WrigleyField 22

I meant to ask the other day...What were Daniels' issues at center? Was it aptitude, strength, movement, something else? I like the Jenkins at LG idea, but this swing tackle idea might be the higher upside play? If he comes in and shows competence, there's a 40 YO LT with G experience playing a 17 game schedule who may not mind shifting inside to close the season Apparently it was making line calls. Possibly related to youth/inexperience, but also apparently literally that he was to quiet.

I mean there's definitely something to be learned from paper, but yea a guy needs reps. I can make the case for a lot of different alignments. Unfortunately in a perfect world Peters would be sat, but he's been the best lineman and ya you wanna protect Fields pocket. So Mustipher is the weakest link, but that creates probably the most movement in alignment. I'm not too worried about L/R alignment between Borom and Jenkins. So I keep Borom at RT. If Peters stays at LT, and Mustipher out then Daniels or Whitehair has to move to C. Whitehair probably has had more success there and then you avoid two rookies next to each other. So: Peters-Jenkins-Whitehair-Daniels-Borom But I could make the case to move Daniels to C. I could also could make the case to get Jenkins in at RT if they think thats where he ultimately ends up. Or I say forget L/R alignment. If Borom looks good at RT don't mess with it. Stick with the (presumably original) plan of Jenkins at LT, but play him at G the rest of this year. Still gets work on the L/R muscle memory, just from the inside spot, then kicks out to T in 2022. And you prioritize stabilizing LG next to him in FA in 22. I'd probably do that line you suggest, putting Jenkins at LG. One thing to remember though is that Jason Peters played guard last year for the Eagles, I believe it was on the right side though. I do think Whitehair at C makes much more sense than Daniels, not only because he played the position better previously, but also because he's under contract for 2022 unlike Daniels. I've read Peters did not look good at G last year for whatever thag is worth. You could always just keep it real simple and just go a straight Peters for Jenkins swap so that you minimize shuffling. If you have a lot of confidence in Jenkins, maybe thats a valid approach. Certainly Peters has to be on the bottom of potential 2022 Bears.

I agree with the reasons of Fields' safety but if the Bears believe Jenkins is the LT of the future, and the season is lost I can see them pushing aside a 38 year old LT to give him reps. Edit: Of course on 2nd thought, even if the Bears are eliminated from the playoffs, this FO and coaching regime may be trying to win as many games as possible to keep their jobs and ultimately they may not care about working in a rookie LT When Peters was getting up to speed a couple former OL said they could understand platooning Peters and Borom to let Peters get his legs under him. Maybe pick a couple drives and let Jenkins get out there and otherwise keep Peters as the starter. At this point I'd be pleasantly surprised if Jenkins can manage to look good even in a limited sample this season considering many looked at this as a lost season for him. Yea a platoon isn't the worst idea I guess. If Jenkins handles it well then you keep him at LT and. Never worry about this Borom/Jenkins switching thing.

I think theres certain practice restrictions on practice if he's still on IR. Now he's a full participant in practice. Eta: this is from a 2020 memo, but I think this covers what a guy on IR can/can't do That makes sense. Why did they feel the need to include the team meetings part? I mean why would being on IR restrict you from that? Probably just a best practice to be as clear as possible and leave nothing up to interpretation.

I think theres certain practice restrictions on practice if he's still on IR. Now he's a full participant in practice. Eta: this is from a 2020 memo, but I think this covers what a guy on IR can/can't do

I mean there's definitely something to be learned from paper, but yea a guy needs reps. I can make the case for a lot of different alignments. Unfortunately in a perfect world Peters would be sat, but he's been the best lineman and ya you wanna protect Fields pocket. So Mustipher is the weakest link, but that creates probably the most movement in alignment. I'm not too worried about L/R alignment between Borom and Jenkins. So I keep Borom at RT. If Peters stays at LT, and Mustipher out then Daniels or Whitehair has to move to C. Whitehair probably has had more success there and then you avoid two rookies next to each other. So: Peters-Jenkins-Whitehair-Daniels-Borom But I could make the case to move Daniels to C. I could also could make the case to get Jenkins in at RT if they think thats where he ultimately ends up. Or I say forget L/R alignment. If Borom looks good at RT don't mess with it. Stick with the (presumably original) plan of Jenkins at LT, but play him at G the rest of this year. Still gets work on the L/R muscle memory, just from the inside spot, then kicks out to T in 2022. And you prioritize stabilizing LG next to him in FA in 22.

