1/20 Mock Offseason (no draft)

[AZBearsFan]

Since we have no idea how the top of our draft is going to shake out until the presumed trade down, I wanted to try something different and look at a potential offseason that doesn’t include the draft. Draft simulator burnout is real already. Anyway here goes:

Cuts

LG Cody Whitehair (post 6/1) - struggled this year post-injury and has trended downward the last few years. You can get by with him, but we should aim higher, and probably younger.

DE Al-Quadin Muhammad - just a complete miss of a FA signing. With just a $500k dead cap hit to move on, this is a no-brainer to me. 

Note: I considered cutting Lucas Patrick here but think ultimately he’ll make it to camp where he’ll be allowed to compete for a backup role with Doug Kramer, Mustipher and/or someone we draft this year. We can cut him for the same savings in August as we can in February. We have ample cap space to keep him as a depth piece if he wins the role, and my gut says Poles, Flus and Getsy would rather have someone with starting experience at C as our reserve there. 

Re-Sign (non-minimum deals)

RB David Montgomery 1/4, fully guaranteed. A true professional who’s solid at everything but not really great at anything, Monty is a stabilizing presence in our locker room and on the field here, especially on passing downs where Herbert struggles. A flooded FA market at RB keeps his value reasonable, as he likely has more value to the Bears than he would other teams. This deal suggests we’ll look to draft his eventual replacement in late April, but until he’s proven expendable he sticks. 

Re-Sign (minimum or near minimum deals)

FB Khari Blasingame - underappreciated part of our running game. 

LB Matt Adams - ST depth with some starting experience.

LB Joe Thomas - ST depth with some starting experience. 

S DeAndre Houston-Carson - ST captain and solid depth safety who has performed capably when called upon on defense. 

Extensions

WR Darnell Mooney 2/28 with $20M guaranteed. Best cast as a WR2, Mooney has proven reasonable dependability and chemistry with Fields. His year-to-year production to date falls roughly between that of Russell Gage and Christian Kirk. This bridge deal splits the middle between their two UFA contracts from last offseason, rewards Mooney for drastically outplaying his draft slot and gives him financial security while also still allowing him to hit UFA again at 27, and we lock in a player with clear Fields chemistry through the end of Fields’ rookie deal. Win-Win. 

TE Cole Kmet 3/30 with $15M guaranteed. Kmet has improved every year and was a fully capable starting caliber TE this year who’s also a good and willing blocker. Him finding a nose for the end zone was one of the most pleasant developments we had on offense in 2022. He’s also going to be just 24 next year. TEs his caliber get paid on the UFA market (Uzomah got 3/24 coming off 49/493/5 entering his age 29 season last offseason), and Kmet will too if we let him hit the market next spring. Is he great? No. But he’s an above average durable starter (0 missed games in 3 years) who’s an ascending player and who we’d definitely miss if he were gone. This deal would pay him as the 11th highest paid TE in the league. The staff is effusive in their praise of him. Honestly, this contract might be optimistic. 

Note: I thought about extending Jaylon Johnson here but ultimately what I think his UFA market would be right now is at a place where I don’t think he’d accept what I’d be willing to offer him as an extension. I see him right now around $7-8M/year. His cover skills are strong but the lack of takeaways to me limits his market value. He’s very mid-career Prince Amukamara-ish to me. That’s a really solid player you want on your team, but not one who deserves to get paid like the top player he isn’t. If he’s open to an extension in that neighborhood then I’m all in - I just don’t think he would be. 

Multi-Year FA Deals (expected starters)

OT Mike McGlinchey 4/48 with $22M guaranteed. The top UFA RT deal since 2020 is $10M AAV (Bulaga); top UFA RT deal in 2022 was $7M AAV (L. Collins 3/21). I gave McGlinchey the Bulaga deal here plus inflation. This is a get rid of the turnstiles move. McGlinchey is a solid, reliable RT and we desperately need one of those. 

C Ethan Pocic 4/36 with $16M guaranteed. Contract comps were hard - I put Pocic above Brian Allen (6M AAV) and Connor Williams (7M AAV) but below Rodney Hudson (10M AAV) here. He’s a strong starting C on the ascent. I think he’s likely behind Bradbury at top of the UFA C market but I think he’s the better player. Chicago is home as well (went to Lemont HS). 

G Dalton Risner 3/26.5 with $9M guaranteed (contract comp James Daniels). Financial wash here to us in conjunction with the projected Whitehair cut. Player evaluations I found for Risner said “Good pass blocker; average run blocker.” The goal for the OL this offseason is to better keep Fields upright, and this is a step in that direction with a veteran starter on a reasonably priced deal. I do wonder whether the sideline incident he had with Rypien will impact his market. 

