adam

Noteboom, Whitehair, Johnson, Borom, Jenkins? Another possibility is bringing back Daniels to play Center, then going with something like: Noteboom, Whitehair, Daniels, Johnson, Jenkins with Borom as the swing tackle.

Good catch yourself with Gallup. I totally missed him due to the production drop off with the injury. So yeah, Wilson looks even better coming in as a WR3/4 with those numbers. I am not seeing him as a WR1, but as an upgrade at WR3/4 compared to Byrd or Goodwin.

Anything going on of interest? Looks like we have the fastest WR group (ever) with a ton of guys at 4.4 and below. I doubt Olave drops to 39 but some other guys around him surprised with some fast numbers.

I am kinda intrigued by a guy like Cedric Wilson (DAL) as a cheap option with some upside. He was behind Cooper and Lamb whom both saw over 100 targets. With 61 targets, Wilson had 45 receptions for 602 yds and 6 TDs. The same amount of TDs as Lamb, a better Y/R than Cooper, the highest Yds/T and the highest catch% amongst the trio.

oh, hard pass unless he comes in for league min.

Mongo, So is Raimann your pick at #39? The Draft Network and PFF have him going in the 1st.

I am all in on Zion. You put him on a line with Jenkins and you already have a pretty nasty group. Add one more and the rest will follow suit.

Did he stay healthy in KC, I didn't follow him?

Yeah, no way Olave is going 39. If he is still on the board after the first, I can see teams trading up to #33 or #34 to take him, but it's all for fun. I have been doing the no-trade scenario a lot. I keep getting David Bell, WR at #39, Tyler Smith, OL at #71, and at 147 and 149, a lot of options, I went with Montaric Brown, CB from Arkansas, and Tycen Anderson, S from Toledo. At 184, I went with Thomas Booker, DL from Stanford. Besides no first, there is a huge gap between 71 and 147. I have a feeling Poles is going to attempt to trade out of 39 or 71 unless the guy there is a stud, to get a 4th round pick.

Smith, Kitchens, and Walker would be a very solid LB corps.

You nailed in man. I completely agree on Walker, Gallup, Jefferson and Karras. My only changes would be instead of Noteboom and Kearse for $9M, I would go Solder, OT (5M), Desmond King, CB ($2.5M) and Rashard Higgins, WR ($2M) for $9.5M total. That would put you at $30.03M for: Walker, LB Jefferson, DL Hughes and King, CB Karras, C Solder, OT Gallup and Higgins, WR You can replace Solder with Noteboom and save $1M. For Safety, I think they bring back Gipson and DHC. WR before draft: Gallup, Mooney, Higgins, Grant (this actually feels better than ARob, Mooney, Byrd, Goodwin) OL before draft: Jenkins, Whitehair, Karras, Borom, Solder/Noteboom CB before draft: Johnson, Graham, Hughes, King, Vildor, Shelley (Vildor and Shelley from CB2/3 to CB 5/6)

Hitchens makes a ton of sense. https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-2022-free-agent-rankings-free-agency Yeah, there are a ton of guys on there with some reasonable salaries if these are accurate: 28. Gallup, WR - $5M 38. Williams, G, $6.67M 42. Smith-Schuster, WR, - $8M 44. Maye, S - $6M 45. Nelson, CB - $7M 46. Jones, C - $6.67M 53. Corbett, G - $9.25M 57. Moses, T - $7.5M 67. Allen, C - $7.25M 76. Jackson, CB - $10M 84. Alford, CB - $5M 86. Barr, LB - $7.25M 87. Collins, DL - $9.25M 89. Fuller, WR - $7M 94. Bozeman, C - $7M 96. Crowder, WR - $4.5M 98. Valdes-Scantling, WR - $10M 100. Douglas, CB - $6.75M 101. Gage, WR - $7.5M 103. Wilson, WR - $6.25M 105. Cole, WR - $6M 106. Woods, S - $5.25M 116. Williams, CB - $2.5M 122. Jones, WR - $6M 125. Berrios, WR - $6.67M 128. Glowinski, G - $6.25M 133. Karras, C - $4.33M 145. Fuller, CB - $5.75M 147. Hughes, CB - $3.25M 149. King, CB - $2.5M 150. Solder, OT - $5M 155. Phillips, DL - $6M 161. Harris, S - $3.5M 165. Nnadi, DL - $5.75M 170. Rhodes, CB - $3M 174. Higgins, WR - $2M 192. Walker, LB - $4M 193. Blythe, C - $1.25M Our FAs that made the list: 10. Robinson, WR - $15M 23. Hicks, DL - $8.5M 40. Daniels, G - $10M 92. Ifedi, G - $6M 113. Dalton, QB - $7.25M 135. Peters, T - $2.5M 171. Nichols, DL - $8M 200. DHC - S - $1.75M

If you think you can get better production for less, he is definitely someone the Bears can move on from.

