chwtom

I agree with your analysis, but I don't necessarily agree with Emery's plan. The Bears had a ton of cap room, and used up a bunch getting special teasers/backups signed in the first day or two when free agency opened. Backups and special teams players should be acquired through the draft or signed on the cheap after the first wave of free agency, in my opinion. Special teams, while important, has been rendered less important with the kickoff rules. He is,in my opinion, making some of the mistakes Hendry used to make with the Cubs--paying retail for players who may be marginally better than guys you can get for minimal cost. Hendry used to sign middle relievers and utility infielders for 3-5 mil at a pop, and I feel like that's what Emery is doing with guys like Steltz, Idonije, Weems and the guy from SF. I would've rather see them find two impact starters through free agency, then use the remaining funds to bring back guys, sign special teams specialists or backups on the cheap. In the first part of the draft I'd look for guys that could become impact starters, and in the second part I'd look for guys who could be great special teams players. I like the Marshall trade, but I really think Emery missed an opportunity by not signing Williams. Players like him rarely hit the market, and we could've gone from a second-tier team with a chance to contend to a truly elite team. That's just my opinion. I was really excited by the Marshall trade, but everything since has been disappointing.

If they sign Wimbley they can afford to go BPA for the first couple rounds. As it stands our defense does not work right without a great pass rush. Last year we ranked 29th in sacks, and we added nothing to the d-line so far. For all the excitement of the Marshall trade, we've only added depth and special teams replacements in free agency. They really need to add another starter, whether that's DE, OG, OT or safety. Considering how critical pass rush is to our defense, my vote would be to add a DE.

Adding Kendall Wright in the first would make for a pretty sick receiving corps of Marshall-Wright-Bennett.

I wouldn't hate signing him.

I think Bennett is more of a slot receiver, so he'd be the number 3. I don't think Knox will be a starting caliber WR for the Bears this year. I don't think Sanz looked like a pro WR. And Hester is a hall of famer returner but a poor WR. I'm fine with him as the number 4 or 5, but anything above that is pushing it. So I think we need a 1 and a 2. My feeling is one of them needs to be a veteran and one needs to be a rookie. If we take Floyd in the first round, we can get away with a second-tier guy like Meachem in FA. If we sign someone like V-Jack, we can probably wait until the third to pick up a WR in the draft. just my 2 cents.

If Moss is really running a 4.3, and he's motivated to show people he can still play (similar to the motivation he had after he failed with the Raiders), then he's worth a shot if the price is right, imo. If we could sign Moss, Mario Williams, and draft Floyd, that would be a heck of an off-season. Again, that's IF Moss is running that fast and seems super-motivated.

There might be a point we need to walk away from Vincent Jackson. I would rather pay top money to the top DE in football (Mario Williams) and get a lesser WR (and a first rounder) than pay top money to Vincent Jackson who--while a huge upgrade over what we have--is probably ranked somewhere in the 10-20 range for WRs in the league. If we can get Jackson for a price appropriate to his talent, then great. But if we can't, I would LOVE to see what Mario and Julius would do on the same line.

I think I read somewhere that Peppers has a 12 mil cap charge this season. A lot of that might be amortized signing bonus (ie, they are seeing a cap charge for it, but not actually paying it), but it would still be a lot of cap tied up at DE. Clayton thinks MArio Williams will get 15 mil per year. I'd be interested to see how Pepper's deal is structured beyond this year. If he's only got huge cap numbers this year and next or something, they may be able to make it work. Seems like a longshot though.

They would have an awful lot of money tied up in that position if they signed Wallace. They'd have Welker's 9 mil plus 12 mil or so this year for Wallace. I think Brandon Lloyd plus Stephen Hill in the draft might make more sense for them, particularly given Lloyd's success with McDaniels.

I think the guaranteed money is not necessarily all signing bonus. There may be other portions of the deal which are fully guaranteed, but not part of the signing bonus. One of the confusing parts of the way signing bonuses are structured is that they are accounted for in a different way than they are paid. If someone gets a 20 million dollar signing bonus, they get a check for $20 mil that year. But the way it's accounted for in the cap is different. That cap charge for the signing bonus is divided equally over the number of years in the deal. So a 20 mil signing bonus on a 5 year deal counts 4 mil against the cap each year, even though all 20 mil of it was paid in 2012. The "cap hit" comes when someone is cut or traded before the end of their deal. In that case, the cap charge becomes all of the remaining portions of the signing bonus. So if player X gets a 20 mil signing bonus on a 5 year deal, and gets cut or traded after 2 years, they would have a 12 mil cap hit that year (3 years times 4 mil). They wouldn't actually get paid any of that money (because they got it all up front), but the team would have to account for it. There are some nuances to that, like post-June 1, etc, but the above is essentially how it works.

Not suprised he got tagged, but I am surprised that it took until 20 minutes before the deadline. I wonder if one side blinked in a game of chicken.