DT Dre’Mont Jones 5/70 with $28M guaranteed (contract comp Fletcher Cox with more term). Plug & play 3T for our scheme who’s had consistent sack production year over year. 26 years old. Da’Ron Payne is the best play here if he hits the market, but Jones would be a great consolation prize. 

LB Bobby Okereke 3/16.5 with $7M guaranteed (contract comp Josey Jewell with more term). Replacement here for Morrow who was an IND LB under Flus. Solid system fit with 49 career starts. 3 down LB who rarely comes off the field. I can see Flus and Williams jumping at the chance of adding stability at LB with a solid player they know well. 

CB Byron Murphy 3/21 with $6M guaranteed (contract comp Rasul Douglas). Solid starting caliber CB. Poles talked about prioritizing the position, and in our division especially we need better quality at the top of the depth chart alongside JJ and Gordon. 

1-2 Year FA Deals (depth or bridge starters) 

WR Marvin Jones 1/5 fully guaranteed (contract comp 2022 Julio Jones with less resume). Veteran WR3/4 to bridge to a presumed rookie WR takeover. Solid, professional floor expectations in a complementary role. Played the same role in JAX this year.

RB D’Ernest Johnson 1/1.75 with $500k guaranteed. 26 years old with low miles. Capable passing game back who also plays ST. I think he’d be a RB2 but here I foresee him in a competition with a rookie to be our game day active RB3. I’d make this move whether or not Monty is back.

DT Derrick Nnadi 2/5.5 with $1.5M guaranteed (contract comp his own 2022 deal). 5 year starter at NT for KC. 2-down DT with minimal pass rush upside but a capable run defender with whom Poles will be very familiar. 69 starts in 5 years on a contender despite just 4 career sacks speaks to his value.

DE Demarcus Walker 2/8 with $3M guaranteed (contract comp Al-Quadin Muhammad). Financial wash with the AQM cut here; replaces AQM as a rotational depth DE and pass rush specialist. Breakout with 7 sacks, 16 QB hits in ‘22 on just 427 defensive snaps. Great DE size at 6’4” 284lb. 

LB Kevin Pierre-Louis 1 yr vet min deal. This signing is strictly for ST purposes. I have him competing for a depth spot in camp with the re-signed Adams/Thomas on comparable deals.

Where Does This Leave Our Needs Going To The Draft?

DE x2 high need - 1 sure fire starter 

WR x1 immediate WR3/4

TE x1 top depth/year 1 rotational contributor 

LB x1 high depth or 3rd starter 

OT x1 competition for Jones

OG x1 developmental/backup

RB x1 depth/competition

CB depth

S depth

[StLunatic88]

7 hours ago, AZBearsFan said:

Note: I thought about extending Jaylon Johnson here but ultimately what I think his UFA market would be right now is at a place where I don’t think he’d accept what I’d be willing to offer him as an extension. I see him right now around $7-8M/year. His cover skills are strong but the lack of takeaways to me limits his market value. He’s very mid-career Prince Amukamara-ish to me. That’s a really solid player you want on your team, but not one who deserves to get paid like the top player he isn’t. If he’s open to an extension in that neighborhood then I’m all in - I just don’t think he would be. 

 

Im not sure I have disagreed with anything more, recently posted on this forum.

He is a GREAT cover corner, which is the most important thing for a Corner. Takeaways are a flashy stat, luck based, and not hardly a true representation of what a player is worth. Early in the year, when he missed time, this Defense was almost worse than we saw it at the end of the year when we no longer had a DL to put on the field.

Does he deserve to be breaking Alexanders new contract? No. But he is worth paying more than a guy outside the Top 30 CBs (which $7-8m AAV will be after this offseason).

Its honestly shocking that you would pay Ethan Pocic $9m per year, but wouldnt even do that for Jaylon? Youre never keeping a good CB with that approach

 

On another note, Im not sure why you all think replacing 3 Starting O-lineman in one offseason is a good idea. Its not just a magic wand like that, and would also be very surprising to do it all via Free Agency.

Edited January 20, 2023 by StLunatic88

[AZBearsFan]

16 minutes ago, StLunatic88 said:

Im not sure I have disagreed with anything more, recently posted on this forum.

He is a GREAT cover corner, which is the most important thing for a Corner. Takeaways are a flashy stat, luck based, and not hardly a true representation of what a player is worth. Early in the year, when he missed time, this Defense was almost worse than we saw it at the end of the year when we no longer and a DL to put on the field.

