Marcus Cooper with a message to Bears fans
Mar 14, 2017 14:21:15 GMT -6
riczaj01, butkus3595, and 1 more like this
Post by JABF on Mar 14, 2017 14:21:15 GMT -6
Mar 14, 2017 13:51:08 GMT -6 @soulman said:
Ya know every year we get a player or two who says this either in print or in his post signing interview and in most cases either due to injury or sub-par play we end up being disappointed. It's gotten to the point where it's become so common place that is does nothing for me any longer. My only response is don't tell me what you're gonna do.......show me.Sorry to sound like I'm sucking on lemons here but the list from each of the preceding years isn't hard to dig up. First it was Pernell McPhee and what have we ended up with? A guy with a bum knee who many never be able to play a 16 game season and be the impact player we thought we had when we signed him? Last year it was Danny Trevathan who was overjoyed to be playing for Fox again and we lost him to yet another knee injury?
Even when he was playing full tilt he was overshadowed by his much less verbose and less expensive ILB partner who did manage to fulfill his expectations.
It's nice to read this stuff but as for "Coop" let's be realistic. After a very nice rookie year with KC he fell off the map there at least partly due to injuries surfaced in AZ where he had 4 picks but half the passes defensed he had with KC as a rookie and missed a few more games due to injury. Yes, he had some picks and we need that but he also had enough issues in coverage to cause a very sub-par PFF rating. Here's how they rate the signing and what his play may have earned him vs what we paid.
CB Marcus Cooper to Chicago Bears
Actual: Three years, $16 million, $8 million guaranteed
PFF play-earned contract: Three years, $3.1 million, $360k guaranteed
Grade: D
Marcus Cooper was back starting in 2016 and it resulted in 63.9 percent of targets being caught by the intended receiver and 751 receiving yards over the season. He had four interceptions and six pass breakups, but also surrendered four touchdowns.
I'm just trying to inject some sobriety into this signing. The Cards let him go just as the did with players we signed last year like Larsen and Massie and what did we get? Mid level journeyman players who could barely hold a starting spot on a 3-13 team. Early on Massie was especially useless.
GBPH and I traded posts about Gilmore and Bouye about whether or not we should have stretched a bit and made more competitive offers to them. He felt we should not have over payed for them. So let me ask this. Did we grossly over pay for a second tier or third tier player here too just as we seemed to do with Massie?
PFF seems to feel this guy isn't a whole lot better than a 4th yr. RFA you'd pay a little over a mil a year to yet we're paying him an average of over $5 mil a year with $8 mil guaranteed. Why? Pace keeps telling us these guys are younger ascending players yet this guy will have to ascend quite a bit from where he's been in order to earn his deal.
FWIW these are some of the reasons it's very hard for me to get excited about this approach to building through UFA any longer. We've been doing it for three offseasons now and nothing has changed except for the team to regress even farther. Bargain bin signings are clearly not making a difference in most cases. It is what it is.
The Bears have added some nice pieces in the first two Pace drafts. I expect he will add more in this one. Primarily the future of the Bears under Pace will depend upon how well he drafts. I like what I see so far from his drafts. Obviously, the roster has more needs than the draft can immediately fill. You're right, Massie was useless at the beginning of the season, but he's gotten a lot better, IMHO. It will remain to be seen how good or bad the Cooper signing will play out, but he's a 2017 alternate Pro Bowl player, so he can't be too bad, right? He just turned 27 so he's not old. After this season his guaranteed money is only $2mil. I don't know. I have no problem with that.
I think Pace is doing what he said he'd do in FA. He wants to go into this draft being able to draft the best players available and not have to reach for a need. I think he's doing a very good job using FA that way, so he can go BPA in this draft, including at QB. It's the draft that will determine our future. Not FA. That's my cut on it anyway, FWIW.