Pace overrated at drafting?

[adam]

Some Bye Week fun, I was thinking about the Anthony Miller draft-day trade; at first when it occurred, I thought Pace had the right idea, we would get a WR a year early with the following year's WR corps looking fairly weak (even though we got Ridley in the 4th). However, now over a year removed from that decision, did Pace pick the wrong player?  DJ Chark and Mark Andrews were both available when Miller was selected. 

What if the Bears just stayed at #105? The best skill player selected after that slot is probably SEA TE Will Dissly, so if they picked him, they would still have their 2019 2nd rounder where guys like McLaurin, Metcalf, and Hardman were still available. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I would probably take any combination of either: (A- Chark or Andrews), or (B- Dissly & McLaurin/Metcalf/Hardman) instead of Miller at this point. There is still some time left for him to get things right, but the trade-up looks worse by the day (like the Trubisky one) since we were clearly not one WR away from the SB last year. What was the urgency to move up at that point? Miller has 8 receptions for 80 yards and 0 TDs. In 20 career games, he now has 41 receptions for 503 yards. Hardly the production needed out of a 2nd rounder that you traded up to get. I think Pace got this one wrong.

In the same vane, Shaheen (5.75 draft grade) at #45 is still a head-scratcher to this day. The Skill position players Pace passed on to select Shaheen will make you sick as it was a really deep skill-position draft: Mixon (5.90), Kamara (6.02), Smith-Schuster (5.86), Kupp (5.77), Godwin (5.76) all graded higher than Shaheen did at the draft, but were passed on. Kittle was also selected after Shaheen and Kittle was coming from TE U (Iowa).

I know draft picks are very random, but missing on high picks like White, Shaheen, and potentially Floyd and Miller really set the team back unless they magically hit on the later picks like they did with EJack. However, outside of EJack and Nichols, is there really another late draft pick that Pace can hang is hat on? Cohen is turning more into a gimmick player, Iggy is a STer, Wims has hardly been used, Fitts is gone, Bullard, Hall, SHC are all gone. Howard is on the Eagles, and Kwit and Bush are the only ones left from the mid-late 2016 picks. Arguably the most productive player (Howard) was traded so we could trade up to draft his replacement to be less productive. From Pace's first draft, White, Grasu, and Langford are all gone, Amos was let go, and Goldman is the last man standing.

So if I had to say how many "great" players Pace has drafted, Goldman and EJack are probably the only two that fit that category. I would've said Smith but with all this craziness going on, who knows where his head is right now and if he will ever fully recover. Either way, 2-3 great players in 5 drafts is not enough. It almost feels like we are seeing the effects of that now. Traded up for Miller, traded up for Floyd, up for Trubisky, up for Montgomery, and then the huge boon for Mack. I would say the only one worth it to this point has been Mack, which again is not a good trend.

I hope we go into next year's draft and just pick BPA, there is no need for any more trade-ups. If anything, trade down and pick up additional picks. Hopefully, some of these guys come around and prove doubters like me wrong, but there are several guys we have been waiting years on to ultimately disappoint. 

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Winning makes it all look better, but since we have been on the W L teeter-totter, it all tastes bad when we are on the wrong end.  The biggest issue in my opinion is how the oline has played.  With that group vastly under performing, it has hampered production of the whole team.  The QB, RB and receivers have no time.  That brings 3 and outs, which puts the D back on the field and drains their gas, causes injury etc.  It all points to Pace,  he gambled in this group and lost.  I hope they spend some time adjusting the oline, get it to average and things should look better.

[adam]

56 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Winning makes it all look better, but since we have been on the W L teeter-totter, it all tastes bad when we are on the wrong end.  The biggest issue in my opinion is how the oline has played.  With that group vastly under performing, it has hampered production of the whole team.  The QB, RB and receivers have no time.  That brings 3 and outs, which puts the D back on the field and drains their gas, causes injury etc.  It all points to Pace,  he gambled in this group and lost.  I hope they spend some time adjusting the oline, get it to average and things should look better.

With the new contracts, the team is basically stuck with Leno, Massie, Whitehair, and Daniels for the next few years. Coward is a UFA after this year and if he is starting, I would assume he would command more than the league minimum. The issue is we have a ton of raises hitting next year (Mack +$15M, Leno +$7M, Goldman +$5.5M, Whitehair +$5M, Massie +$4.5M, Fuller +$4M, and Skrine +$4M to name a few.

