adam

If you can only have one. Who are you signing/keeping as the Bears Do-it-all Player? 1. Grant is a FA, was pretty dynamic on punt returns and flashed some skills on offense (albeit in a small sample size, 9 rec, 139 yds and 2 TDs). He will probably be seeking a deal similar to his last one, 2-3M per year. So do you bring Grant back for $2-3M a year as the primary PR with some potential offensive snaps? 2. Cohen has the 8th highest cap hit on the team for 2022 and basically hasn't played in 2 years. He has a $5.75M cap hit in 2022, and his cap hit balloons to $7.5M in 2023. If you cut him pre-June 1, you save $2.25M and have $3.5M in dead money. Post-June 1 you save $4M and have only $1.75M dead money, but that cap space can't be used until June 1st. He caught 150 balls in 19 & 20 and scored 8 TDs receiving as his role seemed to shift to more of a receiver in 2019 before getting hurt in 2020. Do you bring him back for $5.75M and hope he is back to 100% after two years off or cut him? 3. Patterson flourished in Atlanta after getting out of the Nagy offense and was literally a jack-of-all-trades player with 618 rushing yards, 548 receiving yards, and 434 Kickoff Return yards (lowest of his career). He had as many offensive touches in 2021 (205) as he had in the last 4 seasons and also scored a career-high 11 TDs. He will probably get $4-6M on the FA market, but will he want to return kickoffs full time? Would you sign him as the "Adjustor"? 1. Grant for $2-3M (could use the $2.25M cap savings from Cohen and pay less than league minimum out of pocket). 2. Cohen for $5.75M 3. Patterson for $4-6M, roughly the same price as Cohen (could cost $2-4M out of pocket if you cut Cohen and used the savings)

Very cool, I didn't know that.

I agree, I just don't know if they would do that. It would have to be a return that compensates for that loss in cap space. A 2nd and a 3rd, as long as they become starters would be worth it. Instead of paying Quinn, the dead cap + rookie salary evens out.

Quinn is immovable this year. The Bears would take on $12.7M dead money by trading him. Jackson isn't going to last very long on this defense. Can you imagine Poles, Ebferflus, and Williams going thru game tape and watching Jackson's effort on 90% of the plays? They may cut him after watching Week 3. I agree on Goldman, he must've sat on his ass for a year in that year off. He should've been hitting the gym and came back a ripped monster. I would cut him before FA starts so you free up the $6.6M to sign a real NFL player. I don't know if the defense is really going to take a hit. Mack is the key. If he is healthy and playing with fire, he is a game wrecker. He is a more natural DE than OLB, same with Quinn. Mack had 6 sacks in 7 games, and was limited in the game he got hurt. So in the 6.5 games, he had 6 sacks. Eberflus and Williams did more with less in Indy. I think they will find the role players to plug in. It's going to come down to OL Protection and Fields development. If he is who his stats say he is, we are in trouble.

I believe he is the longest-tenured Bear and made $1.75M last year. The Bears just signed Ryan Winslow who was a UDFA with the Bears in 2018. Could this be the end of Mega Punt? The Bears also signed long snapper Beau Brinkley, which could also spell the end for Patrick Scales ($1.13M). Between these guys and the vet min, they could save about $1M in cap space between the 2.

I don't know about flourish, but he will definitely be better than he was last year. I think he is no longer a fringe WR1. Probably a good WR2, but will need a big dog to take some of the coverage away from him. He can't separate and struggled with contested catches last year, which was really his only game.

Yeah I posted some quick math: It wasn't perfect, but I was just proving a point that it looks deceiving but his targets were down because 1. The Bears threw less, 2. he missed 5 games, was limited in 1, and didn't care in the last two.

I feel like they will address Safety in FA for sure. Malik Hooker who played under Eberflus in Indy and will only be 26 this year. Hooker played on DAL this year, and all of their top 4 Safeties are free agents: Hooker, Kearse, Kazee, and Neal.

What about Blackson? He was better than I expected. If you cut Goldman, you should have enough to bring in a starter at NT or LB with the cap savings. So I would rather have a new starter on defense than Goldman.

If the Bears feel Thomas Graham can play CB2, I am thinking they are going to go all-in on offense this offseason and only fill the holes on defense with guys on one year deals. Would you be ok with going 2 OL and 1 WR with the first 3 picks?

Yeah, it is a great read. Most we already knew or felt, but here are some nuggets: - Accuracy was bad regardless of whether he was under pressure or not. Partially on him and partially on lack of reps, and partially on lack of protection. - Great 10 yards and beyond, terrible inside 9 yards. So great at the hard things, terrible at the easy things. Hopefully coaching and being in sync with receivers will help this. - Play Action - deepest target depth and best big-time throw % and 3rd lowest % of turnover worthy plays. Better with play-action than without it. - Pressure from Center was 32nd, Mustipher has to be replaced. - Time to throw correlates with the deeper throws, if he throws shorter passes, he won't get sacked as much. Just with getting better protection, in sync with receivers, and a better game plan will make Fields perform how we expected him to.

