Bear Essentials

Any NFL team, including the Bears, wondering if it should risk using a high draft pick on former LSU cornerback Tyrann “Honey Badger” Mathieu, got their answer at the NFL Scouting Combine: “No.”

Mathieu did not play last season after he was kicked off the LSU team, an amazing accomplishment in itself. He has had substance-abuse problems in the past, and his work ethic has frequently been called into question. That was reaffirmed when he managed to bench press 225 pounds just four times.

ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay has some good reasons for the Bears taking Notre Dame’s notorious linebacker Manti Te’o with their first-round draft pick in his latest mock draft.

McShay agrees with most experts that the Bears need offensive line help, but he believes that it’s specifically the left tackle position that cries out for help. The problem is that McShay has the top three blind-side protectors all coming off the board long before the Bears pick 20th.

The uncertainty over the return of unrestricted free agent middle linebacker Brian Urlacher makes Te’o a logical pick, although McShay isn’t convinced that the Notre Dame defender will be an elite player in the NFL.

According to ESPN’s NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr., who conducted a national conference call Wednesday morning, there are three elite offensive left tackles in this year’s rookie crop.

Unfortunately for the Bears, who would love to upgrade their blind-side protection of quarterback Jay Cutler, Kiper believes all three could be off the board before the Bears pick at No. 20.

Kiper currently has Texas A&M’s Luke Joeckel going No. 1 overall to the Chiefs, Central Michigan’s Eric Fisher goings seventh to the Cardinals and Oklahoma’s Lane Johnson being taken by the Rams with the 16th pick.

After his contract was terminated by the Bears Tuesday it appears Johnny Knox’ football-playing career actually ended about a month after his 25th birthday.

That was Dec. 18, 2011, when he suffered the hideous hit that he has been unable to recover from. It’s still out there on YouTube, if you can bear to watch it. Medical professionals have speculated that if the slight, 185-pound Knox weren’t a world-class athlete in peak condition, the clean tackle by 272-pound Anthony Hargrove might have killed him.

Tim Brown and Jerry Rice should put their heads together and form a rock pile. First Brown alleged that Raiders head coach Bill Callahan purposely lost Super Bowl XXXVII to the Buccaneers and their coach Jon Gruden, his old friend, by sabotaging the play-calling with too many passes. Rice “corroborated,” Browns’ claims in even stronger language in an ESPN interview. Their allegations bring up a lot of questions: Did Callahan also sabotage the defensive game plan? Because the Raiders lost that game 48-21. No team has allowed that many points in the last 17 Super Bowls. Did Callahan hypnotize quarterback Rich Gannon, the league MVP, into throwing 5 interceptions?

It’s a Ravens-49ers Super Bowl. Great. Now we all have to endure two more weeks of revolting pap regarding “the great” Ray Lewis and his impending retirement. Never has a person so undeserving of admiration received more of it from the national media and especially the TV nitwits. The best thing about the Super Bowl is that it will hopefully be the last time any of us have to watch Lewis and his idiotic dance. Compared to that, it’ll almost be a pleasure to watch the Whining Harbaugh Bros., as they gyrate, moan, complain and feign outrage along the sidelines every time a call goes against their team. It makes one long for the days of the stoic Plastic Man, Tom Landry.

I’ve heard of boxing referred to as “the sweet science,” and I’ve seen the classic film “Weird Science,” starring Anthony Michael Hall and especially Kelly LeBrock. I’m even old enough to remember listening to Thomas Dolby’s obnoxious new wave/synth-pop recording of “She Blinded Me With Science,” in 1982. But until Marc Trestman’s press conference on Thursday I had not heard of “the science of football.” And I was not alone.

Of all the talk radio I listened to Wednesday concerning the hiring of Marc Trestman as the 14th head coach in Bears history, one comment stood out for its stupidity. It was the notion was that general manager Phil Emery, president and CEO Ted Phillips and chairman George McCaskey didn’t hire Trestman until they had the “blessing” of quarterback Jay Cutler. Really? Could there be a better/worse example of the tail wagging the dog? I’ll spare the offender in question by not identifying him, but his last name rhymes with Shmefter. Hopefully for the sake of Bears fans and the success of the franchise, the opposite is true. Hopefully Trestman gets the go-ahead to take Cutler to the woodshed and demand that he start improving his god-awful mechanics immediately.

The Bears’ dependence on Brandon Marshall has reached ridiculous proportions. Marshall’s 1,342 receiving yards are more than the next seven Bears combined. The next seven. Combined. Rookie Alshon Jeffery has 256 receiving yards, which is No. 2 on the team but less than one-fifth of Marshall’s total. Marshall’s 101 receptions are as many as the next four teammates combined. The first-year Bear has 9 touchdown catches, the same number as the rest of the team combined. Marshall’s having the best season a Bears receiver has ever had – by a wide margin. He’s already topped Marty Booker’s old single-season record of 100 catches, and he’s on the verge of Marcus Robinson’s single-season mark of 1,400 yards with three games to go.

One of the quickest ways the Bears can improve an offense that threatens to jeopardize their playoff plans is to reduce their overabundance of penalties. The Bears’ total of 61 penalties isn’t terribly egregious, but they’ve been flagged 56 percent more often than their opponents. The alarming number is the 37 penalties that have been whistled on the offense, including a ridiculous 18 false start penalties.