adam

That is sort of misleading, because it is based on the top 51 contracts: http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/chicago-bears/cap-hit/ but not all of those are guaranteed, especially the guys at the bottom of the roster. If you cut some of those guys because you need the roster space, cut Spaeth, Davis, and Hester, that is around $8-9 million extra in cap space. If they restructure any other contracts, you can add a couple of extra million moving the cap space over $20 million.

I saw this as well about Forte: $2.6 million is a big chunk just by converting a roster bonus into a signing bonus. I don't think they are including the carryover money, and they are not assuming we are cutting Hester, Davis, and Spaeth, as well as a bunch of other league minimum contracts that can reduce the cap another couple of million. The true number is a lot higher than $10 million, because if $5 million is needed for the rookie pool, then we would not even have enough to re-sign Melton. -- EDIT -- Ok, I re-did the spreadsheet http://www.pcgamingtech.net/bears/cap2) with all the current contracts of the top 45 players (assuming we need room to sign rookies and FA's). The last contracts were all league minimums with no guarantees, so they won't count against the cap anyway. I come up with $110.8 Million without including any dead money from old contracts, and I also did not include the carry over from last year. That is where most are getting this $10 million from, but with cuts, the carryover, and possible restructuring, we should have over $15 million just for free agents.

Cooper and Jones would be 2 great picks.

Actually losing weight and gaining speed is pretty much a given. Test it out yourself. Run 100 meters for time, then run it again with 10 lbs strapped to your back and see how well you do. I know for distance runners, 10 lbs shaves about 30 seconds off a mile. Teo seems to be a better fit for a 3-4 where he doesn't have to cover as much space.

Yeah, after watching his "highlights" from 2012, there wasn't very much to get excited about. He made some interceptions with a few thrown right at him, and a couple of others that were nice grabs off tips. Considering the competition, and then how he looked against Bama, I would not consider him a first round talent. There would be a circus, and I don't think Trestman and Tucker need the headache in their first season taking over for coaches who produced a 10-6 season and got canned. I see this draft being BPA, in positions of need, but also players without extra baggage or injury histories.

I would say the ones you mentioned and possibly Eldridge and Trahan.

Also, the first year cap hits can be adjusted for Melton and Levitre to about 5 each with some backloaded deals. Not bad picks, I just can't see them using a pick on an RB this year with some of the other needs, but anything is possible I guess.

I use Drafttek and Walter's. Draftteks sim is pretty cool, it rates the players and gives team needs, then the sim drafts off that info. They got 12 right last year in the first round. One pick normally de-rails the rest.

At most he will fall into the 30's, just like Janoris Jenkins.

and this was after his date with Manti Teo's girlfriend. I never could understand how careless some people can be with their fortunes. This dude is about to make millions of dollars and decides that drinking and driving is a good choice. Since it was not drug related, I don't know how much this will affect his draft stock.

Yeah, I can't see any scenario with Urlacher coming back if the Bears want to get a FA OL and re-sign Melton. The only way would be if he would take $3M or less, or is someone else restructures their deal to save a couple of million this year.

I don't think we have the funds to sign a FA TE unless we completely neglect some other area of need. I assume that we will address TE in the draft.

Ok, so I tried to obtain the current cap hits for 2013, project some other moves with estimated cap hits and I came up with this: http://www.pcgamingtech.net/bears/cap.htm Unless I am totally off, we would have 7 roster spots to fill and have spent around 123M. With the cap being around 121, and with us having around 3M carried over from last year, we should have around 124M to spend. With the rookie pool needing to be around 5M, it is hard to see us getting to 116-119M before the draft with only the rookies left to sign. Can you check out the link and let me know if anything looks crazy. My scenario has the Bears re-signing Melton with a 5M cap hit this year, signing someone like Nate Collins to rotate in as a DT, re-signing Urlacher and Roach, DJ Moore, McCown, and Allen, signing Bushrod, and re-signing Louis. This scenario also assumes cutting Hester, Spaeth, and Davis to save some cap space. This leaves us with 7 open roster spots and very little cap space. Hypothetically, we could not re-sign Urlacher, and would be at 119M with 8 spaces, 5-6 filled in the draft, and 2-3 league minimum guys signed, which would work money-wise, barely. Tillman and Marshall both seem like possible candidates for extensions and cap reductions for this year. Peppers 16M cap hit really hurts this year, but there is not much they can really do in that situation.