At the same time, we are potentially losing 20 free agents. Trevathan, RRH, HHCD, Lynch, Kwit, McManis, Daniel, Sowell, Bush, Scales, Larsen, Williams, Lucas, Irving, Coward, Pierre-Louis, Holtz, and Harris. The raises are over $45M (not counting Floyd) and the lost salaries from free agents is only $32M. Since we have about $19M in cap space now, just taking on all the raises and deleting all the FA cap hits would leave around $6M in cap space with a bunch of roster spots to fill.

If Floyd is on the team, his 5th year option pays him over $8M more than he made this year. So at this point we would be in the negative by about $2M with 20 players to replace on the 53. The only potential moves that save space are with Long, Amukamara, Patterson, and Davis ($17M in savings). That's it. We could restructure with Hicks and Goldman and save a total of $9M more and the cap should be up $12M next year, so there is an additional $21M. So those moves would make us short 24 players on the 53 man roster with only $36M in cap space. Holy crap.

Now we could rollover up to $19M from this year to next year, but that gets dangerous because it is only for one year. Just say we roll over $14M, that's $50M to sign our rookies (6 picks), any UDFAs, other FAs, resign our guys, and pay someone like Jackson.

Here is a scenario, EJack gets $14M (top 5 Safety), rookie pool gets $6M, 5x UDFAs for $3M. That leaves $13M for 13 other players. That is gonna be tough, especially since we would have starter holes at CB (Prince), ILB (Trevathan), S (HHCD), and RG (Long) with key backups of QB (Daniel), DE (RRH), OLB (Lynch/Irving), ILB (Kwit), DB (McManis), LS (Scales), OL (Coward/Larsen), and DL (Williams). Since EJack does have another year left on his deal it would be better the do an extension but leave the original money in place so the 2020 cap doesn't get hit so hard. That would free up some of it, but no matter what the team is going to look a lot different next year and it will probably be the least active year in free agency that we have seen in a long time. 
 

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Moving ahead is not going to be easy.  With our scheduled FA losses, we should net some nice comp picks, but those come in play the following draft. I think they should have cut Davis and gone cheaper, they drafted Montgomery for a reason.  With him, we lost a 4th rd comp pick that will be needed.  As much as I would love to keep RRH, he might command a high end contract.  It might be worth getting Bar into the mix early, Cowerd I would hold back so we can cheapen his deal.  Shelly needs to make some progress as well as get Iggy going because I forecast Skrine as a one year holdover and Trevathan will most likely be a casualty.  The Bears need to step up, or this might be a blow it up and start over situation and I dont think any of us can handle another one of those. 

[adam]

2 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Moving ahead is not going to be easy.  With our scheduled FA losses, we should net some nice comp picks, but those come in play the following draft. I think they should have cut Davis and gone cheaper, they drafted Montgomery for a reason.  With him, we lost a 4th rd comp pick that will be needed.  As much as I would love to keep RRH, he might command a high end contract.  It might be worth getting Bar into the mix early, Cowerd I would hold back so we can cheapen his deal.  Shelly needs to make some progress as well as get Iggy going because I forecast Skrine as a one year holdover and Trevathan will most likely be a casualty.  The Bears need to step up, or this might be a blow it up and start over situation and I dont think any of us can handle another one of those. 

Skrine is at least with us thru 2020, and even in 2021 carries $3.3M in dead money. So even that would be hard to accept.

For free agent comp picks, it looks like only Trevathan, RRH, and maybe HHCD will get us some compensation.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

58 minutes ago, adam said:

Skrine is at least with us thru 2020, and even in 2021 carries $3.3M in dead money. So even that would be hard to accept.

For free agent comp picks, it looks like only Trevathan, RRH, and maybe HHCD will get us some compensation.

Kwit showed he can play.  Not sure if someone will look at him to start, but he can be a diamond in the right system. 

[adam]

3 hours ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Kwit showed he can play.  Not sure if someone will look at him to start, but he can be a diamond in the right system. 

I agree, I just don't know if his AV would be high enough to warrant compensation beyond a 7th rounder, and if we pick up any FA's we may cancel out some of our comp picks like we did this year.

[BearFan PHX]

Kwit isnt fast enough. he plays with a ton of heart. He is probably closer to the limit of his potential than any starter on our team except Mack. But his potential isnt that high. So I love the guy, but he simply cannot cover receivers, and the league knows it.

Pagano hid some of that in his gameplan which was great, but kwit has already reached the limit of his capabilities.

