Wrapping Up Chicago Bears Rookie Minicamp
Coach Marc Trestman addresses the team at rookie minicamp. (Photo courtesy of Chicago Tribune)
The Chicago Bears wrapped up their rookie minicamp to rave reviews. Let’s scan the Bears beat and see how everyone assessed the rookies.
Rookie Linebackers Make Big Impression
Rookies Jon Bostic and Khaseem Greene made quite the impression on the coaching staff. Jon Bostic made quite the impression on defensive coordinator Mel Tucker:
"“He’s a smart guy, take-control guy,” said defensive coordinator Mel Tucker. “He’s very comfortable making the calls and controlling the huddle. Those are all positives. Height, weight and speed are there. He’s instinctive, he has command of the defense, he’s vocal, can run, can change direction, and he showed he was physical on tape.”"
Meanwhile, the Tribune’s Dan Pompei thinks Greene will be a great late round addition to the Bears’ D.
"If Khaseem Greene can do for the Bears what he did for Rutgers, he soon will be in a group that includes Lance Briggs, Charles Tillman, Julius Peppers and Henry Melton.Because what Greene did was make plays, as his new teammates have.In fact, you could call Greene an extraordinary playmaker.The fourth-round pick made 27 impact tackles at linebacker, tied for the most in college football, according to STATS. Impact tackles are defined as tackles on gains of 1 or 2 yards that do not result in first downs."
Pompei also thinks this new Bears team needs new leaders. I didn’t know they didn’t have leaders. I thought we went through this when Olin Kreutz left?
Reading from the First Letter of Ditka to the Grabowskis
The Sun Times is padding Da Coach’s coffers these days by getting him to do a weekly Four Downs with Ditka series. This week, Coach talks about rookies, Urlacher and rule changes among the topics. Most interesting was his view on Brian Urlacher. You shouldn’t be surprised at his point of view:
"I don’t know what the thinking of teams is, but I think he has a chance, no question about it. I think Brian still has enough talent and speed, but his knowledge, his understanding and his anticipation still would be beneficial to somebody. Then again, I don’t know what the interests are and I don’t know about the salaries. But I know one thing: Players like Brian Urlacher are hard to find. Even if you only get a year out of him or two years, I think he could be very helpful to any organization.”"
Time to Step Up
Brad Biggs singled out five veterans who need to step it up this offseason. Yes Gabe Carimi, we’re talking to you! And your little friends Devin Hester too!
Beat Tweets
Sun Times beat writer Adam Jahns is relatively new to the Bears beat, but he’s not short on observations. Follow him on Twitter.
Coach Trestman had high praise quarterback Matt Blanchard. Maybe he’ll stick around after camp after all?
I liked how he wrapped up the rookie minicamp with coach Trestman’s wrap on the minicamp.
"“Really, just a tremendous group of guys when I got done with them,” Trestman said Sunday. “They all gave us their undivided attention for the entire weekend. Their effort was outstanding. They were very diligent in meetings and we did everything we can to create an environment that they could try to fulfill their dream just to play in the National Football League.“Obviously we couldn’t keep all the tryout guys. I talked to a number of the tryout guys that won’t be with us and we’ll make a decision on a few that we’ll carryover to next week from this camp besides obviously the draft choices.“Kyle [Long] won’t be with us as you know. [during OTAs], and Jordan [Mills] won’t be with us for a few days because he’s graduating and then he’ll be back. So we’re excited about what we saw here on a number of levels. As I told them when I finished with them, they’re very lucky. They’re coming into a locker room, where there’s really an undivided commitment to a vision, where’s there’s a bunch of unselfish guys who will work with them and help them with their initial stages of being a member of this football team over this next month and our OTAs. We’re excited about having them and looking to see how it’s all going to come together over the next few weeks when we’ve got them in the OTAs.”"
So rookie minicamp is in the rearview mirror and now it’s on to OTA’s for a couple of weeks before the final mandatory minicamp in early June. We’ll be around covering all aspects of Bears football in the meantime, so stick with us.