davell

So, looking over the roster and our cap space, it tells us a few things. We've got 32 players under contract and 12 mill to spend, MINUS Slauson's cap hit. Which I'm guessing will be 3 mill or less, considering our situation. Our 7 draft picks will likely count around 5 mill of space. So, if Slauson is 3 and the picks are 5, it leaves us with 39 players and 4 mill to spend. Your 51 highest paid players count towards the cap, by the way, although you can carry more that. So where does this really leave us? Peppers is gone, very little doubt about that, since he'll add 9.8 mill of space. Earl appears to be gone, that'd save us another 2.5. I can't imagine Podlesh back, cutting him and signing a minimum salary replacement saves us 400,000. The only other 2 players I can see getting cut are Bush, who'd save us 1.8 and Weems, saving us 1.1. My guess is Bush is gone, but Weems stays. Those moves would leave us at 36 players under contract, with 18.5 mill of cap space to spend on 15 players. That sounds pretty daunting, but it's really not. My guess is Onubun and at least one other practice squad guy gets moved up. That'd give us 38 players and 17.5 left to spend. A trade down of 10 spots or so in the draft, where it nets us another 3rd rounder would only cost us 200,000 or so and it adds another player. So, you're at 39 and 17.3. We're obviously not done re-signing our own players, my guess is Bowman, Garza, DJ, and Britton are back, likely around a mill apiece. That gives you 43 players and 13.3 to spend(on 9 guys) With that amount left to spend though, I find it hard to believe we'll be able to keep more than one of Wootton, Ratliff, or Melton. I asked this previously and it seemed most preferred Wootton. 2 mill cap hit maybe? 4 year deal with basically the same structure as Martellus got last year? Leaves you needing 7 players and 11.3 mill to spend. My guess is we'll add a pair of special teams types that count around 1.3 or so to even things back out. 5 players and 11 mill left...... Again, this may not seem all that great heading into FA. But it's really not bad at all. Last year, we added Bushrod, Martellus, DJ, Anderson, and Slauson for a grand total of an 8 mill first year cap hit. The other possibility to add cap space is to extend Marshall, with a prorated signing bonus and a low first year salary.....Even if you give him the 2nd most guaranteed money a WR has ever gotten, his cap number can drop from 9.3.(current)If this happens, I could see it opening up another 3 mill or so of space. What this shows me is Emery can(and likely will) be agressive in FA again. A guy like Michael Johnson is a possibility. Maybe moreso than Michael Bennett, in my opinion, who isn't the disruptive force type we REALLY need. Maybe we could pair Johnson with a Linval Joseph signing? Or with a Dante Whitner possibly? Along with a backup QB and a couple of vets to fill things out. If you head into the draft, with this in place on the D, I'm fairly happy.... DE Johnson, Wootton, Bass DT Paea LB Briggs, Bostic, DJ, McClellin, Greene CB Jennings, Frey, Bowman S Whitner, Conte With the trade down I mentioned, can we add a starting DT and CB thru the draft and hope we can find a vet minimum S to replace Conte with? Draft DT and CB in rounds 1-2 in either order, with 2 3rds, take an O-Lineman and a LB, spend a 4-5-6 on DE, S, and QB. Anyway, sorry for the rabling, but I'm pretty excired about the direction the team is taking.

Remember early in the offseason when it was talked about how we were determined to add some young pitching via trade? Feels like teams just went "lol no" at all our demands. With the asking price we put on Shark, I think that was inevitable. I guess it was their way of saying they aren't ready to deal him yet. Other than a Hammel/Baker type move, the only other possibility I see is trading Russell.

I was reading an Arguello article this morning, prepping us for the second half of the offseason. He prefaced it by saying the first half is generally the more exciting half.... I know I can barely contain myself, with the additions of Wright, Ruggiano, Kottaras, and Veras. Oh, and Brett Marshall. I think the closest I came to excitement was adding Kalish and Roberts to minor league deals. Seriously, if Tanaka goes elsewhere(likely) an addition of Hammel or Baker caps off the damn offseason. I'm all about the rebuild, but [expletive]. That's a horrifically awful offseason. Worse than I thought possible honestly. Even if I do think we're a low 70's win type team currently, the activity sucks out loud.

Nah, it's the opposite. None of his 2.5 mill is dead money. He makes perfect sense to cut.

I saw that with Jay's deal. Doubt they restructure for at least a year or two though. I'm really expecting us to trade down at least 10 spots in the 1st, to pick up an extra 2nd. If we re-sign one of Wootton, Melton, or Ratliff and DJ, it gives us those 2 guys and Paea, Briggs, Bostic, and TJ as starters. Leaving 5 to be filled by external FA(without an unlimited amount to spend) and the draft. My guess is 2 FA and we'll need 3 thru the draft, hence the trade down, in this scenario.

Beasley just not a schematic fit or you guys just don't like him?

If we miss out on Tanaka, I'm all for bringing Garza back. No, I don't see it as likely. Remote, at best. But he doesn't cost a draft pick and his price appears to be coming down. The Twins are wanting him on a 3 year deal and he's not connected to many teams at all. If he can be had on an Edwin Jackson deal, I'd be for it. 3 years would be even better. That said, the bridges may be burnt, as the local guys act we've moved on and so has he.

