Probably a little more than the $4-$4.5 mil in guarantees Pace would have liked to have gone but for a $4.8 AAV I think he's has to match it and give Meredith the benefit of the doubt because there's no way he can count on White and he shouldn't. What concerns me is that he will because he has every time before.
Ian Rapoport Verified account @rapsheet
The #Saints are signing #Bears WR Cam Meredith to a 2-year deal worth $9.6M plus incentives, source said, with $5.4M in guarantees. He gets some guarantees in Year 2. Nice deal for Meredith — whether Chicago matches or not — for a player coming off a torn ACL.
Wonder why they are waiting this long to make a decision on matching? With Fuller, they jumped on it immediately.
They have 7 days and in the meantime it's NOLA's cap that's impacted not ours. While I think he should match it I'm sure they're also looking over who might me their targets in the draft. A rookie would be far less money and he'd compete with White and probably Gentry for a spot.
Wonder why they are waiting this long to make a decision on matching? With Fuller, they jumped on it immediately.
Fuller is a different story, my guess is the fuller contract was probably close to where they wanted anyways.
Cam is coming off an inj so this contract is probably a little higher then they were planning so it will take longer to decide.
And I think the Fuller thing was also about sending a message to Green Bay--as in, "hands off!"
The Meredith offer sheet may be a little richer than Pace was hoping for but it's still a no-brainer in my mind. His injury was in August last year so he will have a full year of recovery time. Heck, Pace paid big money for Robinson and his ACL tear was a full month later last season. Can't count on Kevin White for anything either.
Gotta match and keep CM. Dead cap in year 2 should be small if he disappoints so its basically a 1 year contract with a 1 year option to follow.
The deal here may be based less of the offer which isn't unfair than it is on how much cap Pace is willing to tie up in his WRs and TEs. Keeping Sims @ $6 mil ($4.67 mil cap) vs matching a $5.4 mil guarantee for Cam Meredith looks foolish and then we also have a $5.27 mil cap hit for White as well.
That's $10 mil of cap space being burned on two players with a sum total of 36 catches as Bears and because of their guarantees we're stuck with them. However we do have plenty of cap space so matching Cam's offer should be easy enough to do and it also locks him up for 2 years at a comparatively low cost.
The deal here may be based less of the offer which isn't unfair than it is on how much cap Pace is willing to tie up in his WRs and TEs. Keeping Sims @ $6 mil ($4.67 mil cap) vs matching a $5.4 mil guarantee for Cam Meredith looks foolish and then we also have a $5.27 mil cap hit for White as well.
That's $10 mil of cap space being burned on two players with a sum total of 36 catches as Bears and because of their guarantees we're stuck with them. However we do have plenty of cap space so matching Cam's offer should be easy enough to do and it also locks him up for 2 years at a comparatively low cost.
Keeping Sims has been a real head-scratcher, I don't get it. The guy adds little in the receiving game and pure "blocking TEs" are not that hard to find nor are they expensive. The money spent on Sims would have been better used to keep either Sitton or Christian Jones, the loss of both of whom has opened holes in the roster.
I was very critical of Pace late last season and wouldn't have shed a tear if he had been canned along with Fox-Logg. I admit he has redeemed himself to me so far in 2018. He has done an excellent job with the coaching staff and assembling offensive weapons for Trubisky so far. But, I really don't understand why he cheaped out with Jones and/or Sitton and instead kept an overpaid and ineffective now-3rd-tier TE. That is a highly questionable decision that I hope we don't come to regret.
My guess is it's a combination of dead cap and having a TE centric offense added to some unsurety about Sheenan. But even that flies in the face of comments Pace made about creating opportunities for the younger players to step up.
IMHO so far it's been a very convoluted message so maybe Pace is hoping he can squeeze a pick out of someone for Sims eventually so he doesn't have to admit total defeat with yet another 2017 FA. Whatever his reasoning I can't see the logic.
