WrigleyField 22

I'm officially eliminated on one league and locked up the number 1 seed in another league. So I'm mostly hanging around the next couple weeks. May do a little more digging at possible additions for week 16/17 matchups for my one seed, but even that doesn't really matter except DST which I already have looked at, and TE, which is just a dumpster fire no matter what. My RB/WR aren't really benchable for matchup reasons, so it would only come up do to injury. Picked up White as my emergency QB in case Hurts were to get hurt, as White has decent playoff week matchups... So if anyone has a good streaming TE for week 16/17 matchups, drop a recommendation.

I'm okay if he, Borom, and Leatherwood are the 2-4 tackle spots (plus Borom and Leatherwood can also prob bump inside as backups). I want them to sign a legit veteran tackle (Right or Left side doesn't matter IMO)

This thread is for Arson Judge

This is the dream, but I can't imagine it would be cheap. Yep, he'll be that AJ Brown territory. Not getting him for less than a first rounder.

But anyways looking ahead to 2024 WR FA as those would be your "surprise guys" Justin Jefferson. Obviously would be flabbergasted to see him moved. You can probably remove the Bears as a landing spot if he somehow was anyways. Tee Higgins. Much speculated due to Bengals financial constraints Michael Pittman. Definite possibility as they could be headed for a blow-up CeeDee Lamb. No way, this was the whole reason Jerry dumped Amari Cooper for practically nothing. Marquise Brown. Would be a surprise since they gave up a first, but haven't extended him yet. If a FO blew up happened though, a new GM might look to move on and recoup that cost. A level down then you have Gabriel Davis, Donavon Peoples Jones, Brandon Aiyuk, and Jerry Juedy. Really still guys who are all about potential and really on the same or slightly lesser level than Mooney/Claypool. Those are all the young guys at least. Old guys who could become trade or cut surprises: Mike Evans, De'Andre Hopkins, Tyler Boyd. Then your veteran 'never quite were' guys like Corey Davis, Robbie Anderson who could be cut based on their current salary.

Obviously hard to predict. But I'm somewhat skeptical Poles wants to go in on a Mooney-Claypool-Trade target all needing extensions. Yea they're sunk costs at this stage, and he could let Mooney walk next year and try and collect the comp pick for him, but I do kind of think Claypool was the move and he'll try to add the BIG name WR through the draft. Claypool raises the floor enough to allow him to do that.

Cuts a check to the NFLPA for the shortfall and they decide how to divy it up among any guys who the Bears rostered from 2021-2023. Edit - and my financially minded answer is that in a rising cap environment, lost purchasing power.

Pollard is working himself into a potential big deal. But even at the lower end of the market, I think theres gonna be interesting options, like a Kareem Hunt. More I think about it though, I really think Montgomery could be cheap to retain.

Is Velus really a lock? I would hope they acquire enough assets to at least make it possible he’s off the team by the time summer comes along. He’s done nothing. He’s older and there cannot be much of a cap hit by cutting him. Yea, minimal cap impact. Probably pretty safe but not a true lock. He'd cement his lock status if he could prove to be trusted on punts. But if he can't be your punt returner, you're automatically in a tough spot in the WR room. Ideal WR is something like: (1-3) Mooney + Claypool + day 1 or day 2 pick (4) Veteran slot FA (5) Punt and Kick returner + gadget (Velus?) (6) ST coverage guy + backup WR (Bellamy type) Right now, Pringle is their only WR who contributes a little on ST in a non return role. And then splitting return duties means a guy like Pettis is forced to take up offensive snaps. It's just a really inefficient room from a roster 53 composition right now. If Velus can't return punts though, either that vet slot guy or rookie or maybe a DB has to be able to. But it'd be much easier to get a replacement level KR at one of those spots (or RB) than a PR specialist. Or you get a true return specialist who actually can be both.

Yea and he's poaching his OC from a MAC school head coach (Kent State). That's a big pull from any Power 5, but one of Colorados prestige? That's insane. He's gonna recruit awesome coaches and players. #GoBuffs, I'm all in, put a hat on my Amazon Christmas list. Newest Buffs fan, here.

