LT2_3

What happened was that the cap money left was pretty much what they expected to pay for Berrian + a bit extra for injury replacements. The thing was, they expected to spend it on Berrian and couldn't find a guy they really liked. I don't think that they were being cheap - just prudent. My estimate is $27 million. Phillips gave an interview a few days ago and sure sounded like they were planning to spend some money. I disagree that anyone has any idea who will be available yet. Both the Ravens and Panthers have decisions to make on who to franchise. There might be some unexpected cap casualties by the cap strapped teams because they are limited by the last capped year. They may have to cut specific contracts to get under because they can't split the unprorated bonus money over 2 years. Who will be available is FAR from clear. How is anyone getting screwed? They spent before the stadium was built too. A Peppers signing could happen if he doesn't get franchised. I think they're going to spend.

That was an incomplete pass. I think some folks are getting confused because they think he was "down" before the ball came out. The defense hitting him is irrelevent to whether the pass was completed or not. Think of it this way: If a player bobbles the ball making a diving catch and it comes loose when he hits the ground without being touched by the defense, it's an incomplete pass. In watching all the replays, he DID get 2 feet down, but I couldn't tell when he stopped bobbling the ball in that sequence. If he had snatched the ball out of the air and immediatetly tucked the ball away, it would've been a catch. If he'd held on to the ball when he landed, it would've been a catch. But those two things made it incomplete.

I would also add that I was mentioning to a buddy the other day how much AP's running style reminds me of Marion Barber in Dallas. He's a sledgehammer which I think makes for a great change of pace late in games. I dunno. I read these unequivical statements that KJ is better than AP or Wolfe, and I have to say that I just haven't seen it since his injury last year. Maybe he's still a great RB and is just out of sync in this offense, but he hasn't done anything that any other RB couldn't do with the few opportunities he's been given as far as I can see.

I agree that the NO offense won't be quite so dynamic in a cold and probably slippery Soldier Field when compared to the 70 degree comfort and perfect traction of their home dome. My minor quibble with your statement is that we play them 2 weeks from Thursday on December 11th which increases the odds of it being pretty cold.

Are you saying that unmarried christians don't have sex? Really? Since when? I guess I missed that memo.

Ya know it's funny Connerbear. The first guy that came to mind when I read that was Harrison. I guess Forte just doesn't seem like a rookie at all. Forte IS awesome, but Harrison hasn't been a slouch either. He's tied for 3rd with Hunter and Mike Brown for third on the team in sacks and started against the Eagles with Tommie out. That's a purdy nice third rounder there.

C'mon Nfo - If we're gonna play hindsight, then don't all the other teams have the same benefit? Forte would've been a first round pick and we could probably have gotten Williams in the 2nd, and I would've gone for Flynn in the 3rd.

I don't think Lovie would make that call, but it would be because we have a better and deeper defense and not because of any philosophy. Coach Kevlar said he made that decision because his defense was gassed and he didn't think they would get a chance to score if they lost the coin toss. I wouldn't be surprised if Lovie made the same call if our defense was in that bad of shape at the end of a game. First off, that wasn't the play call on 3rd and 1 at the end of the game. Orton checked out of the running play because they had crowded the line of scrimmage and the DB was playing off. Then once he'd changed the play, the defense backed off the line into coverage, and the DB moved up into press coverage. With a more experienced QB and WR, there would have been a sight adjustment by the QB and WR, and the WR would've run a quick slant or something else. I really don't get the criticism of the coaches for play calls that were changed by the QB. There's still going to be some growing pains with the offense, but we're headed in the right direction.

Geez - Don't you guys have Brad Biggs setup in twitter? I knew this around 3:30!

Just an FYI, but if you are talking about a compensatory pick for losing Berrian in FA, those picks don't come from the team that signed the guy, they come from the league at the end of a round. Also, the earliest picks they give out are in the 3rd round. That would be pick number 97 if we got the highest possible pick and it's virtually a 4th rounder. All that being said, I don't think Quinn is available and would probably take our 1st rounder and a CB at the least.