It's possible but Jenkins definitely seems to have the riskiest injury to come back from along with the longest layoff. A high ankle sprain should basically be healed when its healed, maybe just with some lingering soreness, but you tape up. Back has a much higher risk of reinjuring it seems.

I have a feeling they won't rush Jenkins back. If he's not active for this week, then you probably don't make his first week back a weird prep week with a Thanksgiving day game. Let him return on a more normal schedule with the Cardinal games. Maybe as a backup against the Cards and even Pack. Starts the last 4 then. Much easier opponents to start back into, and maybe he can get some 6th lineman action against Arizona/GB. That's assuming injuries elsewhere don't change the calculus.

Here's the fake optimism playoff push logic.

Yea, the 7th WC is gonna be pretty wide open, but with 2 of their 3 wins against the AFC, I'm gonna guess they'll be down thr possible tie breaker scenarios. ESPN playoff predictor engine should be up and running in a few weeks.

Love the 5 guard lineup closing it out.

Triple teamed, drop the trey. Heh heh heh Edit- just a two I guess

Naz Fenwick I was there too. Good game but damn it was cold. Fenwick QB was pretty good. They were really strong top to bottom. I think the QB is going to Ball State. And the Center Purdue. Naz QB I guess is just a Freshman. Has some limitations, but they went on a run when they switched to him mid-season. As always they have some D1 talent too, but just wasn't as strong depth wise as they have been in some years past. Fenwick looked bigger and just as athletic.

Who did you see play? Naz Fenwick

Standing by the taunting call. I went and checked out a HS football playoff game yesterday and saw at least two NFL-style taunting calls. No flags. The horror.

Interesting, thinking on it for a sec I think the full contract would barely ever get used, the additional 3 years guaranteed is a lot of back end risk and the contract if sufficiently high enough is only so much savings compared to RFA. Maybe your Harpers or Bryants but hard to see it applying to more than 1% of the player pool, which then means you're functionallyl asking for the split to be the norm which isn't outrageous but likely to be a big sticking point for ownership. I mean maybe. You'd have to play around with the thresholds where maybe 20-30% of guys are locked up long term. The automatic performance still allows them to get paid and the lux tax exemption on the bottom guys is an offset to owners for giving up control. Though now that I think about it owners kind of low key like the tax as an excuse not to pay players. Pretty narrow group of owners it benefits.

I threw out a buyout type system before, but here's another spit ballin idea. From the moment a guy is put in the 40 man roster, a team has to offer him one of two contract types. A split contract which offers only 3 years of team control, similar to the pre-arb contract, and then a RFA type FA after that, with a max of 1 QO and then UFA after that. These contracts would be lux tax exempt. A full major league contract that must be at least 6 fully guaranteed years, counts fully against the luxury tax and must meet some minimum (relatively large) base salary requirement and includes automatic incentive based risers, similar to the alternate arb system being proposed. Aka you can protect star prospects and pay the cash premium to do so, but grant early FA rights for the vast majority of guys (and get a little benefit to do so). Okay, tell me why I'm dumb.

Any system where guys are locked into 6 years of control (not even including ML time) is gonna be a dumpster fire.

Well they definitely won't go 6-10

If we're talking net dollars and cents, yea a lot of this is gonna be window dressing or a de facto negotiation not between owners and players, but young players verse old players. The players need to focus primarily on growing the pie. If they can cover that hurdle, things like arbitration become more important and not just meaningless shuffling.

