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Bears 2021 roster/trades/transactions


JAF-N72EX

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6 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

Robinson's FA tag is killing us right now.  Mack, Jackson, and Whitehair's contracts were all restructured and cleared 23.5M in cap space. But Robinson's 18M tag for this year cancels out the majority of this.  They need to either re-sign him or trade him.... and they need to make a decision soon.

Mack's cap hit went from 26.6M down to 13.9M (currently 6th in the lg).
Jackson's cap hit went from 11.5M down to 5.1M (12th in the lg).
Whitehairs cap hit went from 9.6M down to 5.2M (11th in the lg).


Restructuring Mack's contract is both good and bad. The good part is that it leaves us with 12.7M more cap space to work with in 2021. The bad part is that it also increases the dead-cap over the next 5 years which also means we would now save even less money if the Bears decided to either trade or release him in the future.  


His cap savings from 2021-2024 went from;
-11.5, +15.2, +22.9, +23.3
to
 -24.6, +5.6, +16.5, +20.1.


Plus this restructures added 1 void year for 3.2M to that extends into 2025, which is also now fully guaranteed.

Each year Increase/decrease between his previous contract vs the current
2021: -$13,122,800
2022: -$9,582,600
2023: -$6,388,400
2024: -$3,194,200
2025: +$3,194,200

Mack just turned 30 years old, so he probably still has a couple good years left in him, but I wouldn't expect much more than that. Not an elite level anyhow.

Mack's cap hits in 2022 and 2023 are huge. I'm not sure if the Bears can justify keeping him at a 30M cap hit.

And while they could try to restructure his deal again, they'd be pushing money into his age 34 and 35 seasons. I'm not sure they want to do that. 2021 may be his last season as a Bear.

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1 hour ago, abstract_thought said:

Mack's cap hits in 2022 and 2023 are huge. I'm not sure if the Bears can justify keeping him at a 30M cap hit.

And while they could try to restructure his deal again, they'd be pushing money into his age 34 and 35 seasons. I'm not sure they want to do that. 2021 may be his last season as a Bear.

As it stands dead cap in 2022 is 25 million.   So if he is productive in 2021 he probably stays through 2022.

I think Bears need to do a better job of limiting his snaps and keeping him closer to 100%.   

Lack of Goldman in 2021 and Hicks in 2020 clearly allowed teams to focus on him more and beat him up quite a bit.

If Bears bring back everyone, could make a huge difference.   Rolling with Hicks, Goldman, Nichols, Quinn, Edwards and Mack would be Bears best D line on paper since '85. 

But if they allow holding again like they did for much of 2020 a great D line doesn't mean as much.   Seems regardless of year teams are allowed to hold Mack without consequence.   

They may not be able to keep everyone though if they sign a QB.   We'll see.

 

 

 

 

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@dll2000 Oh, I agree 100%, but whatever they decide.....they need to do it fast. B/C restructuring 3 high-end contracts and essentially only clearing 5.5M in the process (just because you decided to handcuff your best offensive player over the last 3 years) is a bad look right now.

They need to get on top of it and make a decision either way.

 

16 hours ago, abstract_thought said:

Mack's cap hits in 2022 and 2023 are huge. I'm not sure if the Bears can justify keeping him at a 30M cap hit.

And while they could try to restructure his deal again, they'd be pushing money into his age 34 and 35 seasons. I'm not sure they want to do that. 2021 may be his last season as a Bear.

15 hours ago, dll2000 said:

As it stands dead cap in 2022 is 25 million.   So if he is productive in 2021 he probably stays through 2022.

I don't think it's about the cap hit as much as it is the dead-cap that it would cost to either trade/release him IMO.  Remember, he was going to make 27.1M before the structure anyhow. And don't get me wrong....that's still alot to take on for one year (roughly ~13% of the cap--which is QB money). 

But I think the bigger issue here is that before his restructure his dead-cap was only 12M next year and would've cleared 15.2M in cap space to either trade or release him.   But now; his cap hit is 3M higher, his dead-cap doubled (24.8M), and the amount we would've saved has decreased nearly 70% (5.6M) .

We may be stuck with Mack until atleast 2023.  I wanted the FO to trade him next year (while he's still an elite player with value) and use the assets we get in return to retool the defense, but that may even be out of the question now.

