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As opposed to the $17 mil it cost them last year? That's based on an interpretation that the Panthers aren't interested because they haven't spoken to him. My interpretation is that they don't know what they plan to do because of the uncertainty of the CBA situation. I see no reason to expect him not to be tagged again. When it comes to offseason speculation like this, the media is wrong as often as not. Add in the uncertainties of an uncapped year, and no communication doesn't mean much of anything. If he's not franchised in the next few weeks, then we know he'll be available. As far as the Bears are concerned, I think it really depends on who we hire as OC. If Martz gets the gig, then I expect any offseason spending to go towards the offense.

Pix - There is no cap next year so all that has to be worried about is the cash. There is also the distinct possibility that he gets franchised again. AG- Peppers was franchised last year so, no, he wasn't available. It would have cost us 2 first rounders to get him (which would have meant no Cutler) and even if we did sign him to a contract, the Panthers would have likely matched it anyway. There is really no point in thinking about it much until we see if he gets tagged or not.

That's exactly the take I had on this. Chud wanted a 3 yr deal which would have guaranted him annual salary x3. The Bears offered him a reasonable salary x2. That equals less money. I'm really getting tired of all the whining. Can we just wait until they hire someone before we bitch too much?

Well....err.....thanks. Glad to help out.

Any more questions? I love this stuff. Am I a thread killer?

Question. Okay, this is an uncapped year. We know that. Can teams play w/ contracts? What I mean is, can a team renegotiate a player's contract this year to front load it. For example, take a players 2011 salary and roll it into a 2010 roster bonus. If this is done, (a) players are always happy getting money now ( team takes a hit to the purse this year, but does so w/ revenue, while at the same time lessinging the burden next year when their finances may not be great and © if a new CBA does happen, this dramatically improves the teams future cap outlook. While I think this offseason is a great opportunity for teams to purge overpaid players, at the same time, it would also seem to prove a great opportunity to set up the team for financial stability for the future. I guess I really don't understand what you are asking. Sure teams can choose to pay a player a higher salary in 2010 and a lower salary in 2011, but if there is a lockout, the players don't get paid anyway. Basically, if the uncertainty comes to pass, they don't have to pay the players in 2011. If the uncertainty is gone, then they'll have plenty of money in 2011. I guess I don't really see the point. I guess you are asking if teams can buy future cap space by restructuring future obligations into this year without a cap. The answer is yes. But I can't imagine anyone but Dan Snyder even thinking of doing it because in 2010, teams will be looking to reduce costs (if anything at all) to conserve for the potential year without football. On a side note, one thing I think that may be in a new CBA after an uncapped year is a clean slate on signing bonus prorations. So let's say a guy with 5 years left on his contract with a signing bonus proration of $3 mil per year would cost $15 mil against the cap in 2009, $0 against the cap in 2010, or $9 mil against a reconsituted cap in 2011. I think a new CBA will give everyone a clean slate on that $9 mil. That would benefit the players because it's more cap money teams would be required to spend against the floor (as opposed to the Bucs barely making it to the floor this year by cutting or trading guys with huge SB accelerations like Derrick Brooks and Gaines Adams) or an ability to have a higher ceiling for teams that actually spend money. The owners would benefit by being able to release or trade underperforming players (like 2010) and not be hamstrung by the ramifications. That's why I think trying to buy future cap space isn't really something worth pondering. The teams will have the cap space back anyway.

