Tommie Harris has officially worn out his welcome. The Bears came into a game today against the Arizona Cardinals that was as important as any they’ll play this season. Chicago had pretty much beaten the teams they were supposed to beat, and lost the ones they should have lost. This one was going to be a great measuring stick, and the Bears needed all hands on deck, even the overpaid underachievers.
So Harris decided to give Bears fans one more reason to scream for his release, as if they didn’t have enough already. On the first series of the game, Harris slugged a Cards o-lineman in the facemask, which of course does absolutely nothing except get you rightly thrown out of the game. The guy was laying flat on his back in a defenseless position when Tommie Harris proved himself to have no discipline, class, character, respect, or intelligence.
Ever since he was given a $40 Million extension after the 2007 season, Harris has defined the term “piece of sh*t”. The guy completely lost all the energy and integrity he once had surpluses of.
Not once since he got his payday has Tommie Harris had any discernible impact on even one game. If the Bears do decide to cut ties with this garbage tackle, he’ll probably then be motivated enough to be good elsewhere, which apparently is the en-vogue thing to do in the NFL these days.
But I personally wouldn’t care if he went to the Vikings and became a Hall-of-Famer. He’s sucking salary-cap space, and while before he was doing it by simply not performing, now he’s doing it while actually hurting the team.
And as if Lovie Smith needed more people piling on right now, he did himself no favors by keeping that same clueless expression on his face when Harris was rightly tossed from the field. Any Bears fan would have run through a wall for Smith if he would have ripped off his headset, ran onto the field, grabbed Harris by the facemask and ejected him before the refs did. But instead, I suppose he’ll wait until he watches the film tomorrow to have some kind of reaction.
The defense overall has given revolting performances in 2 of the last three games. As such, Bears fans must revolt. Blame lies with management.
The Bears finished last season ranked 30th in pass defense, and their answer to the problem was to release FS Mike Brown, who is Kansas City’s 2nd-leading tackler after starting every game this year; and replace him with free-agent safety Josh Bullocks, who has registered 1 tackle over the 4 games he’s dressed for.
The group has played so poorly that 6th-round rookie safety Al Afalava was starting as Brown’s replacement and was the team’s 6th leading tackler until he injured his shoulder Sunday. Although Afalava has played admirably for a rookie, he’s certainly not good enough to mitigate the rest of the crap unit. And just how did the team get in the position of needing a 6th-round rookie to start at free safety, regardless of how well he’s performed? Even Jerry Angelo couldn’t say with a straight face that when he took Afalava as the 190th pick he was drafting him to start.
Keep smilin’, Jerry. That Super Bowl loss three years ago means you’re doing a heckuva job.
But perhaps the most egregious error the Chicago Bears front office has made was to believe that this defense was capable of playing at a level similar to three years ago. Has it played under unfavorable circumstances? Absolutely, with Brian Urlacher going down for the season in Week 1, and for all intensive purposes LB Pisa Tinoiasamoa as well. But after those two, health wasn’t a huge issue for the Bears defense. That is until today, when Chicago lost half their terrible secondary with shoulder injuries. Let’s see how bad they get torched when they’re down both Afalava and Peanut Tillman.
Chicago better hope that trading for DE Gaines Adams turns out to be a stroke of genius, because after next April’s draft, they will have gone two full years without a first-day draft pick. That’s at least four starting prospects that won’t be helping a defense that looks about as solid as Da Coach without Da Levitra.
Perhaps Mike Brown’s injuries were all Angelo needed to stop allocating salary to the position. But safeties aren’t running backs, you can’t just go through them like generic toilet paper (maybe Angelo should actually try that approach with his RBs). You need real talent at the position, and a lot of it.
I’ve been known to say that Angelo is at least capable of drafting defense, but I’m starting to dispute that notion too. Perhaps the Chicago defense wouldn’t look so anemic if a few of the following Angelo defensive draftees had panned out (I’ll even leave out players drafted after the 5th round):
Roosevelt Williams
Bobby Gray
Bryan Knight
Michael Haynes (arguably Angelo’s biggest bust on either side of the ball – remember a 4th overall pick was traded for Haynes and Rex Grossman)
Tron LaFavor
Claude Harriott
Leon Joe
Chris Harris (is and was good but Angelo traded him, probably for another waste of a pick)
Dusty Dvoracek (Angelo also traded a 3rd-rounder to Carolina for Ricky Manning Jr that year)
Michael Okwo
Dan Bazuin
It’s time for a change, I hope.
contact email: nick.thomas@flyingpigskin.com
