Marshall was a straight up steal for the Giants. No other way to put it really. But he's also a guy who while productive is older and has some other issues. He also probably views the Giants as a chance to get a ring and thus took the discount to both stay in NY and play for a title. I see what the article is trying to do with Wheaton and Smith, but Smith's last 2 seasons prior are 767, 663 in yards receiving. Wheaton is 644, 759. We'll see which one is going in the right direction.
This might be a better way of looking at it or at least I agree with the approach Mullin took. I may not agree with all of his assessments and so far see it as more of a zero sum gain. I still agree with the overall assessment but I would phrase it a bit differently.
"More is not necessarily better and better is not necessarily good".
Bears free-agency analysis: Better does not necessarily mean good By John Mullin March 17, 2017 2:52 PM 0
This is the last in a series analyzing the Bears' decision-making during the 2017 free-agency period. As the first and second waves of free agency recede, a handful of observations as to the effects the Bears' spate of signings will have on the bigger, 2017 picture, with the overall conclusion that the Bears are better than a year ago, although "better" does not equate to "good," which the Bears need more than a few signings to be.
It would be difficult for the Bears not to emerge from the signing period any worse off than they finished the 2016 season. And while the dozen signings did not carry the splash factor of a handful of others (cornerback Stephon Gilmore to the New England Patriots, defensive lineman Calais Campbell to the Jacksonville Jaguars, wide receiver Alshon Jeffery to the Philadelphia Eagles), at the very least the Bears upgraded themselves, if not as much as they or their fan base might've preferred.
But the reality is that at the positions of need, the Bears got incrementally better over where they were in 2016, like the additions or not.
Quarterback: Mike Glennon for Jay Cutler/Brian Hoyer? Cutler and Hoyer are career mid-level NFL quarterbacks at best. Until Glennon proves something, he's not there yet. The Bears are gambling that he has upside that none of their incumbent options had; until then... +/-? Minus
Defensive line: The Bears defense suffered when nose tackle Eddie Goldman was down with an ankle injury. Opponents averaged 3.8 yards per carry in the six games Goldman played, 4.8 in the 10 he missed, replaced by chiefly by Will Sutton. Bears signed former New Orleans Saints/Seattle Seahawks nose tackle John Jenkins on Friday. Jenkins or Sutton? +/-? Plus
Cornerback: Prince Amukamara and Marcus Cooper will not make Chicago forget Charles Tillman anytime soon. And they did not rate on a par with Gilmore, A.J. Bouye or Logan Ryan. But the Bears started Jacoby Glenn, Bryce Callahan, Cre'Von LeBlanc and Johnthan Banks at the corner opposite Tracy Porter. Callahan has upside but the signings are steps up from the 2016 collage. +/-? Plus
Safety: Quintin Demps at 32 is a de facto bridge rather than long-term solution. And with two picks in the first 36, the Bears will be in position to add a top-shelf safety via the draft. In the meantime, Demps or Harold Jones-Quartey? Or Adrian Amos? +/-? Plus
Receiver: Losing Jeffery created a void in the passing offense, taking away a wideout with 304 catches over the past five years. The Bears expect Cam Meredith and Kevin White to provide size on the outside, and went for speed in signings of Markus Wheaton and Kendall Wright, who combined for 387 catches over those same five years. +/-? Minus
Tight end: Zach Miller is the usual known unknown, coming back from IR. The Bears already re-signed Daniel Brown. Logan Paulsen among the NFL's most-penalized tight ends, with more infractions (6) than pass receptions (3), including none over the final eight games. Dion Sims graded out as a better blocker and had 26 receptions, including four games with as many or more as Paulsen had all season. +/-? Plus
How can you rate/grade them if they havent played a snap for Bears? Especially dont get that Glennon grade. I guess all draftees will be a minus, because they never played a game in NFL before!
He's grading the difference between who had playing in 2016, who we lost and who we signed on the basis of what the players involved in these swaps have contributed over their careers or last season.
It's a fair way to do it. In fact that's pretty much how I was going through it and evaluating it too. I asked the same question. Did we get better at this position, worse, or is it pretty much a push.
We can only rate it as it is today. There is no accurate way to project how these players will do in Chicago. Pace may believe there is subjectively or he wouldn't have signed them but we have no way to know it objectively.
Yeah I understand that Alex but in the here and now we just paid a CB $7 mil for one year whose not even a shadow of Tillman whose the only CB the Bears ever paid that kind of money to and it was at the back end of a long term deal and well earned.
I think my real question here is what makes Amakamura worth $7 mil guaranteed for one year when Porter got $12 mil for 3 years with only $4.25 mil guaranteed one year ago? Maybe that's another reason why he got a bit upset with his CB signings.