[Stinger226]

I dont think  looking back at a draft to say this is who we could have gotten is quite fair in judging a GM. Every draft looks bad if you do that. I think you have to base it on who he drafted and how successful you have become. Did you become a winning team? Yes , there is 4 ways to build a team, FA, draft, UDFA, and trades. As much as he would not grade well individually but has brought us a winner. As a team that is 3-2, we look down on our expectations. I think the season has to play out and then make a proper judgement. Last year we were 3-3 before we took off and never had 12-4 expectations. If you say you did you are lying. I think we have enough stars, enough good players and good coaches to at make the playoffs this year. 10 or maybe 11 wins, but there is a possibility we get our shit together and go with 12 wins again. We just dont know. As far as drafting, he has missed on White, Floyd is a good player but not a stud, probably on a redraft would go late first or early 2nd. To be honest the jury is still out on MT, this will be the year he defines his legacy. Smith so far looks like a star as long as he gets his head back in the game. DM  looks like  a good player. I always think as least 3 years before we can truly judge a player. With the players we hit on in his drafts later in the draft, I would give him a C+ as a drafter but we are a winning team, so we have to grade this as a whole and I give him a B+ for building a winner.

[Bill]

Your all depressing me.  I had high hopes that this team was loaded with talent.  Funny how a few bad games can make a once up and coming roster look weak in all areas.  It's like the 2nd year of Trestman but for different reasons.  They have put all their eggs in the basket for the next two years.

 

Debbie Downer 

[adam]

On 10/13/2019 at 8:09 AM, Stinger226 said:

I dont think  looking back at a draft to say this is who we could have gotten is quite fair in judging a GM. Every draft looks bad if you do that. I think you have to base it on who he drafted and how successful you have become. Did you become a winning team? Yes , there is 4 ways to build a team, FA, draft, UDFA, and trades. As much as he would not grade well individually but has brought us a winner. As a team that is 3-2, we look down on our expectations. I think the season has to play out and then make a proper judgement. Last year we were 3-3 before we took off and never had 12-4 expectations. If you say you did you are lying. I think we have enough stars, enough good players and good coaches to at make the playoffs this year. 10 or maybe 11 wins, but there is a possibility we get our shit together and go with 12 wins again. We just dont know. As far as drafting, he has missed on White, Floyd is a good player but not a stud, probably on a redraft would go late first or early 2nd. To be honest the jury is still out on MT, this will be the year he defines his legacy. Smith so far looks like a star as long as he gets his head back in the game. DM  looks like  a good player. I always think as least 3 years before we can truly judge a player. With the players we hit on in his drafts later in the draft, I would give him a C+ as a drafter but we are a winning team, so we have to grade this as a whole and I give him a B+ for building a winner.

Yeah, I definitely didn't see anything beyond 9-7 last year. 12-4 was amazing. All I was pointing out was as much praise as Pace has received for drafting guys like EJack and Cohen, a bunch of draft picks that we held onto for a while have faded or never lived up to their draft status. I think we are just seeing a bunch of players underperforming. Even Jackson thru 5 games has done nothing impactful. He has 0 INTS, 0 Sacks, and 0 Forced Fumbles. He was due for regression to the mean, but he has goose eggs across the board. If you only knew Jackson from 2019, would you be giving him top 5 Safety money? Right now, no way. Even on something like passed defended, he had 15 in 14 games last year, thru 5 games he has 2. His counterpart, HHCD has had 2 PD and 2 INTs, a TD, and more tackles than EJack. You could say HHCD is actually playing better than EJack from that a numbers perspective. 

How about Fuller, he had a huge year last year. This year, QBs are completing 79.5% of passes thrown his way (up 23% from 2018). QB's have a 90.4 QB Rating throwing at Fuller. Prince has been equally soft, allowing 77.3% of passes thrown his way. QB's have a 120.6 QB Rating throwing at Prince. Those are our starting CBs. Not good. For all the flak Buster Skrine takes, he has actually been our best CB. QB's only complete 52.2% of passes thrown at Skrine with a 76.9 QB Rating. 

For 2020 draft, I would like to see Pace just pick BPA from a guy with a great college pedigree from a high performing school. Those guys tend to have the best chance at succeeding in the NFL. 