I guess I am not sure what we are arguing at this point. We already have Lovie through 2011, as Dallas just locked up Wade for. I agreed from the get go that we would not simply fire Lovie if there is no CBA agreement. Again, when fans talk about dumping Lovie after the season, I think (a) it doesn't mean they are saying 1 hour after the end of the final game and ( it is based on the assumption of a new CBA. I think most fans realize that if a new CBA is not agreed upon, then we are not likely to fire Lovie and pay for a 2nd HC to also sit at home. I don't think you and I are arguing much at this point. However, I disagree that most fans realize that the CBA situation might make the coaching situation even more complicated next year than this year. Actually, I don't think that most fans even realize how much the looming CBA situation affected the coaching carousel this year. Well - at least from the point that some don't realize (or perhaps accept) how much it had to do with the decision to keep Lovie. The fact that there were only 3 HC changes this year speaks volumes to me - and 2 of the 3 have the richest owners in the league. I would point out a little (on the other hand) scenario. I'll use Cowher, simply due to his being a popular choice. Lets say we tank this year and the owners want to make a change, but again, no CBA. What if we (a) cleaned house and ( hired Cowher, but wrote into his contract language that essentially agreed to pay him a minimal amount if there was no CBA and he was not really "working" but the contract kicks in a high salary if a CBA is reach. Then, even if an 11th hour deal is made, you still have a staff in place. Not really. Cowher would be taken care of, and his preferred assistants may be identified, but that doesn't mean that his guys (that would normally be given permission to leave) will be given permission to leave because the teams they are under contract to will not want to have to figure out how to replace them. Only guys with a contract ending might actually be available. IMO, there will be a virtual "freeze" on the coaching community if everything comes down to the 11th hour. I didn't make my point I guess. My point has nothing to do w/ the cap. The point is more this. Look at the SB of a big ticket FA. Say $20-30m these days. For the cost (just talking straight dollars) you can pretty much hire an entire coaching staff. So my point is, in ownerships eyes, player costs are more likely to be on the conservative side as those are simply the higher dollar. And my point is that even now, the $20-30 mil you are talking about for hiring a coaching staff gets paid out in a bunch of smaller chunks over time to a player. They may only get $8-13 mil the first year. That wouldn't cover the whole coaching staff the first year and would also limit the team's ability to pursue free agents from a cash flow perspective. I get your point, but I'm just trying to put the cash flow in perspective. You are paid on commission and you didn't do so well, and you know your next check is going to be a tad weaker. You need to look at ways to cut back a bit in order to prepare for the lower income. What do you look at first. The big stuff or the little stuff. I can tell my wife to cut out/down on Starbucks, or this or that, but if all those little things is still less than one golf outing of mine, which do you think gets cut? Thats my point. Nothing to do w/ salary cap. I think this offseason, while there will always be the Snyder moves, I think most owners are going to take a conservative approach as they don't want to be on the hook for big salaries next year if there is no season. In fact, I think we could see a real rash of players being released as, w/o a cap, teams can purge their rosters of the expensive players not worth their contracts w/o worry about a cap penalty. Yep - look for underperforming players with high salaries to get purged. Also look for there to be more trades than usual because there is no cap acceleration on trades either. I expect Roy Williams to get moved in Dallas no matter what Jerry Jones has been saying. He said TO wasn't going anywhere either. Ideally we would sign coaches to a one year deal w/ a team option for the 2nd year, but I think most coaches would balk at that idea unless they were truly desperate for a job. I suppose. I really don't care what the contract looks like as long as the team can keep them if they want due to the pending CBA stuff.

Regarding your first point, I would say this. I agree there if it appears there will be a lockout, Lovie will not be fired. At the same time, I think fans are not really making that an issue is because it really won't matter. If there is a lockout, it doesn't matter who our coach will be. Also, I while I think most fully expect a non-capped season due to the lack of a CBA extension, I think most fans also struggle to believe either side, much less both, will truly kill the golden eggs producing goose. There will be plenty of fighting and puffing up of the chests, but when it comes down to it, I think most simply believe a deal will ultimately get done, and therefor most fans offer opinions under the expectation there will be football in 2011. And like I said, if there isn't, it really doesn't matter who our coach is. I agree. I'm just addressing the point that people are worried about what coaches will be available next offseason. For instance, Phillips just got an extension through 2011 in Dallas. All I'm saying is that if a deal gets done at the 11th hour to save the 2011 season, it will be too late to really try to get a new coaching staff for that year. I'm defining the 11th hour as late February which is after the traditional coach-hiring period. All of the other stuff in February like the application of tags and RFA tenders will be compressed and then FA will begin shortly. That's hardly enough time to hire a new staff and determine what type of players they need for a new scheme much less evaluate the talent already on the team. As for the 2nd part, I am sure teams are taking a bit of a wait and see approach to how much money they will have to spend, but at the same time, I think that will have a greater affect on FA signings, both in money and lenth. You can hire an entire coaching staff for the cost of one big FA signing bonus. While what you say is true right now, I'm pointing out that a new agreement might not have a salary cap meaning that there will be no such thing as a "signing bonus" as we know it now. Money paid is money paid and it won't matter when it's paid. Bonuses that come at the time of signing won't be anywhere near as large. For instance, currently, a signing bonus often has deferred payments so it isn't actually all paid at the time of signing. My ultimate point is that if the mechanisms for structuring contracts change, then teams really have no clue how much they will have available. With that said, it was a consideration of mine, and thus why I said I think our ownership is not likely to sign a coordinator to a 4 or 5 year deal right now. That is why I think any assistants we hire now to fill our holes will likely be signed to one or two year deals. I think they all will be signed to 2 year deals so there won't have to be any scrambling if there is an 11th hour agreement before the 2011 season.

