adam

Woods tore his ACL in November and turns 30 in a few weeks. There Bears are probably not going to sign any player older than 30 unless it is an OLineman.

Starterwise, we still need a WR1 (for loafing ARob), RG1 (Patrick at C), S2 (for Gipson), CB2 (for Vildor plz), LB3 (Sam or Will) for true starters. O: Fields, Monty, Kmet, WR1, Mooney, Pringle, Jenkins, Whitehair, Patrick, RG1, Borom D: Quinn, Jones, Tonga, Gipson, Smith, Morrow, LB3, Johnson, CB2, Graham, Jackson, S2 For upgrades, we don't look too bad, just need to look at RT1 (if they don't trust Borom) and NT (Tonga). Maybe LB2 if Morrow is more of a rotational guy. So starter holes: WR1, RG1, S2, CB2, LB3 starter upgrades: RT1 and NT That is not that bad. I think they can go cheaper vet at S2 like they have, same for LB3. That would leave WR1, RG1, and CB2 left for holes. I know this team feels worse than last year because we lost Daniels, Nichols, Mack, ARob, Hicks, and Goldman. However, really only Daniels and Nichols were being replaced based on snap count. Patrick is a huge upgrade over Mustipher. Jones is at least as good as Nichols, if not better. So if we can fill the other holes without downgrades, and Fields takes a leap in a real offense and an improved O-Line, I think the Bears will be between 8-9 and 9-8. If the defense improves under Flus/Williams, especially in takeaways, there is a real chance to see more improvement. Also, in the division, GB got worse. They basically have to plug all their holes with draft picks and lost arguably the best WR in the league. Minnesota is basically the same team and Detroit looks to be slightly improved but still has Goff as QB.

It looks like it comes down to NO, MIA, and CHI.

DHC back in the fold. I expect a few more players from last year to come back on some smaller deals. 1 year for $1.77M is near league min.

That is why they do the physical. Unless they do physicals before they offer a contract, there is no way around this. Who specifically did Poles miss out on in that the window that Ogunjobi was offered a contract and the time of the physical?

I don't think we are signing Armstead, but guys like Turner, Collins, Flowers, or Price are probably more likely.

This makes it easier to cut Attaochu if they can't trade Quinn.

Looks like they signed Justin Jones, DT from LAC. Interesting that we got Evans and Blasingame from the same backfield.

Knee, and he will miss half the season at best.

I see these guys as Byrd and Goodwin with more upside. Neither were getting a lot of reps on those depth charts, and both come from orgs we are familiar with (Poles and Getsy). I wouldn't be surprised if we finished the trifecta and signed Pascal from Indy (Flus), but would not mind someone like JuJu.

I assume St. Brown and Pringle replace Byrd and Goodwin, and I am good with that.

Packers Twitter is in ruins, I love it. AND just as some of us expected:

Yeah, I can't imagine it is over the vet minimum as he only was on a one year $850K deal with the Packers and had 9 receptions last year. We will see if Getsy can get something out of him. He could help the WR room with the new scheme though.

Makes trading either of them a little bit easier if you wanted to going forward.

That was the last big contract he will see. 28 is the prime time for a big deal. So if he is just ring chasing, cool beans. Otherwise, he took several mil less per year and could even be a cap casualty as early as next year.

Maybe big Nickel? Yeah, I am still not worried, there are still a lot of guys left in FA and still more to be cut.

A-Rob to Rams. $15.5M AAV, gets Robby Anderson money and goes to a team where he will at best be WR3. Good luck getting targets with Kupp, Woods, Jefferson, and Higbee there. There is talk about bringing Beckham back.

Yeah, for some of these guys, probably doesn't want to move his family. Unfortunately the closest team distance-wise. btw, he is their first FA pickup this offseason. They lost 15+ players (some they may be able to re-sign), just restructured to get under the cap, still need $8M more for their rookie pool, so yeah.

In other words, still a lot of work to be done.

I am thinking Billy Turner (GB) at OT (he is an SFA), someone like Terrell Edmunds (S - PIT), JuJu or Pascal and Tate or Pringle at WR. Seals-Jones, Hurst or Firkser at TE. Moreau or Nelson at CB, Hitchens at LB. Not sexy but from what they would be replacing from last year, all would be upgrades. Then what about some retreads like Nick Williams at DT and Kwit back at LB? They should be some cheap options. Kwit as the Sam?

Depending on how things are viewed, from the starters and key rotational guys from last year, I think this is where we are at right now, based on filling holes by snap counts (top 20): Daniels > Patrick Peters > Jenkins Ogletree > Morrow Nichols > Jones Gipson > NEED SS Byrd > Pringle Robinson > NEED WR1 DHC > NEED S Ifedi > Borom Dalton > Foles Bush > NEED S/DB Goodwin > St. Brown Goldman > Tonga Mack > Gipson Hicks > Need DT Burns > NEED CB James > NEED TE3 Graham > NEED TE2 Grant > Evans? O'Donnell > Winslow? The Bears also switched from a Base 3-4 to 4-3, so there is probably a need for another LB to fill out the core holes. WR x1 S x3 (1x2) CB x1 TE x2 (1x1) LB x1 (due to base change) Then we would probably want upgrades at OT, OC/G, and NT. So that gets us back to the need for 2x WR, S, CB, TE, and LB, with upgrades potentially at OT, OG (if Patrick is OC), and NT. We need at least 2x FA WRs (WR1/2 and WR2/3), 2x FA Ss (S2 and S3), and at least one CB2/3, TE2, LB2.

Yep was in two threads at once, you are correct. I meant that Goldman was someone another team can sign and it won't count against the formula. I guess you can add Graham to that list that count towards comp picks.

So Street/Other Free Agents are players that were cut before their contracts ended. Any players signed from this pool do not count against you towards comp picks. Goldman, Cohen, and Trevathan our the Bears SFAs. If another team signs them, we will not get any comp picks for them. Here are some names to consider: Landry, WR, CLE Williams, RT BUF Flowers, LG WAS Tretter, C CLE Turner, RT GB Saffold, LG TEN Jarwin, TE, DAL Hitchens, LB KC Ioannidis, DL WAS Fox, IDL CAR Mitchell, CB HOU Young, CB BAL Bouye, CB CAR Pierce, DL, MIN Kwiatkoski, LB LVR

I don't like him either. Feels very one-dimensional. I would rather have someone like Zach Pascal who is a great blocker as well (Flus connection). Then draft one with the first two picks as your WR1.

Roster construction is super challenging because there are no guarantees in the draft that a player is going to be there when you pick. I would say if the player you have on the board is there at your pick and there are no other players rated the same, you pick that player. If you have multiple players with the same grade when you pick, that's when you try to move back as you assume you can still get one of those graded players at a later slot.