Hester's base pay for this season is $445,000.

--Cornerback Charles Tillman has high hopes for the defense, but the health of the unit will determine how close it comes to his expectations. Last season, Nate Vasher, Tillman's running mate on the corner, missed 12 games with a torn groin muscle, and the injury bug inflicted major damage on the defensive line.

"With the two of us healthy," Tillman began, "well, with everyone healthy, not just Nate and I, with our whole defense healthy I think the sky's the limit for us."

The Bears had a top five defense in 2006, but slumped badly last season. Most of the same players are around, but Tillman says the current group has to make its mark all over again.

"I just think we need to create our own identity and stop living in 2006," he said. "It's 2008 now, so we have to establish our own identity again."

--Rookie running back Matt Forte showed above average speed and quickness after taking a screen pass for big yardage in Saturday's night's practice during 11-on-11 drills.

"It seems like every day he's doing something that we take notice of," coach Lovie Smith said of the second-round pick.

Smith also singled out fifth-round rookie tight end Kellen Davis, who caught a deep seam route in stride from Rex Grossman. Rookie wide receiver Earl Bennett had another notable practice, which is becoming commonplace.

"He seems to make a couple big plays each day," Smith said. "We expected that out of him. He made a lot of catches at Vanderbilt, and hopefully it will continue."

--Starting cornerback Charles Tillman was excused for the first two days of camp for personal reasons, giving 2007 fifth-round pick Corey Graham another day of first-team practice reps.

"We've been impressed him," coach Lovie Smith said. "He has good size, good speed, he knows what to do with the ball once he gets it. He seems to show up around the ball each day."

Graham was victimized for a long touchdown pass in 11-on-11 by Rashied Davis, although the wide receiver appeared to push off while the ball was in the air. Graham saw most of his action last season on special teams, where he was second on the Bears with 20 tackles, but he was behind seventh-round pick Trumaine McBride on the depth chart, although that situation has been reversed.

Graham felt he struggled on the first day of camp but that he played better on Thursday. He said being in the huddle with the first team has been a little awe-inspiring.

"It's a little awkward," he said. "I'm just in there not saying anything, just looking around. They do all the talking. You're looking around at all these big-name guys, but it's a good experience to go through."

--Even though the Bears have started practicing in pads and doing some controlled hitting, rookie running back Matt Forte says there's no need to worry about him.

His running style is sometimes is characterized as "upright," which can give defenders an easier target to hit. But he doesn't agree with the "upright" description, and at 6-feet-2, there's no way the second-round pick is going to look anything like 5-7 Garrett Wolfe coming through the line of scrimmage.

"I've been running like that since I started playing football," said Forte, who is sharing first-team reps with veteran Adrian Peterson. "I wouldn't call it an upright running style because when I'm running and I see somebody's going to hit me, I'm not going to stand straight up. So I don't know why they say 'upright running style' anyway. I hear it all the time."

Whatever you call it, Forte used that style to rush for 2,127 yards at Tulane last season, and he missed just three games in four years.

"Obviously I'm going to protect myself out here," he said. "I run with my pads low. You make easier cuts that way. That's how you learn how to cut and hit the hole hard."

--Just over a month ago Lovie Smith said he was content to go into the 2008 season with a running back corps led by rookie Matt Forte and backed up by Adrian Peterson and Garret Wolfe.

The late signing of veteran free agent Kevin Jones added a former 1,000-yard rusher to the landscape, although he's not 100 percent yet and isn't expected to come off the PUP list for a while.

Still, why the change in Smith's philosophy?

"A month ago I said I really liked our running back position," the Bears' coach said. "I thought we had the players that we thought we could win with. I say the same thing right now. You can just take this for the entire time I'm here: We'll always try to improve our ball club, at any position. If a player becomes available, we'll look at him, and that's what happened with Kevin. I like the running back position more right now, and as far as our plans for Kevin, we'll just see where he is once we get him on the field and go from there."

Jones' availability remains a question mark seven months after surgery to repair a torn ACL in his right knee. He is confident he'll be ready to contribute by the start of the regular season, but the consensus seems to favor taking it slowly for now.

"There's a chance he won't be ready to go right away," Smith said. "We checked out his knee, and it's sound and all of that. I talked about the strength of that running back position. It is there, so we won't be in a hurry to rush him in there, but he eventually will help us."

QUOTE TO NOTE: "I don't think I've ever been this busy in an off-season and I don't think I ever will again. We did a lot; hopefully we accomplished a lot. We certainly kept a good foundation in place for a good while and that was our goal going into our off-season." -- Bears GM Jerry Angelo after Devin Hester became the team's seventh player since last season to sign a contract extension, following Kyle Orton, Tommie Harris, Desmond Clark, Robbie Gould, Alex Brown and Brian Urlacher.

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