Lucky Luciano

although in the past i have not been a supporter for turner, this cutler move should prove to be a major boon for him. looking at what he did with real talent at qb, kramer, the last time he was in chicago should give him a wide open playbook and give chicago some hope for a real offense. there can't be any excuses anymore. i would like to point out it will probably take a season for everyone to become familiar with the new system and our excitement should be realistically tempered some until we are hitting on all cylinders. hope abounds!

i don't really look for an offensive lineman until late in the draft either if even then. as it played out, getting cuttler, i am not as objectionable as i was before this deal went down. with that in mind, the pace signing was an excellent decision by angelo for the simple reason cuttler needs someone to keep him clean and betting your established franchise qb on a rookie to do so was not a good idea in my opinion. another reason is that there's just are too many bodies in camp with all the free agent OL pickups to draft a 4th round or lower lineman. we need to let the dust on this settle and make our draft move next season to fill the future offensive line positions, especially right tackle as a must. also....... what i look for is williams to move into the left guard spot next to pace. we should have a 2 year window before pace explodes. this gives him good experience playing on the left side next to an all-pro LOT. i know some will say he is more of a finess (sp) type of player but i really don't see that as a major problem if they put him on the left side. he has the speed and ability to be a decent pulling guard and much of our running attack probably will go to the strong side. he should excel in pass protection. this move by angelo picking up cuttler is excellent and i agree with others that it was a good pickup no matter how it plays out. i also have to add that this puts angelo back on an even keel in my opinion but... it also does not give him a free pass in our draft future. he still HAS to draft well and with a lot more thought than he has in the past for this franchise to advance.

i absolutely agree. i have been talking the same story for years on here. you HAVE to be able to build your offensive line through the draft and for whatever reason our GM is too stupid to "get it". by picking up these retreads or tweeners you have an offensive line that has absolutely no continuity. you keep plugging in these guys and by the time they mesh with the other players their career is over and we do it again!! we also keep moving some of these aging players to other positions than what made them even reasonably good in their careers, not to mention we always play them a year beyond their ability to even play. with out any doubt, you need to DRAFT good talent to build a cohesive unit that has the ability to play together over 5 years. if this means you draft high and groom a highly talented player for a year or two before he takes over you do it. also, to say the least, by doing what we are doing it's also much harder for your qb to develop!!!

there is a reason why defensive ends or cornerbacks are the highest paid positions on the entire defense and maybe on the entire team next to qb. they are the main personnel to stop a passing attack. if you don't have ends to harass the qb you are in serious trouble. prior to one year by ogy (2005) and one by anderson (2006) it was 1993 when we had defensive ends (dent and armstrong) that recorded double digit sacks. that is really, really a bad statistic if you expect to win in the nfl.

here is something to think about.... how many times have bear DE's recorded double digit sacks since 2000? answer: 2 times. once in 2005, ogy with 10 and once in 2006, anderson with 12. that is the entire total for the most important position on your defense.

rices salary: "Tony Dungy and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were one of the few teams that saw Simeon as a worthwhile gamble. He signed a 5-year deal worth more than $30 million, but would make just $1 million for the 2001 campaign." http://www.jockbio.com/Bios/Rice/Rice_bio.html 1998 - 10 sacks 1999 - rice recorded 16.5 sacks and went to the pro-bowl. 2000 - he only recorded 7.5 sacks and was in a contract dispute with bidwell. "With his original contract expired, Simeon was due for a big bump in pay in 2000. The subsequent negotiation dragged on through training camp, and he did not lay cleat on grass until the second game of the regular season." http://www.jockbio.com/Bios/Rice/Rice_bio.html 2001 - free agent. this was one of the most important free agents the bears could have picked up. in 2001 the highest paid DE was marcellus wiley DE at $11,000,960 we paid the great DE bryan robinson $8,843,666, an overall top ten in the league salary, then the following year made him a DT. 2 years prior to this robinson contract signing, simeon rice recorded 16.5 sacks. more than bryan robinson in his entire 4 year career in chicago. we also had daniels who never recorded double digit sacks in his entire career also. i believe this was hately's idiocy (but not positive as this was angies first year also in chicago) who let this diamond slip through his fingers because they thought he was a one dimentional player. the only problem was that one dimention was the weakest link on our entire defense, the pass rush. this was a player that would have made us way, way better and solidified our entire defense for years and could have made the difference in our playoffs that year. instead, rice went on to TB to record 5 years straight of double digit sacks. this left us with yet another STUPID landmark for our great management over the years. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nf...29-salaries.htm

