adam

The way they sounded in his press conference, it looks like they brought him in to play Center. I don't know if that was an agreement in the contract, but everything points to him playing center. However, if he is open playing Guard, then Tretter is a no-brainer.

For WR, they should grab Tajae Sharpe and Adam Humphries. Other options: DeAndre Carter, Kenny Stills, Keelan Cole, or even Damiere Byrd. At LB, sign Kitchens and Kyzir White and consider Kwiatkoski as a rotational LB. At S, Terrell Edmunds, Tartt, or Neal. For IDL, sign Jonathan Hankins and/or Danny Shelton. At CB, look at Moreau, Nelson, or Xavier Rhodes.

This is my list, grab a OG and and OT and we have a solid line: Ereck Flowers, LG Trai Turner, RG Michael Schofield, LG Daryl Williams at RT Nate Solder, LT Eric Fisher, LT Duane Brown, LT Riley Reiff, LT

A few trains of thought. You also don't want massive turnover year after year as it is hard to build any continuity. It is great that they have cap space next year, but they could've easily loaded Bates' contract in a way (either this year or next year) that would've made it a lot harder for the Bills to match and not hurt the Bears cap very much. They just elected not to do that. Which is fine as long as there is a Plan B and C. If Poles can get one OT and OG from above, plus add at least Sharpe or Humphries at WR, an upgrade at CB, a new SS, and Sam LB, I will feel a lot better. That is 6 more at a minimum to go.

Missing out on Bates really sucks. I am surprised the Bears didn't make it more difficult on the Bills for this year. First two years only $8.8M? Come on Poles, $17M total? If you are signing the guy to a 4-yr deal, you could've easily front loaded it making it harder for Buffalo to match. $4.4M AAV for the first two years was nothing for Buffalo to match. So what is left? Not many guys with decent snap counts from last year. SFAs: Ereck Flowers, LG Daryl Williams at RT UFAs: Trai Turner, RG Michael Schofield, LG For UFA Tackles: Nate Solder, LT Eric Fisher, LT Duane Brown, LT Riley Reiff, LT At this point, the Bears need two of these guys, an OT and an OG. Let's go Poles. In WR news, Auden Tate signed a 1 year deal with the Falcons. So that market is drying up quickly too. Tre'Quan Smith also re-signed with NO. Tajae Sharpe and Adam Humphries are two guys I would target. Sharpe had one of the best percentages against man cover and Humphries has been extremely dependable from the slot. Add those two to Mooney and Pringle and you have a very solid WR1-WR4. Newsome and Brown battle Coulter and others for final one or two slots and you draft at least one early.

Shenault for Foles straight up?

Not yet, they have until Tuesday, but hopefully we hear something on Monday. They will have to restructure some contracts, so if you start to see news about restructures to Diggs and Allen, they are probably matching the deal. Hopefully not though because Patrick and Bates are an upgrade over Mustipher and Daniels, especially in this system.

That is pretty wild, so 16 players from the 53-man will be UDFAs. If you add the draft picks, the Bears would only need 35-40 players before the draft.

We are so accustomed to a flurry of moves by Pace over the last few years that this patience is not normal for us. However, I like the approach. Rarely do teams that "win" free agency actually win when real football starts. What is funny to me is if you look at the biggest moves of the offseason, none of those teams are in the top 5 for Super Bowl odds after the moves: 1. Denver for Wilson, still not a top 5 team 2. Chargers for Mack, still not a top 5 team 3. Raiders for Adams, still not a top 5 team 4. Miami for Hill, still not a top 5 team 5. Cleveland for Watson, still not a top 5 team 6. Indy for Ryan, still not a top 5 team Most of those moves have massive contracts, guaranteed money, and will hamstring the cap eventually. The Chargers and Dolphins, from the group, have the best shot with QBs on rookie deals. For the Bears, add one more OT and WR in FA and the offense is already better than last year. Add a couple more in the draft, and there could be a bigger than expected improvement. The defense's drop-off is overrated because we lost some big names, but not really a lot of snaps. Flus and Williams did more with less in Indy.

Going into the draft, I would be perfectly happy if the offense looked like this: Fields, Fisher, Whitehair, Patrick, Bates, Jenkins, Kmet, Mooney, Pringle, Humphries, Monty with subs: Borom, Mustipher, James, Horsted, Tate, St. Brown, Herbert, Evans, Blasingame

I am thinking Auden Tate and Adam Humphries. Both should be cheap, Tate with a lot of upside and Humphries is really dependable in the slot.

This will probably be a draft day deal. There is no reason to cut him now as they don't need the cap.

The more I do these, the more I feel like Poles has to trade back with one of the 2nd's and add at least another pick. If they could also get a 6th for Foles, that would be a huge bonus.

It's a 2 yr deal for $4M, so probably around $1.5 - $2M cap hit his year. If Foles is cut, the Bears would save $3M on the cap, so they gain $1-1.5M in cap space this year with a new backup QB. If they trade Foles, I think they will only save $4M ($1M more) since they just paid him a $4M roster bonus. So that plus his prorated bonus ($2.66M) would be against the cap ($6.66M) leaving $4M in savings. Right now for a team looking for a vet, he would be extremely cheap at $4M with only one year left on his deal. I would not be surprised if the Bears held onto him until they at least got a 6th for him.

$10M a year for MVS? That is a lot for a WR3.

Good news, now the Bills have to match. This will be an interesting few days. Jenkins, Whitehair, Patrick, Bates, Borom would not be a bad start. I still think Eric Fisher is on the table which would make it: Fisher, Whitehair, Patrick, Bates, Jenkins and Borom as rotational guy. That would be a substantial upgrade over last year and you still go in and draft more.

These massive contracts for oft-injured guys never work out. They will be regretting this contract in a year or two. At best, Miami is the 9th or 10th best team in the AFC (KC, CIN, DEN, SD, LVR, BUF, NE, BAL, TEN, IND). This move doesn't make much sense for them imo.

I feel like once they know about Bates, they will go after Fisher and/or Turner. Both of those guys have connections to the Bears.

It's crazy, but this method may actually pay off. I would love to see either Fisher OT or address OG with Bates, Flowers, Turner, or Schofield. Any one of those would be a significant upgrade from what we had last year. Fisher, Whitehair, Patrick, Bates, Jenkins would be very solid, then you draft OL and have Borom as a super sub.

Could also be camp arm but interesting.

Yeah why not. However, if he is going to take a smaller deal, I am sure he would want to go to a contender.

We got two so far! We need at least two more, if not 4.

Billy Turner, GB is available. I think he played RG for GB last year. Patrick, Turner, Whitehair, Jenkins, Borom with a rookie OT would work for me. Borom played a lot better than people give him credit for. Also, Jenkins got this entire offseason to recover further from his surgery. It feels like it is easy to overpay in the FA market for a few positions like OT. We could always go with Eric Fisher who has worked with both Poles and Flus.

The Bears just need to write the contract in a way that makes it impossible for the Bills to match. The Bills not only have one of the lowest cap spaces remaining, but they are already 7th lowest for next season as well. The Bears on the other hand are 8th in cap space this year AND have the most cap space for 2023 right now.

There are probably only 2-3 players that I would've liked the Bears to have signed so far, but there are still a lot of players left. Also, some guys are taking less and going to contending teams. That is hard to compete against in this market because that is when you overpay. This team is no worse than it was last year (not saying much) but with better coaching, a real scheme, and improvement from Fields, that should give the team a few extra wins. So if they can just marginally improve across the board in FA this year, they will setup nicely for next year.