I expect Poles to do some minor restructuring to give him some additional flexibility in his first year as GM. There are several contracts that he can modify without putting too much money into future years. There are some big ones, but I think only one or two will be considered. Mack, Quinn, Whitehair, and Edwards can all safely be restructured to gain around $10M to this year's cap without putting more than $4-5M on any future cap year, if they need to. Jackson is another candidate if they believe he is a long term answer at FS. The Bears are actually in decent cap shape, and will continually get better year over year as some of the albatross contracts drop off. Next season, the only contracts of concern will be Mack, Quinn, and Jackson, but all of them have an out. Knowing what those outs are, the Bears may NOT want to restructure and kick more dead money into those years. So Whitehair and Edwards make logical targets based on their salaries to gain $2-3M on this year's cap. Here are the outs for Mack, Quinn, and Jackson for next offseason: 2023 Pre-June 1st Cut/Post-June 1st Trade: Mack- $16.9M in CS/$11.6M in DM - So is Mack work $28.5M or can the Bears sign $16.9M worth of players that would have more of an impact? A trade seems like the most likely route (potentially in season?) if anything happens, to gain some draft capital. Otherwise, a straight cut nets you nothing other than some cap space. They may ride with Mack for 2 more years. Quinn- $9.7M in CS/$8.4 in DM - Quinn will cost $18.2M next year and combined with Mack cost $47M against the cap. I don't see that happening, and I think Quinn would be the easier one to move based on his contract. That is my guess. 2023 Post-June 1st Cut: Jackson- $13.1M in CS/$3.9M in DM - I don't like splitting the dead money over two years because you move half of it into the next cap and cant use any cap savings in the main free-agent period), but in this case, it may be worth it. One interesting note, the Bears could do a post-June 1st cut any year, then carry over the difference in cap space to the next season to negate the dead money. So if they really didn't want someone on their roster, and the cap savings was equal to the dead money, they could cut the player, incur half the dead money this year, retain enough cap savings to then negate the dead money on next season's cap. This scenario really opens up a lot of options because you really aren't hitting next year's cap as bad as originally thought (as long as you have carryover). So even with Jackson, just say the Bears cut sling after 2022, but then designate him a post-June 1st cut next offseason. They would take on $3.9M in 2023, but could also gain back $13.1M from what his contract was going to pay him. Now just say they use some of that, but carry over $10M to the 2024 cap. The savings would negate the dead cap and they would actually have $6.1M more cap space in 2024 (not necessarily $3.9M less). Goldman and Cohen would be prime candidates for something like that this year. Instead of trying to make more cap for this season, do post-June 1st cuts on one or both, then carry over most of the cap savings from this year to next year, negating the dead money and increasing the cap next season.

Firstpick.com?

Yeah, I would've probably been better off going SEC BPA instead but I just went with PFF Big Board value. That just happen to be who was there at the pick. I will need to do another one and focus on that a little more.

Oh I should've noted, those were their 2021 valuations, basically what they performed to.

I know we posted some in other threads, but I thought it could use its own with how many we are going to do between now at April. Here is one I did with PFF's Mock Draft Simulator, just one trade down for a 3rd and a 5th. Still picked up Johnson (which is unlikely), but hey. Johnson is a no-brainer if there. Went for great value at #71 and got a great athlete to pair with Smith at LB. Moore becomes the defacto starting Slot WR. Domann is a hybrid LB-DB that can lineup almost anywhere on the defense. With so many sub packages, he would be perfect for big Nickel. Watson is the big WR we have needed, could play opposite of Mooney on the outside. Flott is 6'2" so he has good size and length for the new scheme. Elliss is a 367 lbs DT who could spell Tonga at NT.

Would you pay Robinson $15M after the year he had? Just watch the last two games. Zero effort. That would scare me.

Here is a list of the Bears UFAs, and their OTC Valuations: 1. Nichols - $6.5M - if the Bears view him as a 3T they may consider him 2. Daniels - $6.3M - Up to Poles, does he fit the mold? 3. Mustipher - $4.3M - No way am I paying Mustipher that lol. 4. Bars - $4.1M - Backup OL, not making that much. 5. Robinson - $3M - this is how low his value dropped after last year, but he will still make over $10M on some team. 6. Hicks - $2.4M - age and injury have killed his value, but he will still get paid Guys like Grant, Gipson, etc for some reason don't have a valuation right now.

Poles also said he wasn't going after Tier 1 FAs. So that takes a few of those guys off the list. I like a blended approach and close to Option 3, I think they will go after a mid-tier Center and one other mid-tier FA (could be Daniels), then target one other spot on the line early in the draft. Then you let the best 5 win their positions with Borom in the mix. Glowinski or Cappa seem reasonable, but I guess it will depend on the market. Karras makes a lot of sense too at Center. Zion Johnson would be awesome, but I don't know if he is going to make it to 39. I don't think they re-sign Daniels unless he has a mid-tier price tag. He is still only 24 and was probably hurt a little by the revolving clown car door on the O-Line which had him switching positions over the last few years.

Kamara has only lined up as a 3-4 OLB, so it was a toss-up to put him in with the DEs or the 4-3 OLBs. I just left him there assuming he probably will end up on the PS. The D-Line positions are going to be interesting. I think Nichols can play 3T, but that position is one of the most important one in this scheme. If he underperforms, the entire defense does. If he comes in around $6M, I would probably do it. For the safeties, as long as they aren't afraid to tackle, I am good. We have missed good tackling for our safeties since Amos left.

The vet minimum contracts do count against the cap if they are within the top 51 salaries on the team. There are two things at the team's disposal, the Minimum Salary Benefit (MSB) and the Four-year qualifying contract. The first one makes the vet minimum contract only count against the cap like a player with 2 less years (saves a couple hundred K per player). The second one allows a team to sign a player or two to a qualifying contract and the team can sign them for up to $1.25M more than the cap hit. So traditionally, these savings only amount to $1-2M per year and rarely more than that.

The loss of a 1st and 4th this year was due to Fields, so I am not bothered too much by that as I would rather have Fields than Toney, Jamar Johnson, and whoever the Giants will pick at #7 and in the 4th Round this year. The Bears also gained a little back by getting a 5th for a 7th in the Miller trade. The only other lost pick on the books is a 2023 6th for Grant. Hopefully, the Bears can re-sign him so that trade is not a complete waste. If Poles targeted guys are not there at 39, I can see him trading back for some additional picks. Having some extra to play with would be very nice (in a Quinn, Foles, or Jackson trade).

He is pretty cheap too at $10.6M. 2022 is his last year, so the team that traded for him could potentially get a comp pick down the road if he signed a decent deal with another team in 2023.