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Emery to set sights on Bears free agents

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:17:00 -0600

One of the most important items on new general manager Phil Emery’s lengthy to-do list is dealing with the 14 Bears players who are due to become free agents in March.

The most prominent among them is running back Matt Forte, who led the NFL with 1,475 yards from scrimmage and ranked third in rushing with 997 yards before missing the final four games of the season with a sprained MCL in his right knee.

Team president and CEO Ted Phillips indicated during a radio interview Tuesday that the Bears likely would place a franchise tag on Forte if they are unable to sign him to a long-term extension. The tag, which can be applied from Feb. 20-March 5, would require the Bears to pay Forte nearly $8 million for the 2012 season.

“We’d like to [sign him to a long-term contract],” Phillips said on ESPN 1000’s Waddle & Silvy Show. “But as Phil pointed out [Monday], we obviously will at least consider placing the franchise tag on him. We don’t have any intention of letting Matt hit the open market. We’ll sit down with him privately, Phil will, and discuss what the plans are prior to the Feb. 20 franchise tag date."

Appearing on the Waddle & Silvy Show Thursday, Forte said he wouldn't mind if the Bears placed the franchise tag on him as long as it led to a long-term contract.

"It depends on the motive," Forte said on ESPN 1000 via telephone from the site of the Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

"If they are doing the franchise tag just to get more time in order to negotiate a long-term deal, I would be OK with that. But if it's just to hold me another year [with the Bears saying] 'Let's throw some money at him right now just to keep him quiet,' that's not going to solve anything."

Forte is among 13 Bears players who are slated to become unrestricted free agents; his only teammate who’s due to become a restricted free agent is fellow running back Kahlil Bell.

Five of the 13 set to become UFAs are defensive backs: Cornerbacks Zackary Bowman, Corey Graham and Tim Jennings; and safeties Brandon Meriweather and Craig Steltz.

The top contributors on defense among that group last season were Jennings and Steltz. Jennings started 15 of 16 games, ranking fourth on the Bears with 87 tackles while also recording two interceptions, eight pass breakups, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery.

Steltz performed well as a starter late in the year. Inserted on defense after Major Wright injured his shoulder Dec. 4 in a loss to the Chiefs, Steltz recorded 37 tackles in the final five games, third on the Bears behind only Pro Bowl linebackers Brian Urlacher (44) and Lance Briggs (41).

Graham’s primary value has been on special teams, where last season he led the Bears with 22 tackles and was voted to the first Pro Bowl of his five-year NFL career.

Bowman played sparingly on defense before struggling late in the season in a loss to the Packers. Meriweather started four of the first five games before being demoted into a reserve role.

Other Bears who are slated to become unrestricted free agents include receiver Roy Williams, tight end Kellen Davis, quarterbacks Caleb Hanie and Josh McCown, defensive end Israel Idonije, long-snapper Chris Massey and defensive tackle Amobi Okoye.

Williams tied for second on the Bears with 37 receptions for 507 yards and two touchdowns. But he dropped several passes and fell far short of the 70-80 catches that offensive coordinator Mike Martz had predicted he would compile.

Utilized primarily as a blocker in Martz’s offense, Davis caught 18 passes for 206 yards and a team-high five TDs.

Hanie struggled after starting quarterback Jay Cutler was sidelined with a broken right thumb, completing just 50 percent of his passes for 613 yards with three touchdowns, nine interceptions and a 41.8 passer rating while losing all four of his starts to the Raiders, Chiefs, Broncos and Seahawks.

McCown, meanwhile, performed better than most expected. Starting the final two games of the season, he connected on 63.6 percent of his passes for 414 yards with two TDs, four interceptions and a 68.3 passer rating in a loss in Green Bay and a win in Minnesota.

Idonije started all 16 games at defensive end opposite Julius Peppers, registering 57 tackles, five sacks, nine tackles-for-loss, one forced fumble and two fumble recoveries.

Massey filled in admirably after veteran long-snapper Patrick Mannelly tore his ACL, while Okoye recorded 27 tackles and four sacks as part of the defensive tackle rotation.

As Emery settles into his new role, he’s already pretty familiar with the players on the Bears roster.

“A big part of preparing for the [interview] process, which was very thorough, I was asked extensive questions about our roster,” Emery said. “I have a very good feel for where we’re at as a team, and that will help greatly as we move forward in the planning process and evaluating pro free agents and how they fit against the draft.”

