bradjock

You have to be specific. This may or may not be true. That's one helluva an accusation. You saying that you heard this from someone you know is not helpful.

If he's the latter he's just a good WR. If you make him one of the highest paid players on your team, that's certain death for your franchise. You don't give good players great money. You give them Earl Bennett money.

Is this even news? When we don't sign Roy Williams, will that be news also?

I wouldn't complain about this as long as we have a strong plan B and we're willing to pull the plug quickly if he sucks. (When Orlando Pace goes into the HOF, I wonder how his season with the Bears will be included).

Why don't you think Knox will make it out of training camp? Reports say he'll be 100% by July. Royal and everybody besides V-Jack and Colston are just mediocre. Carlson couldn't hurt.

Damn good point. On the radio I heard someone say we couldn't do worse than JA. I disagree. While we could have done better we could have done one helluva a lot worse.

The fact that Enderle couldn't get time behind a real bad Hanie and then was leap-frogged by McCown tells me he's not right for this league. While I love all these back-up options, the truth is you can't pay a huge sum for a #1 Qb and then pay for a good back-up. Who is the back-up for the Saints? The Patriots? Chargers? Hell, who is Eli's back-up?

I'd say there are other combinations that would work. If we get a top tier o-lineman, add Carlson . . . I keep going back to how we passed on so many good players over the years, but we went balls out and got Peppers and Cutler when it mattered. V-Jack is a good player but he's not a game changer. Mario Williams on the other hand . . .

I've got to admit, I was a big fan of Angelo's bargain shopping last year. Roy Williams, Marion Barner, Amobi Okoye, the dude from the Jets whose name I can't remember. Not to mention Brandon Merriweather. Wow that was bad. Lesson learned: There is a reason why they are cheap. If we sign one or two top tier guys, I'll be thrilled with the bargains.

The cap is likely to be 120 million. San Diego is rumored to be offering 10 million. That means the Bears would have to pay 12 million which is 10% of the cap. Without looking up the exact numbers, that puts him up there with Cutler, Urlacher and Peppers. Those 3 guys are super stars. Is V-Jack a super star or just a good wide receiver?

The Bears need V-Jack to be a #1 WR. He'll command 10 million plus per. At that price, he has to continue to have at least 1100 yards and 8 TD's for multiple seasons and be good in the locker room. Can he do that without Gates? The Bears have to be 100% convinced he can do that or you don't offer him that contract.

[ So, the cap hit is the guaranteed money that year - which is prorated for cap purposes over the lifespan of the contract (i.e. 4), plust the actual yearly salary (i.e. 2). Notice that the initial cap hit is the full dollar val The trick: The player actually gets the entire signing bonus / guaranteed money (i.e. 20) and the yearly salary (2) right away. So the team pays, in this situation, over 50% of the money of a five year contract in the first year. This is exactly why I am sick and tired of players signing these kinds of contracts and then bitching in year four about their salary. Damn good analysis. The Bears have been damn good at staying under the cap by having a big signing bonus for players. We pay now rather than later. That kills us when Chester Taylor flops, but Peppers has a reasonable cap number. Thus we always have the opportunity to be big players in free agency. (that and not having to have the #4 pick and signing unproven guys like Cedric Benson to high contracts).

Vincent Jackson is not in the same tier as those guys. For better or for worse, Cutler is a franchise QB. Peppers is a constant defensive player of the year candidate. And Peyton Manning is arguably the best ever to play the position. V-Jackson reminds me of Anquan Boldin. Baltimore gave up a 2nd round pick and gave him a huge contract. So far he's put up nice #2 WR numbers. Crap flew when Bernard Berrian left the Bears. Kudos to JA for passing on that deal.

True, but there's 20 WR's you could consider a top 10 talent. Hell, you could argue Jackson vs. Colston for starters. Is he better than DeSean Jackson? Neither is great. Jackson is going to command at least 10 million per. Is he worth it? At the age of 29 and soon to be 30? More importantly, how does he fair with a new system and a new team? Minnesota thought Bernard Berrian was a top 10 talent. Jerry Angelo did not. Kudos to him for knowing better. Traditionally each year at this time we've blasted Angelo for not making moves. One thing JA was good at was staying away from paying a good player "great" money. He swung and missed to often, but he brought us Cutler and Peppers. Does anybody else have a bad feeling about overpaying for a mediocre WR?

We have far more cap room than most teams and Lovie came out and said we want to upgrade the position. V-Jack is the best guy available. That tells me we're going to make a run at him and Colston. With Cutler as QB and our cap space, Chicago makes sense. The one team that worries me is Washington. They have a ton of cap space and PFT reported they want to get a top WR. They tend to get what they want, regardless of cost.

It would be fun to watch, but Peppers cap number is something like 15-20 million this year. Williams is likely going to cost 15-20 million. That's a HUGE portion of the cap to be spent on one position. As many double teams as Peppers commands, it shouldn't be THAT hard to find a good defensive end to play opposite of him.