[adam]

On 10/13/2019 at 9:20 PM, Bill said:

Your all depressing me.  I had high hopes that this team was loaded with talent.  Funny how a few bad games can make a once up and coming roster look weak in all areas.  It's like the 2nd year of Trestman but for different reasons.  They have put all their eggs in the basket for the next two years.

 

Debbie Downer 

The offensive drop off is actually quite shocking considering what other teams have done with backup QBs (CAR, NO, etc). That tells me it's more than just Trubisky. The scary part is Pace has locked up a couple guys with huge contracts and they have yet to live up to their price tags. All we need is for our offensive players to do what they did last year with just a little improvement and this magically becomes a 10-11 win team. Right now we are so inconsistent it seems like we are headed for an 8-8 or 9-7 season and just miss the playoffs. 

[killakrzydav]

I didn’t read your post yet but was thinking the same thing this morning.

[adam]

2 hours ago, killakrzydav said:

I didn’t read your post yet but was thinking the same thing this morning.

Someone made a comment about how set we are roster-wise with just the need for a few tweaks here and there due to how well Pace drafted, but after looking at the contracts and players we actually drafted that are starting, we are not as well off as I thought. We now have the 10th oldest roster and several of the older players are locked up for several years, which prevents us from getting younger. 

[madlithuanian]

20 hours ago, adam said:

Someone made a comment about how set we are roster-wise with just the need for a few tweaks here and there due to how well Pace drafted, but after looking at the contracts and players we actually drafted that are starting, we are not as well off as I thought. We now have the 10th oldest roster and several of the older players are locked up for several years, which prevents us from getting younger. 

That said, if we no longer trade away our picks, the youth infusion should start again next season...

[adam]

With White not being on a roster, we lose the Amos comp pick unless we cut one of our new FAs, and Davis seems to fit the bill perfectly. Underutilized and overpaid, cut him before Week 10 and we get a 4th round comp pick. 

We still don't have very many early picks next draft, only 2x 2nds, then we don't pick again until the 5th round. So we need to take two surefire impact players or move back and recoup some mid round picks. 

[Stinger226]

The depressing attitude I see is like we are 1-4 or 0-5? 3-2 and had a chance to win both of those other games. We had such high expectations that every game win or lose is doomsday or going to the SB. The fact is its hard to win in the NFL, I see us winning more games than we lose, it will play out. Before the season started if we knew we were playing NO without Brees we would be elated. We just need to relax and let it play out. WE still have good players on this team and one bad game by the defense, its all win win to me. The OL? that is what bothers me and will determine out winning or losing.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

2 hours ago, adam said:

With White not being on a roster, we lose the Amos comp pick unless we cut one of our new FAs, and Davis seems to fit the bill perfectly. Underutilized and overpaid, cut him before Week 10 and we get a 4th round comp pick. 

We still don't have very many early picks next draft, only 2x 2nds, then we don't pick again until the 5th round. So we need to take two surefire impact players or move back and recoup some mid round picks. 

It seems like a gimme to cut Davis.  Hell, we went with Mizzel late last year.  Nagy dont even like to run, so might as well.  Bring up Nall and get him the ball in the flats.   The Bears need to their highly paid players to show up or get some youth who can. The oline should be above average if not top 10. Change blocking schemes so be it. 

[Stinger226]

Lots of people got some guarantees , you cant just cut some of them. Good news Karmara isnt probably going to play this weekend.

[adam]

1 hour ago, Stinger226 said:

Lots of people got some guarantees , you cant just cut some of them. Good news Karmara isnt probably going to play this weekend.

If we can't beat the Saints without Brees and Kamara, we might as well do a fire sale and restock with a new QB next year. No excuses if Kamara doesn't play. Just double Thomas and keep the LB's on Murray and we should be good. 

[ASHKUM BEAR]

1 hour ago, adam said:

If we can't beat the Saints without Brees and Kamara, we might as well do a fire sale and restock with a new QB next year. No excuses if Kamara doesn't play. Just double Thomas and keep the LB's on Murray and we should be good. 

Say we lose the next two games, would it be wise to trade Mack for multiple 1st rd picks and recoup what was lost , plus some?  Asking for a friend.

[BearFan PHX]

1 hour ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Say we lose the next two games, would it be wise to trade Mack for multiple 1st rd picks and recoup what was lost , plus some?  Asking for a friend.

LOL - thats a funny question. Value-wise, while I disagree with it, it makes sense to ask the question.

But the league, the press, the fans and players arent computers, and IF Pace traded Mack, he'd probably get fired soon thereafter.

