Lovie on guard over lineup

; With the Bears facing the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, coach Lovie Smith paid tribute to Browns coach Eric Mangini with a vow of silence about a rumored change at left guard. Mangini, who still is reluctant to name a quarterback after the Browns have played seven games, stayed mum on the subject throughout training camp and the preseason. Smith took that approach one step further Wednesday when pressed on whether Josh Beekman would take over for Frank Omiyale after Beekman played with the first team in practice. ''OK, I'm not going to talk about anything personnel-wise,'' Smith said. ''To me, that's pretty clear. If that's all you want to talk about, there's nothing else to talk about.'' Why again? ''I just don't want to,'' Smith said. ''As simple as that. Don't want to give the opponent an advantage. We want them to wonder what we're going to do, like you are right now. That's the way it's been throughout. So it's not like there's something new that I'm coming up with right now.'' This isn't a quarterback switch that could cause the opponent to wonder. This is a move at left guard, where Beekman will start Sunday. He'll be asked to help block 350-pound nose tackle Shaun Rogers, the fulcrum in the Browns' 3-4 scheme. General manager Jerry Angelo announced that change could be on the way on the team's Web site Wednesday morning, when he expressed his disappointment in the 45-10 loss at Cincinnati and the Bears' two-game losing streak. ''I don't want to go too far into this, but certainly there are things that need to be corrected and things that we need to do better,'' he said. ''Do we need to look at some personnel? Yeah, we do. There's some of that going on, as you'll see Sunday.'' That wasn't the only revealing remark Angelo made regarding the blowout. ''What really surprised me was that we weren't able to make the needed adjustments in terms of slowing them down or stopping them,'' he said. Beekman's promotion won't be the only move. Hunter Hillenmeyer is expected to return to middle linebacker in a flip-flop with Nick Roach, meaning the Bears will have a different combination of starting linebackers for the fourth consecutive game. Beekman started all 16 games last season, but the team decided at the start of the offseason to look for a bigger player for the left side of the line. The Bears signed Omiyale, a tackle for the Carolina Panthers, at the outset of free agency to a four-year, $11.5 million contract, modest pay for a starting lineman. According to STATS Inc., he's responsible for a half-sack in six games. The team that gets off the bus running ranks 29th in rushing, and Matt Forte is averaging only 3.5 yards per carry, less than a half-yard off his average from his rookie season. Pass blocking for quarterback Jay Cutler has been in line with what the offense did last season. He's on pace to be sacked 29 times, the same number of times Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman went down in 2008. Offensive coordinator Ron Turner deferred to Smith on the possibility of changes, and the team tried to deny Beekman worked with the starters, but they weren't convincing. ''Everyone is focusing on the line, but it's everybody,'' Turner said. ''We can't look at it and say offensive line, make one change or do this or do that and we're going to be better. It's all the way across the board.'' Comment at suntimes.com.