balta1701-A

So the Bears would give up a late 2nd for him but not a late first. Sounds about right to me.

A big part of having that happen would be having an adequate safety valve who can make the 4 yard catch on a slant of on a quick out if the protection breaks down or a blitz comes. Williams is a big target as we've all noted which could put him as filling that role...but the drops...oh the drops.

Worth remembering though...Williams was never supposed to be a good RT. He was supposed to be a good pass-blocking LT, but his rookie season they had signed Pace, so he was forced out of that LT position for the veteran.

Goalposts moved farther

Remember one thing...if you have one guy who can get first downs regularly, that makes the other guys wind up with more catches as well...because you're actually moving the chains, rather than punting.

I seriously doubt that Tatupu would be superior to Urlacher in doing all the things that Urlacher does on the field. He's the best pass coverage LB I've seen in the last decade, still was last year, and that doesn't make him ineffective against the run either.

His role now is probably going to be a backup/injury replacement on a defense that runs similar to the Bears but which gets very banged up every year. Freeney and Mathis on the outside are still their key guys.

With the added athletic bodies on the D-Line, if you could pull this off, the Bears would just have ridiculous skills set up for their defense. The secondary would still be a weakness, but the LB's would be so strong you might not notice.

If upper 3rd would do it, yeah. Would y'all do 2 3rds?

it doesn't wind up being used every year...but when the Bears do things like go out and sign Peppers, they're able to do it because of how nimble they are with their cap.

That was of course the reason why he fell to the Lions in the first place.

It helps with the math. If you know exactly which guys you have in camp, exactly which guys you keep, exactly which guys you have signed, then you can spend the rest in extensions and be able to get yourself right up next to the cap. That way you don't sign Forte then wind up wishing you had $400k more to spend, or wishing that you'd given Forte $500k more on this year's cap to save space for next year.

If he gets that, this will be an exceptional season.

I'd say it's a shame he didn't understand and appreciate his own greatness more as well.

If he retires now, didn't he finish his career as a Bear? Because there's no reason to sign a guy for more than 2 years, especially if he's already 29, if no one is offering longer?

Link

There are 2 things worth saying here. I contend both of them to be true. First, the positive. The Bears offensive line situation is significantly better than it was last year. The weakest point in the Bears O-line last year, by far, and it wasn't even close, was Frank Omiyale. Omiyale is a serviceable backup, but he was an expert at the "Ole!" move of letting the D-line past him last year. Getting him out of the starting lineup, and especially out of the starting left tackle spot, is the single biggest move the Bears could have made to improve that line. Even if he's replaced by a 7th round pick. The Bears have also made other upgrades to their protection. Williams and Webb will be in their 2nd years under Tice, which hopefully will also have improvement. Carimi appears to be a solid building block. The Bears also appear to like Louis. Garza is back, although his health was an issue last year, he was solid when he was in there. Although Kreutz may have been an "emotional leader" or whatever, he was not a strong, effective blocker last year, so replacing him is at worst a lateral move. Furthermore, the Bears have also upgraded their blocking at TE, getting rid of Manumalueuseless, whose failure as a blocker last year caused Olsen to be stuck in as the blocking TE more than necessary. They brought in a blocking TE, and moved Olsen so that the TE can be a mostly blocking position, with Davis used as an occasional receiving threat. All of these moves are upgrades, or at the worst lateral moves. It cannot be said that the Bears made no moves to upgrade the Line this year. Now, onto the 2nd point: The Bears have also done the Bear Minimum that they could do to upgrade that line. No additional high-promise/high money veterans have been brought in. There is no obvious anchor to that line. The Bears have placed a lot of trust in Tice and Martz to be able to use systems and schemes to get guys who haven't been together very long to gel as a solid, effective group. They are still gambling, and the result could still be one of the league's worst lines. If the Bears win a couple of their gambles, they could have a solid line, maybe even one of the leagues' better lines considering that there is a lot of mass on it this year. If the Bears lose a gamble or someone gets hurt, then they're going to regret not having spent more to upgrade that line.

And I'm pretty sure that was the only case since what, 2002, where the Bears have had to use the franchise tag, and then they wound up getting things done with him fairly anyway? Edit: and now that I think about it, wasn't that right after Briggs's driverless car managed to total itself on the side of the Tri-state?

CB is one position the Bears could definitely use another warm body and aside from a bunch of UDFA's they haven't dealt with it yet.

Let's start understanding something about Kreutz...he wasn't let go over "$500k", he was let go because he wanted the Bears to pay him a ton more than he was currently worth. He wanted them to pay him a tribute for all those years of service, rather than being paid what a 34 year old underperforming center was worth.

Anyone who's watched the Bears for 2 hours in the last decade knows how this is going to go. It's going to be a "Complex" deal that will get done sometime late in camp or early in the season. If you're a Bears draftee or player, and you perform, they will find a way to take care of you, but they will not carry things out into public. They want you to show up to camp, be in shape, perform, keep your mouth shut, and don't go off on some silly rant about how you need "Respect". The Bears will get to the end of camp knowing how much space they have left on this year's cap, how many players they have to extend, and how much comparable players get per year. They will then use their remaining cap space for this year to do those extensions, putting as much of the contract onto this year's cap as they can, maintaining maximum flexibility for next year. That's how they've done it for the past decade. They don't franchise you, they don't screw you, they just ask you to keep it behind closed doors and to perform, and they'll take care of you.

At this point, there's no reason for the Bears to offer him what they already offered him. A typical $2 million veteran center deal would be judged by Kreutz as an insult.