He is one of the bigger frauds, I have no clue why anyone would follow him other than for comic relief.

AZ, you are correct, it's ultimately about roster construction. They were just depicting one fact about those rosters, all but one had an RB on a big contract. It's not to say the RBs on those rosters weren't productive or their production wasn't needed. It was just showing that the actual SB winners all had RBs on rookie deals or smaller vet contracts. That is a pretty solid argument not to pay any RB over $5-6M. O-Line and QB are the keys for sure. Look what happened to Burrow and Mahomes last year. We got Fields, we need to address O-Line first. Another reason not to put money in places of low value.

What I find ironically comical is the fact that he calls his site Sports Mockery, he ain't lying there! He is just a news aggregator but spins the titles just enough to make it his own then referencing the source in the article. Pretty funny when he falls for the fake news postings. There is so much misinformation out there, besides the actual beat writers, the only other legitimate blogger that has been Jeff Hughes, aka @dabearsblog. He nailed the GM, HC and several of the assistant hirings. At one point the beat writers were using him as a source lol.

There are a few guys they could bring on for near vet minimum deals. He is one of them. Him and Byrd were signed for the same amount last year.

Lemon, You are spot on, we lose some DL spots with the Edge guys moving to DE and gain some LB spots going from 2x ILB to 3 LB. We definitely need some bigger corners that are good in zone coverage and another mobile LB to play Will or Mike.

If you want more data that supports not extending Monty, check this out: 2013 is the only bogus one because BeastMode was on the team, but Harvin outrushed him in the SB. However, outside of him (he made $7M), none of these other guys was making a lot of money, which allowed the team to address other positions with that cap space. If you sign an RB to a big second contract, it rarely works out. Also remember that Cohen is making $5.7M, 2x more than any RB on this list. Monty is going to command more.

Some other guys: Russell Gage - ATL, 66-770, 4 TD Jamison Crowder - NYJ, 51-447, 2 TD Kalif Raymond - DET, 48-576, 4 TD - Also a PR Braxton Berrios - NYJ, 46-431, 2 TD - Also a KR/PR Cedric Wilson - DAL, 45-602, 6 TD Byron Pringle - KC, 42-568, 5 TD - Also a KR Adam Humphries - WAS , 41-383 Zach Pascal - IND, 38-384, 3 TD Every guy on this list had as many receptions as ARob in 2021. I wouldn't mind 2x of these guys, one of the true slot WRs and another outside guy to go with Mooney. Replace Byrd and Goodwin, then draft ARobs replacement. In the mock draft sims I keep doing there is always a good value WR available at 37 and 71.

Yeah, we would've drafted Donald, but he got picked one spot in front of Fuller and the funny thing was even the Rams passed on him, using their 2nd pick of the 1st round to draft him. I still don't know how he fell out of the top 10. He should've won MVP last night. The Rams defense won the game and if not for a non-call on the 75-yd TD pass to Higgins, the game would not have even been that close. Rams should've won by a lot more but McVay and Stafford did their best to keep the Bengals in it. McVay literally turned into Nagy. If the Rams were playing KC or BUF, they easily lose this game. For some reason, he kept running Akers, Michel, and Henderson for literally no gain after no gain. Then you have Stafford who did what he always does, has some nice throws but also threw 2 picks that should've been the difference in the game. However, the Rams defense held the Bengals to 11 yds on 8 plays to settle for a FG. That was the game right there. If they scored a TD there, it puts them up 24-13 and they probably win or at least force OT. No one can say that a defense can't win a championship, because that is what the Rams did. It was not McVay's offense, but I will say they didn't have Woods or Higbee, and lost Beckham, and still won. Then the refs decided to get involved. Did call anything really all game, no offensive holding, no illegal contact, then all of a sudden on the last Rams drive of the game, penalty after penalty. For the Bengals, it was a cool story, but good luck getting back to the big one with KC, BUF, TEN, and LAC all probably better teams than you are fighting for the same spot in the AFC. This year any of the 8 top teams could've won. TEN lost by 3 to CIN who got to face a rusty Henry coming off injury. BUF lost to KC in OT, then KC lost to CIN by 3. In the NFC, TB lost by 3 to LAR, GB lost to SF by 3, and SF lost to LAR by 3. 6 out of the last 7 NFL playoff games were decided by 3 pts and the 7th one was OT.

