LT2_3

You didn't receive any emails on the issue because I couldn't remember your email address. It might actually be in my address book and I didn't tag it for Bearstalk. That being said, maybe we could somehow setup a distribution list as an email address for complaints or whatnot for admins. Or a complaint PM address that all the admins get an email from. I know how to do it as an Exchange admin, but not on a message board. Just a thought........

Dude! Thanks for the support. However, when those comments were made, he didn't think I was returning and his perspective was a bit justified. I don't think he would have made them if he'd known that some actual communication would have resolved the issue. That's on me. Mea Culpa. Da Bearssssssssssssssssss

No worries mate. I understand your perspective completely. The biggest issue was that DBDB is busy in Tax season, and Pix hadn't been around for awhile because he's been busy with his work. I was asking for things to be done, and Balta, the mod who's been around the most, didn't know exactly what to do and left it for the other guys, that haven't been around much, to deal with. I misconstrued the lack of action as being ignored when it was really just a lack of communication. I think that everyone involved will communicate better in the future and this sort of thing won't happen again. Nfo - you have strong opinions and voice them. I ought to know that about you by now. I expect no less.

Guys, I haven't left for good. I had a problem with how a few things were being moderated, and asked for my salary cap thread to be removed. I also pointed out in several of these communications that I have an updated Salary cap analysis that should be ready soon. I had a nice little exchange of PMs with Balta and everything is cool now. Basically, Balta was doing what he thought to be right at the time, and the other admins like Pixote and DBDB were busy with their everyday lives and weren't really be on top of things because of it. I have to remind myself that Pix is of a different generation. I boggles my mind that he doesn't check email for a week. I can't go an hour unless I'm on vacation and even then I forward it to my phone and check it twice a day. That difference in "culture" caused quite a bit of the misunderstanding. If I were to characterize the whole situation, I perhaps flew off the handle without waiting for some of the other admins coming around to see what's going on because it's the offseason. I think improved understanding of expectations and communications between the admins will make things go more smoothly in the future. My NEW Cap Analaysis will have the most accurate info ever. They are doing some changes on the NFLPA website and they left the entire website open for download for a little while. I got some definitive numbers for this year for every player on the Bears, but they use different terminology than the rest of the world so I'm having to interpret a bit on each contract to reconcile it with my current spreadsheet. Oh, here's the info I have on Tait's contract...... Tait Contract 6 yrs - 3 mil signing bonus 500k/yr proration 7.5 mil Roster bonus 1st year 3 mil LTBE bonus 1st year 4 mil roster bonus in 2005 1 mil LTBE bonus in 2005 Salaries 2004 535k 2005 550k 2006 3.865 mil 2007 4.45 mil 2008 4.6 mil 2009 4.8 mil Salary cap hits 2004 535k + 500k SB + 7.5m RB + 3m LTBE = 11.535 mil cap hit (11.035 mil cash outlay) 2005 550k + 500k SB + 4m RB -3m 2004 LTBE + 1m LTBE = 3.05 mil cap hit (4.55 mil cash outlay) 2006 3.865 mil + 500k SB – 1m 2005 LTBE = 3.365 mil cap hit (3.865 mil cash outlay) 2007 4.45 mil + 500k SB = 4.95 mil cap hit (4.45 mil cash outlay) 2008 4.6 mil + 500k SB = 5.1 mil cap hit (4.6 mil cash outlay) 2009 4.8 mil + 500k SB = 5.3 mil cap hit (4.8 mil cash outlay) Total cap hits = 33.3 mil And as for those numbers posted on the official Bears board, I've spot checked a few and they are, in the kindest possible way, wildly inaccurate.

