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Reviewing the Pro Football Hall of Fame's list of middle linebackers is a sobering experience. The position is well-represented, but almost all of the enshrinees -- Dick Butkus, Jack Lambert and Willie Lanier among them -- are drawn from a long-go...

Congratulations to the Arizona Cardinals, who for the time being at least have won the unofficial contest for best reaction to Brian Urlacher's retirement with this tweet: You were who we thought you were. Congrats. RT @BUrlacher54: It was an honor ...

What made Brian Urlacher special? You have to start, of course, with the way a 6-foot-4, 258-pound man could run, hit and organize a defense on the field. But even an occasional in-person observer of the Chicago Bears over the past decade could notic...

Congratulations to linebacker Brian Urlacher, who found peace and satisfaction with his 13-year career Wednesday rather than extending it beyond what felt organic to everyone -- most importantly him. The assumption has always been that Urlacher, w...

As rosters shake out this summer, you'll hear a fair amount about the "youngest" and "oldest" teams in the NFL. Sometimes those figures and rankings can be skewed by aged kickers or an exceptionally youthful set of reserves, so I like what colleague ...

We're Black and Blue All Over: The Green Bay Packers lost a promising rookie -- perhaps for the season -- on the first day of their organized team activities (OTAs), according to multiple reports. Offensive lineman J.C. Tretter, a fourth-round dra...

As you might have noticed, ESPN and ESPN.com will begin counting down the top 20 coaches in NFL history later this week. Trey Wingo provides the basic parameters in the video, and from an NFC North perspective, this list is going to boil down to wher...

We're Black and Blue All Over: Why is the NFL considering a reorganization of its offseason schedule, as reported by ESPN's Adam Schefter? Naturally, to avoid the kind of quiet period that leaves players, teams and media members fighting over whet...

We're Black and Blue All Over: We're down to five unsigned draft choices here in the NFC North after the Chicago Bears wrapped up contracts for their 2013 class over the weekend. First-round draft pick Kyle Long agreed to terms on a four-year deal...

Football Outsiders, a statistics-based analysis service, has been producing division-by-division Insider files on remaining team needs. You'll need a subscription to read the entire NFC North post , but below I've taken a few excerpts and written a f...

Reggie Bush's appearance Friday morning on the NFL Network reinforced what should be a fun 2013 trend in at least two sectors of the NFC North: Running backs catching passes. Lots of them. How many? Well, we can say this: We have two connections t...

A look at key players for each NFC North team who are coming back from injuries: Chicago Bears: Place-kicker Robbie Gould needed offseason surgery after rupturing a semitendinosus tendon in Week 15 and still hadn't been cleared to kick 13 weeks la...

We're Black and Blue All Over: Good mid-Friday morning and let's get straight to our morning tour: Dan Pompei of the Chicago Tribune answers several questions about Chicago Bears guard Kyle Long in his weekly mailbag. The Bears promoted Mark...

Maybe it's a habit. Despite the NFL's near-elimination of drama in signing draft choices, I still field daily questions about the status of negotiations. So it seems to be a good time to re-set things here in the NFC North now that the Minnesota Viki...

We're Black and Blue All Over: The Minnesota Vikings finally are following up on their first instinct on Joe Webb. Four years after drafting him with plans to attempt a conversion to receiver, the Vikings have confirmed that Webb is now a receiver...

ESPN analyst Herm Edwards raised an important and relevant point in this discussion about how the Chicago Bears hope to elevate quarterback Jay Cutler this season. "Sometimes he hangs on to the big play too much," Edwards said. "[He] wants to make...