adam

Even after some contract mods, there is very little left to bring in anyone else. Quinn was it. The remainder of the guys will be depth. I believe Pace thinks TE and QB are fixed. So he will address OG, CB, and S with the 2nd round picks and hopefully address at least one of the positions with a one-year flyer free agent. Maybe he can get Vonn Bell or Tavon Wilson to play SS, Jimmy Smith for CB, Stefen Wisniewski, OG or maybe someone like Anthony Sherman, FB.

What is this though? Is he the starter? Is he here to help Trubisky learn to read defenses as a high school level? Like what's the plan here? Same for TE. It's a rotation of overpaid, crappy players. Do you want Burton in there with a phantom injury? Graham who can't block or run anymore? How about Shaheen who is so unathletic he gets hurt stretching? This is the 2020 plan? Foles and Trubisky battling it out at QB, Graham and Burton at TE? Of all the outcomes, this is probably the worst. I would've rather done nothing, kept the 4th rounder and the cap space instead of bringing on this dead weight. My prediction right now is 5-11. The biggest problems on the team have not been addressed and we are out of cap space. We still need a TE, a QB, a WR3, a CB, a SS, and depth at ILB and DL. We could also use upgrades at OT. Quinn, Graham, and Foles have consumed the remaining cap. Outside of a few C-list FA's on $1M one-year deals, that's all we have left, and now only 2x 2nd rounders to fill 5-6 holes. This is unbelievable. Honestly, how much better is Foles and Graham than Glennon and Sims.

This is it. Foles and Graham? That's the answer. We get an upgrade with Quinn over Floyd, a slight downgrade at rotational ILB, and probably CB and S. Our TE room is still weak and we have no RG and our OT's suck. Adding Foles did nothing to improve QB unless you consider him an upgrade over Daniel. I feel like this is it for Pace. He failed on every first-round pick outside of Smith and the jury is still out on him after that weird situation last year. I can see Smith being one of those players that retires young. White, Floyd, Trubisky, and Shaheen. Epic early draft failures. Then he gives up the remaining capital for Mack, which didn't win us anything. Now we are going to be stuck with an aging core with huge cap hits during a rebuild. If these were all-in moves, Pace is playing checkers while the rest of the NFL was playing chess.

To start? Is he the backup? Even with that extra knowledge, what is Foles' ceiling? 2013 was a crazy anomaly in his career. Outside of that season and those numbers he has been inferior to Trubisky in everything but TDs. His career-high in yards is 2891. What a joke. Mike Glennon's career-high 2608.

Oh crap, outside of Foles' ridiculous 2013 season where he threw 27 TDs and 2 INTs, he has 44 TDs to 33 INTs. Trubisky has 48-29. This is a joke right. This guy is going to do nothing for us.

I am in the middle on this one. Here are our 2x QB's career stats: QB A - 48 starts, 26-22 Record, 1051-1698, 61.9%, 11901 yds, 71 TD, 35 INT, 7.0 Y/A QB B - 41 starts, 23-18 Record, 811-1280, 63.4%, 8554 yds, 48 TD, 29 INT, 6.7 Y/A Foles has never started more than 11 games in his career in a single season, and has only started 10 or more twice. This is his 6th different team in 7 years. He reminds me of Parkey as a QB. I would've preferred Dalton, but I guess they were looking for someone with more experience with Nagy's system. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, open competition, or an anointed starter.

Lasted only one year in Philadelphia. I think he will see more carries in Miami.

That is a concern, but injuries are very hard to plan for. Each slot has a value, and even though Kwit and KPL did really good when they played, you can't keep everyone. Clearly the team felt that Trevathan was the one guy they had to retain. Right now the Bears are in line for 3x 6th Round comp picks (Kwit and Quinn cancel out), then Daniel, KPL, and Williams all qualify as 6th Round comps for 2021. That is decent considering that is all the Bears got for Howard.

Good luck NFL QBs. Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn, Eddie Goldman, Akiem Hicks, Roquan Smith, Danny Trevathan, RRH all coming at you every down.

I hope not, we have a bunch of 2nd and 3rd tier TEs and have $15M committed to them.

