Jerry Angelo Quotations

Maybe he'll be brand new; we don't know yet. The No. 1 thing is we want to make sure, as he does, that he's healthy and can go on leading a normal life after football. That is first and foremost with his agent, with Jerry and obviously with us.

never, ever in doubt. Eugene assured us throughout the process that Cedric wanted to be a Bear. And I wanted to make sure that when Cedric came in with his adviser, we made that clear as well.

I didn't like how we ended that '01 season. We got beat. It made us look weak, and I've got that taste in my mouth still. We just didn't look like we were ready to play. We got beat in our own backyard and got our butts kicked.

I didn't like how we ended the '01 season. It made us look weak. I've got that taste in my mouth, still.

If we're contingent on just one player, then obviously we didn't build this team to win. It's a tough blow, I'm not going to sit here and say it isn't. ... We'll get through it. I feel good about our locker room, I feel good about our coaches and we're going to move forward.

If we're contingent on just one player then obviously we didn't build this team to win. So we feel real good about this football team, but it's a tough blow. I'm not going to sit here and say it isn't.

We made an investment in a player, and I believe you play your investments out. Is that 100 percent sure he's gonna be on our team's opening day roster? I can't guarantee that, either.

We made an investment with Grossman, ... We felt very confident about his leadership abilities. It wasn't a bad decision. It was bad luck.

Maybe what it all says is that with colleges throwing the ball so much, the running back position has become less important. There's some truth to that, and maybe we're seeing the effects of it in the draft.

We've never had a problem with him, going back to when (he was in) Tampa.

He'll be fine. The information that we got, we feel very solid about. In the end, everything should work out well.

He just didn't progress the way we thought he would. That's the short of it. I'm sure he's as disappointed as we are.

Given Marc's situation-he had a horrific injury-for really a good two and a half years, to watch his dedication and his work ethic ... having to do what we did was very, very tough.

Given Marc's situation he had a horrific (knee) injury for really a good 2½ years, to watch his dedication and his work ethic, there were doubts he would ever play again. So getting him back and going and then obviously having to do what we did (Tuesday) was very, very tough.

I don't buy it, but that will be the logic for the team that picks him, that we have an extra pick to gamble on,

We've got to get that quarterback position stabilized. If we don't get that stabilized, it's very hard to play around that.

We made our phone calls. We just didn't get any answers.

He's going to learn another lesson the hard way, but we like Tank; he's a good kid. Wrong place, wrong time. At least he takes ownership for what he did. We respect that about him.

He's got a strong foundation in terms of his family and very grounded, and we're very happy to have him as our No. 1 draft pick.

I said 'Marc, I hope you prove me wrong,' ... And I know like Marc felt like he's still a starter in the league and I hope he can be. But again, it was a decision we felt like was in the best interest of the club and he knew that. We have to think team first.

I said this really the last couple years: Saturdays look like Sundays now, and that's good for football. They truly are training the players the way we want to use them on Sundays.

I think the tight end position is probably one of the risky positions in terms of the durability, but that's given the fact of what they're asked to do. It's very hard, very hard to find the perfect tight end and durability is a problem throughout the league. Not just with our team, but a lot of teams.

I think his workout will be a side show. It's not going to show you anything. The injury is what it is. He's not going to get back significantly sooner or later than anybody else with that injury. We really won't know anything until he hits the field again and we see what he can do. But someone will take him pretty high and take the chance.

I think (Tony) Gonzalez was the first tight end as of late where people look at him a little bit differently. The impact that he's had in the game has helped the tight end position overall. They're looked at as a skill position. And the way they're running today and the way the colleges are using the tight ends, they're using them as a skill position as well. What's gone away from the tight end position is the blocking. Blocking isn't as important with the tight end.

It gives us hope, it certainly does. Every player has his own circumstances, and we have to address each and every one individually. But we certainly want Lance here.

I thought Day would have gotten drafted and Wallace could have been drafted. They looked at our situation and they jumped on it, so we were real happy to get both of them signed.