Thank you. Pix, I have no beef with you. I know you are incredibly busy. My complaint is with the other board admins that have been here and posting in other threads. My request has gone completely ignored until you made this post. Not even a PM or email about NOT doing it for whatever reason. Just cold shoulder all the way. Which is a good sign from my point of view. However, when I first brought up the subject, I was pretty easy going about it and explained that the change was NOT the way we did things at Bearstalk: And the response admitted that the NFL forum isn't being used, but instead of ceasing and desisting until it could be discussed, the answer was to CONTINUE to move things around. There was no "I didn't realize this would bother folks so much, let's figure it out as a board together and I'll stop doing it until it's figured out." The answer was: Or in other words, "I really don't give a crap what other people think and I'm going to do what I damn well please whether it upsets anyone or not." I didn't feel disrespected because of your actions (or inactions) Pix, I felt disrespected because it took DAYS for my request for my Salary Cap article to be deleted to be executed. If the other admins know how to move threads, I'm quite certain that they can figure out how to delete a thread. I have no problem with you because you haven't been around, posting in other threads, and blatantly ignoring my request. Well I used to feel that way. However being totally blown off when I point out that changes are being made without consulting the members at large changed that. What it comes down to is quite simply (and perhaps overdramatically) is government without representation. Things have been done one way from day 1 here: Everything in 1 forum. Then an admin that I don't know starts moving threads which is a CHANGE in how things are done. Members from Bearstalk start saying stuff that it's a change and that we don't like it, AND THE GUY CONTINUES TO DO IT THAT WAY ANYWAY. If I hadn't gotten upset about this, would there have even BEEN a board discussion? I doubt it and that's the root of the problem. I understand that merging two different boards will take patience on both sides, but do the folks from the other board realize that too? Apparently NOT by their actions. They just do whatever they want and our opinions apparently don't matter until someone gets pissed off. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I never said that you guys lied to us. I'm suggesting that the imminence of the problem was overstated by the folks that ran the other board. The fact that it's still there and functional proves that to be the case. As for me staying, we'll see how it goes. You've taken a step in the right direction Pix by doing what I asked where others didn't. There are other admins that I'm not familiiar with that are going to have to do something to earn my respect back. Nothing too drastic or formal is required. Something along the lines of recognizing that making arbitrary decisions without discussing them as a board is wrong, and actually following through on reasonable user requests instead of ignoring them would be a great start. I would've been happy with an email along the lines of "Hey LT - I didn't mean to piss you off so much. I don't feel comfotable deleting your thread until I talk the situation over with the other admins - and I'm currently waiting for them to get back to me." At least then I wouldn't have felt completely blown off.

Nfo - you're walking into the middle of this. This first started getting discussed on the 11th. The response from Balta was that he was going to keep doing things the way he saw fit and the complaints were swept under the rug. It continued until the 13th when I said that there should be a poll. Balta said he would post one in a couple hours at 11:30am with condescension that they didn't want to lose me as a poster just because a few threads got moved. As I tried to explain, it's a far more complicated issue than a few threads getting moved. However, my thoughts and feelings were completely minimized. I also requested at that time that my salary cap thread be deleted. I also reiterated that point in emails to DBDB and Pixote too. The poll wasn't posted in a couple of hours, it was nearly 12 hours later. If they have time to be an admin and move threads around, it shouldn't take 12 hours to get a simple poll posted. And to top it all off, my salary cap thread is still there and intact. I haven't forgotten those arguments. I remember them clearly and see no reason to have to relive them. As for the asking for opinion, it's too little to late for me. They are only asking for opinions because they realize that they have to. I get the impression that there are a core of posters that were here before us that are getting consulted behind the scenes. There should be no behind the scenes. It should all be out front and in the open. If not, then we should move to a board where that's how things are. Yes, but they also said our old board would be available if we wanted to stay there for awhile. In fact it's still there if you click on the "Bearstalk DC Forum" link. It's still there and it still works. I just created a new testing thread there. That is really irrelevant. I was bringing it up only to point out that we are joining an established board here. When we moved, I was under the impression that we were moving to a shiny new board and that everyone would be starting from scratch together. It's just another instance of being misled. I'm not saying it was intentional, just that the hurry left us with an uninformed decision making process. My anger and frustration ARE disproportionate to the moving of a few threads. However, it's a collection of a whole bunch of other stuff too. At the very least, I HAVE been disrespected in that I've asked for my salary cap stuff to be removed for several days now and nobody has done it yet. I have a new version that is ready to post and if I like the outcome of this process, I will post it. However, under NO circumstances am I posting the new one until the old one is removed. AND THEY HAVEN"T REMOVED THE OLD ONE AFTER REPEATED REQUESTS. Respect should be a given in my book. If I can't control the fate of my own work, there is no community to speak of. So, let me ask you Nfo, is it reasonable for me to expect that the work that I put hours into and allowed to be posted here for free should be deleted if I request it?