There's not a ton of savings for any of those guys except Quinn. But by all means if you feel like they're replaceable with a sub 3M type FA, sure.

I think I talked about this before, but this is definitely the most interesting decision the Bears have this offseason. The Bears need to build a strong OL. Borom has shown enough in just 2 starts that he's got a spot for the near future. Jenkins has the draft status and pedigree that he's got a spot in the near future. Whitehair has the contract that says he's going to be here. That leaves Mustipher and Daniels as the only guys who can logically be replaced. Mustipher is bad. You can replace him with a better C, but the issue here is that you can't really draft a C to fill this spot. Daniels was supposed to be the C of the future, but couldn't handle certain things at the position. Mustipher is also young, so I don't think young C is going to be the answer. You can move Whitehair back to C and go out and get another guard, but the only thing that really moves the needle is a stud. Whitehair is what he is. Solid, not a stud. You can hold out hope that Jenkins and/or Borom becomes a stud. But what complicates things is Daniels is a FA. Daniels isn't quite what he is, though he's probably never going to be a stud, pro bowl level OG. But he's also going to be literally the youngest FA in the league this offseason. And due to his age, solid performance the last 2 years when healthy, and still having a bit of upside; it makes this an either/or proposition. Either you sign Daniels OR you get a true stud on the OL. Probably can't afford both, unless you go really cheap at WR and get no CB help (remember no draft picks either). Given that a couple studs in Cleveland just got taken off the market, combined with the fact that it's very few studs in general out there, I think you have to re-sign Daniels. The whole "bird in the hand". They'll probably have to develop a stud OL between the rookie OTs and any future draft picks on the interior, but that's probably the way to go. A few things: I agree the Daniels bit will be interesting. Especially now with the 2 CLE guys off the market. But yea, good chance Daniels is paid for potential not past production (this isn't the worst thing) Whitehair's deal shouldn't prevent them from moving on. Yes he has a big dead cap hit, but he also has unguaranteed salaries each year at 8M+. That's the true cost to retain him. The dead cap stuff is a minor timing issue. I think they can afford a big splash at OL, WR, and relatively big investment in CB or NB. Might cause a tough decision at DE with Nichols/Hicks, but I don't think they can afford to ignore WR. Yes they'll have to backload some, but they have okay flexibility to do so. They're not in "cap hell" as some like to say. They're effective cap space is ~30M. I think they could easily add another 10M and aggressively up to 20M to that number with a couple cuts, a restructure or two, and a Roquan extension. Whether that's through current restructures or back loads on new deals, let's say they can effectively add 50M in new annual average salary above minimum salaries. WR: 20M (either a true number 1 or spread out b/t 2) IOL: 20M (2 guys at ~10M AAV each, incl resign/replace Daniels and a C) CB: 5-7M for a starter quality nickel or lower end outside guy DE: 5M for a decent rotation piece to replace Nichols. Now we get to Whitehair. Again, leave the dead cap issue aside. Its another 8M AAV. Split that between a low-end G FA and another DE at 4M each (to replace/retain Hicks). You have 5 draft slots and then about a dozen minimum salary type slots for various backup roles. Thats all on just an AAV basis, you can go a little more agressive with backloading. I mean maybe 3-5 of those dozen slots of you upgrade from minimum to a 2-3M type guys, but there should be zero concern if the bottom 10 of your roster is those minimum salary types and you can use the veteran salary benefit rule to keep cost down. Let's just say a Rd2 corner and Rd3 WR Fields-Foles Montgomery-Herbert Mooney- FA$20 - Rd 3 Kmet Jenkins-Borom-Daniels-FA$10-FA$4 Mack-Quinn-Gipson-Attaouchu-Roquan(extended)-Johnson Blackson-Edwards-Goldman-Tonga-FA$5-FA$4 Johnson-FA$7-Rd2-Shelly-Vildor Jackson Thats your basic core outside of minimum and day 3 guys. And they would easily still project to have AT LEAST 30M (upwards to 50M) of effective space to spend in 2023 with Montgomery the only significant FA (assuming you can extend Roquan). And I haven't even cut from expensive guys like Quinn by that point, who could free up more space.

confirmed; David has UMFan on ignore Davids AI posting algo is just incorporating too many of Derwoods posts into its dataset.

