Thread: Forte wants $25M guaranteed?

Originally Posted by The Benjamin

Pssst

Did you see the question mark in the title?
Did you see me asking if anyone else heard that?

I did not see that story anywhere, but he was confident he heard that on the radio.

Yes I did and it wasn't really a dig at you. It's just that I'd see that on the Bears.com site so often that it's become a standing joke. He's not gonna get anywhere near that in guaranteed $$$ but I think he's making a pretty strong case for getting close to the $21 mil DWill got.

He has to be realistic because he's not a FA but the Bears also have to be realistic. The guy is playing like a man posessed and he's running better, with more power and more deceptively than he's ever run before. Forget about the past. Pay him for the now and the fact that there's no reason he can't continue to do what he's done this year for another 3 or 4 years before he tails off.

We seriously have not had an all around back who runs, catches and blocks like him since the days of Payton and Neal Anderson. You don't let a guy like that go somewhere else. He'll accept a franchise tag before he'll agree to a deal that only guarantees him $14 mil while DWill gets 50% more than that. The Bears have to do something to push that number a little higher or this will never get done. I knew it would come down to this when the whole thing started.

I find it amazing that NFL Network is only ranking Matt Forte the 4th best running back in Fantasy Football. Maybe it's because he hasn't gotten many rushing yards to date?

Originally Posted by Dagan81

I find it amazing that NFL Network is only ranking Matt Forte the 4th best running back in Fantasy Football. Maybe it's because he hasn't gotten many rushing yards to date?

I wouldn't trade Rice or Foster for him and I have both in my 8 men league.
Forte hasn't enough TDs like others have. Yards are not the problem

Originally Posted by GermansbombedPH

I wouldn't trade Rice or Foster for him and I have both in my 8 men league.
Forte hasn't enough TDs like others have. Yards are not the problem

I have no interest in ever playing Fantasy Football. To me, at times rooting against your own team is a damnable thing to do.

I posted some recently revealed info on the new rules for tagged players and it does not bode well for Forte. In fact it will cost him almost $2 mil in salary next year if he's franchised. This only increases the Bears leverage over him.

Essentially what has changed is the way the tag price is calculated. In the past it was the average of the 5 highest paid players at that position for the previous season. Now it's the average of the highest paid player in each of the last five seasons.

The net effect of this is it's a rollback of the cost of a franchise tag and in the case of RB's that amout is 19% less than it would have been under the previous rules. That reduces the cost of franchising him from about $9.5 mil to around $7.7 mil. Ain't that a kick in the head?

Originally Posted by soulman

I posted some recently revealed info on the new rules for tagged players and it does not bode well for Forte. In fact it will cost him almost $2 mil in salary next year if he's franchised. This only increases the Bears leverage over him.

Essentially what has changed is the way the tag price is calculated. In the past it was the average of the 5 highest paid players at that position for the previous season. Now it's the average of the highest paid player in each of the last five seasons.

The net effect of this is it's a rollback of the cost of a franchise tag and in the case of RB's that amout is 19% less than it would have been under the previous rules. That reduces the cost of franchising him from about $9.5 mil to around $7.7 mil. Ain't that a kick in the head?

And believe me: Angelo will use that leverage full-tilt on him.

Originally Posted by Dagan81

And believe me: Angelo will use that leverage full-tilt on him.

No doubt. It's gonna cost a lot of guys big money if they're franchised. The Packers Jermichael Finley is in the same boat and TE's get even less then RB's. I can see this creating some hangups in these extensions as time goes by. The NFLPA either didn't do their homework on this issue of they just didn't care enough to fight it.

What it comes down to for a guy like Matt Forte is that it's cheaper dollarwise to franchise him for two years and then deal with him as FA when he's nearer the end of his peak years than it does to reward him in the middle of his peak years. All it does is cost you a little more cap space but by next year that may not be an issue. This is not gonna be a popular rule change with guys like Matt Forte.

I've always believed that the NFLPA was a weak entity in comparison to Major League Baseball's and the NBA's player unions. For instance, when the NFL went to using a salary cap, the players were essentially powerless to stop the owners who have always ruled over the NFL landscape with an iron fist. In baseball and maybe to a lesser degree, basketball, there are no hard caps, and that's because there was good leadership in those leagues' players' associations. We may see something happen in the NBA, but so long as baseball is making money because of teams like the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, I just can't see the implementation of a hard cap coming to fruition.