Post by JABF on Jan 13, 2021 22:03:36 GMT -6
This is in Brad Biggs 10 Thoughts article today. It's a scary read IMO. Yes, the cap problems can be overcome short term but there are some serious consequences to doing that. He says "the Bears have made a habit of borrowing from future years" and now are in a bad situation where they can restructure some of the big contracts of the old players who are big ticket contracts... but it's not a good thing to do long term. There's no free lunch here.
This is just a small snippet from the article. Follow the link to read it in its entirety. But it sounds like Pace could really mortgage the team's future if he isn't disciplined with the money here. Just because you "can" move money into the future, it doesn't mean that is good for the team. It could cripple the team if mishandled.
LINK
The Bears have made a habit of borrowing from future years. Most of the players the team has signed to multiyear contracts have had those deals adjusted in order to create cap space. Khalil Mack, Eddie Goldman, Kyle Fuller, Charles Leno, Cody Whitehair are just a couple of examples. I would be surprised if the Bears did not restructure free safety Eddie Jackson’s contract. He has a cap of $11.45 million next season, and the team can whittle that down and kick some into future seasons. What other moves could be made? Fuller is under contract for one more season with a $20 million cap hit. If the Bears extend Fuller, who turns 29 next month, they can drive that number down. I think he’d be more likely for an extension than defensive tackle Akiem Hicks, who also is entering the final year of his deal and has a $12 million cap hit. Hicks is 31, and investing in aging bigger players can be dangerous. The Bears could go back to the well with Mack to lower his cap hit of $26.6 million, but it’s only going to create even larger numbers in the future.
I had an interesting chat last month with Jason Fitzgerald, the founder of the web site overthecap.com, which I included in a previous 10 thoughts column. We were projecting what could happen with the Bears in the offseason.
“They do have more flexibility than teams like the Steelers, but it’s also a question of do you want to really continue to double down on some of these older guys,” Fitzgerald said. “That’s really the thing for them. They can create a bunch of cap space if they extend players like Fuller or Hicks or restructure Mack again. It’s like the team already, especially on defense, is so over-reliant on guys that are over 30 years old. Do you want to do that?
“It’s a tricky spot. For them to really be able to do stuff in free agency, it’s a spot where they probably have to double down on some of these guys that most teams probably wouldn’t double down on. … They’re really in a weird spot. If they come back with the same general manager and same head coach, the level of heat that is going to be underneath them is going to be just like what happened in Atlanta or any of these spots where you’re basically dead man walking going into a season. So you’ve got to pull out all stops, and at that point, you don’t really care about 2022. You care about keeping your job. You’re going to do everything you can to load up, sign some players and hopefully go out there and compete, and if things don’t go well, you leave someone else with the mess to handle.”
The Bears have made a habit of borrowing from future years. Most of the players the team has signed to multiyear contracts have had those deals adjusted in order to create cap space. Khalil Mack, Eddie Goldman, Kyle Fuller, Charles Leno, Cody Whitehair are just a couple of examples. I would be surprised if the Bears did not restructure free safety Eddie Jackson’s contract. He has a cap of $11.45 million next season, and the team can whittle that down and kick some into future seasons. What other moves could be made? Fuller is under contract for one more season with a $20 million cap hit. If the Bears extend Fuller, who turns 29 next month, they can drive that number down. I think he’d be more likely for an extension than defensive tackle Akiem Hicks, who also is entering the final year of his deal and has a $12 million cap hit. Hicks is 31, and investing in aging bigger players can be dangerous. The Bears could go back to the well with Mack to lower his cap hit of $26.6 million, but it’s only going to create even larger numbers in the future.
I had an interesting chat last month with Jason Fitzgerald, the founder of the web site overthecap.com, which I included in a previous 10 thoughts column. We were projecting what could happen with the Bears in the offseason.
“They do have more flexibility than teams like the Steelers, but it’s also a question of do you want to really continue to double down on some of these older guys,” Fitzgerald said. “That’s really the thing for them. They can create a bunch of cap space if they extend players like Fuller or Hicks or restructure Mack again. It’s like the team already, especially on defense, is so over-reliant on guys that are over 30 years old. Do you want to do that?
“It’s a tricky spot. For them to really be able to do stuff in free agency, it’s a spot where they probably have to double down on some of these guys that most teams probably wouldn’t double down on. … They’re really in a weird spot. If they come back with the same general manager and same head coach, the level of heat that is going to be underneath them is going to be just like what happened in Atlanta or any of these spots where you’re basically dead man walking going into a season. So you’ve got to pull out all stops, and at that point, you don’t really care about 2022. You care about keeping your job. You’re going to do everything you can to load up, sign some players and hopefully go out there and compete, and if things don’t go well, you leave someone else with the mess to handle.”