I think many of you are focusing on the wrong issues and misinterpreting things somewhat because everyone seems to be reading the tea leaves as if the looming CBA issue has no effect on coaching decisions. For instance, we could suck balls next year, but Lovie still wouldn't be fired if it looks like a lockout is coming. It sounds like everyone is expecting that if there are no playoffs for us that Lovie would be fired the following Monday if not right after our last game. If it looks like there will be a lockout, there will be no changes at all because they wouldn't want to risk having to pay 2 sets of coaches. As for the length of contracts, Tice signed a 2 year deal. That may be because they don't want anyone's contract to exceed Lovie's, and it may be due to the potential work stoppage. It's impossible to tell which. What I think many aren't factoring into their thoughts is that the new CBA will be significantly different from what has been in the past. Things I've heard as possibilities include a rookie wage scale and a pool of money to be split by vets based on performance. For those things to occur, the entire way that teams share money will be affected and that means that the teams that earn less don't know how much money will get shared to them by the richer teams, and the richer teams don't know how much they will have to share with the poorer teams. In other words, nobody knows what their budget will look like past 2011. Now I'm sure that someone will come back with "Yeah, but they make so much money they can afford anything they want to - those cheap bastards!) But the simple fact remains that when there are question marks, businesses don't make decisions if they don't have to.

Oh geez choad - you are such a weenie-head. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm an adolescent meglomaniac. It's very possible that I did miss you point because you hid it somewhere in a bunch of irrelevant crap.

That may be true, but I think that the public perception they are afraid of is the difference between the haves and have nots. The difference between Dallas and Washington, and Detroit, Buffalo, and Jax. The big issue (as I see it) is that the haves don't want to have to do the revenue sharing with the have nots. The major issue in the last negotiations was that the players wanted the same percentage (60%) of ALL revenues, but not just the DGR (designated gross revenues). They want the teams that make far less to be able to run as a franchise, but not have to share their wealth with them because of the players wanting that big a piece of the pie. If they WERE to open their books, I think that they would find a huge disparity in the actual profits of the different teams and I don't think the league wants that info published.

Thanks, nfo. After his last one where he quotes an article saying that ALL businesses in the US lose $250 billion in revenue annually to counterfeit merchandise, and then uses it as a number for the NFL as evidence of how much they actually make, I lost any interest in counterpointing this malinformed choad.

I wouldn't get too worried about much quite yet. The owners have no reason to compromise anything right now. It's the players that don't want the uncapped year. The owners do want it so teams can wipe some bad contracts off the books without the normally corresponding cap hit. Also, in an economic climate like this, teams like the Bucs need there to be no salary floor as well so they can get by. As for King's perspective, he's not a business guy. I'm sure he's reporting the propoganda that he's hearing accurately, but he really has no idea what anything that he is hearing means. That's it plain and simple.

That was the Franchise tender for Peppers, not the whole league. The Franchise tag is the average of the top 5 players at a given position OR 120% of their previous years' cap hit. Peppers is in a league of his own. Here's a link to last year's tag levels.... http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d8...mp;confirm=true I'd expect us to transition tag Ogun at the least.