I guess it depends on the definition of impact. We've got room to structure deals for a Bushrod and Martellus type deal for sure. (Assuming we cut Peppers, Bennett, Podlesh, and Bush)

Jennings 2014 cap hit is 7.5. We've currently got a tad over 12.6 mill left, with Slauson still coming out of that number. The draft cap will be 5-6 mill probably? In trying to figure out cuts, Peppers, Bennett, Bush , and Podlesh would open up a bit over 15 mill. Maybe a Marshall extension opens up more room? Don't see anyone else to restructure. Peppers being a slight possibility, I guess. At any rate, I think we'll use FA much like last year, where Bushrod had a 3.015 1st year cap number and Martellus was 1.9, both by prorating the signing bonus and giving them extremely low 1st year base salaries. Still, by the looks of things, I'll be surprised if we can keep more than one of Melton, Ratliff, and Wootton. Which of the 3 is most important? I do think Garza and DJ will be back, Bowman and Britton as well. Peanut looks like a goner though for sure. Kind of see Anderson gone too.

Cap figures for Gould and Fiametta in 2014 are 2.6 and 730,000 respectively.

What is spotrac and why would the Bears negotiate a deal that gives them a $22m cap hit this year after talking about how damaging the one year cap hit is for franchise tags? I'm not sure which one is right, but even if we've spent 30 mill of cap space on 2 players for this year, we've still got another 15 mill currently and another 15, if we cut Bennett, Bush, and Peppers. Last year, I remember Martellus and Bushrod had very small 1st year cap hits, so maybe it's a strategy to offset things like that. Sign your own FA one way and structure the other FA the opposite, since they're more likely to need the signing bonus anyway? They also need to add more players to the roster than anybody but the Raiders, right? They have space this year and they need that space. True, but you have to figure we'll keep 5 draft picks, maybe more, if we trade back. We'll also sign quite a few minimum contract types at backup spots. Hell, they got Slauson for 800,000 last year. I'd PREFER to see Cutler, Jennings, and Slauson's deals to have low initial cap hits, don't get me wrong. But I can see them also trying to balance them out with outside FA as well. I'm confident that Emery will be active in FA. He likes impact players and I'll be surprised if we don't land at least 2 very solid defensive starters thru FA, plus hold on to a couple of our own.(2 of Melton, Ratliff, DJ, Anderson, Peanut)

What is spotrac and why would the Bears negotiate a deal that gives them a $22m cap hit this year after talking about how damaging the one year cap hit is for franchise tags? I'm not sure which one is right, but even if we've spent 30 mill of cap space on 2 players for this year, we've still got another 15 mill currently and another 15, if we cut Bennett, Bush, and Peppers. Last year, I remember Martellus and Bushrod had very small 1st year cap hits, so maybe it's a strategy to offset things like that. Sign your own FA one way and structure the other FA the opposite, since they're more likely to need the signing bonus anyway?

Jennings has a 6.045,000 roster bonus due on the 3rd day of the calendar year. Michael Wright thinks these two deals take up around 30 mill of space.

So, the "it's a 3 year deal" thing from yesterday may be false? An extra 11.5 mill in immediate cap room would be huge for this year. I see and am OK with both sides honestly, as we've still got room, with ability for more, if needed.(if its a 22.5 mill 1st year hit) Well I don't think the 3-year deal talk was ever literal. The point was that after 3 years you can then theoretically cut him and get through the cap trouble in just one season. This makes it look like a 5 year deal, and possibly 4. Yeah, bad wording on my part. Meant that the entirety of the 54 guaranteed was in first 3 years and they could basically get off without any cap hit afterwards. I'm OK if it stretches into 4th or 5th year.

Isn't it the day after the draft, which I believe is June 5th this season? Correct.(unsure about day of draft though)

So, the "it's a 3 year deal" thing from yesterday may be false? An extra 11.5 mill in immediate cap room would be huge for this year. I see and am OK with both sides honestly, as we've still got room, with ability for more, if needed.(if its a 22.5 mill 1st year hit)

Do we go into next year feeling good enough about Mills? To the point where we add a Britton type again and nothing else? With his surgery, even if he's back and healthy, as expected, did he do well enough to make us think he's a longterm answer?

Jennings got 4/22.4 with 11.815 guaranteed.

I DID get it, but if he's throwing in the upper 80's now, then I see little to no reason to have him in a top 30, or 40, for that matter.

Or what Tim said, which certainly works too. :D

There's other avenues to take though. First, we could do 2 days thru the top 10 or 20 and one day for the rest.(personally, I still want to do 50)Secondly, we can have runoffs and use top 3 vote getters all in one vote. Example 24-26 all go down in one vote. Main thing would be to just make sure everyone knows the voting may just be one day, instead of two. But we'll be fine, everyone can check in once a day hopefully.

no, he's making 22.5, but that's not his cap number, it's significantly lower than that. Cool. I thought signing bonuses were what cut into initial cap numbers though?

Ecstatic we kept Jay, but not thrilled if he's got a 22.5 mill cap charge in 2014. That's what the article basically is saying, right?

I just looked up WR contracts, if he IS better than Megatron, I hope like hell he's willing to take less on a contract than he got. That said, we're going to need to ante up. Realistically, he should get more than anyone else has gotten. Wallace and Fitzgerald at 27 guaranteed is second behind Megatron at 48+. This will be expensive, still want it to happen though.

By the way, Bowman is a FA himself. TJ and Frey are all we have currently at CB.