Yep, I think you're right Alex. At his cost Royal it's at that stage where it's about diminishing returns due to age and injuries so it's time to get Braverman some playing time soon and evaluate him as a potential successor.
This is an incredibly negative 180 turnaround from pre season expectations when some (not all) were hoping for a great 3 headed monster. What a disarray this season has become. To now be realistic that Royal is a cut candidate and White may become a bust next year is reallz sobering but realistic. But the worst part may be how the situation with AJ pans out. He may want to really test FA after this season.
No doubt. Offensively it may have been one of our biggest disappointments so far this year plus we lost Marquess Wilson, cut Marc Mariani and Fox insisted on playing White over Meredith until he got hurt. Due to a number of reasons things turned out far worse than we imagined they might be.
Yeah, Royal's deal calls for too much money for a guy whose missing as much time as he is so unless he's willing to take less he'll probably be released. I guess it depends on how AJ does these next 8 games but he may be more signable now than he was before. He may get a little more than he they wanted to offer last year now that he's proven he has some leadership skills and he's been willing to play.
Given our situation at WR I think we'd be foolish not to sign AJ long term. The guy can flat out play.
They would be dumb not to sign Jeffery long term. I know some say just tag him again but look at how much money the Bears would have tied up with him in 2 years compared to what it could have been with a long term contract. What sucks is he's probably going to want even more money than he was asking for last year. I know the Bears wanted to see if he could stay healthy but it may have been smarter to just sign him long term before the season started instead of the franchise tag.