Bear rumors and innuendos

Actually, that had never crossed my mind. You make an excellent point. Not too many people that I would trust to replace Long, but Sitton would be a guy. If need be , get Long under the knife, rod him up and let him heal to hopefully play later in the season. Just on path, but having a real option to replace Long short term is a great idea.

Two separate issues here and both worth commenting on.

First of all I think belli is 100% on target here and I'm not sure why this keeps coming up as if no one has ever read all of the 100 pages plus of articles and other analysis of why it happened.

As good as Slauson was a pass blocking OG and also versatile enough to play OC he was not a good fit for a zone blocking scheme at either position.  It's clear the plan was to have Grasu start at OC with Ramirez as his backup and a spare OG.  Moving Slauson from being a starting RG (where they drafted Whitehair to start) to becoming a backup OC and using $3.5 mil of cap space up on a backup OL wasn't gonna happen.  Ramirez was both more experienced at OC and much cheaper but no one could have predicted he'd just up and retire any more than they could have predicted Grasu's knee injury.  That was the real killer.

So there was a plan to replace Slauson in effect but it failed for both of those reasons.

Sitton was due to make $5.9 mil in 2016 which may have been part of the reason the Porkers had for releasing him.  If he's 100% healthy then I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that although they may have approached him about restructuring his deal he may also have refused to do that preferring instead to become a FA and market himself now when there aren't any OL of his talents available.  Smart move on his part I'd say.

I think we can accept that he's not gonna be willing to take a one year vet minimum deal of the type that Pace loves to do with players like this but how much more than that will it take?  I read just one rumor so far that he's asking for something around what he was due to make in the $5.5 mil per year range but he also wants a four year deal and some reasonable $$$ guaranteed.  IMHO that's what Pace and Sitton's agent will battle over as the talk.

At $22 mil or thereabouts he's half the price of what we just gave Long and while he may be worth that and I wouldn't hesitate to consider a 4 year deal the amount of $$$ guaranteed may be the sticking point.  But, we're still in a better spot cap wise than NOLA if that's his next scheduled stop.  So can NOLA afford him or are they just sticking if back to Pace for going after one of their FAs?  It could be either I guess.

I'd be very happy to see him not leave Chicago without a deal but I'm thinking what Pace has in mind might be a 3 year deal for a little more than he gave Massie with maybe two years or the equivalent guaranteed.  Something like $15mil/3yrs/$10 mil in bonus and salary guarantees.  But I'm still curious about whether there's an injury issue with him that hasn't been revealed.  Sitton is one of the best pass blocking OGs in the NFL and the Porkers are a passing team. It's still a bit odd they would let him go free knowing that.

This is why I didn't want to get my hopes up too high.  Sitton is not the typical FA you find floating around the league late in the offseason.  He is going to want a healthy amount of coin, a multi-year deal, and guarantees.  Wherever he signs is likely to be his last real starter's-type contract.  Like Soul said, I think a reasonable compromise is a 3-4 yr deal with most/all the guaranteed money in the first 2.  I hope Pace can get this done.

I'd like to think that will be Pace's starting point.  I'm not aware of any reported back injury but I do know he played through a foot injury a couple of years ago.  Despite that he hasn't missed any starts and although he's played the left side most of his career he's also moved around when needed.

Josh Sitton’s career statistics
Games Fumbles
Year G GS FF FR
2008 11 2
2009 16 16 0 1
2010 16 16
2011 14 14
2012* 16 16
2013 16 16
2014* 16 16
2015* 16 16
Career 121 112 0 1

He's only missed two starts since 2009. That's some pretty good toughness and consistency I'd say.

Right now the Porker fans seem to be as upset with this move as some Bears fans have been with our release of Matt Slauson.  I'm not sure Sitton is the perfect prospect for a zone run blocking scheme either but the guy is a virtual wall as a pass blocker so in any event I don't think we can ignore any opportunities to sign him.  His knowledge of the GB offense is an X factor in the whole deal too.

I also hope Pace can get a deal done with him before he even leaves to NOLA.  I think we have more to offer him now and in the near future than virtually anyone else.  If he can play OC or this other FA we just picked up can maybe we set Larsen sailing.