[BearFan PHX]

I was just doing some reading, and found this.

http://sportsmockery.com/2019/05/chicago-bears-salary-cap-faces-a-possible-crisis-in-2020/

Kyle Long was gonna cost us $9 Million next year, and extending Robinson will also open some cap space.

We may not have picks, but I bet we can be active in free agency at OT. And we may already have the talent we need on the team, just developing - I'm looking at you Bars!

[adam]

6 hours ago, BearFan NYC said:

I was just doing some reading, and found this.

http://sportsmockery.com/2019/05/chicago-bears-salary-cap-faces-a-possible-crisis-in-2020/

Kyle Long was gonna cost us $9 Million next year, and extending Robinson will also open some cap space.

We may not have picks, but I bet we can be active in free agency at OT. And we may already have the talent we need on the team, just developing - I'm looking at you Bars!

That dude is hilarious, because he then writes this about signing Hooper in the offseason:

http://sportsmockery.com/2019/10/bears-may-have-a-chance-to-end-tight-end-woes-with-austin-hooper/

We are not in good shape. We have a bunch of holes to fill with over 20 free agents leaving and most of the 33 others guys getting raises. The problem is most of our underperformers other than Long are signed thru at least 2020 and some beyond. I am going to make a table/chart to show where we are at. Also, Overthecap is taking all of our available cap space this year and applying it to next year (which the team may not utilize fully), because that would give us nothing to carry over in 2021 and we would have even deeper cuts to make.

[adam]

I did a little deeper dive into the cap for 2020. It looks like the cap will be at $199M for 2020, and the Bears might have somewhere around $18.5M in cap carry-over (if they want to use it, which I think they will have no choice doing. 

With 36 players under contract in 2020 + current Dead Money = $205M. So we are over by $6M. So the team is going to have to get creative on some future deals (like EJack's, ie front load a ton of money and use the carryover) or sign some guys to one-year deals (Trevathan, McManis, etc). 

My assumption is the Bears will cut Long, Amukamara, Patterson, and Davis to create about $24.25M in cap space. With these cuts the Bears would have at least 21 roster spots to fill out the 53-man roster and starting spots of ILB, RG, S, and CB to fill, as well as backup QB and rotational DE (RRH). 

The bottom line is the Bears will have to use the carryover. With it, plus the other space added from the cuts would create just over $36.75M in cap space ($18.25M in real cap) available to fill 21 roster spots. I figure they will bring back about 12 guys at similar deals (bottom of the 53) at about $11M. That leaves 9 spots for just under $26M. They have 6 draft picks, so say about $5M for the rookie pool, which leaves 3 spots to fill in free agency for about $21M ($2.5 in real cap). 

So the Bears can essentially use the entire carryover value to sign guys like Trevathan, HHCD, RRH, backup QB or extend EJack, but will have to understand that in 2021, that $18.5M is gone. So free agency would basically be re-signing the same guys back to new deals or picking up 2-3 new pieces for 2020.

So we are not as bad off at it originally seemed, but the Bears will have to get creative on how they structure deals and should probably front-load some to take advantage of the carryover money so they can withstand the cap drop after the carryover is gone in 2021. 

Summary:

1. After rookie pool and draft picks (6) signed, the Bears would have 15 spots to fill on 53-man with $31.75M to spend.

2. If the Bears bring back 12 guys from the bottom of their current 53-man (subs), they would have about $20.75M left to spend on 3-4 key spots (or extensions, ie Jackson). The number of spots to fill and amount of cap will be dependent on how many guys are re-signed. 

3. Of the $20.75M, only $2.25M would be real cap, which means the team would have to ensure contracts fit in 2021 and beyond without the $18.5M. With another $10M in cap space expected between 2020 and 2021, the Bears cap would drop from an increased size of $217.5M in 2020 to $209M in 2021 (decrease of 8.5M). The silver lining is the team doesn't have any huge bumps in salary cap hits from 2020 to 2021. So if they can make things work in 2020, then 2021 should not be a problem. 

4. The Bears can also restructure a few guys to create some cap space in 2020. Guys like Hicks, Goldman and Whitehair would create about $11M in cap space.

5. Starter and key contributor spots currently open are: ILB (Trevathan), S (HHCD), CB (Amukamara), RG (Long), backup QB (Daniel), and DE (RRH). If two are filled with draft picks (2nd rounders), only 3 would need to be addressed in free agency with about $20M in space. I think this is totally doable.