adam

It did, but they needed rookie pool, so probably $4-5M left for those type of deals. I figure 2-3 more and leave a couple of mil on the books for in season emergency signing.

So 2022 is where the team is in a much better cap situation. They can save $12.9M by cutting Quinn as a post-June 1 cut and $7M on Foles next offseason. So $20M off the books is a nice chunk of change without losing any performance. Mack is also an easy candidate for a restructure at $30M. Graham comes off the books, so the only guys with a cap hit north of $10M would be Mack, Jackson, Whitehair, and Goldman. Even before the Quinn and Foles moves, the team would have around $40M to play with, so $60M is more than enough money to resign current guys and bring in a couple of impact FAs. Starters that need new contracts: Robinson (UFA - 2022) Daniels (UFA - 2022) Mustipher (ERFA - 2022) Hicks (UFA - 2022) Nichols (UFA - 2022) Gipson (UFA - 2022) Trufant (UFA - 2022) O'Donnell (UFA - 2022) Scales (UFA - 2022)

Rodgers' ego is huge. I can't see him backing off his stance. Either the GM goes or he goes. There is no way the team is going to set a precedence with a player vs GM like this. GB has lived off the franchise QB teet for 3 decades now. It is time for them to live like the rest of the league. That team immediately becomes a 6-7 win team without Rodgers. Even if Love is decent, Rodgers was top 5 of all-time. It's funny because Rodgers has masked their drafting, which has been worse than Pace's over the last few years. Last year was Love, Dillon, Deguara, 1, 2, 3. Funny that they drafted Deguara in the 3rd, a year after drafting Sternberger in the 3rd. Yet, a UDFA, Tonyan ends up being their best TE. Love is now in Year 2, can they really afford to go any deeper into his rookie deal without knowing what they got in him? Rodgers cap hit: $37M in 2021 and $40M in 2022. The most cost savings is a post June 1 trade which would be $14M in dead money this year.

Still interesting to see Massie unsigned, now past the draft. For Leno, it will be interesting to see what type of deal he takes. If he is as good as some say, no way he is taking anything less than a multi-year deal with some guarantees. My bet is a 1-yr deal for under $5M. Which would be a pay cut. Above-Average to Average LTs don't take pay cuts. He will probably go to Denver to play for Fangio. If you go back and watch some games over the last few years, I saw a distinct difference between pre-big contract/marriage Leno and post-big contract/marriage Leno. Once he got paid, got married, had a kid, his play dropped off considerably. He had a ton of penalties in 2019 and was terrible for 75% of the season in 2020, and then played decent for 3-4 games at the end of the regular season. Not enough to warrant his cap hit and play. Trubisky's mobility and him rolling out to his right more often saved a bunch of Leno sacks off the left. To me, this move wasn't a real shock as we knew the team needed to clear some cap space. Now there are only 2 other players with cap savings of more than $3M, Hicks $10.5M and Graham $7M. With enough to sign the rookie class and a few extra million to bring in a couple of vets on $1M deals, they may not have to make any more moves.

There should be a second wave of free agency coming up in the next month or so after teams get a look at some of their rookies in person and start making more post-June 1 cuts.

A Miller replacement with way more speed. Byrd - 47/604 Miller - 49/485

This was one of the easiest ways to gain cap space and not lose too much in terms of performance. They can now sign the entire rookie class and have a few million to bring on a couple of vets at the vet minimum.

Fields will beat out Dalton, he is way too talented not to. I expect him to be starting Week 1.

Now the team needs to address the cap issues before they sign their rookies. The options are: 1. Extend ARob and push some money to future years as a signing bonus. Current cap hit is $17.8M, an extension could drop it to $10M, saving about $7-8M. 2. Cut or trade Leno, this would save $9M, which would be enough to sign rookies and have some space for a few additional vets. 3. Extend Hicks with a 3-year deal with a void year, current hit is $12M, could get it down to $6-7M and save $5-6M with something like that. Another option is cut or trade Hicks and save $10M. 4. Restructure Mack, currently at $14.6M, could get his down to around $10M with $4M savings. 5. Cut or trade Graham, current cap hit is $10M, could save $7M with this move. So the Leno move would be the easiest with $9M cap savings. If they think Jenkins can be the LT, with Ifedi at RT, this would be an easy move with the most cap savings.