"somewhat arguable"?? how is it not a rock solid foundation doing exactly what i said it did based on facts and logical deduction? "Get in the now!"?? the entire discussion with 'nfo' is USING the past as the qualifier for the statements HE made ABOUT the past!! by the way, this was at the very top of my first post to you when you jumped into this conversation: "LT2_3 first: before i go into any details (right or wrong) lets discuss this 'example' using the previous nfl contract agreement as it pertains to nfo's and my discussion more-so than the one signed last year, at least at this point." http://www.talkbears.com/forums/index.php?...=4135&st=20

well what do YOU call it then? if a *DGR percentage isn’t “**allotted” to them then how is “a large portion of their annual income from the league” paid???? is it some mysterious amount of money that shows up unexpectedly in their bank accounts that nobody can account for? not related? are you now going to tell me there aren’t specified percentages of the defined gross revenue paid to the owners to pay the players out of? just exactly what is the point of your entire post? **Main Entry: al·lot·ment 1: the act of allotting : apportionment 2: something that is allotted ; especially chiefly British : a plot of land let to an individual for cultivation hmmmm, now let’s see what “apportioning” means: Main Entry: ap·por·tion Inflected Form(s): ap·por·tioned; ap·por·tion·ing \-sh(ə-)niŋ\ Etymology: Middle French apportionner, from a- (from Latin ad-) + portionner to portion : to divide and share out according to a plan ; especially : to make a proportionate division or distribution of finally let’s look at the thesaurus: Entry Word: allotment Text: 1 a sum of money allotted for a specific use by official or formal action— see appropriation 2 something belonging to, due to, or contributed by an individual member of a group— see share 1 *now let’s look at how this pertains to the NFL’s salary cap per the >>OLD Page 96 ( The foregoing Salary Cap amounts shall be adjusted as follows: (i) The actual dollar amount of the Salary Cap shall not be less than the actual dollar amount of any Salary Cap in effect during the preceding League Year; provided, however, that at no time shall the Projected Benefits, plus the amount of the Salary Cap multiplied by the number of Teams in the NFL, exceed 70% of the Projected Defined Gross Revenues. Section 5. Minimum Team Salary: With respect to each League Year for which a Salary Cap is in effect, there shall be a guaranteed Minimum Team Salary of 56% of Projected Defined Gross Revenues, less League-wide Projected Benefits, divided by the then current number of Teams in Page 97 the NFL. Each Team shall be required to have a Team Salary of at least the Minimum Team Salary at the end of each League Year. * Extension Agreement 1/8/02 [prior League Year percentages omitted] ( Nothing contained herein shall preclude a Team from having a Team Salary in excess of the Minimum Team Salary, provided it does not exceed the Salary Cap. © Any shortfall in the Minimum Team Salary at the end of a League Year shall be paid, on or before April 15 of the next League Year, by the Teams having such shortfall, directly to the players who were on such Teams' roster at any time during the season, pursuant to reasonable allocation instructions of the NFLPA. (d) If the NFL agrees, or a judgment or award is entered by the Special Master, that a Team has failed by the end of the then current League Year to make the payments required to satisfy a Team's obligations to pay the Minimum Team Salary required by this Agreement, then, in the event the Team fails promptly to comply with such agreement, judgment or award, the NFL shall make such payment on behalf of that Team (such funds to be paid as salary directly to the players on such Team at the direction of and pursuant to the reasonable allocation instructions of the NFLPA). Section 6. Computation of Team Salary: During any League year in which the Salary Cap is in effect, all of the following amounts shall be included every day in determining a Team’s Team Salary:

1. i too think these rookie signings are way out of line but the bottom line is... how do you fix it? if it was easy and do-able it would have been done in the last two agreements. how would you regulate it? a cap on slot in the draft they were picked? this has major problems trying to enforce. does the top qb get the same money as a top linebacker picked at #1? do you have a cap on which position is more valuable? how long are the contracts you can pay these players the stunted salary? what if a player makes the pro-bowl in these salary challenged years? what is the difference paid in round 1 compared to other rounds? isn't each player going to want the limited max he can get paid no matter what the quality? 2. how can you cap bonus money? this is the only guaranteed amount they make in the contract. would you change it to read that the contract signed gets paid in full whether the player is cut or injured? so it wouldn't matter if a player gets cut or whatever he still gets the money he signed for every year? what is that going to do to the teams salary cap? the point was to show how private owners can pad the payroll by hiring not only THEMSELVES, but relatives and friends. the possibility these salaried relatives share in the profits is still a real consideration as to how much owners actually make. the point is that you are inferring that bonus money somehow comes out of the owners revenue they were paid each year, as their portion of what the nfl doled out, or it comes out of their own personal bank accounts. that somehow they need $20-30 M in cash at hand to pay these bonuses. this is clearly NOT the case. any owner can compete with any other in paying out these amounts whether well heeled or not. it costs them nothing unless you consider the money the nfl allotted for salary is included in their profit plan. how can they "regret the deal" when they have signed a new contract with the players at least twice? i too would like to see rookie money relief but i don't know how to regulate it fairly - read above. for the rest read below: and yes, again and again and again i understand how they can spend temorarily more that the salary cap limit is in a designated season. i GET IT. look, i am not trying to be facetious or an ass hat in saying this, but... do you not understand what i have been telling you all these months on how this large bonus money can be paid strickly out of the share of player salary allottment? that no money comes out of the owners own personal bank accounts? that it doesn't take rich franchises to do this? i have shown examples and models in the past, yet you seem to come back to the same wrong assessment time and time again. if you don't understand this just say so and i can try to explain it in great detail for you if you ask.

you mean like suggesting with no basis in fact that owners could make as little profit as $1M?... "If $21m is aroung top 10, what does the bottom 10 look like? $1m? $5M?" or... "What I do find funny is, I think few fans realize how many players actually make more than the owners." you are correct in one aspect, it IS funny to suggest that individual players actually make more money over their careers as owners do over theirs. so instead of giving this portion of the fair share of the purse (that the owners signed and agreed to be fair in their eyes) to veterans instead of mega rookie salaries and bonuses you want to give it to the owners? i have some 10 year old '98 information on personel (yes i know things have changed but just as an example): chairman of the board - ed mccaskey; president CEO - mike mccaskey; director of community involvement - pat mccaskey; ticket manager - george mccaskey; office staff administration - tim mccaskey; director of player personel - brian mccaskey. any bet that there may be some spouces, sisters, sisters children, uncles or cousins employed? and you just think that when "bonus money" is paid out they just call virginia to cut them a check out of her christmas account? in fact maybe she does. that way she could get a better interest rate on her money when she loans it to her own corporation instead of borrowing it from a bank!! logical or reasonable in what aspect? you have ONE instance of reported profit in the entire nfl and you "logically" deduct from that profit margins? just to open up another can of worms... if the bears had a stadium that held 500,000 they don't get exclusive ticket sale receipts anyway. this is one of the items that goes into a pool to be shared among the league. what they do/or did get was sky box cash if i am not mistaken (and well could be without rereading the old CBA again or reading the new one) and probably a few other perks. again and again i have to keep telling you that it's paid for from the allottment from the collective nfl to pay player salaries!! when that rises so do the salaries for players AND the owners!!!! the only way it is not is if you believe taking money out of player salary allottments is just part of the owners profit plan they are entitled to. so if the players are not entitled to the percentages written in the contract WHY did the owners sign such an agreement????????

metcalf should have been shown the door over 3 years ago. he was a waste of roster space and salary cap. if he initiated the release he also must suffer from brain damage.