Youth movement = rebuilding

Ummmmm when a player gets claimed off waivers, they have no choice in the matter. The Dolphins are required to keep him on the 53 man roster for 3 weeks. They may be only be taking him for a test drive of sorts. If they waive him after 3 weeks and if he clears waivers, then we will have a shot at signing him to our practice squad at that point.

I don't know the whole situation, but I think that Vince needs to kick his mommy out of his house. How can he ever make decisions as a man when his mommy is calling him "her baby boy" and calling his boss when he doesn't want to hear her crap anymore?

Dude - you have to understand what the numbers represent and how they have thier numbers formatted. So, to look at the numbers you are referring to, I'll explain what they mean. http://content.usatoday.com/sports/footbal...amp;player=2357 First off, the year you are referring to is 2003. The numbers as listed are really: Base paragraph 5 salary $1,050,000 - His team salary that he gets paid in game checks Sign Bonus $13,000,000 - the amount of signing bonus on his deal (sometimes shown, sometimes shown as 0 in years where the bonus was not paid) Other bonus $1,005,600 - all other bonuses such as roster or workout bonuses Total Salary - $15,055,600 - This is a total of ALL money paid to the player in that year. This has nothing to do with the cap. Cap Value - $5,150,242 - This is the players cap value for the year. So, Urlacher WAS paid a $13 mil signing bonus that year, and due to the amortization rules it prorated out at $1.857 million per year. However, USA Today isn't going to wipe your butt for you and you have to do some work to put the numbers into the context that you are presenting. Seriously, if you and your buddy want to be seriously good at figuring this stuff out, I'd recommend some accounting classes so you can get a feel for how numbers with the same label can be different in different situations. What? A credit is a debit and a debit is a credit? How can that be true? How can 2 things that are the opposite of each other be interchangable? So, the bottom line on this is that the USA salary database is an excellent resource for contract data because it comes straight from the NFLPA's numbers supplied to agents on contracts. The downside is that it's not formatted in a user friendly format and you actually have to interpret what the numbers mean player by player and transpose them into whatever format you are presenting. It's incredibly time consuming, but it provides the most accurate possible numbers when cross referenced by media reports. One more suggestion, you and/or your buddy should join the Yahoo group called AMCAPNFL. It's a bunch of amateur capologists that ask each other questions to get their totals right for their teams. http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/AmCapNFL/

Well, here's a link to Tait's page on USA Today's salary database: http://content.usatoday.com/sports/footbal...amp;player=2240 He didn't have a large signing bonus and his cap totals reflect that. Here's a link to RMJs numbers and he didn't have a signing bonus at all: http://content.usatoday.com/sports/footbal...amp;player=2900 I think that you are operating under one main misconception. Not all money given to a player at the time of signing a contract is classified as a signing bonus. Angelo has been giving roster bonuses (meaning nonproratable) instead of signing bonuses (prorated) for awhile. That's the trickiest thing about the cap: getting the info right in spite of how stupidly the media screws up the reporting of the deal.

Without really looking at things in serious depth, one thing the guy screwed up was the rookie contracts. Whomever was estimating those numbers, didn't realize that the Bears utilize REALLY small bonuses (both roster and signing) a drafted players rookie year and then rewards them with significantly larger option bonuses in their second year. I've also noticed that this guy has the team carrying large signing bonus prorations for players like RMJ, Ogun, and Tait that were given roster bonuses that were mostly amortized in their first 2 years. For instance, By his numbers, Tait had a proratable signing bonus of over $12 million. If that were the case, KC would've been able to match his transition tag easily. As it was, the Bears included a $4 million roster bonus to put most of the cap hit in year one forcing them to decline to match. The guy has a good start, but he really needs to do it for a few more years so he can learn more effective rules of thumb for dealing with ambiguous data reported by the media.