Before to restructure, his contract made it easier to trade him next year for a good amount of assets. Teams would get; an elite player at a premium position, who had no guaranteed money left on his contract, his cap hits were reasonable (27.1, 25.5, 23.3), AND he could've been traded or released by them and cleared 15.2M, 22.9M, 23.3M, respectively, in any year, at anytime, for the remainder of the contract.

But now, that's gone.  The current contract would make it much harder to trade him and still get a good amount in return. Because even if teams were willing to give up a good amount next year, they would most likely want the Bears to restructure his contract so that we eat a good portion of his guaranteed, first, before trading.  Either that, or they take the entire contract off our hands in exchange for much less in return. Which would suck to lose a player like Mack and only get a sub-par return and only save 5.6M in the process.  And of course, you don't outright release a player like Mack. Especially to only save 5M.....that's not realistic IMO....you may as well let him ride out the year.

But yeah. I get why they did it (clear space, and they can't predict COVID) but it still sucks either way.  That's what sucks about passing the buck time and time again--which Pace has now done twice with Mack in the last 2 years to free up space.

9 hours ago, malagabears said:

 

 

I would love to have Trent as a stop-gap.  But man, winning a bidding war to get him is going to cost 18-20M  a year for a man who is about to 33 years old in a few months and has not played a full season since 2014.  I know he has played the majority of those seasons, so maybe I'm nit-picking here, but we're about to start the very first 17 game season in history and those few missed games matter more now than ever. 

If we sign him to a 3-year deal and his cap hit in 2021 is around 12-14M in 2021, then I say go for it.  Because this also means Leno is gone, which would also save 6.2M. This essentially means we would be paying Trent anywhere from 5.8M-7.8M in 2021 and that's a steal for him.  Even if it's just for 12-14 games. The backend on the other 2 years would hurt down the line, but the cap should be back to normal by then, and we can cross that bridge when we get there. 

 

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7 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

I would love to have Trent as a stop-gap.  But man, winning a bidding war to get him is going to cost 18-20M  a year for a man who is about to 33 years old in a few months and has not played a full season since 2014.  I know he has played the majority of those seasons, so maybe I'm nit-picking here, but we're about to start the very first 17 game season in history and those few missed games matter more now than ever. 

Signing Orlando Pace at an older age worked out just fine for us 

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23 hours ago, malagabears said:

 

If they were considering paying $$$$ for a LT and not finding one in draft - a trade for a much younger Orlando Brown would be way to go.

For record I advocated Bears draft Brown before and after 'worst combine ever.'

Athletic traits on OL are way overblown at combine.  Screws people up every year on good players and over drafts bad ones.  

 

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38 minutes ago, Flbrandonf123 said:

Any bets on his return if traded?

Its last year of his deal so I would put over/under at 6th.

I think its better to keep him.   

It could be a sign Bears are close to a block buster trade and are trying to use players they perceive as tradeable to recoup some draft picks to hopefully find some talent to fill out roster in future years.  

 

 

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3 hours ago, TankWilliams said:

But he had an Engineer level IQ!

And that's all that matters!

Welcome to the forums, by the way! 😄

3 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

Any bets on his return if traded?

Its last year of his deal so I would put over/under at 6th.

I think its better to keep him.   

It could be a sign Bears are close to a block buster trade and are trying to use players they perceive as tradeable to recoup some draft picks to hopefully find some talent to fill out roster in future years.  

Probably is better to keep him, but you're right, Pace feels he needs picks, and is going fishing for some kind of return. He must think he can fill the roster void for cheap. 

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11 hours ago, dll2000 said:

Any bets on his return if traded?

Its last year of his deal so I would put over/under at 6th.

I think its better to keep him.   

It could be a sign Bears are close to a block buster trade and are trying to use players they perceive as tradeable to recoup some draft picks to hopefully find some talent to fill out roster in future years.  

 

They haven't targeted any WR so far in free agency.  So if they really are shopping Miller then this probably means they are planning to re-sign Arob (or sign and trade him for another WR and possibly more).  Because I can't imagine the FO going into the draft with needs at #1 and #3 WR.  A #3....yes, but not both.

That said, trading Miller wouldn't surprise me.  His stunt in the playoff game, along with his immaturity, buried him the doghouse. May as well try to get something for him while we still can.

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