so what are you suggesting? that we wipe the board clean and go back to the system of the 20's-80's? players can work for minimum wage with no benefits including medical or retirement? no rights of free agency? robber baron owners? i'm sure trickle down economics will work terrific in the nfl again. after paying all expenses including top CEO salaries!! how many mccaskey’s are on the payroll that comes out of these franchise expenses before net profits are calculated and for how much? stop it... you’re breaking my heart. uhhh, you mean after the salary cap and owners share goes up? isn’t that what is generating the rise in contract sizes? compare the cap today to 10 years ago. this is pretty comical. YOU pull a lowball figure out of your arse and then argue points in reference like it was a fact! in reality, these are sport franchises that operate 4 ½ months a freakin year to generate income. the absolute maximum number of games they can possibly play per year is 20 and ½ of those are on the road! how much more profit do you think they ‘should’ generate and where do you think this added income should come from? and finally........ this is a day to remember when i am arguing with a person that thinks the bidwell and mccaskey type of owners are being mistreated and deserve, not only sympathy, but more money from the players and fans. it's simply mindboggling (but it does put a smile on my face i give you that). here’s an idea, start a charity fund and organize a food drive for the bidwell and mccaskey families to help them through these hard times. individuals in their respective communities can just drop off donations at the servants entrance.

for X's sake what do you consider getting massive revenues? a billion + a quarter? these are sporting franchises not oil cartels. that's >>$21 million dollars

well i'm certainly not a wall street analyst so i can't give you comparisons to other type corporations but didn't they state that the packers were just outside of the top ten teams in NFL profits? don't sound like dog food to me. just for curiosities sake how do these franchises break up their seasons for tax purposes? hmmmmm also the comparisons between 2006-07 player salaries is pretty laughable. they act like they haven't had an increase in the amount of money they were paid or the increases to the salary cap over that period. in my opinion that is a pretty slanted article in favor of management.

wow, we must really be getting jaded hearing about oil company profit figures. only a $21 M profit sounds pretty good to me especially when i could put it into my 127 million dollar bank account LOL!!

actually i am not wrong in regards to the intent of my argument. this entire portion of the thread with nfo was that he stated that by paying large bonus money to resign players proves that the bear franchise is not cheap. for the record, do you believe this is the case? if you do you are wrong. i have NOT stated that it makes them cheap or not or that the bear organization is or is not cheap. just that this is a 'useless' marker to determine the validity of that statement because every penny paid out in these bonuses can be accounted for with money the team receives from the nfl to pay player salaries. the salary cap! i know this and i completely understand the how and why of it. in the real world one reason the players signed this agreement is because they are guaranteed a fair percent of the money each year from the league/franchise to be paid as salary to them, the minimum. the owners signed this agreement because it limits the amount one franchise can pay out in player salary each year limiting their expenses, the maximum. it also keeps one rich owner from spending a lot more than another poorer franchise gaining an advantage and keeping league parity. both sides get something. i also know that amortizing bonus money is getting around the intent of the cap and i know that you can roll money over in bogus incentive expectations to the following year to hide cap money because we DID it last season for $10 M (although in my opinion this is not always acting in good faith according to the CBA). but... this 'rollover' money from the previous year has raised the 'minimum' the following year by the same amount so the team actually has to pay it out one way or another whether they then roll more over in another contract or not. just to note... this is exactly one of the points i am arguing, which is one reason how you can pay large bonus money and completely pay for it out of what is given to the franchises to pay player salaries. 1. to borrow against a near billion dollar corporation with guaranteed income from a multi billion dollar corporation to get a fixed 6 year maximum loan to pay player bonus money should be easy even in these times. 2. where have you gotten this information that the chicago bear franchise was not very profitable in the near past? i guess i would have to ask, not very profitable compared to what? multi million dollar profits from other owners? what are the shareholders bottom line at the end of a year? i'd like to see the figures for comparison. 3. you mean the exclusive lake forest area, where they pay a tax deductable property tax for multi million dollars worth of commercial property they have owned for years? whew, at least they don't pay any taxes on the lake front property. have you really seen or read that teams in the nfl can't make their payrolls because of the lack of revenues paid out by the nfl to the owners? are you suggesting the only way these teams can stay in business is to take money out of the players allotted salary or go broke?? which owners have sold their teams or moved to another city with a better stadium because they were financially strapped with a bankrupt system in which they didn’t generate enough revenue from the NFL under the CBA? the reality of it is in my opinion that these franchises can pad their profit margins at the expense of the players each and every year. that is why they manipulate some of these loopholes, because it’s free money. oh i get it all right. for whatever reason you want to have a micro discussion for each individual nuance of the CBA line by line while i only need a general point of reference for a discussion with another poster in regards to X amount of money allotted by the nfl to pay player salary. so REGARDLESS of the loopholes (which i fully understand how they work), regardless if it comes in the form of one check or a thousand, regardless of where each individual instance of the money to be divided up comes in from, and regardless if the poor millionaire owners need to drain money out of player salary to fend off the wolves, there is X amount of money allotted and given by the nfl to each franchise to pay player salaries per written contract. that is not ‘postulation’, that is FACT.