This is literally a Dion Sims move. I don't care about the good moves Pace makes, he continually does these head scratchers and I feel like we will never get back to the top with him at the helm. His reluctance to move away from mistakes and his penchant for overpaying guys like this really hurts the team. There are problem 1,000 players I would rather have for that money than Jimmy Graham, maybe more. Terrible terrible move.

I would be ok with 4-5M, but $8M is crazy money for a bad TE on the decline. I would rather have Delanie Walker for that price.

Watson has thrown half of his completions to Hopkins. His production is going to take a huge hit. I can see more INTs and less yards/TDs. I am still shocked that the Texans did that. ARZ is going to have a crazy passing attack.

The only thing that saves us is this does not count against comp picks since he was cut. So we would still get comp for Kwit, maybe Prince and Gabriel.

Right now it is a 5th rounder.

The more I think about this, the worse it gets. What a terrible move by Pace. This is a desperation move IMO. $8M for a middle of the road TE on the backend of his career. What a head scratcher. I would've said this for $5M. $8M is a crazy over pay for this production. Ebron won't even get that much. Terrible move.

Wow, shocked at this one. I didn't think he fit the mold they were looking for. A good pass catcher, but so-so blocker. Seems like an overpay after what Burton makes. $8M AAV for a soon to be 34 yr old TE? Hooper got $11M a year for 4 years. We save 3M but get a much older TE. Odd move for me.

It looks like Trevathan's cap hit for 2020 will only be $4,893,750 as they used 3 phantom years at the end of the contract (actually a 6-year deal) to spread the signing bonus out over 6 years vs 3. So they added some dead money to the cap in 2023, 2024, and 2025, but it makes his contract very reasonable for 2020-2022. So if HHCD does sign for around $5M, then the Bears could have about 20M for free agency.

Absolutely, but it may not happen until the draft. Either way, exciting news nonetheless.

Man, if they sign Bridgewater and he has a cap hit of $10M this year (5M base, 5M signing bonus), then 25/25 the next 2 years, it could work.

They traded Hopkins for David Johnson, OMG. Seriously are they nuts or what?

If it is indeed $21M, then Floyd, Shaheen, and Braunecker are gone. I would assume Burton and Leno are June 1st cuts as well. Hell they may even trade Trubisky at this point. Things are about to get interesting.

Now this:

Holy crap: I will be shocked if this happens. This definitely means Floyd, Shaheen, and Braunecker are gone.

Spotrac is correct. 2020 is Jackson's 4th year, they extended him 4 more years, so the only thing that gets applied to the 2020 cap is the pro-rated signing bonus of $12M. They have him listed at $3.7M cap hit for 2020 which is correct based on what I have read. Trevathan got 3/24 with 14 guaranteed. So I assume the guaranteed money is this year's salary and the signing bonus. So my assumption is he has 3 years at a $4M base, with a $10M signing bonus ($14M guaranteed), so his cap hit this year will be no more than $7.3M which is basically in line with his cap hit for the last two years. If we use the $3.7M for Jackson, $7.3M for Trevathan, and $3.4M for RRH, and then assume Floyd, Shaheen, and Braunecker are gone, we should have $17.8M available for free agency and the rookie pool. $17.8M - Available 1. My assumption is they will also extend ARob, lowering his cap hit in 2020 from $15M to about $10M, and converting some of Hicks salary to a bonus which would bring his cap hit down from $11.8M to about $8M. Between those two moves, the Bears could free up around $9M for 2020. $27M - Available 2. HHCD signs for $5M cap hit $22M - Available 3. Bears need to address RG, backup QB, TE2, WR3 on offense and Edge and CB on defense. With only 2 picks in the first 3 rounds, the cost of the rookie pool won't be that high this year, so figure $4M, that leaves $18M. My assumption is the Bears address 3 of those needs in the draft and 3 in free agency. $18M - Available 4. Bears use cap space to address 3-4 needs and depth. My assumption is the free agents will be brought in with cap hits between $1M-$5M. I don't think they will bring in anyone higher than that based on the need to get some quality depth.