All those guys will probably be tagged since teams will have 1 franchise and 2 transition tags this year.

I'm not sure what you think the league can do about it. My best friend died at 21 of the same thing and he wasn't an athlete. He was standing in his kitchen making cocoa and just collapsed. Not sure if Adams was exerting himself at the time, but chances are that playing football had nothing to do with his death.

I'm pretty sure he meant his record of turning out probowl olinemen as an Oline coach and not his W-L record as a HC. So who looks stupid now?

I disagree that any offense would work with that blocking scheme. The blocking scheme defines the entire offense.... how many step drops for passing plays, where the blockers create holes on running plays... etc. BTW - Any support for the idea that blocking schemes are interchangable with different types of offenses?

Just playing devil's advocate a bit, but wouldn't his zone blocking scheme have to fit in with the offensive scheme - and we don't have an OC yet to make that determination yet? If we'd gotten Bates as OC, sure Gibbs would've been someone to go after, but not knowing who to OC is going to be, or what kind of scheme he's going to run, then there is no point in pursuing position coaches. It would be like Hiring Marinelli to coach the D-line for a team running a 3-4 defense.

When a coach is under contract, the only position move they can't block is to HC. This doesn't surprise me at all. I couldn't imagine them letting him interview with a division rival.

It doesn't have an appreciable effect. It would be the difference of you or I getting shorted by $10 on our paycheck. It just doesn't mean much. "chicago is literally the 2nd biggest market in pro football. if the money faucet is turned off by fans this in reality does effect not only the bears but the entire nfl. could this be one reason the nfl stepped in just prior to when we hired jauron and tried to sort out the mike mccaskey mess in chicago with disgruntled fans and media? so i believe if chicago fans are spending $20-50 mil (just a wild guess on this figure with no fact involved) on nfl merchandise a year and this goes into the nfl collective and this is suddenly dried up because fans just aren't interested or are disgruntled in supporting this franchise it DOES hurt both the mccaskey's and the nfl. although it may be small amounts in comparrison to the amounts generated by the nfl's telecast money it still is not chump change. " Some of what you say is true, but we aren't talking about ALL fans not buying stuff, we're talking about a few ubergeeks spending a bit less. It IS chump change. speaking of media contracts... if people are not watching a disaster of a team on local broadcast stations does this not hurt the national and local advertising stream? without advertisers or with a lowering of advertising charges to fill time slots both locally and nationally does this not lower the amount of money to some degree of what the media will offer for nfl rights to air their games in the future? Nope, thos things are worked out in advance. If there are poor ratings, it's the advertisers that lose out. The fees for the NFL are set on a national level. It doesn't matter if a team sucks. The league gets the same money no matter what. if you lose a generous amount of "Sunday Ticket" sales that specific fan bases control does this also not hurt the future of media contract negotiations? Yea, I suppose it might, but it never has so far. DirecTV is spending a fortune to have exclusivity. They would pay through the nose for that or someone else would outbid them. if concession sales and parking revenue for at least 8 games a season (not including pre-season or post season games) drops dramatically this also lowers the final income to be distributed by the nfl to each franchise not to mention their cut. example: if you fill a stadium to capacity and each person spends and average of $30-50 each for beer, hot dogs, parking etc. how much does this lost income add up to during a complete season? That is something to worry about for teams that don't sellout their games, but the Bears always do. finally, even if all season tickets are sold out for years, aren't there a block of tickets sold at gameday? if those seats are left empty does that effect the income the nfl collects? if ticket holders stay home how does empty stadiums look on tv or if there are more opponents fans in the stands than home team? how happy are other owners in seeing that their money is going to be proportioned out to help fund an inept franchise