NFC North Breakfast Hot Links for May 4, 2012

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Bears Day! This is where we'll go back and look over the Chicago draft a little more closely.

A apologize it also lands on Star Wars Day—a day nerds like myself celebrate the Star Wars franchise, which has been burned to the ground by George Lucas.

I don't celebrate, really. I mourn.

Anyway, there will be plenty of Bears talk today as well as an early look at the training camp battles for Chicago and Minnesota and a Letters from the Frozen North, so get your questions in!

We kick things off in the Breakfast Hot Links with Chicago.

Chicago Bears

Dan Potash and Sean Jensen take a look at Bears Priority Rookie Free Agent signing James Brown and his potential impact at tackle.

Former Bears defensive end Alex Brown is not a fan of Roger Goodell's punishment of the Saints players. I was not shocked—nor at this point should you be—that he is a former Saint as well since everyone bitching about it seems to have been a Saint at some point.

I like the loyalty though. 

Green Bay Packers

The National Football Post has a Jerel Worthy quote that might worry Packers fans—and coaching staff.  

Zach Kruse at CheeseheadTV.com talks about Nick Collins' next step after being released by the Packers.

Kruse also takes one last look at the Packers draft.

Detroit Lions

The Lions have offered a contract to former Green Bay Packers running back Ryan Grant, and the two parties will meet on Monday. Get the sense LeShoure/Best/Smith makes them nervous? 

How things have changed—MLive.com has a piece on how three Lions ended up on the ProFootballFocus top 101 players of 2011.

Not that long ago, Lions would have never sniffed that list, huh?

Minnesota Vikings

KFAN had an interesting interview with Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers on his stance with the stadium bill. You can hear it here. 

The Star Tribune had some more from Zellers and some thoughts on the bill, coming to a head on Monday. 

Hat tip to Kevin Seifert at ESPN's NFCNorth blog for the heads up on those stories.