adam

and this was after his date with Manti Teo's girlfriend. I never could understand how careless some people can be with their fortunes. This dude is about to make millions of dollars and decides that drinking and driving is a good choice. Since it was not drug related, I don't know how much this will affect his draft stock.

Yeah, I can't see any scenario with Urlacher coming back if the Bears want to get a FA OL and re-sign Melton. The only way would be if he would take $3M or less, or is someone else restructures their deal to save a couple of million this year.

I don't think we have the funds to sign a FA TE unless we completely neglect some other area of need. I assume that we will address TE in the draft.

Ok, so I tried to obtain the current cap hits for 2013, project some other moves with estimated cap hits and I came up with this: http://www.pcgamingtech.net/bears/cap.htm Unless I am totally off, we would have 7 roster spots to fill and have spent around 123M. With the cap being around 121, and with us having around 3M carried over from last year, we should have around 124M to spend. With the rookie pool needing to be around 5M, it is hard to see us getting to 116-119M before the draft with only the rookies left to sign. Can you check out the link and let me know if anything looks crazy. My scenario has the Bears re-signing Melton with a 5M cap hit this year, signing someone like Nate Collins to rotate in as a DT, re-signing Urlacher and Roach, DJ Moore, McCown, and Allen, signing Bushrod, and re-signing Louis. This scenario also assumes cutting Hester, Spaeth, and Davis to save some cap space. This leaves us with 7 open roster spots and very little cap space. Hypothetically, we could not re-sign Urlacher, and would be at 119M with 8 spaces, 5-6 filled in the draft, and 2-3 league minimum guys signed, which would work money-wise, barely. Tillman and Marshall both seem like possible candidates for extensions and cap reductions for this year. Peppers 16M cap hit really hurts this year, but there is not much they can really do in that situation.

Not bad, I wouldn't be mad if we did something like that. If we resigned Louis and drafted Jones however, I wouldn't sign Vazquez. If they did sign 2x FA OL, then only one would be needed in the first couple of rounds. I would back load some contracts to save a couple million in the cap for the first two years or so. Also, I would hope that the Bears could restructure a few contracts to squeeze a little more out of this year's cap. Then drop some dead weight with Davis, Spaeth, and Hester to save more. I would avoid Skov, as he blew out his knew already. Also, if Url is coming back for 2, I would address MLB next year unless someone like Ogletree is there at 20. With the first two picks, I would go OL and TE. Those are the two biggest needs with Urlacher signed for 2 more years. If we traded down out of the first and picked up an extra 4th, the two 4th round picks should be any combination of (OL, WR, LB, and possibly DB) For the last 2 picks (5th and 6th), I would look to add depth at DB or QB, or whatever position was not addressed to that point. Here is what I hope for the cap hits for this year to be (assuming some back loading on Melton and Bushrod): Free Agency Our Own---------------- Melton - 5M Urlacher - 4M Roach - 2M Louis - 2M New------------------------- Bushrod LT - 5M That would put FA cap hits at about 18M for this year and 5M saved for the rookie pool. So 23M total, which seems about right if we have some dead money in contracts from guys we release. One other note, I would trade Hester in a heartbeat if we were able to lose his cap hit and gain a 5th-6th round pick.

Cool thanks.

Found this over at PFT, I don't know if this has been discussed. Looks like we have an extra $3.2 million space over the cap if we would like to use it. Check out the link and let me know if I am reading that correctly. If so, that would be a little nice extra buffer for free agency or re-signing some players. Link: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/...ments-for-2013/

Rounds 1 and 2 have to be a combination of OL, ILB, and TE. With at least one OL. For rounds 4 and 5, a WR and any need not selected in the 1st and 2nd. So by the 6th round, we should've selected at least OL, LB, and TE, with the possibility of another OL or WR.

I don't know if we can afford to trade out of the 2nd, as most of the impact players are in the first 50 picks. If I would trade down, it would be in the first. Also, no TE's? I can't see us drafting 2x LB's in our 3 picks and the other being a WR. I would say the first two picks will be any combination of OL, LB, and TE, with a possibility of 2x OL.

Yeah, It is really hard for me to see the Bears fitting Urlacher into the cap if we re-sign Melton and sign a FA OL. It only seems like we can do 2 of those.

Would it free up that much? I thought it was around half that.

5th Highest Offense salaries? Wow, sort of skewed by Hester's cap hit though.

It might also be due to Marshall and Jeffery. Hester is now 4th or 5th on the depth chart, so he is obviously not going to get the looks he wants. To me, he is shooting himself in the foot with these comments.

I would just like to see an exciting game with a close finish. These teams are pretty evenly matched, but SF has the wild-card in Kaepernick. Baltimore would seem to have the tougher task, having had to beat Indy, Denver, then NE to get here. If they win, it was due to Deer Antler Spray.

Don't forget a draft pick, if we can get Bushrod for LT, and a G in the first or second, that line would look even better. Jones would be a nice flex pick because he could slide to Center when Garza retires.

At this point, we just need to address the OLine, regardless of how or when we do it. I can't really complain of drafting a Guard in the 1st if he improves the line and the dude is solid contributor for a decade, as long as we sign or draft a tackle as well.

Next important dates: Feb. 23-26, 2013: NFL Scouting Combine, Indianapolis March 12, 2013: Free agency starts (3 pm)

The first rule of the Guy Code is: you do not talk about the Guy Code.

http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1...a4-54920f468e1a Excited about Trestman and the direction of the organization, and will be working with Jeffery starting on Monday. That mentorship is great to see.

Urlacher was essentially playing hurt most of the year after that late knee surgery, so any assessment on his decline is sort of skewed. The deciding factor is going to be money anyway, everyone knows he can still play, and an average Urlacher is still a pretty damn good MLB and leader.

I would think we could sign him to a 2-yr deal and draft a MLB in the first 2 rounds next year, then have the rookie learn from Urlacher in his first year before taking over for him the next year.

Urlacher makes a pretty strong case to re-sign him. I thought his wording was interesting. He seems to understand that to stay on this team, he is going to have to take a pay cut. I wouldn't mind bringing him back for a 2-year incentive laden deal. This would allow us to focus the draft on other needs. More at the link: http://espn.go.com/chicago/nfl/story/_/id/...n-chicago-bears

I would be happy with Johnson and Long anchoring our line for the next decade. Instead of going WR in the 5th, I would look to go TE instead, especially if we didn't sign one in FA. TE seems to be more of a need than WR3 or WR4.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he and a draft pick or someone like Keller were the top 2 TE's entering the season with Davis and Spaeth gone.

Yeah, I am not complaining how that traded ended up, getting Marshall using the same pick was a nice deal. Hardin was picked with the Bears original 3rd rounder.