Does he deserve to be breaking Alexanders new contract? No. But he is worth paying more than a guy outside the Top 30 CBs (which $7-8m AAV will be after this offseason).

Its honestly shocking that you would pay Ethan Pocic $9m per year, but wouldnt even do that for Jaylon? Youre never keeping a good CB with that approach

Admittedly $7-8M is maybe a little light. But it’s not absurdly light. Looking at last year’s FA deals Darious Williams got $10M per. Donte Jackson got $11.7M per. Can JJ argue to be in that range? Sure. But those guys were FA. Johnson isn’t, and those guys had significantly more ball production (Jackson had 12 INT thru 4 years and Williams 6 INT; Johnson has 1 in 39 starts). I agree that those things are at least somewhat out of a corner’s hands and that coverage skills matter more, but they still matter come contract time. I like Johnson a lot, but is he a top 20 corner in the NFL right now? I don’t think so. I think he probably falls somewhere in that 20-30 range, which is where I slotted him here. I also think he thinks he ranks higher than that, which is why I said I didn’t think his and the team’s value on him (per me in a scenario where I’m playing GM) were going to align. Were my value on him to change as the GM here as the season moves forward it’s certainly something that could be and would be revisited. 

The deal I have Pocic getting would make him the 9th highest paid C as of today, which I think is pretty appropriate given his ability. The amount of money in his deal and JJ’s here are unrelated though since they don’t play the same position. The 9th highest paid CB in the league right now (JC Jackson) makes $16.5M per.

30 minutes ago, StLunatic88 said:

On another note, Im not sure why you all think replacing 3 Starting O-lineman in one offseason is a good idea. Its not just a magic wand like that, and would also be very surprising to do it all via Free Agency.

I’m replacing Reiff/Borom, Mustipher/Patrick and Whitehair here because all of them are subpar. It’s definitely not ideal to replace 3 starters in 1 offseason, I agree, but all of them are clear liabilities. I think we need some known stable pieces on the OL to replace them given the importance of 2023 in Fields’ development too which is why I chose here to fix the most pressing OL needs via FA vs. the draft. I propose this fully expecting there to be some initial bumps as cohesiveness builds amongst the group, but I’d definitely rather have that than running out subpar talent again in 2023. CIN just did the same thing this past offseason with their signings of Cappa, Karras and Collins and there was obvious improvement (Burrow was sacked 13 times weeks 1-2 but then just 28 times in the last 15 games). I want to get us to solid on the OL first to be able to build up from there. You’ll note I’m still posturing to add developmental depth in the draft and competition for Jones after the FA spending spree on the OL. None of the deals I proposed are more than a 2-year commitment before we could reasonably get out of them if the player underwhelms or if we are able to develop or draft a better or more inexpensive comparable option as Fields (hopefully) gets more expensive.

[StLunatic88]

42 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

Looking at last year’s FA deals Darious Williams got $10M per. Donte Jackson got $11.7M per. Can JJ argue to be in that range? Sure. But those guys were FA.

Thats lame reasoning right there. all you guys have talked abut was this missive pile of money we have, and keeping around the little bit of talent that we do have, but we wont use it for one of those handful of guys? Ro wanting to be the highest paid player in his category (a non-premium one) is a different situation, and Like I said if JJ says I want the Jiare deal, then sure go try free agency. But I dont think weve ever heard anything like that from the JJ side.

But you just pointed out, I dont know Jackson as much, but I can PROMISE you that JJ is a far better CB than Darious WIlliams. So the absolute minimum that you are even talking about is $10m per year. I think you are crazy saying that he isnt a Top 20 Corner. On possibly the worst Defense in the league, he still shows out, thats pretty special to me. 

47 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

The deal I have Pocic getting would make him the 9th highest paid C as of today, which I think is pretty appropriate given his ability. The amount of money in his deal and JJ’s here are unrelated though since they don’t play the same position. The 9th highest paid CB in the league right now (JC Jackson) makes $16.5M per.

My point was you are willing to Overpay an above average Center (You really think he is a Top 10 Center?) but you are saying you wouldnt even pay fair market to one of our few home grown stars? The only thing the comparison of 9th C and 9th CB shows is how much more CBs make, so JJ is going to cost more even if you dont think he is Top 20. And how many of those other Top 20/30 CB contracts will be 3 or 4 years old already? THe cost of doing business at CB has gone up more than any spot that isnt QB or WR

50 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

I’m replacing Reiff/Borom, Mustipher/Patrick and Whitehair here because all of them are subpar. It’s definitely not ideal to replace 3 starters in 1 offseason, I agree, but all of them are clear liabilities.