why not? the only thing that matters is that there is X amount of money that the teams have to use to pay player salaries and that is given/doled out to them BY the nfl which is how the salary cap is determined. it doesn't mean jack for the purposes of my original point where ANY of the money comes from that the nfl uses to pay out the cash. why would it? misrepresenting how the system works? all i was doing was simplifying the split between owner revenue and player salary revenue so it would be easy to distinguish the difference. is it that big of a deal? sorry but there is no exception to the rule. the bills pay at the very least the minimum amount of dollars the nfl has allotted to player salary (salary cap), period. if they are running in the red with franchise expenses they can't meet with what their share of the owners revenue it's too bad for them. which incidently i find it nearly impossible to believe that any franchise pays more out to expenses per year than what their revenue share income is. yes it probably would, as highly unlikely as that is. but when did i ever say teams wouldn't have to or couldn't borrow money for signing bonuses? it's my contention that they could pay off these loans strictly using the salary cap income and none out of their own pockets. this is the whole POINT of my posts in this thread. this discussion is like some kind of shell game. you keep moving the whole point of this discussion off of the original intent. the truth is i don't care at all what expenses a team has. it's meaningless to this discussion. it also doesn't matter one iota 'where' the money comes from. ALL that matters in this instance is that the league gives each nfl franchise X amount of money to pay for player salaries and i can show how using that X amount of salary cap money they can pay for large signing bonuses. as far as using the last CBA? didn't i qualify that to you at the very start by saying that the discussion between myself and nfo WAS over the period that the old CBA was in effect? not that it would make any difference if you used the new CBA that i know of anyway. all i wanted you to confirm was that my understanding of the separate monies involved was correct and you did. in other words there was X dollars assigned to pay player salaries with restrictions and X dollars paid to the franchise to do whatever they wanted. that they were not interchangeable. this makes absolutely no sense in regards to this entire discussion. let me ask you.... 1. isn't the CBA in effect to see that all parties get paid the correct percentage of the total money allotted to them that both parties agreed upon? 2. do you believe any CBA the owners would sign would pay them less money than it costs to operate? 3. do you think that the nfl expects the teams to pay it's players salaries with the money that comes from them (allotted salary cap) for this purpose? 4. do you think that portions of the players salaries should be used for franchise expenses and owner profit or paid to the players as it is intended to be? you know, i have been civil with you trying to have a civil discussion and then you write crap like this. so thanks for nothing. if i need some arrogant prick to talk down to me i'll put an ad in the paper and take applications.

thank you for your input. i understand this that there are items that each team does or does not share revenue in but this is not important in my discussion. i also realized that the NFL probably did not cut 2 checks, one for the player salary and one for the owners. i just used that to simplify how the money is split up between player salary and owner income which i also know they spend on non player items like coaching salary and any expenses needed to run the franchise. that also is unimportant to my discussion. the amount of percentages is also not important, only that there is X amount of dollars allotted to each team by the NFL for player salaries which in itself determines how much the salary cap is and it's limitations. it is then accurate in my model on how an owner can pay large signing bonus money with no or very, very little cash out of their own pockets. it all is paid by the money delegated by the salary cap. this then has no determination on whether an owner is cheap or not by how much money he spends in player signing bonuses.