I, for one, don't understand why we even need to have this discussion. I think that a major part of the problem is that Bearstalk left the site where they were too hastily to join another board. All of these options of how a board should be run were argued and discussed ad nauseum on the Bearstalk board. We ended up with a structure of a main forum for everything NFL related, a forum for college football, and a forum for off topic stuff. That was it. That was what we wanted. That was how we did things. Now back to leaving the other site too hastily. Back in December at Bearstalk, we were led to believe that our current site was about to no longer be available very quickly. Because of that, there was very little discussion and we suddenly found a new home here. I for one, wasn't aware at first, that we would be merging with another board. That came as a surprise and I let it go. Then later came the realization that we weren't just merging with another board, but that we were joining another board that already exists on their turf. I figured that everything would be alright as long as things went on as before. Never mind that I'm member #2,585 when I've been around through at least 4 different sets of board software on the old board and have probably well over 10,000 posts that I'm not getting credit for. You look at my stats here and I look like a freakin newbie. Well guess what. We're now at a point where we have to take steps backwards and argue all over again for what we already had. The fact that stuff started getting arbitrarily moved to other forums without any board discussion in the first place tells me that the current mods have no respect for our history or our desires and I honestly don't see how that's ever going to change. The current board isn't just a Bears board. They discuss other sports in other forums too. That's specifically the kind of board I generally stay away from and this multiple forumness is only one part of it. I've been letting a lot of stuff slide but this is the final straw. Obviously everyone is welcome to do what they want, but seeing how the current admins either have no knowledge of our history, or are admins from Bearstalk that are ineffectual because this sort of stuff isn't discussed between admins before arbitrary action is taken. I think that this is disrespectful to the former member of Bearstalk. I think the Admins and Mods from Bearstalk should get together and discuss other options for hosting Bearstalk. I'd be happy to chip in on a domain name and server space so we can setup somewhere else where we aren't considered redheaded bastard stepchildren and our opinions actually count BEFORE people start making changes and not AFTER the fact. I no longer wish to be a part of this board. Please delete my salary cap thread. You all will have to visit other boards to read my stuff from now on.

2 things: 1. A discussion thread posted first might make sense so that in case any opinions are changed in the course of the discussion or if the discussion helps clarify where to draw the line for voting purposes, then you don't have to post multiple polls. 2. Please delete my Salary Cap analysis thread (or at least all the info in the first post) immediately. After this discussion, I may or may not choose to post an updated one with all the recent transactions. If this isn't done soon (as in today) you can COUNT ON there never being another one. You can't underestimate how incredibly pissed I am that this sort of heavy handed change without board discussion has taken place with a group that I have been a part of for 11 years.