I dont think I would call Whitehair or Patrick Liabilities, and Id probably throw Borom in that group as well. Are they great? No, can they be inconsistent? Sure. But when healthy and in the correct positions, these guys are completely fine lineman to have, and even to be starters. You are not going to have studs everywhere. And Ill say it again, this system is built to have the whole to be better than the sum of its parts. And to think you are going to be paying Free Agent dollars all over the Line, just doesnt seem likely, especially all in one year.

I think we have one big Free Agent signing on the Line, and sure another vet or two who can push for starter spots, but atleast be multi positional backups. And then we will do more of what they did last season, which is be looking for more young Talent that fits what they like in the draft. 

 

[AZBearsFan]

2 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

But you just pointed out, I dont know Jackson as much, but I can PROMISE you that JJ is a far better CB than Darious WIlliams. So the absolute minimum that you are even talking about is $10m per year. I think you are crazy saying that he isnt a Top 20 Corner. On possibly the worst Defense in the league, he still shows out, thats pretty special to me. 

Saying he’s in the 20-30 range amongst all CBs is hardly a slap in the face. There are 96 starting corners in the league counting nickels, and i put him right on the border of the top quarter of them. I think JJ is an adequate top corner, or a great 2nd corner, and that’s where I valued him. Would I pay him $10M a year before letting him hit FA? Maybe a little more? Sure (I did admit $7-8M/yr was probably light), but I think he’ll be looking at those Chavarius Ward numbers ($13.5M AAV), if not more, and I don’t see that for JJ right now. There is, admittedly, a fine line to be walked between being disrespectful to your homegrown talents by undervaluing them contractually and being fair with your offers against an inflated sense of self worth. I’m not saying JJ has the latter (I have no idea) or that paying a premium while we have the cap space to keep a homegrown talent is something we shouldn’t do under any circumstance (we definitely should on a case-by-case basis), but that has to have a limit too.

I’m curious where your line would be for JJ before you’d have him test FA.

2 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

My point was you are willing to Overpay an above average Center (You really think he is a Top 10 Center?)

Is paying an “above average center” as the 9th highest paid center (of 32 starters) really an overpay though? 10th-13th are Connor Williams, Ben Jones, Brian Allen and Ted Karras, and I think he’s better than all of them. He’s not Kelce or Jensen, but he’s a young veteran who you can plug in and not worry about IMO, and in our present state I think that has a ton of value, especially at center.

2 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

I dont think I would call Whitehair or Patrick Liabilities, and Id probably throw Borom in that group as well. Are they great? No, can they be inconsistent? Sure. But when healthy and in the correct positions, these guys are completely fine lineman to have, and even to be starters. You are not going to have studs everywhere. And I’ll say it again, this system is built to have the whole to be better than the sum of its parts. And to think you are going to be paying Free Agent dollars all over the Line, just doesnt seem likely, especially all in one year.

I think we have one big Free Agent signing on the Line, and sure another vet or two who can push for starter spots, but atleast be multi positional backups. And then we will do more of what they did last season, which is be looking for more young Talent that fits what they like in the draft. 

Poles was widely scrutinized this past season for signing Patrick as his FA “move” on the OL, and then the OL was awful this year as a collective with Borom losing his RT job to Reiff and then not being able to get reps over Schofield as a depth guard, Mustipher being Mustipher at C after Patrick got hurt, etc. Whitehair was adequate pre-injury but struggled badly after returning, and he’s getting older and has regressed for a few years now and likely will continue to get worse (or at minimum won’t likely improve). You could make a fair argument that Poles may want to see the Patrick move through this year since he basically missed all of last year at C, but I think there has to be significant personnel turnover there, whether that’s via FA or the draft. The guys I singled out belong as depth guys at best IMO. They simply weren’t good enough, and it greatly limited what we were able to run on offense the entire season. My proposal here isn’t the way to try to fix that, but it’s one way to do it, and I just don’t think adding a few vets to “push for starter spots” against the guys who started this year and weren’t good enough goes far enough.

We need to come out of FA with some “fixes” for our glaring talent deficiencies, and looking at the market we won’t be able to do that at WR or DE, but we can on the OL and at DT. Hence my focuses here.