It's pretty obvious to all Pace will not overpay for top talent though some of us might question the definition of over pay as being used by Pace. I think houston and I both pose a reasonable question. But are we overpaying for the talent we are signing? Will the players Pace claims are ascending ascend and will the placeholders actually play better than those they're slated to replace? That's what's being asked.
You know there's an old saying that goes "Buy Cheap Buy Twice".
I responded to that in a different post. Statistically Prince is on about 11 mil/season. And trust me Tillman wouldnt be making the same today. But you already know that.
I question that Spotrac MV Alex based mostly on his lack of availability. On average injuries have caused him to miss 22% of his starts. On that basis he's missing 3.5 games per year which I would think pulls his MV down significantly right now.
He's hoping for a good year and a shot at a better longer term deal next year. So as it stands he's kind of a one year rental right now. To keep him after 2017 we'll need to re-sign him to a bigger better deal like we did with Porter.
I responded to that in a different post. Statistically Prince is on about 11 mil/season. And trust me Tillman wouldnt be making the same today. But you already know that.
I question that Spotrac MV Alex based mostly on his lack of availability. On average injuries have caused him to miss 22% of his starts. On that basis he's missing 3.5 games per year which I would think pulls his MV down significantly right now.
He's hoping for a good year and a shot at a better longer term deal next year. So as it stands he's kind of a one year rental right now. To keep him after 2017 we'll need to re-sign him to a bigger better deal like we did with Porter.
Maybe, if he has a terrific season, sure. But there are two sides to this story, we wanted a rental too. Lets hope one CB is locked with Cooper, this way we have a 'way out' if one of the younger CB's pans out or we get a good starting CB in this draft. win-win hopefully
I'm willing to wait until the season starts until I say it was a good FA or not.
Well, in the end, we really haetv o. I mean FA (or the draft) is really based on how the guys you got performed. And you don't don't know that until.... well... they perform.
So all of this bandying around and the rating of everyones FA is really irrelevant at this point in time. I agree. I think its more like "how did FA seem to go" or the extremely subjective "did your team do what it needed"
I guess for me, the point was it did not seem that the Bears did enough (translation -- what I thought they needed to do), then they gave excuses like not wanting to over pay. Then they come out with a stat saying they paid more than anyone. Then they say it was because of our kind of contract. Then this story comes out showing with the same kind of contract, we pay more than known great talent for talent that has not met that standard.
So I've seen this literally thousands of times. Execs are going to do what they want. Then they think they CYA with a storyline that ends up breaking down and the storyline morphs to a new CYA position before it gets exposed again.
When I see this, I realize that the initial decisions werenot as well thought out as the execs are trying to get me to believe. Here, either the salaries with the hard line in the sand were not right, the real (not Bears generated) market values were not correct - or then adjusted to when realized.
I guess through this whole thing, what I am trying to project is this.....
I don;t know if this is a good FA or not because that is going to be based on the effect on the team of these players we got. It may indeed be a good FA. Pace does have a way of seeing traits in "decent" players that allows them to grow. I like that.
But also know this. While this FA might be great or might be poor, the way they insinuated they were going to go after FA because they knew how important it was and the way that it ended can not be construed as the same. Stuff happens. I get it. But then to come up with stories to justify things that didn't go a certain way only to have to change them when confronted.... well let's say I've seen that movie many, many times, and not once was it benign. Bad decisions or adjustments can be made but when they try to change the storyline.... that's bad.
So yeah, this may yet be a good FA in terms of results, but I still don't like what I am seeing or how it's being handled. And for me the most disappointing part is that I think it's all Pace... a guy a really like. I'm kind of bummed about that.
I question that Spotrac MV Alex based mostly on his lack of availability. On average injuries have caused him to miss 22% of his starts. On that basis he's missing 3.5 games per year which I would think pulls his MV down significantly right now.
He's hoping for a good year and a shot at a better longer term deal next year. So as it stands he's kind of a one year rental right now. To keep him after 2017 we'll need to re-sign him to a bigger better deal like we did with Porter.
Maybe, if he has a terrific season, sure. But there are two sides to this story, we wanted a rental too. Lets hope one CB is locked with Cooper, this way we have a 'way out' if one of the younger CB's pans out or we get a good starting CB in this draft. win-win hopefully
Yeah I would hope at least one or two of the young guys we have step up and I hope Pace drafts another CB in April. If he's gonna insist on the draft being 80%-90% of his long term plans he needs to roll a whole lot of picks and UDFAs to make it work.
