them showing instincts for the position.
• If Chris Williams is going to be the starting kick returner against Buffalo, great. In the meantime the Bears need to be giving someone other than Eric Weems a look back there. I don’t know what Weems does well but I haven’t seen it.

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There’s only one more week of survival remaining for the Chicago Bears roster. One more injury-less week and the preseason will be considered a success, having only lost last year’s seventh-round pick Marquess Wilson to an injury of significance.  One more week.

Four positions to focus on tonight.

Backup Quarterback

Marc Trestman’s decision to move Jimmy Clausen into the backup role tonight means the organization has decide whom they’d like to win the spot. Both Trest and Emery have made no attempt to hide their excitement over Clausen since he auditioned for them a few months ago.

A few thoughts on this:

1. Why play Cutler at all tonight? Jay will receive ample work next week against the Seattle Seahawks during the “dress rehearsal”. Wouldn’t it make sense to give his potential backup a few series behind a starting offensive line and with the weapons he might be tossing to in regular season action?
2. Clausen’s biggest advantage over Jordan Palmer is Palmer won’t sign elsewhere. Bears can keep him close by without serious risk of losing him.

Third Wide Receiver

I’ve argued for months the Bears lack of depth at the wide receiver position is playing with fire and they’ve gone from relying upon an unproven 7th round draft pick who produced a whopping 2 catches a year ago to a collection of journeymen.

With Chris Williams feeling more like a speed specialist, Josh Morgan has an opportunity over the next three weeks to assume this role and his track record in the league would lead most to believe the job belongs to him.

According to Jim Miller on the preseason opener, three wides is the most utilized offensive formation in the NFL. He also said that night Jordan Lynch played Division III college football. So he could be very wrong.

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The 2013 Chicago Bears season came to a fittingly sad conclusion.

Chris Conte, one of the emerging stars of the previous campaign who seemed to have not only lost his way in the secondary but his confidence as well, missed an assignment. The physical side of the game had let him down all season long. Now the mental side was delivering a final, crippling blow. Peppers leaps. Kuhn blocks. Rodgers scrambles. Cobb scores. The culprit was Conte. Not only had he, in that moment, become the poster child for this devastating loss. That wasn’t enough to pour onto the slumping shoulders of a beleaguered safety. No, in that moment, Conte became the symbol of the entire season’s defensive futility.

Shots were fired at Conte from every discernible angle. Once news of an off-season surgery surfaced many, myself included, wrote off Conte’s potential future with the Chicago Bears. When Marc Silverman of ESPN Radio bet Tom Waddle Conte would not play a down for the Bears this season, Conte met that challenge with a Twittery terrific, “fuck u all.”

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(1) I’d like to see the Bears interchange Eric Weems and Josh Morgan on the first team offense this week. (I had forgotten about Morgan’s most boneheaded moment in Washington until I did a bit of searching.)

(2) I’d like to see Chris Williams rebound quickly from his hamstring pull but I fear that won’t be the case. Hamstring injuries and speed receivers can be a dicey proposition but his skill set is a perfect complement to Bears star receivers.

(3) I’d like to see Jordan Palmer and Jimmy Clausen given a shot with the first-team talent. How much can we really learn from these two quarterbacks dodging defenders behind the second offensive line and throwing passes to Michael Spurlock? History tells us the Bears will need their backup quarterback at some point during the regular season. It would be good to know which is most comfortable with skill players.

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NFL sold me their Preseason Live package. They might as well have sold me the Brooklyn Bridge. Most of the night the program failed to load. When the program loaded it was awful. I shall keep you up to date on the battle I began with folks at the league last night. Apparently I’m not alone.

A few thoughts…

• If you’re Martellus Bennett, what are you thinking this morning? You are away from the team because you’re an insane person and last night you watched two tight ends with a tenth of your ability – Rosario and Miller – flourish in what should have been your role. Maybe, I don’t know, stop being crazy, apologize and get yourself back to practice.
• Anybody can look at the numbers and state Jimmy Clausen played well. But what struck me was how confident he looked from the second he walked onto the field. He was lost throughout his tenure in Carolina. He looked like he didn’t belong in the NFL. Last night he looked like he very much did.

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I posed a simple question to DaBearsBlog’s followers on the Tweet machine. What do you, as a Bears fan, hope to see during Bears 1st preseason game tomorrow night? 

My favorite answer came from @sjaskovi:

I hope to see none of the starters.

But while I have begun notorious for my preseason cynicism I will admit the Bears do need to see SOMETHING over the course of this preseason.

(1) They need to see a backup quarterback emerge from the Jordan Palmer v Jimmy Clausen competition. Anytime either man is on the field this August I think every Bears fan should be paying awfully close attention.

(2) They need to see the ball long-snapped to their punter and holder accurately. This is the only “starter” I want to see in all four preseason games.

I disagree with the assessment that anything happening defensive tonight has any relevance but here are some more responses I liked.

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Presented live!

• If there is starting to be a position of concern (not  called safety) it might be right tackle. Jordan Mills left practice Wednesday with pain in the same foot operated upon earlier in the year. His projected backup Eben Britton is sidelined with a hamstring pull and has spent most of his career battling injuries. Kyle Long and Mills taking the next step on the right side of the line was a huge part of the belief this Bears offense is about to take the next step to dominance. Will be interesting to see how Mills handles the balky hoof.
• Two of my Tweets from yesterday regarding the Martellus Bennett suspension:

Way Bears are expertly handling Martellus Bennett is why I thought troubled player like Will Hill would have found perfect home in Chicago.

Emery/Trestman exude authority, project confidence and lead with genuine compassion. Rare in sports.

• What Emery and Trestman need to do now is win. (Side note: I’d expect Martellus Bennett reinstated no later than middle of next week.)

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SPOILER ALERT: FOOTBALL PLAYERS ARE CRAZY

Both the major Chicago dailies feature columns disparaging Martellus Bennett for body slamming first-round selection Kyle Fuller to the ground in a fit of rage. Mark Potash in the Sun-Times wants the alarm sounded and Bennett read the riot act:

The Bennett-Fuller dust-up might end up being an isolated incident, but it’s a red flag nonetheless. Martellus Bennett is a Pro Bowl-caliber tight end and a good teammate who defers to more productive players in the offense. But on the field and off he’s an acquired taste that is not for everybody.

“I’m not here for friendships,” Bennett said.

That’s all well and good. You don’t have to make friends to be part of a winning team. But you definitely have to avoid making enemies.

If Bennett would have seriously hurt Fuller this would have been an unmitigated disaster. But he didn’t. Fuller is fine. And Bennett is a football player. I’m sorry if I don’t expect gigantic, jacked up Neanderthals to be well-adjusted human beings.

Also, on Potash’s last sentence…really? Do we spend so much time celebrating the 1985 Chicago Bears we actually forget who and what they were? There were plenty of enemies on that roster and two fierce enemies on the coaching staff.

Marquess Wilson Injury Makes Preseason More Interesting

I bet you didn’t expect THAT headline from me, did you? Let me explain.

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