As an aside - always appreciate our well reasoned discussion when we see things differently. We all want the same thing here but there’s more than one way to skin a cat. 🍻 

[StLunatic88]

52 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

As an aside - always appreciate our well reasoned discussion when we see things differently. We all want the same thing here but there’s more than one way to skin a cat. 🍻 

Absolutely agree, its always enjoyable. You and Mike and others all have guys in your Mocks that I have in mine coming up. We all agree more than we realize, which is why I think its more fun to argue the points where we differ.

16 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

I’m curious where your line would be for JJ before you’d have him test FA.

I dont think there is any question that he is a #1 CB. I dont need that guy getting INTs, I need him to be a covering half the field, which I think JJ does quite well with (frankly) a dearth of talent on the Defensive side of the ball. Had he fallen off when we stripped down the D this year, I would be weary of the extension, but this season proved it to me even more.

So I think $10m AAV is going to be the absolute minimum you need to be willing to pay him, weather he hits the market or not. So unless he is demanding to be paid as a Top 10 CB, Im completely fine giving prety much anything else to him. I detail it out further in my Mock I will post soon, but the AAV for the entire contract for him if we would do the extension now (likely spanning 5 years) is going to look big. But that is alot of funny money. The real thing will be the mostly guaranteed years, so the first 3, and if we are paying him Ward type dollars at $13m AAV in those years, that is a great deal for everyone. Then if he has earned the higher dollars (that will look very different in comparison to the elevated Cap) then he stays or if not its a restructure or cut.

I was very clear that we should not have been paying Roquan, a non premium position, the Top of the Position contract that he was demanding. But there does come a time where you need to take care of your guys. And if JJ doesnt fit that mold as a corner stone of this defense, then who in the heck would?

28 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

Is paying an “above average center” as the 9th highest paid center (of 32 starters) really an overpay though? 10th-13th are Connor Williams, Ben Jones, Brian Allen and Ted Karras, and I think he’s better than all of them. He’s not Kelce or Jensen, but he’s a young veteran who you can plug in and not worry about IMO, and in our present state I think that has a ton of value, especially at center.

Ok, maybe I was betting around the bush a bit. I dont think Pocic is anything more than a solid backup Center, or at best what we already have in Patrick. He is some how still living off an over inflated draft status, that he actually ended up going in the 5th (I think?). He was then underwhelming in Seattle, to say the least. And was picked up as an obvious backup on a one year deal in Cleveland. He then lucked into playing time between Wills/Bitonio and Teller/Conklin. Had that been Nick Harris, that is probably the best OL in the League. It was still Top 5 without him, but it wasnt because of Pocic, he just didnt completely screw up. I would argue a healthy Patrick does probably exactly the same thing. And thats the root of my argument, They were both available last year, and we clearly wanted Patrick, what did Pocic do in one year in Cleveland to transform into some stud at Center? Basically we are just grasping for the new shiny thing, and paying a premium for it.

We would be paying for the production from playing along with a line full of Studs, and then he would come here to play with what? Even if we did also add 2 other Veteran Free Agents, (again, doesnt work out often) is he ever pulling guys up with him, or is he being pulled up? 

38 minutes ago, AZBearsFan said:

Poles was widely scrutinized this past season for signing Patrick as his FA “move” on the OL, and then the OL was awful this year as a collective

His move got hurt before the season, and it was his hand. Which then hindered him in his ability to be a Center. If people want to scrutinize for that, then Poles will never win with those people. 

I called the Borom stuff from the start, and a bunch of us (you and me included) pointed out that this line wanst going to be good, but just good enough to see what Fields has. And guess what, thats exactly what we got. But now we are critiquing it like these were moves in aim to win a Super Bowl? They werent, they were meant to Tank. Im also not saying that Whitehair/Patrick are "answers" Im saying they are stopgaps till we can find answers. But we arent going to be able to get all the answers in 2023, we will have to deal with some low points on the roster this year, probably more than we'd like. And there will probably still be a spot or two going into the 2024 season as well. This takes time, and even the best teams have trouble spots on the roster, why do we think we will have all the answers 18 months into a full rebuild?

This is my point about some of this fan base being "pie in the sky" with this offseason. If we can get us 4 long term starters (2-3+ seasons) out of Free Agency, it would be an absolute Home Run. Thats why good teams dont build that way. Its usually one or two big needs, fill in depth or a stop gap with some 1-2 year deals, but mostly build in the draft. And even only needing one or two Free Agents, teams miss all the time. While we obviously need to build more than that, so its going to be very very hard. And all the while, they dont want to be handing out big contracts, just to hand them out. Thats how you find yourself in Cap Hell.