How good was FA? We won't know until the games are played this season. Until then we are looking at pieces of the final team product. It's like the old story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant. Right we don't even know how the FA pieces will fit together with the existing pieces - and the draft which hasn't even occurred yet. We are the blind men right now. Let's see how the FAs do this fall when the regular season is played. That's all that matters.
Post by germansbombedph on Mar 20, 2017 5:49:01 GMT -6
I liked most of the signings. I didn't like the Wheaton signing. You have Brown in double coverage and Big Ben throws the ball and you still don't put up big numbers. That's a red flag to me. I'm indifferent on Prince, I don't think he'll be a good starter, more like serviceable.
I really like the Cooper signing and Glennon starts to grow on me.
I liked most of the signings. I didn't like the Wheaton signing. You have Brown in double coverage and Big Ben throws the ball and you still don't put up big numbers. That's a red flag to me. I'm indifferent on Prince, I don't think he'll be a good starter, more like serviceable.
I really like the Cooper signing and Glennon starts to grow on me.
Wheaton and Prince could become extremely valuable, both had some nice seasons:
Wheaton 2015: 750yds, avg-17.0, 5 TDs Prince was always solid & producing, when healthy
This might be a better way of looking at it or at least I agree with the approach Mullin took. I may not agree with all of his assessments and so far see it as more of a zero sum gain. I still agree with the overall assessment but I would phrase it a bit differently.
"More is not necessarily better and better is not necessarily good".
Bears free-agency analysis: Better does not necessarily mean good By John Mullin March 17, 2017 2:52 PM 0
This is the last in a series analyzing the Bears' decision-making during the 2017 free-agency period. As the first and second waves of free agency recede, a handful of observations as to the effects the Bears' spate of signings will have on the bigger, 2017 picture, with the overall conclusion that the Bears are better than a year ago, although "better" does not equate to "good," which the Bears need more than a few signings to be.
It would be difficult for the Bears not to emerge from the signing period any worse off than they finished the 2016 season. And while the dozen signings did not carry the splash factor of a handful of others (cornerback Stephon Gilmore to the New England Patriots, defensive lineman Calais Campbell to the Jacksonville Jaguars, wide receiver Alshon Jeffery to the Philadelphia Eagles), at the very least the Bears upgraded themselves, if not as much as they or their fan base might've preferred.
But the reality is that at the positions of need, the Bears got incrementally better over where they were in 2016, like the additions or not.
Quarterback: Mike Glennon for Jay Cutler/Brian Hoyer? Cutler and Hoyer are career mid-level NFL quarterbacks at best. Until Glennon proves something, he's not there yet. The Bears are gambling that he has upside that none of their incumbent options had; until then... +/-? Minus
Defensive line: The Bears defense suffered when nose tackle Eddie Goldman was down with an ankle injury. Opponents averaged 3.8 yards per carry in the six games Goldman played, 4.8 in the 10 he missed, replaced by chiefly by Will Sutton. Bears signed former New Orleans Saints/Seattle Seahawks nose tackle John Jenkins on Friday. Jenkins or Sutton? +/-? Plus
Cornerback: Prince Amukamara and Marcus Cooper will not make Chicago forget Charles Tillman anytime soon. And they did not rate on a par with Gilmore, A.J. Bouye or Logan Ryan. But the Bears started Jacoby Glenn, Bryce Callahan, Cre'Von LeBlanc and Johnthan Banks at the corner opposite Tracy Porter. Callahan has upside but the signings are steps up from the 2016 collage. +/-? Plus
Safety: Quintin Demps at 32 is a de facto bridge rather than long-term solution. And with two picks in the first 36, the Bears will be in position to add a top-shelf safety via the draft. In the meantime, Demps or Harold Jones-Quartey? Or Adrian Amos? +/-? Plus
Receiver: Losing Jeffery created a void in the passing offense, taking away a wideout with 304 catches over the past five years. The Bears expect Cam Meredith and Kevin White to provide size on the outside, and went for speed in signings of Markus Wheaton and Kendall Wright, who combined for 387 catches over those same five years. +/-? Minus
Tight end: Zach Miller is the usual known unknown, coming back from IR. The Bears already re-signed Daniel Brown. Logan Paulsen among the NFL's most-penalized tight ends, with more infractions (6) than pass receptions (3), including none over the final eight games. Dion Sims graded out as a better blocker and had 26 receptions, including four games with as many or more as Paulsen had all season. +/-? Plus
Strangely, I agree with his assessment on every one of these. He sees the QB as a negative also and for the same reason I do. If you want it to be a positive, he's going to have to show me. So far he has been less than average. I actually have decently high hopes for him, but to keep it real, his record says we downgraded. The ones where we improved were incremental improvements which as he says were less than expected. He actually pretty much said everything I've been trying to explain.