I can see a off topic forum making sense. I can see a fantasy football forum making sense. Having someone else determine whether our opinions on free agents regarding the Bears, is Bear related or not, is insulting. ONE of my major issues about this change (and that is what it is because everything was in one forum until recently) is that nobody thought to consult the membership on the change. At Bearstalk, we would have discussions about everything and vote on something as important as a change like this. An arbitrary structural change like this sends a message that our opinions don't count: accept things as we do them or leave. The dismissive attitude of "you'll get used to it" certainly doesn't help matters. Guess which way I'm leaning if I feel I (and the contingent from Bearstalk) have no input? My other major issue is simply of personal convenience. Most of what I bring to this (or any of the other 3 boards I post on) regards the salary cap and financial side of things as well as interpretation of the CBA regading eligibilty for the practice squad, injury settlements, and RFA tenders among other things. (Has anyone else here read the CBA ONCE much less many times?) If you split things into 2 forums, you're making it a pain in the ass for me by making me go to multiple places to post on the subjects that I can be most helpful with. If things are split into 2 forums, I'm not likely to bother posting here at all because it's such a pain in the ass. So, in conclusion, this is a crossroads for me. If posting here takes too much of my valuable time due to these structural changes for me to continue, I will be sad because DaBearsShrine which evolved into Bearstalk which has now evolved into TalkBears was the first message board I ever joined back in 1997. I understand that things change, but the combination of not having a voice anymore and the board turning into a pain in the ass to post at, will cause me to leave. I almost posted a poll on the main board to get everyone's opinion on the subject, but didn't for 2 reasons: 1. I'm not an admin and it would be inappropriate for me to usurp that position. 2. It would probably get moved to the off-topic forum and never get seen by anyone anyway so why bother

I think you should remove the subforums. EVERYthing NFL related is Bears related. The Scott signing is a perfect example. Many thought he would be a good prospect for the Bears to sign even if he is a RG and they don't understand the difference between RG and LG. That MAKES it Bear related. Same goes for the Fitzgerald extension. Some folks wanted us to trade for him, but when you banish it over here, it doesn't get discussed at all. If you don't understand the "strife", it's all about change. We did things a particular way on the other board and now you're changing things around. Honestly, if THIS board is going to make things a pain in the ass by using multiple forums, then count me out. If you're going to insist on this stupid use of multiple forums, let's start an NFL Salary Cap forum and post my Salary Cap analysis over there. It'll make it easier for me to answer salary cap questions so make it happen or delete it.

I think you should just leave everything NFL in the main forum. I don't like the idea of having to flip between forums just to see how someone else thinks a particular topic should be catagorized. This is BS.

Hey Balta, you're a little quick on the trigger there. Those of us that came over from Bearstalk aren't used to other forums because everything NFL related is automatically Bear related. I for one have zero interest in using or reading other forums. If it's mildly Bear related, you should really leave it when it's posted here IMO. I bookmark this specific forum and come directly here. Period. I don't like multiple forums.

LOL! Choad you crack me up! So lemmee see if I got this straight. If you're in business, and you only end up the 2nd richest man in the world, you're a loser? What this boils down to is outdated rhetoric that coaches used to tell their HS teams. In the NFL, you can't go all out to try to do everything in your power to win the SB every year because those short term efforts end up being self defeating in the long term. Look at the Redskins as an example of how NOT to do it. Or you can look at the Giants last year as the way TO DO it. (They signed one free agent, and had significant contributions from all of their draft picks last year and won the SB) I have a problem with the whole concept of "rebuilding" or "building for 2009" as it fits this case. I've always thought that "rebuilding" meant that you are sacrificing wins of your current team to develop key players - usually a QB. In that situation, we aren't rebuilding. As for "building for 2009", I don't buy that either. Every year, there is going to be some turnover of players. Some players are going to be learning on the job. Also, every year, there are free agent signings that end up not working out well. So, in this case, we will have some different starters than we had last year. I can't say that I'm incredibly confident that expensive FAs would end up playing better than guys that are already on the team and getting a chance to start, or that will be drafted this year. Also, it has to do with evaluation and perspective. If you have one guy rated as an 8 out of 10 for your system that signs in free agency for a HUGE contract early in FA, and have another that you rate as a possible 7.6 out of 10 for your system but can be had for a modest contract after the draft, which is better for the team? I think part of the problem is that as fans we listen to an uninformed media. They like to rank players as being definitively better than one another. For instance, different skill attributes lend themselves to different systems. So a "cover CB" is ranked as the best available, but team X runs the cover 2. If team X needs a CB, the media will project them as needing to sign the #1 ranked CB, even though the 1 on 1 coverage skills would be wasted in the cover 2 scheme. The same goes for WLB in the cover 2 which is why I think Briggs saw a limited market. So personally, I prefer to view the offseason as a Socratic disciple, and recognize that a wise man is he that knows he knows nothing. I trust Angelo and his crew alot more than the talking heads or any fans out there.