Emery seeks tough, dynamic playmakers

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:02:00 -0600

In an exclusive video interview with ChicagoBears.com, new Bears general manager Phil Emery shared his vision of the team’s future with play-by-play announcer Jeff Joniak.

“Short term we want to take the first step, and that’s to get ready for pro free agency,” Emery said. “Long term we want to grow not only in terms of the quality of the players and surrounding the playmakers that we have with more weapons, but we also want to grow in our staff in terms of personnel.

“That will allow us to have more focused eyes on not only more players but have more looks at that player. It will allow us to grow in terms of how we write our reports, how we interact with one another. It will allow better research on the back end.”

Asked to describe the type of player the Bears will generally seek, Emery said: “Dynamic playmaker, tough, physical player, someone that our fans are excited about watching either from his playmaking production or just his pure effort to help us win championships.”

Emery believes that continuity is crucial

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:39:00 -0600

It’s easy to understand why new general manager Phil Emery feels that continuity is the biggest difference between today’s Bears and the same organization he left eight years ago.

The franchise had three different head coaches during Emery’s tenure as an area scout from 1998-2004—Dave Wannstedt, Dick Jauron and Lovie Smith—but only one in Smith since that point.

“I have great respect for what Lovie has done,” Emery said Monday during his introductory press conference at Halas Hall. “The consistency of teaching, of being systematic, is very important.”

Emery learned the importance of continuity at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he served as director of strength and conditioning services as well as an associate professor from 1991-98.

“I would say that the Naval Academy taught me more in that area than any other coaching assignment because we had players who were under extreme stress in their daily activities and it was very important that the scheme stayed the same so that we could play fast," Emery said.

“When we had a large turnover of coaches at the Naval Academy in terms of assistants, they didn’t play fast and we all thought, ‘Hey, we’ve got slow players.’ But when we had consistency of scheme and coaches, our players played fast and we won games.

“When I watch Lovie Smith’s defense, those players play fast because they know the scheme. So consistency is important.”

Many mentors: During his introductory press conference, Emery thanked the personnel bosses he’s worked for at his three NFL stops, beginning with the late Mark Hatley in Chicago.

“He was instrumental in my thinking,” Emery said. “I still remember the day that he told me, ‘Phil, it’s all in the tape. If you look hard enough, anytime you get unbalanced as an evaluator, go back to the tape.’”

Having worked for Jerry Angelo with the Bears from 2001-04, Emery said he has great respect for the man he’s replacing “who taught me a lot about digging to the ninth degree about character.”

With the Falcons, Rich McKay showed Emery “how to put together a plan for the draft and what that entailed and the steps that needed to take place and how you brought coaches into the process and how we did it as a building. Rich McKay’s a very team-oriented guy and he showed me how to bring all those pieces together to have a productive draft.”

Also in Atlanta, Thomas Dimitroff taught Emery “a lot about role definition and the importance of defining roles as a leader and as an evaluation staff.”

With the Chiefs, Emery described Scott Pioli as “one of the finest leaders that I’ve ever been around. Knowing what’s right for the group and doing the right thing for the group and being a good teammate are the things that I’ve taken from Scott.”

Family matters: Emery also expressed thanks to his family. He called his wife, Beth, his soul mate and his daughter, April, the “light of my eye.”

“Both of them have been with me from the beginning [of his NFL career] and their unending love is the reason I’m here today,” Emery said.

“There are a lot of people that helped me get where I’m at today, and I would say that that would start with my mother and my father. They came from a tough blue-collar background, from the Appalachian regions of Kentucky and Tennessee.

“They showed me through their examples that good backbone toughness can be combined with kindness of spirit and reaching out to your fellow person and neighbor and helping each other through the process of life and through trying to attain excellence.”

Home cooking: In his new role as Bears general manager, Emery will spend more evenings at home than he did during his first 14 NFL seasons. But he still plans on hitting the road to scout prospects.

“I want to get my eyes on players. There’s no doubt about that,” Emery said. “How I do it schedule-wise will be different than I’ve done it in the past. I’m probably ashamed to say this because my wife would probably cringe if the reality was known. But typically I was probably home between three and seven days of the month all fall. I don’t plan on that schedule because there are so many other aspects that I want to focus on that I can help with in the building, and I’ll be running a staff.

“[However] I will be on the road. Typically what I plan to do is be here up through Wednesdays and then travel either Wednesday nights or Thursday mornings, see a game on a Thursday and see a game on a Saturday if it’s in a location [near] where we play so that I can see roughly four teams a week.”