LT2_3 first: before i go into any details (right or wrong) lets discuss this 'example' using the previous nfl contract agreement as it pertains to nfo's and my discussion more-so than the one signed last year, at least at this point. second: i am going to simplify the examples as much as i can. that will include probably changing percentages of money paid to the parties involved and where it came from etc. the reason to do this is to create a knowledge base of fact built upon HOW it works and not actual factual data examples. for these discussions i am also going to leave out any monies the actual NFL might take out of the revenue for any reason other than to distribute it to the franchises. ok here it goes as i understand it.... the NFL corp. is, in a sense, a holding company where monies come in from various sources to be distributed. this includes TV money and whatever money is made by each individual franchise that get's shared among the (simplified) franchise collective. each year the NFL adds up how much money is paid in and divides it into two types of revenue (very simplified). 1. the amount of money paid to each franchise owner/corporation as their share of the amount of money earned that was subject to sharing including TV money etc. the NFL cuts a check to each of the 32 franchises each year for this amount. for our example we are going to take this cash and simply put it in the owners pockets and it will NOT become a discussion point any further. 2. the amount of money to be paid in salary to players with a minimum and maximum amount specified. the NFL cuts a check to each of the 32 franchises for this maximum determined amount every year. this equals the salary cap. the owners now have X amount of salary money to pay the players in any way they see fit as long as it does not exceed the maximum or go below the minimum percentage of that particular year's cap. the NFL agreement also let's the owners sign players with guaranteed bonus money that they can amortize over the length of the players contract (six years). this CAN exceed the maximum amount they have to spend in an individual year but is counted against the following year's cap expenses for player salaries until the full amount is amortized over the length of the contract. EXAMPLE 1: player 1 signs a contract with a $12 M signing bonus and he is paid this amount in cash immediately (simplified) out of the owners own pockets. next year a $2 M amount (amortized bonus money paid in advance) counts against the salary cap the team is allowed to spend. if the team received $100 M the following year in salary cap allowance from the NFL they can only spend $98 M in paid salaries. they HAVE to put the remaining $2 M in their own account as a payback of the amortized amount they paid in advance out of their own pockets. EXAMPLE 2: if say the cap money allotted by the NFL for one seasons salary cap was $100 M and an individual team only paid out $90 M in salaries to it's players that season, the remaining $10 M can be kept by the owners to buy an island or whatever. it can't be used in any consecutive years as added cap money. is this not how it all basically works? if so i will continue with another more detailed post.

this makes no sense. in another post you stated that angelo doesn't consider drafting offensive linemen as a way to build your offensive line because it takes to long for players to develop but would rather get them in free agency. so in reality, isn't he "building" our offensive line through free agency?