Per Vaughn McClure's twitter, VJax and Avril were our top 2 targets, but Avril is tagged. I don't put a ton of stock in this, as I really don't think Emery is leaking things yet. There was another suggestion from one of McClure's earlier tweets than the info might have come from a player, which would make it seem like it's just speculation. But hey, it's a juicy rumor!

The other issue is that Collins is a RT, and they are assuming that Carimi will be healthy AND a LT. I'm not sure I agree.

As much as I love Forte, I just dont think signing him to a long term deal is a good football move. This team has a ton of holes. Forte is pretty replaceable with a draft pick, but the dollars we are using on him could be used to buy players who aren't easily replaceable with a draft pick. It's tough to find a great DE or WR in the draft, but we could find both in free agency. If we traded Forte, we could sign Mario Willaims AND Vincent Jackson, and use the pick we for for Forte to draft his replacement.

I'm pretty site it's this year's first rounder. ESPN was speculating that the Patriots could make a play for Wallace, and they said they would give up the second of the Patriots two first rounders.

The difference in value between our first round pick and the Giants first rounder is approximately equal to the value of a second round pick--that is according to the nfl draft trade value chart. Nobody is going to give the Giants a first round pick for a 30 year old DE, so the equivalent of a second round pick is probably about what it would take to get him. And no, I don't smoke pot. Instead of being a dick, maybe just ask me to clarify, or disagree with me like a regular person.

He's younger than Peppers... If we are going to sign Wallace, and we are admittedly unlikely to get a DE like Mario Williams, why not get Osi? We wouldn't be losing anything but his salary, since we are losing our first round pick either way. Might as well lose a worse first rounder and get a good DE for it. I understand not wanting to give up a first rounder for Wallace, but if you're willing to give up number 19, seems to make sense to trade back and get Wallace AND Osi.

How about this plan: Trade our first round pick to the Giants for Osi and their first rounder. Then sign Mike Wallace to a heavily front loaded deal, and surrender our new first (32nd overall) to the Steelers. We get one of the top young receovers in the game, and add a legitimate pass rushing threat opposite Peppers.

The Bears should go to a dynmaic pricing system. As demand goes up, a computer program automatically raises ticket prices on a minute by minute basis. If people slow their buying, then prices go down. It would effectively put scalpers out of business. Since I go to maybe one game a year, I wouldn't mind if the Bears doubled ticket prices, as long as that money turned us into a top 5 spender every year.

I agree that combine numbers are overrated, but the bench press numbers for OTs is one that has some merit. First of all, it shows how much time a guy spent in the weight room. I know that it's harder to bench if you have long arms, but the more time you spend lifting, the more reps you'll do. And I want my linemen to be gym rats. Second, beyond just showing how hard of a worker the guy is, you need upper body strength to be a tackle. It's not all finesse and footwork. And FWIW, I think Chris Williams had a pretty low number as well. One of the knocks on him coming out was that he was soft, both physically and attitude-wise.

I think LT and WR are holes too big to leave open until the draft. You can't go into a draft needing to fill an important starter spot. If we want Floyd in the draft, we still need to sign another WR so it isn't quite so obvious a need. Maybe we don't sign Vincent Jackson or Colston, but we should at least get a Meachum or Reggie Wayne. Same goes for LT. We may not find our LT of the future in free agency, but we should at least try to find a stopgap who is better than Webb. Worst case scenario we then draft a LT in the first and Mr. FA LT becomes Carimi insurance or a swing tackle. Too many times Angelo went into a draft needing to find a starter and ended up getting leapfrogged for his guy, then he had to reach for the next best player. He got leapfrogged for the DT whose name escapes me (and ended up settling for Haynes, on whom they'd done almost no research), Santonio Holmes, Joe Staley, and most recently the safety Burnett who went to the Packers.

Didn't the Bears say that last year too?

oh my bad. i still don't think finley will hit the market, but i wasn't trying to jump all over you about it.

Both Finley and Davis are exceedingly unlikely to hit the market, so you can put that idea to bed. I'm not in love with Martellus Bennett, but he has a lot of upside and would come fairly cheap. He's been stuck behind Witten his whole career, so there may be more to him than we have seen. We may have as much as 30 mil in cap room, but I think people need to temper their expectations. As much as I'd like them to, it's pretty unlikely the Bears sign multiple big name free agents. Also, many of the message board favorites (Finley, Fred Davis, bowe etc) aren't going to hit the market. A lot of teams have a lot of cap room, and I think more frnachise tags will get used this year than typical.

Interesting note from profootballtalk... Teams can carry over (if they choose) their remaining cap space from 2011 into 2012. If that's true, then the Bears could theoretically have (if they choose) a projected 27 mil to work with. That's a big deal, because 27 mil is enough to sign 2 pretty big free agents, extend Forte, and fill in with some lesser guys to fill out the pre-draft roster. So we could sign Vincent Jackson AND Avril (or Mario Williams). Then maybe pick up Martellus Bennett for tight end, and some competition in the secondary and o-line. That would really free up Emery to deepen the roster with the draft, rather than trying to find several starters. Again, this assumes the McCaskeys are willing to actually use that space.