Bearstalk

And on April 1, imagine that...

Who? Is this good or just another "body"? http://mweb.cbssports.com/fantasy/fantasy-...e-year-contract

Wit the name listed below as our own FA.....who do you think we need to re-sign. My choices are in Bold L. Briggs LB UFA E. Britton OT UFA J. Cain C UFA B. de la Puente C UFA J. Feely PK UFA D. McCray SS UFA S. McManis CB UFA J. Morgan WR UFA M. Owens RB UFA T. Scott DE UFA D. Sharpton LB UFA C. Tillman CB UFA D. Williams LB UFA

7 Kevin White WR 39 Jordon Phillips DT 71 Alex Carter CB 103 Garrett Grayson QB 134 Durrell Eskridge FS 167 Xavier Williams DT

mikecwright Michael C. Wright Confirming @BradBiggs report of the team's plan to release Roberto Garza. Bears just want to go a different direction. 9 minutes ago

I couldn't believe he was with us that long. But he played 10 years with the Bears and averaged just over $1M per season with the Bears. Was a fantastic value player, missed a grand total of 6 games during that tenure and gave up an average of 3 sacks per year. He was getting older and wasn't the player he once was, but he did a good job in Chicago and wore the uniform with pride.

Check out @bears_insider's Tweet: https://twitter.com/bears_insider/status/58...1816198145?s=01

Evidence suggests we've improved all around at other positions of need. We could still use a safety but I'm not convinced one rated high enough will be there at #7. So I'm declaring for the WR position although I'm still open as to who that is. Further evidence is that one of our first moves was to cut Marshall loose. To me that suggests Pace has been planning this all along, playing chess knowing that the goal was WR at the end of the day. Then again, we did add a WR already but he's more a slot guy. So I'm sticking with it, it's going to be WR. Thoughts?

Noteworthy perhaps only because that leaves us with just three safeties on the roster with workouts coming up. Maybe we have our eye on a FA and this is a precursor to that move (Jeromy Miles would make some sense to me), or maybe it's just clearing guys out we don't see a future with. As it stands though I would expect a safety in the draft somewhere. I've been on record as not much of a fan of this safety class. Anyone have someone they really like? I'd personally prefer a good coverage guy over a big hitter, so I'm partial to a mid-round pick on a guy like Adrian Amos or Damarious Randall.

I don't care how it happens. Move him inside and keep Long where he is, or flip-flop, but these two together would dominate. He is NASTY, and plays with a serious mean streak. Completely rag-dolls opponents.

Our effective rookie salary pool is about 3.1M which means we are just under 8M in available cap space to use on FA (or resigning existing players). That is more money than I thought. I presume we will keep some in reserve for in-season need signings (as long as use some of the space on future extensions) but I also am guessing when vets get cut we will be in a pretty good position.

How cool is that, the bad blue boys are gone--happy happy for Badgers.

I used 5 different Big Boards and ran the Fanspeak simulator 5 times to see how the different perspectives (big boards) would change the draft for us at 7. Using this method, 3 players were off the board at 7 every time (Winston, Mariota, Fowler). Williams, Beasley, Ray, Cooper, and La'el Collins were all selected multiple times before #7. So two of those five will be available at #7, and all of these should be available: White, Scherff, Shelton, Waynes, Parker, Dupree, Landon Collins. I am leaning towards believing the only players with #7 value are Beasley, Fowler, Williams, Cooper, and White. If we were going to select someone else, there will definitely b…

What if DT LEONARD WILLIAMS falls to the Bears at 7? I did two mocks and it happened twice. I also had this happen on fanspeak. Assume there are no partners for a trade down. They have to draft Williams, right? If so, that certainly would be a curveball to the draft plans. What would the rest of the draft have to be to alter the unexpected?

This is all over twitter but the initial report came from Jason Cole of the bleacher report.

I always find it funny when someone does an analysis like this with no point. To me the numbers are very misleading. 6 players are 30, and 8 our 31-33. Of those 8, 2 are our Kicker and Long Snapper. That leaves 6 players of age concern to me: Allen (gone after this year), Ratliff (only 1 or 2 years left), Rolle (stop gap Safety for 2 years), Montgomery (Centers can play into their mid-30's), Jennings (likely gone after this year), and Cutler (QB age is a non-factor at 31). Our team's average age is 26.1. https://twitter.com/JimmyKempski/status/585038173056569344

A couple articles that I thought make good reading as we get closer to the draft. The first is an excellent data driven analysis of draft trends by position. Clearly shows how RB have dropped in average draft position over the last 15 years. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-footba...his-years-draft Next up is worst 1st Rd picks by team. Lot of players competing for that title on the Bears list. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-footba...team-since-1990

Wow. This guy is inside my head. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfl-draft-nee...iNVhg4AVTUnnIlQ I don't like it all, but I agree with the sentiments about which positions are needed.

trading on up

TRADE down to low teens 1. Landon Collins SS - Finally a safety capable of leading a defense after a decade of garbage 2. Shaq Thompson LB/S - I just live this dude 2. EDDIE Goldman NT - beast in the middle from a winning program 3. Stephane Anthony ILB - Gonna be a steal for some lucky team 4. Jeremiah Poutasi GC - 5. Tre McBride WR - Speed guy with overall quality skills The rest who cares