Anyways here's my best attempt at some fantasy Bears restructuring that's probably still realistic based on the rest of the NFL landscape. Leading up to week 14/15, fire Nagy and Pace. Announce that Cliff Stein will be named as President of the team and Ted Phillips will retain the CEO role as well as being named CEO of "Arlington Park Development LLC" which will focus on the Bears stadium project and development of the rest of the Arlington Park project. Champ Kelly as interim GM and whoever as interim HC, who cares. Ted can also announce a small team of proven sports execs who have been part of major stadium deals. Further Cliff Stein and George McCaskey will work with a consultant to immediately begin the hiring process for both GM and HC. They can start interviewing Head Coach prospects the last two weeks this year. GM candidates they still have to wait on I think, though they could obviously start the search with any possible GM candidates who are not currently employed by an NFL team (Rick Smith? Thomas Dimitroff?). They could obviously also interview Champ Kelly as an internal candidate. Let's just say hypothetically they decide to hire Rick Smith and just for PR purposes give him the fancy title of Senior Vice President of Football Operations. He'd then be ready to go pretty early on in the hiring cycle and finish up the head coach search. He hires Greg Roman as soon as the Ravens are done with their playoff run. He retains a healthy amount of the former FO staff with a promotion for Champ Kelly to "General Manager". It won't be a true GM role that you can block him from other GM roles, but maybe one where he has slightly elevated responsibilities (Rick Smith is a retread GM and single father to 3 teenagers, so its slightly believable he might give Champ greater responsibility than a typical number 2 role, along with a nice raise to keep him content and not seeking other jobs). But it would ultimately still be Rick's vision and coach, as well as bringing in some of his own guys to replace/supplement Pace's old FO. So you're left with Stein in Phillips old role (from a fan standpoint at least - we don't have to see his face anymore). And an experienced GM and hot internal GM candidate. From a practical perspective I don't think it makes a huge difference from the status quo (Smith is just Pace with a fancy title, and Champ is still Champ with a fancy title). But it kind of plays into some positive PR angles that sound like we're beefing up the football minds, as well as putting Phillips out of sight out of mind. If you want to go for a little bit more meatball fan service, chose any well liked former Bear and name them as a Senior Special advisor to the Chairman. Heck, pick 2 or 3 of them. Just to give some feel that there's "football guys" with some input for George and Cliff.

I'll admit I don't know much about the president of football operations role but how does the potential move stuff apply? Seems like that would create a unique type of role to deal with all of that stuff. I mean I don't know for sure. They're going to have joint partners in the AP project so its not like Bears have to do it all on their own, but it probably is big enough that you could make a case for Phillips to focus more on that and elevate someone to oversee the rest of the teams/business operations, and some teams do have both a separate CEO and President role. Of course they could do the reverse and hire someone separate to oversee AP, but moving Phillips out of a front facing team role is such an easy PR win, might as well do it that way. I've spent more time looking up NFL front offices than any sane person should, but I think Elway is really the only person with such a "Pres of Football Ops" title that sits above a GM. Many GMs often have a fancy VP title too, but at the end of the day, the point is there is generally one football guy in the building and he's the unquestioned head guy. And then there's a CEO or Pres role for every team. At the very least the Bears arent like uniquely incompetent and doing something wrong structure wise, which dumb fans often act like. The CEO/Pres role is also damn near a Pope role. It's just an extension of ownership and its really not often changed based on football results, across the NFL. In my research I think I found only like two or three examples of a CEO/Pres getting their role from a firing. Most succeed another longtime Pres who retires. Or they change when ownership changes.