I'm not terribly worried about Jackson or Whitehair. On both guys, a lot of the cap hit is dead anyways. When you look at their base salaries they are both probably okay values. I'd much rather sign a C and push Patrick to backup or off the roster (original round tender Mustipher and let then battle for the backup C role). Jackson is only move on if the injury was a big concern. Could be convinced to move on from Whitehair, but I see him more as a surprise cut candidate in July than a guy you cut in March. Overall good writeups though. 2 OL 3 DL Choose one of LB, CB, WR3, RB2. That's your wave 1-2 FA shopping list. Half a dozen+ depth pieces at/near minimum in the 3rd and 4th waves of FA for the rest + backups. Resign some of the depth/ST guys like Blasingame, Wesco, DHC to minimum-ish deals (though I'd consider a 2 year deal for DHC). Draft could be fascinating if they end up with second pick or kind of boring if they drop to 5th/6th. If they are at 5th and say 1-4 is some combo of Young, Stroud, Anderson, Carter... What do you do? Reach for Quentin Johnson and that X WR1 upside? Hope someone is trying to trade up for Levis or Robinson? Go safe-ish for like a Skoronski? Murphy/Wilson also at DE just for position premium? Ringo (maybe dependent on where they see a possible Jaylon Johnson extension going)

What if they built the entire team from shortstop?

Yea I'm down pretty bad on having expectations for the Cubs. Prove me wrong!

Kind of want to make CU my adopted college team (I never have had a fave NCAA program). He may flame out, but I think it's gonna be entertaining to follow no matter what. And if I'm lucky BigTen will want that Denver market and I'll even get good media coverage in a few years.

Deion gonna be binge-ing on former 4 and 5 stars.

He can compete with Jones. Bears still need a big FA add at OT. Also, it was 10 snaps so...

Couple UDFA with the standout D grades. I've been skeptical about Sanborn as the starter for next year, but he just keeps making the case.

horsefeathers, trying to run my comps for Kmet and it's tough. Might have to upgrade my expectations here though. He's probably a 10M AAV guy, though comps are all less than perfect. Lot of guys getting paid lately probably got paid on flashier tools and potential. But Kmet still one of the youngest TEs in league so even though he doesn't have flashy combine like metrics, he has a potential case.

Completely agree. I'm excited about the cap space and high draft pick and all of that but like 90% of the Bears roster is currently marginal NFL talent. They have a lot to fix. You can rebuild quickly in the NFL, but Poles will need to have a very high hit rate IMO to be a contender next year. But its interesting that there's this conflict between Poles taking time to add pieces through the draft and FA and building out the roster to be set for long term success and the ticking clock that is Fields' rookie contract. My guess is that Poles would prefer to be slow and deliberate, but you also have to try to take advantage of an elite QB on a rookie deal because that dude is getting paid eventually. It's not even that IMO. He actually can't take his time because he has way too much money that HAS to be spent this offseason. Be one thing if he could just hand out extensions but there's not much on this team to extend (traded away 1 major extension candidate) and players with less than 3 years can't even be extended. He can want to be slow and deliberate all he wants, but he put himself into a situation where that's not even possible. I may run some extension estimates, but yea, I don't think there's a ton there. Like, I'm not sure Claypool and Mooney should get even more than Courtland Sutton money and at that price they may balk. Jaylon Johnson could be a big number since he's a corner, but there should probably be some legit doubt about an early extension for him, especially if it takes top 5 money. No on Vildor, Gipson. Leaves Kmet who I'd definitely look to extend and think you can reach a fair number for both sides (but it won't be huge).

can you post a screen shot of them, O and D? or is that UM's territory? Counting on umfan because I'm lazy lol. I think theres a reddit that had it each week?

To no surprise, Fields has hit best passing grade of the season from PFF. Scored an 82. Prior season high was 63.5. Second highest passing grade of his career after the Pittsburgh game last year. Overall a 90.4 offense grade. Jones, Whitehair, Kmet, Leatherwood, and Reiff all graded well. Technically Harry had top grade, but that was 5 snaps.

I personally love what Deion is doing and hope NIL is gonna pave the way for way more of this. We're inching closer and closer to stopping pretending NCAA football isn't just any other big business worthy of bring treated like one.

QBs can cover up a whole lot, but step up to contender is still a big hurdle. Look at Herbert in LA. He's been verifiably awesome, and yea they have done injuries too, but they put a lot into the team around him and not getting much better than replacement level results. So the Bears can probably pretty easily improve to a 7-8 win team by just putting a modicum of resources into the team around Fields. But getting to that 11-12 win mark.. A lot can go wrong in between. Heck even with whatever limitations Poles had, I think they coulda put 7-8 win talent around Fields this year and they just mostly punted. So it kind of sets up that expectation where you expect them to just skip any interim step, but that's extremely hard to do. And entering the last year of that cash window, they kind of have to spend like they're trying to contend, so it's gonna reinforce those expectations.

It would seem to me that they could go crazy on free agent signings and then offer up extensions where warranted. Couldn't they also frontload some contracts where needed? If you read through that whole tweet there's some baseline scenarios. But I'd say FA wise, their top 6 signings will account for at least 60-70M in AAV contracts, unless they really go crazy with extensions, but looking at the extension list none of these should get massive deals. But a few mid size ones would chip away.