that can't generate their potential income? There are no "gameday tickets" for the Bears. Single game tickets go on sale sometime in June via Ticketmaster and sell out in minutes. in my opinion there is a fantastic amount of growth not only in the number of fans but the amount of educated fans in todays world and they are light years ahead of what fan knowledge was in the 60's 70's and even 80's. 1. there is the internet that major portions of the populace has readily available. just the number of sporting sites alone in this venue and the depth of the knowledge available is certainly astounding and as has to be accounted for. 2. the number of sporting magazines and papers has increased by leaps and bounds. sporting news, the chicago bear report, the packer report being just a small portion of them. 3. you have local/cable/satellite sporting stations that keep much of the populace up to date. some of those being ESPN, locally comcast sporting network chicago, your local broadcasting channels that dedicate many programs to specific sporting venues throughout the year. 4. you now have sports radio which does bring with it a large audience. this could include not only the score, but espn radio and the serius satellite radio. Ok. That's all true. Let me also bring up that the sky is blue and water is wet. So, what's the point? the difference in this is just how much does the franchise owners want to spend to generate winners and goodwill in their own community. do they just want to milk the public for goal oriented profits where decisions are continuously based soley on profits/losses? in any corporation you may have to take a percentage loss in certain years to generate not only goodwill but a better product that gives you more future profits and sustain and reward your existing customer base that caused you to be a viable commodity in the first place. Well, to counter hyperbole with hyperbole, the decisions need to not be solely made emotionally and without regard to profits and loss either. If pure profit driven decisions are on one end of the spectrum, and emotional, "will to win" decisions are on the other end of the spectrum, I would propose that the decisions should (in reality) be somewhere in the middle. I think for the most part they are or Lovie never would have been given a $5 mil/year contract in the first place. it also needs to be said that even if we run into a non capped season (and they may have limited or no income for ONE season) is it possible to believe that this franchise exists paycheck to paycheck after 80 years of business and has no working capital to sustain it in such a limited time? just ONE example... where has all the player portion of leftover salary cap money gone since the salary cap started 15 years ago? if they had saved just this portion of it they could afford to hire and fire 2 or 3 lovies this year. Ok, first off, the uncapped season doesn't mean they will be without revenues. The year 2011 where there may be a lockout and there are no games is where their lack of income would come from. Team's all have a "war chest" to account for that eventuality, but it's not unlimited and would impact dividend checks for the "stock holders". When looking at the open books for the Packers, their player salaries are around $130ish million and their entire budget is about $260 million. So, while they wouldn't have to pay the players, they also DO have other employees and other expenses that they have to pay whether there is football being played/income coming in or not. don't forget also that more than likely the the chicago bear 'corporation' employs it's owners and pays them salary above and beyond any dividends it may or may not pay out. the surplus (and there CERTAINLY has to be some) in the corporate entity will STILL pay it's 'employees' whether the season plays out or not. so unless the mccaskey family and their corporate employees are making minimum wage and have been for nearly a century where is the real pain involved? SOME of the family have jobs with the Bears, but most do not and live on their dividend checks. You're making them to be alot wealthier than they really are. so to believe the mccaskey family will be getting their homes repossessed, end up on food stamps or standing in soup lines if >>THEY I don't think anyone is proposing that they would be on food stamps or standing in soup lines. However, they would probably have to live on less than they are used to during a lockout and paying for 2 sets of coaches during that time is simply something they don't have to do and would make it worse.