I thought Day would have gotten drafted and Wallace could have gotten drafted, so we felt in free agency those were probably as good of players as you could get.

We've talked to some teams about players. I'm not going to get into the specific names, but it could be something we'll listen to.

Well look, but we're going with the hand that we dealt ourselves. We said that going in, and we're comfortable with it.

We know some people down there who have been in that conference for a long time. They've had some pretty good players. Those coaches said, 'Jerry, he'll stand with the best of them in terms of his talent.' The talent was easy to see. That just jumps out at you.

I would like free agency to happen after the draft. The union, obviously, would like free agency to come before the draft.

We just didn't look like we were ready to play. We didn't play well, and we got beat in our backyard. We got our butts kicked. That leaves everybody with a bad taste. You can't have that happen in your backyard.

We could have taken a tight end earlier. We want to create competition at that position. There will be some veteran players flushed out, with all the guys who were drafted, and we will look at those.

Under the circumstances as they are now, we may never see another coach win three Super Bowls in our lifetime.

We have not initiated any contact. If you hear someone say they have talked to me, it's because they have my number.

Mike Brown has been such a catalyst for us emotionally as a leader, anytime you take an emotional leader off the field it impacts you.

We feel good about what we're going to do. We have a plan for free agency.

We were losing, and we weren't creating hope.

We put a cap on what we were going to spend this year. Signing Fred let us move Tait to left side. It was a good fit, especially since we were able to work it out financially.

We put all the cards out on the table. When we got Chris Chandler, Chris knew he came in to back up Jim Miller. He knew that; he understood it.

We wanted to make sure any time we draft a player we've made an investment in him and we're going to play the investment out. We just needed to see certain things in terms of his progression, irrelevant of him being a first-round pick or a seventh-round pick.

We have a little bit more latitude this year. We want to stay with the best player available. Everybody says it, but we really want to stay true to that.

We'll be able to go business as usual. Some teams may not be able to do that because of their salary cap situation.

We've spoken to Lance's agent about doing that. These things take time. We're optimistic, but again, there are always two sides and we're working through it as we speak.

We're going with the hand that we dealt ourselves. It's unfortunate; Rex will be missed.

We're happy this process has reached a conclusion and look forward to moving ahead together.

We are happy this process has reached a conclusion and look forward to moving ahead together.

Tomlinson had to hit the ground running. That's not our situation.

We probably will revisit that here in the next few days or week, what course we're going to go into. But we've had some pretty good talks with him and nothing has really come to fruition.

Well, that's not a loaded question, so I'll have no problem answering it. I've said that we feel each and every day our fans' passion, and that (question) is a good illustration of what we feel.

We can't place too much emphasis on one loss.

We do have a plan. But we have a good nucleus, so we're going to be very selective.

We don't want to do what they did in Miami and bounce him around. We want to lock him in on something now.

We know that now, and it's just a matter of him doing it.

We liked this other player better and any time you have an opportunity to upgrade your roster irrelevant to whether he's a backup or a starter, we're going to look at that very seriously and that was the case.

We would like to get another corner in here. It doesn't seem like you can have too many corners.

We're not putting any pressure on him to do what LaDainian Tomlinson did. We're going to wean him into the offense.

We've got as lot of plates in the air.

We've always had good working relationship when I was in Tampa and since we've been here I find him to be a very, very good agent and (have) no problems with him at all.

When we drafted Mike we were in a different scheme. We were the antithesis of what we are now. Now is that to exonerate him not playing because of the scheme? No. Part of it, he needed to get better at certain things, but he didn't. He's got the tools. We got into the third year and we didn't see a big advance.

Until we know for sure all that's out there, we're just not going to jump the gun, and we have to be a little bit more patient and make sure we know what players are out there.

We're going to look at anybody that's out there.

We're going to look at every possible situation at that position. Always have, always will. We've got to get it right. We know that.

We're going to look. We'll always look until we get that solved.