Not bad, I wouldn't be mad if we did something like that. If we resigned Louis and drafted Jones however, I wouldn't sign Vazquez. If they did sign 2x FA OL, then only one would be needed in the first couple of rounds. I would back load some contracts to save a couple million in the cap for the first two years or so. Also, I would hope that the Bears could restructure a few contracts to squeeze a little more out of this year's cap. Then drop some dead weight with Davis, Spaeth, and Hester to save more. I would avoid Skov, as he blew out his knew already. Also, if Url is coming back for 2, I would address MLB next year unless someone like Ogletree is there at 20. With the first two picks, I would go OL and TE. Those are the two biggest needs with Urlacher signed for 2 more years. If we traded down out of the first and picked up an extra 4th, the two 4th round picks should be any combination of (OL, WR, LB, and possibly DB) For the last 2 picks (5th and 6th), I would look to add depth at DB or QB, or whatever position was not addressed to that point. Here is what I hope for the cap hits for this year to be (assuming some back loading on Melton and Bushrod): Free Agency Our Own---------------- Melton - 5M Urlacher - 4M Roach - 2M Louis - 2M New------------------------- Bushrod LT - 5M That would put FA cap hits at about 18M for this year and 5M saved for the rookie pool. So 23M total, which seems about right if we have some dead money in contracts from guys we release. One other note, I would trade Hester in a heartbeat if we were able to lose his cap hit and gain a 5th-6th round pick.

Cool thanks.

Found this over at PFT, I don't know if this has been discussed. Looks like we have an extra $3.2 million space over the cap if we would like to use it. Check out the link and let me know if I am reading that correctly. If so, that would be a little nice extra buffer for free agency or re-signing some players. Link: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/...ments-for-2013/

Rounds 1 and 2 have to be a combination of OL, ILB, and TE. With at least one OL. For rounds 4 and 5, a WR and any need not selected in the 1st and 2nd. So by the 6th round, we should've selected at least OL, LB, and TE, with the possibility of another OL or WR.

I don't know if we can afford to trade out of the 2nd, as most of the impact players are in the first 50 picks. If I would trade down, it would be in the first. Also, no TE's? I can't see us drafting 2x LB's in our 3 picks and the other being a WR. I would say the first two picks will be any combination of OL, LB, and TE, with a possibility of 2x OL.

Yeah, It is really hard for me to see the Bears fitting Urlacher into the cap if we re-sign Melton and sign a FA OL. It only seems like we can do 2 of those.

Would it free up that much? I thought it was around half that.

5th Highest Offense salaries? Wow, sort of skewed by Hester's cap hit though.

It might also be due to Marshall and Jeffery. Hester is now 4th or 5th on the depth chart, so he is obviously not going to get the looks he wants. To me, he is shooting himself in the foot with these comments.

I would just like to see an exciting game with a close finish. These teams are pretty evenly matched, but SF has the wild-card in Kaepernick. Baltimore would seem to have the tougher task, having had to beat Indy, Denver, then NE to get here. If they win, it was due to Deer Antler Spray.

Don't forget a draft pick, if we can get Bushrod for LT, and a G in the first or second, that line would look even better. Jones would be a nice flex pick because he could slide to Center when Garza retires.

At this point, we just need to address the OLine, regardless of how or when we do it. I can't really complain of drafting a Guard in the 1st if he improves the line and the dude is solid contributor for a decade, as long as we sign or draft a tackle as well.