As for Lance Louis, they are just saying he will be replaced after starting 12 games at tackle. That's technically true. I actually didn't realize he started that many games there. If he was listed as the 3rd worst, how bad was Omiyale? Louis was one helluva an upgrade IMO. I'd love to read an article that broke down how good or bad the o-line was as a result of the Martz playcalling. How does a team that run-block so well pass block so poorly? Is it it the players or the system? Both? It's a typical generic article. Our WR's and o-line suck. Not surprising.

I had bad seats to watch a real bad Illinois basketball team for $40.00 a ticket. The Illini play 20 home games a year while the Bears play 8 regular season games. Last season cheap seats ran something like $73.00 on Ticketbastard. Sports are too damn expensive. The Bears were idiots for building a 63,000 seat stadium. I know there were logistical reasons but that's a real bad NFL stadium, especially compared to Washington and Dallas. I'm in favor of the Bears drastically increasing ticket prices just to get rid of scalping. The supply does not meet the demand. I'd much rather see the money going back into the team to help sign players. I go to one game a year and I can barely afford it since it's so damn expensive. When you factor in taking the kids, it's ridiculous. But I'd rataher see the money go back to the franchise than the scalpers.

Damn good memory LT. I'd just add that I typically think teams are nuts for the trade up. You're always giving up one helluva a lot to get a little more. Not worth it. Here's a few things I'd add to what you said: Morgan Burnett: We couldn't have moved up to get him because of the Cutler deal. Is he better than Major Wright? They seem pretty similar to me. The Green Bay secondary sucks but he did play every game last year. Gabe Carimi: Isn't this a good example of why you don't trade up? We were certain KC would take an OT, so we give up our 4th rounder. Only we botch the deal, KC takes Baldwin (who sucked last year) and we get Carimi (who was hurt) 2006: Everyone is pissed we don't take a TE. We trade our 1st to Buffalo. They draft a guy who's out of the league. We have the flexibility to take D Manning and Hester and Olsen falls to us the next year. Damn good work by JA. Unfortunately, this is where he peaked.

Johnny Knox is scheduled to be 100% by July. We're not replacing him yeet. And Earl Bennett is damn good with Cutler. I can't forgive Roy Williams for his drop in the KC game that cost us a touchdown. If that was his only mistake, it's forgivable, but he gave us more bad than good this year. Sanzy is a nice #5 WR except he can't play ST's. Although he's been one of our more reliable WR's. Sign V-Jack, Colston, or Buffalo's Johnson and the rest will be easy.

You blame Lovie, but I get the impression Martz & Lovie both took Tice's advice on who to play where. What's mind boggling is that after Carimi was hurt and Omiyale failed, Lance Louis was switched to RT. Even though Chris Williams had the more ideal size and experience at the position. If we didn't move him then, why move him now?

They are 4th round picks though. Melton looks like he can be an above average DT in this league. Yes, but when you're spending a 2nd round (Paea, Tank, Dan Bazuin, Gaines Adams) 3rd round (Gilbert, Harrison, Davoracek) 4th round (Wootton & Melton) Occasionally you need to hit on these guys like when we drafted Alex Brown. Granted, the jury is still out on Paea and Melton, but we've had so many misses that I'm not optimistic. If you get that out of a 4th round pick, you hit the jackpot. In terms of Wooten, he might get cut. Clearly injuries got him I don't know what's going on with Wooton but for the majority of the season he was 100% and considered a "healthy scratch" for most games. Heck, as a franchise, the Bears haven't had many draft picks in the past few years that were in meaningful spots (e.g,. 1st/2nd round + early 3rd round). This year they will actually be in a decent position and it will be interesting to see what happens. Agreed, but we've had too many later picks do nothing.

The problem is, he's a very good WR, but not a great WR. 3 of the last 4 years he's put up 1000+ yards, but it's not like we're talking about Calvin Johnson, Andre Johnson, or Larry Fitzgerald. V-Jack is not elite, but we'd have to pay him elite money. Not to mention he's had the benefit of playing with Antonio Gates and he turns 30 this November. I agree he's worth that much to us, but only because we're desperate to get Cutler help. It's a risky proposition.

Considering we likely need to upgrade the TE position, I can't image we would break the bank to sign a WR and then take one in the first round.

PFT reported yesterday San Diego is willing to pay Vincent Jackson 10 million per season but he's wanting 12 million + per season. Is he worth that much? I'm just asking. Dan Pompei wrote a nice article in the Tribune about how you have to be careful not to overpay for a wide-out. He didn't even mention Bernard Berrian. Now that Martz is gone, it'd be nice to have a TE to utilize as an offensive weapon. If Steve Johnson acts like a jackass on the field before getting paid, what will he do after the fact?