I really like Monty, great player, hard worker, but with what Herbert did when he was out with the same O-Line, team, scheme, etc showed enough to take a risk at RB. Here are some comparisons: # of games started: Monty - 13, Herbert - 4 # of touches: Monty - 267, Herbert - 117 # of games with 70+ rushing yards: Monty - 4, Herbert - 4 # of games with 20+ carries: Monty - 6, Herbert - 5 # of games with a play longer than 20 yds: Monty - 5, Herbert - 5 So Monty basically had 3x the number of games started, over 2x the touches, but the same amount of big games and big plays. To me you just can't afford to sink money in RB where you take away from another position of need because it might come down to Monty vs CB2. With Cohen making $5.7, and with Monty's production, I just don't see the Bears even offering him a contract. They may not trade him and let him play out his rookie deal, then let him walk, but I don't see them extending or resigning him. For another comparison, look at what Rashard Penny did in Seattle in the last 5 weeks of the season. 4x games with over 135 yds rushing, the last two games were 170 and 190 with 6 TDs in those 5 weeks. Penny was playing on the 4th year of his rookie deal. Sony Michel had very similar stats to Monty and had a 1-yr deal for $1.7M. If the Bears do trade Monty, I could see them signing a vet for a one or two-year deal for $3-4M. Here are the list of RBs that are current UFAs that made less than $4M this year: Richard, Lindsay, Fournette-812, Mostert, Penny, White, Michel-845, Wilson, Mack, Bolden, Jones, Brown, Conner-752, McKissic, Williams(KC)-558, and Williams (CHI) all made between $3.5M and $1.5M.

Brown or Armstead, then someone like Karras would be awesome. You could slide Borom inside and go with Armstead/Whitehair/Karras/Borom/Jenkins. Based on what Poles wants in his O-Linemen and team, I don't think they are signing Daniels or Mustipher.

I am thinking Attaocho is gone. He has a $3.1M cap hit and they could save $1.9M by cutting or trading him prior to June 1st. Post June-1st cut saves $2.7M with only 400K dead money. Snowden should see more time behind Quinn as a DE. The Bears lack the traditional 4-3 LBs. If Smith is going to be Darius Leonard, then he is going to be the Will. That would put Trevathan in the Mike leaving the Sam open. Even though they say the switch is no big deal (from 3-4 to 4-3), the one place it does impact is roster construction because Edge guys go from LBs to DL, so you ultimately shrink your DL from 3 spots to 2 and your ILBs go from 2 to 3 full time LBs. So the Bears need to grow some LBs and change some of their IDLs. Now the Bears need a true 3-Tech and NT. What can Goldman play? Blackson was a pleasant surprise down the stretch, can he play 3-tech? Mario Edwards? I know they talk about making a scheme to fit the players, but if we truly are going to a 4-3 base, we don't really have the personnel at this time. Depending on where Smith plays (M or W), you need the other one, Trevathan can probably play M, but I am concerned about his ability to drop back into the seam on passing plays. Then we still need a Sam. For the D-Line, Hicks would be great as the 3-Tech, but we would need a better NT. Tonga is good as a backup, but Goldman is not a NT or 3T.

Somehow Poles and Co revamped the entire KC O-Line in one offseason and literally had 7-8 starter caliber players in that room to start the season with less cap to work with than the Bears have this year. However, I hope he is better at the cap than his Veach and Pace. Interesting to look at the KC cap for this year compared to the Bears, here are their top 5 players in terms of cap hit: 1. Mahomes $35.8M 2. Jones $29.4M - IDL 3. Clark $26.3M - Edge 4. Hill $20.6M - WR 5. Thuney $17.8M - LG Top 5: $129.9M ~ 62.4% of total cap 1. Mack $30.1M - Edge 2. Quinn $17.1M - Edge 3. Jackson $15M - FS 4. Whitehair $12.3M - LG 5. Goldman $11.8M - IDL Top 5: $86.3M ~ 41.5% of total cap KC has 5 players making more than every player on the Bears roster outside of Mack. With Frank Clark making $26M, Mack's $30M doesn't look that bad, and Quinn's $17M is a steal. Whitehair making $5M less than Thuney and Goldman (even for how bad he played) making $17M less than Jones. Then we have Mahomes out of his rookie deal compared to Fields on Year 2. The Bears are in so much better shape than the Chiefs right now in terms of cap space.

So Fields, Jenkins/Borom, Mack/Quinn/Gipson, Johnson/Graham/?, Smith/Trevathan/?, Jackson? Hole to fill: CB2/3 Upgrades are needed: OT, CB2/3, ILB2 and potentially FS. Pretty hard not to include WR1 in that. So I still think it is OT, CB, WR as the top 3.

Karras would be an upgrade over Mustipher for sure. Overthecap has him at $6M for 2021: https://overthecap.com/player/ted-karras/4934/ Probably something in the range of 3/20 would do it.