Pix - It's really hard to say for certain. I won't have the details I need on all the contracts signed this year until next year when USA today publishes the 2008 salary database. That being said, the source I trust most (adamjt13 from KFFL) had us at $9.45 mil in cap space as of 8/4. That would include Hester's new deal as well. My best guess would be that we are closer to the $9.2 mil number than anything smaller than that. Although, that depends on how the cap numbers were arrived at. If anyone has a roster bonus keyed to making the 53 man roster, then that probably wasn't included in the $9.2 mil number. Hoofhearted: Where did you get the $2.9 mil number from, and can you provide a link? That sounds like someone included guaranteed money that is scheduled for amortization in a future year or failed to properly amortize a signing bonus. If you show me their math I can show you where they went wrong. If anyone is interested, the most recent trick that I see teams utilizing to trick the cap (and it allows them to spend beneath the minimum cap) is that they push cap space into the following year via the LTBE loophole to achieve the 90% minimum cap, but never actually PAY anyone the money. The future year has a higher adjusted cap for the team, but they are only required to spend the 90% league minimum and not 90% of their adjusted cap. That's how teams are able to enter the year with $25 million+ of cap space, but not be below the league minimum.

I realize this is more of a "Who would you like to coach the Bears if Lovie is no longer the coach" theoretical exercise, but Lovie will be around for the 2009 and 2010 seasons as well. Lovie signed a deal worth $5 mil per year that runs through 2011. There is no way he's gone any sooner than 1 year remaining on his deal.

I think someone should ask the guy if he's interested in taking a pay cut to get hit for a living.

So who will we be projected to draft when we end up picking 32nd?

Your understanding is incorrect. When a player is on the practice squad, they are not protected by the team that they are on in any way as long as another team is offering a contract and a chance to be on their 53 man roster. Another team could approach Hanie and ask him if he'd like to join their 53 man roster and make him a contract offer, but he could choose to decline. He could also tell the Bears in advance that if he gets an offer, he'd stay if they match too. The bottom line is that Hanie's opinion on the sitch would be the guiding factor.

And if Grossman gets injured or we want to play him in games later in the season, we can't promote him to the 53 man roster why? eh? Can't hear you? Oh, that's right, WE CAN!!!!! BTW - Has anyone followed any othe preseason games? If I'm not mistaken, quite a few of the 3rd string guys have looked pretty good against the Walmart guys. It's not unique to Hanie. In fact, I read that for the Packers, Flynn ('08 6th rounder) looked better than Brohm ('08 2nd rounder). Any see a correlation there? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

I'm pretty sure that the only thing we would have to worry about is Hanie clearing waivers after final cuts and BEFORE he would get signed to the practice squad. Even then, I doubt that there would be any team out there that didn't draft him in the 7th round that thinks he's going to be a better prospect than any of the other guys available - and sign him just after trimming THEIR roster to 52 guys. I just seriously can't see that happening. I don't think it's POSSIBLE for him to do anything against Walmart guys to garner such high regard. As it's been pointed out, Hanie chose the Bears. I think it most likely because he figured that it would be his best chance to move up the depth chart. Next year he's likely to be 2nd string if things go perfectly. So, what's the worst case scenario if we sign him to the practice squad? Some other team offers to sign him to their 53 man roster? All the Bears have to do then is sign him to their own 53 man roster. (Remember he chose to be here most likely because of the opportunity) So they were trying to save a roster spot and ended up having to put him on the roster. Big whoop! They probably would get by that way for at least a few weeks before they have to make a decision. I really can't see a scenario where Hanie would go anywhere else by choice and the only possible other situation is waivers before he's signed to the practice squad. Oh wait! I fogot it's Chicken Little season.

I think it's a great idea. I seriously SERIOUSLY doubt Hanie (an undrafted free agent) would get picked up onto someone's 53 man roster from waivers. There are SO many other guys that will be out there and available that I doubt a UDFA from the BEARS would be the best prospect out there. Whether Angelo is trying to save face or not is kinda irrelevant. I was thinking that we were planning on going with 2 QBs on the active roster to carry 4 RBs BEFORE Williams even got hurt. I don't see the two issues being related. Now the question is where else we have to leave ourselves short. I think that we might go a little short on the Oline for backups if we can stash Barton or Balough there.

Ummmmm guys, if you want to research draft stuff, I'd recommend www.drafthistory.com I guess a list of old draft picks is no big deal for me since I reference drafthistory all the time anyway.