Panthers Acquire CHRIS HARRIS (S-Bears)!!

He was barely worthy of the practice squad last year, I'm not sure if that should be so shocking. I never understood how people thought Salley could start and contribute for us this year when he couldn't even stay active roster last year. It's not like we were loaded at S last year either.

 

the same can be said for Butler in all probability.

 

The more I think about this move the better I like it. A Sunday pick is a crap shoot anyway; so we're giving up a 5th for someone that was a starter for most of 2 years. We'd be damn lucky to use that 5th next year on someone like this; not to mention the fact that we were gonna HAVE to pick one, if not two next year anyway. How well did that work out for us this year when we were gonna definately take one? Everyone knew we were gonna take one and either moved ahead of us or reached for a guy and we were left with nothing (at safety).

 

Staying put at 14 we had a shot at Griffin, Nelson, or Merriweather

Weddle went at 37, we took Beason at 25

Alexander went at 61 and Piscitelli went at 64, we took Kalil at 59

Rouse went at 89, we took Johnson at 83

Goldson went at 126 and Condren went at 131, we took Robinson at 118

Frampton went at 165, Payne at 167, Wendling at 184, and Stone at 203, we took Rosario at 155 and Shaw at 164


there were plenty of guys left, we decided for what ever reason to go elsewhere with our picks and made personnel choices that would have allowed some spots to be put off another year before the draft.

 

I wish we had drafted a safety but I am pretty happy with all those decisions. This draft was good value, or seems to be anyway. I would rather have a solid guy like Kalil than reach for a safety out of need.

I like this move to get Harris. A fifth round pick is not much to give up for a guy who you think will be a starter and is only entering his third year in the league.

 

Players wonder: What's the deal?
Trade of likable safety Harris not popular among teammates but a good move

Nathan Vasher didn't mean to be rude Thursday, but he was in a hurry.

So a distracted Vasher stopped signing autographs after practice, cut short an interview and rushed into the locker room with hopes of catching close pal Chris Harris before Harris left campus to join his new team, the Carolina Panthers.

"Wow, it's tough," Vasher said, shaking his head. "We didn't even get a chance to say good-bye."

He and other Bears teammates would get a brief opportunity to do so later, but the abrupt nature of Harris' departure bothered many of his buddies.

During the middle of the afternoon practice, Lovie Smith summoned Harris over to inform him the Bears had traded the third-year safety to the Panthers for a second-day draft pick.

Almost immediately, a golf cart zipped Harris off the field and he was gone.

Figuratively and literally, the Bears were moving on from their Super Bowl season.

Unloading a popular starter off that 2006 NFC champion defense served as the latest reminder that their quest to repeat will be no sentimental journey.

"We saw [Harris] go in on the cart, but we thought he was going in for some treatment or to go to the restroom [and] then the word sort of filtered down to us," safety Mike Brown said. "It's a bummer, man. I'm kind of sad. He was a good dude."

An informal Harris poll of teammates would find Bears players against the deal. But nobody should feel too badly for him.

Harris goes from being a forgotten backup two injuries away from the field to a likely starter for a safety-depleted Panthers team that could contend for the NFC South Division title. He also has family ties in North Carolina that will ease his transition.

It says a lot about Harris' personality that so many members of the secondary spoke out on his behalf and tiptoed on the line between candor and criticism when discussing the motives of the Bears front office.

As compelling as some of the comments were, especially Charles Tillman's, too many Bears veterans understand the realities of the league for the trade of a backup safety to disrupt team chemistry.

"I just work here," an emotional Tillman said. "It came from left field. It's the people upstairs' decision and we have no say-so in that. I'm going to miss Chris Harris. He was a [darn] good football player, a good teammate, a fine young man."

In the meeting room, Harris was the kind of guy funny enough to leave them laughing as recently as Wednesday night and savvy enough to correct coaches at the blackboard. In the community, he was socially conscious enough to have made off-season trips to Iraq two summers in a row to support U.S. troops.

But on the field, Harris became expendable once the Bears saw enough out of their new players at the position to discard him.

Yes, Jerry Angelo gambled by trading a veteran at a position where Brown's health makes safety depth an annual concern. But the continued development of Danieal Manning, an athlete good enough to play any position in the secondary, assuaged many of those concerns.

Moving Harris suggests starting strong safety Adam Archuleta proved to the Bears in one week that reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated. No way the Bears would feel comfortable enough getting rid of a safety who had started 20 games in the last two seasons if they had the slightest reservations about Archuleta.

The move also reinforces the odd faith the team continues to show in Brandon McGowan, who will be elevated to Archuleta's backup with Harris gone. Foot and leg injuries have limited McGowan to nine games in two seasons, but the Bears like his potential enough to open a spot for him.

Though injury-prone players often fall out of favor with NFL coaching staffs, McGowan had been getting an increasingly longer look with the No. 2 defense this week as trade talks heated up.

"I don't think it has anything to do with me," McGowan said. "It's just a business."

Drafting strong safety Kevin Payne last April, a college teammate of Harris' out Louisiana-Monroe, also indicated the organization's desire for an upgrade at the position.

"It's just the depth," Smith said when asked what made Harris expendable. "You can't keep six safeties."

Teams as draft-driven as the Bears can't keep trading away draft picks either without risking long-term stability, another factor in the deal. Acquiring veterans such as Archuleta and Darwin Walker for second-day draft choices represents a refreshing win-now mentality, but minor deals like Harris' remind everybody the future matters too.

And if Angelo finds the veteran running back he has been looking for since training camp started, the Panthers just gave him a bargaining chip to offer.

Simply, the Bears dealt from a position of strength to fill a need: draft choices. The only people who didn't sense the inevitability of a move at the overstocked position seemed to be the ones who play it.

"I really didn't think anything would happen," Brown said. "I thought you'd want to keep as much depth as possible and keep as many good football players on the team as you can. … I guess you just come to work every day and hope you still have a job. Chris is going to be fine."

By practice Friday night, so will the Bears.

 

So if Harris works out as well as well hope then he and Minter will start this year and we will draft a guy to start next year beside Harris or bring in a cheap vet. That is not to bad I guess. Now if we can just get Beason signed.....

 

Meriweather at #14 wouldn't have killed me, but I liked the trade down. And despite the issues at safety, I'd rather have Kalil and Johnson than the safeties who were available then. The draft just didn't go our way in terms of that position, but I did wish we would have been more pro-active in free agency. Even someone as mediocre as Mike Doss would have been welcome considering that he signed a one year contract for peanuts.

 

Drafting a safety would've been fine - I'd have even been fine with reaching. But we got, with exception to the theory of whether Beason is better than Posluszny (I'm still fine with either at this point), upgrades and value in the first day anyway. I think we're a better team overall for what we did, even if it doesn't apply to safety.

 

I wanted Griffin or Merriweather (SP?) I figured Griffin would be there but who saw the Titans taking him in order to move him to corner?