hmmmm... which FA big ticket players specifically are you talking about over the last 10 years compared to the past? which specific FA big ticket players since the new stadium opened compared to the past? where have you read the steelers ownership have always been considered cheap? i don't believe i ever heard that before. please post the facts/links to substanciate your claim. John Clayton - ESPN News "Dan Rooney and his son, Art, run what is considered the most stable and one of the most well-operated franchises in the NFL." http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/stor...&id=3478129 again i want to qualify the following information by saying it is very easily >>>possible you keep bringing this up and i keep giving you information over and over that questions it, in the least, and in my opinion can and does dispute it. FACT: 1. when our head coaches are hired (with the exception of wanny) they are near, if not AT the bottom, in pay compared to other nfl *head coaches. 2. when we hired angelo he was near the bottom of pay scales for GM's in the nfl. same with hately no matter what his title was called. 3. until you can prove they have a large well paid scouting staff i will still hold the argument that the information i gathered disproved that. 4. you can't pay more money to any players than the salary cap dictates per year. this includes salary or **bonus's. 5. the chicago bear franchise has virtually no heavy expenses for new facilities. so where does the money go? *it seems highly unlikely that we would pay our assistant coaches more money than our head coaches. that means they ALSO are likely near the bottom of the pay scale compared to the rest of the nfl. **finally, i will REPOST old information i posted to you and LT2_3 in regards to how easily the large money for bonus's could be paid for with virtually nothing out of pocket per year (or the owners share of the profits from the NFL) whether the owner were rich or otherwise. you also need to take into account that there is a 6 year contract limit on amortizing player bonus money (unless it has changed). i also think that the $10+ mil 2008 rollover money is a perfect example of how you could use the interest on this money to pay out these bonus's. so here goes yet again.................. 07-07-2008 yea, i guess i am going into that “rubbish” once more for your sake. again, i also GET IT, there are times that a team actually pays out, >>TEMPORARILY it is also true that every year previous amounts of this front “bonus” money are paid back and put into the pocket of the owners or used to pay off the loans they took to get it. so what that means is that at the very MOST you, as a franchise, are paying interest ONLY on the money if you had to borrow it. below is a model of how this could possibly work for the owners... first and foremost i am not a statistician, a CPA, or even a math wiz for that matter, and you can take the following “useless info” and put it into perspective if you find it incorrect: most banks in the world would loan you money with a secured loan and usually, if i’m not mistaken, at around a 1% return. as an example i used $10 mil as an easy figure to regulate at the 1% over prime for a pro rated signing bonus over a 5 year period. at 1% loan interest the costs would be: 1st year interest $100,000 with 20% payback of borrowed money 2nd year interest $80,000 with 20% payback of borrowed money 3rd year interest $60,000 with 20% payback of borrowed money 4th year interest $40,000 with 20% payback of borrowed money 5th year interest $20,000 with final 20% payback of borrowed money total actual cost of borrowing the $10 mil bonus money over this five year period - $280,000 with interest at 1% let’s say the previous example is crap (which it well may be) and go with a straight loan of $10 mil at 4% interest as an example:. 1st year interest $400,000 with 20% payback of borrowed money 2nd year interest $320,000 with 20% payback of borrowed money 3rd year interest $240,000 with 20% payback of borrowed money 4th year interest $160,000 with 20% payback of borrowed money 5th year interest $80,000 with final payback of borrowed money total actual cost of borrowing $10 mil bonus money over a five year period - $1,200,000 at straight 4% you can look at these yearly amounts of interest money as being paid back from the slop that is left over YEARLY from that same years cap allowances doled out by the league that aren’t spent and used as a reserve for emergencies in case of injury etc.. usually between $.5 to $3+ million dollars, depending upon the franchise, at the end of a season and still show a profit from this. so the theory it takes a well healed generous owner to pay these bonus’s out of his own pocket is nonsense. the nfl pays for 99.9+% of all player salaries at the start and nobody spends more than the cap allowed in the long run.

as stated by me numerous times in the past... spending the money allotted by the nfl's salary cap to teams to pay player salary is not an indication that a team is or isn't cheap. the nfl pays for every penny of every salary and even puts a limit on how little they can spend.

this is one of the big problems with angie. his drafts are anemic and he fills the holes he created himself with 2nd and 3rd tier FA's that are bargain basement cheap, temporary, stop gap players. this relates to an unstable average offensive line at best that needs young top tier talent infused to bring any semblance of long term stability. the crux is he never drafts these replacements to groom into starting jobs. for any GM, whether he is more defense oriented or not, to not understand this concept is inexcusable. even when angie made a big FA splash, to get even with the chiefs franchise, he still screwed it up. when tait was brought in for a huge contract and was forced into playing on the left side out of position, a red flag should have been raised to draft with a first day priority a LOT as the future starter and move tait back into his all-pro position. as it turns out we highly overpaid tait to play out his career in chicago on the wrong side at a mediocre level! the same can be said of his qb merry-go-round. forget the poor drafting, he even had the chance to bring in 2 pro-bowl quality qb's, still in their prime, at minimal cost to the franchise and failed to do so. instead he goes the cheap FA backup for players such as the griese, stewart, and hutchinson type players. it's mind boggling. 1. drafting as many safeties as he has, we still don't have a single sure thing starter even AT strong safety (let alone FS). it has been complete failure on his part for 7 years. the only quality safeties in chicago during his tenure he never even drafted, m. brown and t. parrish, and in fact let one go in free agency his first year. 2. if what you say is even remotely true then he ranks as one of the worst gm's in the entire nfl and should still be employed as a scout. not as a GM in control of our franchise.