Ummmm yes and no. They get a percentage of all things sold at Soldier Field during games, but it's no different for merchandise than it is for beer. You would be surprised. I know many people that are season ticket holders, and almost all of them (other than the ones that I met through message boards) don't follow the team like us ubergeeks . An example is one time back in 2001, I went to a game with Bastardson from a previous incarnation of this board. We sat next to a season tisket holder that was absolutely amazed that between us, we knew just about everything about every player on the team - B-son rattling off various stats like YPC and average yards per game, and myself proffering contract lengths and cap hits. The guy was amazed at how much we knew, but one thing that I remember specifically was that he asked who Blache was when I made some comment about him being lucky to have Washington and Traylor to work with instead of Flanigan and Wells. My point is that even among season ticket holders, most of them don't presume to have an opinon on the coaches one way or another. Your analogies of people risking lots of money in business are irrelevant. You are suggesting spending more money (the risk) in hopes of winning a championship (the reward). The problem is that they don't earn that much more money even if they do win it all. You aren't suggesting they spend more money for business reasons. The Bears are already a profitable enterprise. You're basically suggesting they spend more money for no extra profit. My other point about Risk v. Reward is that you can't contemplate going for a reward without determining what the risk actually is. You have no idea what the risk is. The "Family" lives off of dividend checks. I don't know how much they get per year, but the risk of a lockout could mean that they get nothing that year and having to pay 2 coaching staffs could mean that they get nothing or less in following years as well. Your assumption that "they can afford it" is exactly that, an assumption. We don't know. I'm sorry, what's the difference between getting new coaches this year instead of next year except that we would have more money available next year and more draft picks to implement a new scheme? The bottom line is that a change of HC makes alot more sense next year. I made the point about season tickets because it's pretty much the only way that ownership gauges fan opinion. In other cities, fans can just not buy tickets. Get a few blackouts and it gets their attention. Here in Chicago, we not only sell out consistently, but there is a waiting list for people who want season tickets. I'm on that list. I sent them $400 just for the privilege to be on the waiting list. My point about people giving up their season tickets was two-fold: 1. to point out that things aren't bad enough for Ownership to really pay attention and 2. I'd really like to move up the list so I can get season tickets and I don't care if them not firing Lovie achieves that or not. I recommend saying the Serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. How the Bears are run falls under the catagory of things you cannot change. Accept it and you'll be a much happier person. I apologize if you thought I meant that you said all those things. I was responding to many of the issues that have been brought up by many people, I just didn't quote each one. Your post about the owners not understanding the depth of the anger was just a jumping off point.

Thanks for the support Mongo, AZBearsfan, and Connerbear. 2 more points: 1. We went freakin 7-9. We ought to be able to improve by a few games with an ACTUAL OC and a qualified DC for which it's a full-time job. 2. A Billion dollar enterprise. They must have money right? It's like if you inherit a million dollar painting. Does that mean you have any money before you sell it?

Guys, there is absolutely no way you can spin it that failing to fire Lovie and hire someone else will cost them any money. Not only that, but doing that would cost them more money than otherwise. When it comes to merchandise sales, it is all split league wide. So feel free to not buy stuff if you like, but it's not really going to affect anything meaningful for the Bears. As for how angry some people are, I think you expect that everyone feels the same way as yourself. They don't. Most fans don't really have an opinion. Most fans don't even know the Offensive or Defensive coordinator's names. People on message boards are more fanatical and vocal than other fans and also make up a minscule sliver of overall fandom. It's the same with TV show message boards. BECAUSE they talk about stuff in excruciating detail online, they figure everyone else does too. Most fans of TV shows just watch the frakking shows. As for taking risks to earn rewards, give me a break. You make that statement like it's an absolute and never attempt to quantify the downside. It's like if I speed and drive crazy to get to the movie I want to see, I'll be rewarded by getting to see it - but fail to realize that passing traffic in a no passing zone might get me killed. Is it worth it then. Obviously no. Is it worth it in the case of the Bears? I can't say for sure because I don't know what the potential consequences might be if there is a lockout. The family lives off of team dividend checks. If there is no income, those dividend checks will be drastically reduced. Having to pay and extra 10-15 million when there is zero income would be a strain on any enterprise. I get what you're saying and wanted Lovie fired too. But trying to suggest the team is cheap when we're talking millions of dollars offset by zero income, and you're just bat-shiat-insane. BTW - Anyone wanting to boycott the team and give up their season tickets, feel free to do so - in fact I encourage it. Thanks - from someone on the waiting list.

Pix - I haven't been around lately, but I have to encourage anyone thinking of donating to take a closer look at the situation. I saw on another board that someone I trust (by the integrity of his posts) that he knows the guy in charge of the operation personally and he wouldn't trust this guy with any money. The fact that they say on their webpage: "With a donation to Bears Fans United you can finally have your opinions heard." That sounds like a come on to me if I've ever heard one. That being said, I really don't have much of an opinion on a new coach. I don't think we can afford the "name' guys out here at this time. I really wouldn't be surprised if Angelo forces new coordinators and Lovie along with a bunch new position coaches.