Check this out. Here is a breakdown of rostered players from 2020 from Profootballreference: 9 - 1st Round - 14% (Trubisky, Fuller, Smith, Mingo, Ginn, Patterson, Mack, Ifedi, Quinn) 8 - 2nd Round - 13% 5 - 3rd Round - 8% 8 - 4th Round - 13% 6 - 5th Round - 9% 9 - 6th Round - 14% 3 - 7th Round - 5% 16 - UDFA or undrafted players - 25% 64 Rostered Players So 25% of the roster was UDFA or undrafted players. As for starters (11/11/3): 6 - 1st Round - 25% 6 - 2nd Round - 25% 3 - 3rd Round - 12.5% 3 - 4th Round - 12.5% 1 - 5th Round - 4% 2 - 6th Round - 8% 1 - 7th Round - 4% 3 - UDFA - 12.5% 24 - Starters 50% of the starters are from rounds 1-2, which makes sense. So with this draft, Fields and Jenkins should be added to that list. For the later rounds, the 6th round looks like a sweet spot. That had higher percentage of players and starters than the 5th or 7th rounds. Pace got 3 players in that round, so the odds are 2 will make the team at a minimum.

I think QB and OT are the two positions that warrant it. Pace locked in QB2 and OT2 in a draft where they could've easily went sooner than they did. Then in the 6th, Pace went BPA crazy, bringing in guys with draft grades way higher than their draft position. The RB group may be one of the best in football with Monty, Williams, Cohen, and now Herbert.

That sort of makes sense as each team starts with 7 draft picks and 10 UDFA slots. The contracts also make UDFAs easier to manage at the bottom of the roster. Draft picks have guarantees.

Another thing to remember, the 49ers traded 3x first round picks and a 3rd for Lance. The Bears got Fields for 2x first rounders, a 4th and a 5th. The 49ers won't have another first rounder until 2024.

It is so weird seeing the media give Pace an A draft grade and praise his entire draft. This one feels different. Then getting Snowden as a UDFA is icing on the cake. I am still in shock but happy with how it turned out. The trade ups worried me but Pace made some great Day 3 picks to compensate.

I am tracking these 10 so far: Mississippi State G Dareuan Parker Northwestern OT Gunnar Vogel Coastal Carolina RB C.J. Marable Clemson OL Gage Cervenka Stanford TE Scooter Harrington Houston Baptist LB Caleb Johnson Stony Brook DT Sam Kamara Stanford DL Thomas Schaffer Virginia EDGE Charles Snowden (had a 4th round grade) Temple DL Daniel Archibong

Pace clearly went BPA from 217 on. Every player had ranking at least one round higher, in some cases multiple rounds. His best draft on paper to date.

There is your DT: Khyiris Tonga, DT, BYU

Pick - Name - BR / PFF / TDN 11 - Fields - 3 (+8)/3 (+8)/5 (+6) 39 - Jenkins - 12 (+27)/31 (+8)/28 (+11) 151 - Borom - 231 (-80)/191 (-40)/383 (-232) 217 - Herbert - 168 (+49)/91 (+126)/190 (+27) 221 - Newsome - 183 (+38)/255 (-34)/182 (+39) 228 - Graham - 154 (+74)/76 (+152)/135 (+93) 250 - Tonga - 55 (+195)/142 (+108)/196 (+54) Looking back at some pre draft big boards, Graham and Herbert both had as low as a 3-round grade with some big boards, and at worst both were considered 5th rounders, so getting them as late 6th's was really high value. BR and TDN had Newsome at 183 and 182 respectively, which was almost 40 picks earlier than the actual pick, so there seems to be good value there too. Using the pre-draft rankings, you could say the Bears got the following: 1st - Fields 2nd - Jenkins 3rd - Graham 4th - Herbert 5th - Newsome 6th - Borom (a very odd pick, but there is a little backstory) 7th - Tonga About Borom, supposedly he trained with Fields in California, so there may be something there that the team liked and didn't want to miss with the next pick being 60+ picks later. We will see on that one. The others were really good value and you could almost say were BPA at those slots. Herbert and Newsome both can immediately contribute on Special Teams as returners and Graham has a very similar game as Fuller (playing off his man and driving on the ball).

I almost forgot the team resigned Artie Burns and Michael Joseph to go with Trufant. So CB wasn't that big of a hole as Skrine leaving was a positive.

There is our CB.

Medical. Mom died of congenital heart failure and he has blood clots in his lungs.

At this point, we need at least one CB or S.

Another punt returner and or slot guy.

There is the punt returner.

Would rather had a 2022 6th. The extra 7th just locks in someone instead of fighting for them as a UDFA. On trade value chart that's a loss but after the 5th, a pick is a pick.