Usually, it takes two years for an offensive lineman to develop. So this would be the time to bring one in.

We feel that the history of (Benson's) position as a rookie bodes well (for learning fast), and that was partly why we did what we did on draft day, too.

We feel the history of his position for rookies bodes well.

At the end of the day when you're making any decision, you wonder whether the rewards are worth the risk. And in this case, they certainly were. We got a quality quarterback that really fits into what we do offensively and makes us better. And that's our job. We feel good. Now time will tell.

To get valued players you have to be willing to give value.

With Jerry potentially not being with us, we'll be looking at that position very hard.

Everybody else saw him as a role back. But we saw him as a featured back and our money stood behind that assessment.

We've been building this team to be a good, stable team for a long time. We didn't have that luxury the last time. We had to make hard decisions on the fly.

It would be something you'd want to think about. We did it in Tampa a couple times. It would be something we'd entertain.

With Ruben, that was an aberration. Maybe we got a little lucky there.

We wanted to create more big plays, and obviously that starts with speed, and he gives us that dimension.

We've had some rookies come in and do a good job,

We like what we have, but we've got to see it over a period of time. We haven't been able to do that. So my job is to safeguard the position.

Even though there's a guy out there that looks obvious to everybody here, it's not necessarily in his mind his best option. We have to be mindful of that, as well.

The one position I think ? not think, but know ? has been undervalued with free agency and expansion with 32 teams now is the offensive line. The colleges just aren't generating enough offensive linemen to facilitate all 32 football teams.

Orton's got to take another step. He needs to take the experience that he gained as a rookie and take another step. There are areas of his game that he has to improve before I feel really comfortable with him.

Probably the most impressive guy who I've interviewed.

There are always a few guys that you think are going to get drafted, and somehow they don't. They looked at our situation, and they jumped on it. We were real happy to get both of them signed.

We had a couple guys in mind. Unfortunately it didn't work out. One went about seven or eight picks before we were prepared to take him.

This did take a lot longer than what we had anticipated, ... We never really found that common ground. Usually, you find that common ground at some point the first couple weeks. We didn't really find anything that we agreed upon for quite some time. That created the long holdout.

I'm very disappointed, partly because I know he's a good player.

I'm probably more concerned about Jerry than anybody, just given the fact we had to monitor things with him. He did have surgery. Maybe he'll be brand new. We don't know that yet.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I feel great about our quarterback situation, ... I'd be remiss to say something like that. I feel this, though, I feel we have the best player at that position playing, and that's very important. There were times last year we really didn't know that, and we had to go through a process during the season.

Everybody liked John, but everyone said he was too slow. But when Tim had a conviction on a player, you knew it, and you bought into it.

It used to be you never took a tight end in the first round. But they're looked at as athletes now. They're looked at as a skill position.

You try to get guys with versatility and that's real important.

Do I see us doing something with the offensive line on the first day? No, because I like what we have, and for the most part they're all under contract as well for the next few years.

It's really the toughest pick because this is the calling card. This is the message we're sending to our locker room, the type of player we want, not only in talent but in personality and character.

The failure to reach an agreement on a fair and reasonable contract has been a huge disappointment.

That's a lot of money, but that's a unique offense. A receiver in that offense is obviously of more value than, maybe, a running back is. That's what each team has to do. They have to evaluate the positions.

It obviously would change our direction if we did, in fact, do that.

I know a lot's being said about Rex, the eulogy of the team given that Rex is out. I want to make sure our fans know we're not here lamenting over Rex Grossman. It's unfortunate. ... We have a lot of confidence in our quarterbacks and (offensive coordinator) Ron Turner.

I don't know if it's really that much different than last year,

I don't know if we're going to strike fast. We have a pretty good nucleus so we're going to be very selective.

These things take time. There are always two sides, and we're working through it as we speak. We've talked about proposals, and I'll leave it at that.

It was a matter of another player in John St. Clair that we felt was a better player in his role,