balta1701-A

Nice back foot throw by Cutler to Williams on the TD. good pocket too.

The other side of it is preparing and sleeping in your own beds and facilities for the better part of a week.

I feel like a soft tissue injury would heal quicker than this.

Anything about Carimi?

It must be F*** Jay...because otherwise this could have just been put in the other thread

If the Bears were to tag him and he was really unhappy about it...I could see him holding out for a week, maybe 2...but it costs him $210k a week after the opening of training camp. 2 weeks of a holdout is as much in fines as he's making what, this whole season? The league dislikes those holdouts, so they made the penalties quite a bit stiffer in the new CBA. Pretty intelligent move all around. The other thing to remember...the deal the Bears offered him at the start of the year guaranteed him $15 million. If the Bears tag him for 1 year, they are guaranteeing him >$10 million for 1 year. 2 years of tags would be $22 million. The guaranteed money for 2 years of tagging him is more than D'Angelo Williams got in his full 5 year extension. Tagging Forte is actually a rough business decision for the Bears too...it eats up their cap space and they have no opportunity to spread the impact out over a number of seasons. At the end of this year, a fair offer to him is a deal with something over $20 million guaranteed, probably in the $22 million range if he keeps playing like this. That's up from the $15 million guaranteed that was fair at the start of the year. With the leverage each side has, that really ought to get done during that period in early Feb. before the FA deadline. He won't hit FA, both sides know that, and the number at that point would be in the $20 million range.

Yes, 2 consecutive tags are allowed. That's still there...but there's still a kicker. The first year's tag is the average of the top 5 salaries at that position...which would put Forte as a $10 million/1 year guaranteed contract player next year. The next year, the franchise tag is still usable, but the player's salary goes to 120% of the previous year's salary...so then it would be ~$12 million. Forte can hold out, but the penalties for holdouts are much stiffer. The old fine limit used to be about $16k/day, the new limit is $30k/day. A month long preseason holdout costs a million dollars. They've added a much stronger "you must show up 30 days before the regular season starts to accrue a full year's service time" as well, but I think once Forte has finished his current contract and received the franchise tag that the service time issue won't matter to him as much. If he were to be tagged and then say, hold out until October 1, he'd cost himself $2.5 million in missed games and the Bears could fine him about another $2.5 million. By November 1, he's pretty much ensured that he won't get paid for the year.

http://www.anglotopia.net/

Anyone who's going to this game with some Chicago connections interested in talking to a friend of mine from NW Indiana who runs a london-based website? He generally asked for some connections, I can pass his email address along if anyone is willing.

Or on the other end, Wes Welker is the classic example.

Sometimes a guy who is bad in 1 system can step up in another system...but it would really hurt him not having had any time in this offense, even training camp.

And yet they went after Lloyd because they were unhappy with their WR's.

Here you go.

Who goes out of the O-Line with that setup? Williams, Spencer, or Garza?

Lloyd has been traded to the St. Louis Rams.

Link Well, he ain't getting a contract extension.

I'm totally making a printout of that ticket, sticking the correct barcode on it thanks to your photo, and getting myself on a flight to London. Wait...this seems more expensive than buying a ticket.

Serious question: what are the strengths Cutler has which aren't being used by this scheme?

After watching the Lions last week...they put up a p*** poor performance for most of the game, first half in particular. Stafford and the running game both were really ineffective, the Cowboys didn't hit him a ton but got close enough to him. The only guy for the Lions who really impressed that whole game was Calvin Johnson, obviously. Tony Romo literally gift-wrapped them that game.

In the last labor deal, the fines for holding out were raised significantly. The "Report by week 10" is so that you get to count that season as service time, otherwise, for example, the cost of tagging the player again would not increase. If Forte were to be tagged and then hold out, he would be walking away from something like $7-$8 million, depending on the actual tag numbers next year.

As I've pointed out in the other 9 threads...the Bears offered him a fair contract at that place and time. He wants a bigger contract than his current contract status would allow for.

Quality.

Barber's faceplant.

Did Tillman get hurt towards the end of the game? The gamecast said that he went down around the 2 minute mark. Anyone know if he's ok?