Spring Forward

Posted by: Tony on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Hey All. Since I’ll be posting here on a regular basis, Avinash suggested I introduce myself. For those of you who don’t know me already, I’m a 2000 Cal alum currently living and practicing law in New York. Thanks to Avinash for the opportunity to contribute to the discussion and thanks to you for reading.

Congrats to all the Golden Bear draftees, and best of luck to those still eyeing free-agency. With so many Bears drafted in the last few years, it’s getting harder and harder to decide which NFL teams to root for (as a native Chicagoan, I was already facing Rodgers’s ascension with some mixed emotions). I for one am really looking forward to flipping over to the Eagles games for punt returns this year.

With so much attention on the draft this last weekend, it may have escaped your notice that the Bears wrapped up Spring practice on Saturday. Overall, I’d say we leave Spring ball with a little more comfort than we were going in. On offense, it looks and sounds like we can expect Jahvid to be back to 100% by the Fall, and we now at least have some likely suspects (Nyan Boateng and Michael Calvin) to look out for in the receiving corps. That’s right, receivers! With two hands and ten fingers! Each! The QB situation is still opaque, but are any of us really in a hurry to resolve that one?

On defense, all indications suggest that the Bears are shifting to a 3-4 base defense. In my humble opinion, this can only mean good things. It certainly does when the Bears use it on my NCAA Football 2008 (for that matter, the Bears might also consider running the option with Kyle Reed under center). Also, for all the skepticism about the Cal secondary, I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that, for the first time in years, we have two corners with starting experience returning.

The Spring also ended with a huge news story from down South. The Chow-Neuheisel light show in Westwood took a major step back when the Baby Bears’ QBs 1 and 2 both went down within minutes of each other (I’ve lost count how many times this happened to UCLA over the last two years). Named-starter Cowen is out for 2008 with an ACL tear. Olsen has a broken foot and is likely out two months. While the Bruins have a number of options under center, a development like this can’t help the new staff’s transition.

Finally, if Spring is ending, then I guess it’s Summer! And Summer here in New York is a big deal.

hydrant

Go Bears!



Topics: Analysis, Cal Football, College Football, NFL, Pac-10, UCLA

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