someone considered an idiot can talk about a lot of things and most of them are logically stupid or just plain bull @#$%. our idiot gm is letting "another team develop a player for him"? like who angelo? which up-and-coming offensive lineman have you picked up in your entire career as a gm? was it dogins, the temporary backup for tucker, whose glorious career in chicago started at age 29 and ended at 30? great future move there. or was it steve edwards, the non-drafted practice squad player you picked up who had 2, average or less, seasons as our starting LG/RG between 2002 and 2006 to move on and play as a backup for another before he was out of the league? or a one legged, average at best, r. garza whom even you dismissed this offseason? the great 2 and gone aaron gibson? r. brown the 32 year old guard on the last leg of his career? the 32 year old f. miller on the last leg of his career? or was it john tait the 29 year old all-pro quality right tackle you brought in, after paying him the most money a right tackle had ever gotten, and had him play average on the left side the remainder of his career in chicago? all of these genius free agent moves puts a smile on your face?? you can get by drafting 2nd day talent rather than 1st day prospects for long term development because the OL takes too long to develop? where are all of these developed 2nd day picks now angelo? anyone want to guess how many pro-bowl offensive linemen (besides kreutz who he had nothing to do with) we have had in chicago during angelo's time here? ONE, a 34 year old guard in 2006 - r. brown. just maybe you should have bitten the bullet and drafted some FIRST day talent with REAL potential, like other teams with good offensive lines do, and plan that time lag into your general strategy you freakin cretin!!!!!!!!! i have to disagree that this was ever a good philosophy. you build a good offensive line through the draft and not the other way around. if you draft them, you will have players that have the potential to play together for 8-10 years which does bring the ALL IMPORTANT continuity to your linemen who, more than any other position, need to play together as a unit to achieve this type of success. look at the good lines throughout history and see how many were drafted by the specific team. you also get a bargain price on the good players when their contracts come due by averaging their cost over their years prior to free agency. if anyone should know this cost effectiveness it's a good gm. bringing in guys every other year and plugging them in does not create a solid unit for any length of time and costs more money in the long run. you use free agency when your drafted players either are injured, you can't afford one because you have more than one excellent player coming into free agency, they don't turn out to be the player you hoped when drafted and the guy developing behind him isn't ready to start, or you find that ONE specific impact player that will put you over the top. you don't keep filling the bulk of your line with tweeners who you hope are even average and aging vets from another team. finally... guard and safety are the easiest positions (right tackle is a close third) in the draft to fill yet angelo has failed miserably at all.

i know this could be angelo posturing before free agency and the draft but if this diatribe rings true or means anything at all i find it very disturbing. where were attitude and coaching last season? or the season before? are the designated positions (defense, offense, special teams) on this team so compartmentalized that there is no input from the head coach in any aspect at all? did the head coach even realize the team needed some serious hands on input or just didn't want to interfere with his staff? in other words if lovie could have made it better over the last TWO + years why didn't he? "attitude"? what attitude is this clown talking about? do you mean to tell me that unless lovie is holding the specific reins in his hand on the defense that they have attitude or motivational problems??? is lovie an inanimate object during practice or in the film room that he couldn't inject this as a head coach? or that until this so called defensive line savior's arrival we would flounder as a defense because lovie doesn't have a clue? a "pretty good nucleus"? with the money this guy has spent and draft picks he has wasted we certainly should have more than "pretty" good players. no reason we can't play good defense "this year"? why couldn't we play good defense LAST year angie? it's the same core. or does a freakin defensive line coach make more of a difference than than your bloody head coach? and just what in the HELL makes him think this years defense will be more "opportunistic" than last?? if we "have enough talent upfront" then what is the reason we failed so miserably over the last 2+ years? and for god's sake angie at least get your metaphors correct. you don't "drive the train". explain why the past coaching staff didn't "get the most" out of their players angie. or is it the players fault as you infer? just who is going to run this circus? in fact explain why marinelli shouldn't BE the head coach if he does all you say and is the reason this team will be "better" because he showed up.