Wow you sure have the "quote" thing down now. I really think all those numbers are estimates. The varience is actually enough to make itpossible or not. Feel free to pin me down on this one. To figure that, I looked at teams from last year picking roughly where we are picking in the first round with the same number of total picks and added 3%. $5 million is going to be REALLY close to what it ends up being. True. It was 43 but your point is valid. Actually, because it's an extension, his cap hit could have gone down depending on how the contract is structured. I think we could TRY, but I'm not sure that the Steelers wouldn't match. I'm not sure I buy the speculation that they wouldn't match a reasonable deal. Oh, and I wish people would get off the "RB in the first round" bandwagon. It's NOT going to happen. Speculating on it is nothing more than mental masturbation.

I think I'd read in the Suntimes that we had about $20 mil to work with before we signed Briggs. Angelo likes to use roster bonuses so I have no idea the cap hit from Briggs' contract. I'm figuring $5 mil for the rookie pool. It's not inconceivable that Briggs gives us a $5 million cap hit this year. That would leave us with $10 million to compete with their $12 million of the Steelers (current tag + $10 mil available - rookie pool) And then we would be tapped out for FA. I'm not suggesting we go after him either. I'm trying to show that we won't because it would cost too much.

It would be tougher than you think. I'm pretty sure the league has, behind closed doors, put the kibosh on the type of BS terms that netted the Vikes Hutchinson. It would have to be done legitimately by out spending them. As for how much cap space they have, you have to remember that they have a $6.8 mil headstart for cap space commited to him for next year. That would be a significant chunk of what we currently have left after you subtract for rookies. We were at about $15 mil before we signed Briggs. It really wouldn't be that simple to get him, and if we did, that would probably be it for free agency.

I didn't realize the free agency and trading period had ended already.

Ok. So that and $4 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Lovie is under contract through 2011 and Angelo is under contract through 2013. Neither are going anywhere until 2010/2012 respectively. I just have to laugh at people who think that anything going on right now has ANYTHING to do with either Lovie's or JA's job security.

Why? Because he doesn't want to overpay for crap?

LMAO! Poor baby... awwwwwwww It's your own damn fault for having unrealistic expectations. Everything in the media said we were going to try to sign our own guys first. What's happened? Exactly that. 2 days does not an offseason make. And to answer the original question, I think T Jones was the last guy we signed early in FA.

Well, I didn't add in the incentives. The incentives would put it in the $5 mil per year range. I suppose the guaranteed money might het a bit higher.

I don't think we'd need to break the bank. We could probably get him for 3 yrs $10 mil with $3 mil guaranteed + incentives.

So, your position is that no matter who they sign or draft, that our passing game is screwed right? Then what's the point in getting anxiety ridden to the point of swearing? I've heard that the Johnson to Buffalo rumor is just that - a rumor. As for Hackett, I really don't look at past production (which isn't all that great for him anyway) as a predictor. There are WAY too many variables involved like number of opportunities etc. to judge a guy with 14 starts over 3 seasons no matter what offense the team he's on runs. What's important to me is that he's 6'2" 208# and FAST. It also doesn't hurt IMO that in 2006 (the last year he played) he was ranked 2nd in the league for value per play and 15th out of 82 for total value by football outsiders.

What's the hurry and why all the angst? We only need one in FA and Hackett and Johnson are still available. Those are the only 2 that might remotely be worth signing this early in FA. The only guy other than Berrian that I would be remotely interested in who has signed already is Wilford and he signed on day 1 of free agency.

I think the joke is all the impatient fans that would feel better about overpaying for mediocre talent just because it's early in free agency.