adam

For Mack, it looks like they can push back about $4M without too much risk. Jackson's deal is actually pretty good for the Bears. He only has $10M guaranteed remaining on his deal (all this year), and nothing afterwards. So the Bears could save a couple of million and give him a little more guaranteed by converting salary to bonus. It looks like they can save $2-3M with a restructure. Whitehair can save about $1M this year without much risk. So with these 3, I can see no more than $8M in savings.

His is really easy as long as he is willing to do it. He has 3 years left on his deal, $20M this year, then only $1.5M left each of the next two years. Thanks GB. So the Bears can convert most of it into a signing bonus (convert $18M to bonus, w/$2M base), then spread the hit over the next 3 years, converting the cap hits into $8M in 2021, $7.5M in 2022, and $7.5M in 2023. That saves $12M right there and doesn't really cost the Bears anything.

If they extend Robinson and cut his cap hit down a few, plus cut Leno and Graham, they would be under the cap, but not able to sign any FAs or their rookies. So they will have to do some work with Mack, Fuller, Hicks, Jackson, and Whitehair to free up some additional cap for some free agents and rookies.

Graham cut saves $7M.

Bears are $17.5M over the cap with ARob's tag. https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/chicago-bears/

The math can begin.

So with the tag, are the Bears going to: 1. Play him under the tag? (highly unlikely due to cap hit) 2. Renegotiate a long term contract (likely due to cap hit) 3. Trade before draft (also a possibility, probably depends on QB)

I wish him the best. Injuries piled up, and lifting weights is nothing like an NFL season, otherwise, I would be a perennial All-Pro in my mid-40s.

I guess it would be Mariota, potentially Bridgewater, and another out-of-left-field option is Matt Ryan.

He didn't like how the team handled his departure, though he never played for another team afterwards. So I am sure he wanted a little more respect on the way out and how they handled the Cohen IG video with him naked in the background.

They have a few they can redo, Fuller, Jackson, Whitehair, Mack, and Hicks all can be re-done without killing future years.

This move adds to Skrine's last week:

The purge begins:

I guess it will come down to the QB situation and if we can even afford ARob going forward.

The Franchise Tag's deadline is tomorrow. The new league year starts on March 17th (next Wednesday), so the Bears will have to get under the cap by that date. If they tag ARob, they would have to shed a ton of salary to get under the cap in a week. The only options I see are the following: 1. Franchise Tag and renegotiate a long-term deal to lessen the cap hit in 2021. 2. Tag and trade 3. Let him go to free agency, but still work a deal with him 4. Let him go, don't pursue

Kyle still thinks the Bears will make a splash.

Looks like Fitz is planning to retire.

Looks like Watt signed with the Cards for $15M a year for two years. That was way too rich for the Bears. The one thing that may help the Bears related to that signing is Wilson has more of a reason to leave the NFC West, now having to deal with Donald, Bosa, and now Jones/Watt 6 games a year.

I was actually thinking about them either trading back, then drafting an QB late in the first or trading up from the 2nd into the back end of the 1st to get that 5th-year option. The only problem with drafting a QB in the 2nd or beyond is you miss out on that 5th year on the rookie deal, so the window with a stacked roster is one year less.

Wilson is 32 and would not command the same type of trade compensation as Watson. I agree on Watson, we would have to purge the roster just to bring him on making us look a lot like the Texans did with him. The problem the team has is without an elite QB, nothing else really matters. Every year this comes to fruition at playoff time. Will a team with an average QB win a playoff game, sure, but on average, most teams that make it to the Conf Championship and SB have an elite QB. Teams like SF and LAR got there recently, but both lost. They had everything but an elite QB. With Pace's track record of hitting in later rounds and missing in the 1st, if the team is trading future picks like Trubisky, Floyd, Shaheen, and White for Wilson, I would be ok with that.

He won't be nearly as expensive as Watson. I think he saw what Brady did and wants to show he can do that too. The Seahawks worst record since RW joined the team has been 9-7. 8 out of 9 seasons with double-digit wins with playoff berths and a top 10 scoring offense in 7 of those seasons. RW's QBR Rankings over the years: 3, 8, 6, 4, 15, 10, 11, 5, 8 He has 6 of 9 seasons in the top 8 in the league. The year he finished 15th, he threw for 4219 yards (career-high) with 21 TDs and 11 INTs. Bears Single Season Passing Records: Kramer 3838 Passing Yds and 29 TD Wilson has 5 seasons with more yards and TDs than the Bears all-time records.

Now BoJack in on this stuff:

It definitely sets the market. I am glad we didn't pull the trigger on him.

I am not too worried about Wentz's contract, you are correct, it is pretty favorable for the gaining team as Philly will have to eat a ton of guaranteed money. Then if the new team wanted to move on from him, they would be in an even more favorable position having no guaranteed money left or dead money to eat. I still think it comes down to injury risk and whether 2020 was an anomaly or was that the new norm? He was one of the three worst QBs in 2020 and that was after multiple years in the same system. I will have to find the tweet, but someone did some research and found that he had one of the worst performance drops in history after multiple years of above-average play. When they looked at all of the other QBs who had similar drops, only one had a couple of decent years afterward. That QB was Jay Cutler, lol. Every other QB never recovered, which was interesting and odd at the same time.

We need coaches who can assess the situation, put players in the best position to succeed, and be able to make in-game adjustments based on the other team. Pagano was way too passive in almost all of those. They have to come from somewhere. Brandon Staley is only two years removed from position coach and is already a HC. So there is not really a specific blueprint for making a good coordinator or HC. There are a ton of guys who paid their dues up to this point, 5 years at each level, for 20+ years, get their shot at Coordinator or HC, and fail miserably. I think coaches get too much of the blame for team failures and too much credit for their successes. Jackson's performance difference is either tied to his injury or his new contract. There is literally a night and day difference between pre-injury Jackson and post-injury Jackson. So I don't know how much you can put that on Desai. At the end of the day, it takes the entire organization to succeed. Everyone has to buy in and have a common goal and do their little part. If even one or two of those cogs are not working at max efficiency, then the entire system is degraded. The hope is Desai uses his knowledge of Fangio's defense to put the players in the best position to succeed, then have the understanding to make in-game adjustments to slow down offenses. Also, the last variable, which is probably more impactful than we think is COVID. This last year has been unprecedented and having some continuity within the organization is probably a good thing. If they brought in someone from the outside who made drastic changes to the entire defense, how much improvement would be expected with such limited time to make those adjustments?