Thread: Bears won't use franchise tag

Originally Posted by WindyCity

This is either a made up story, which is possible.

Or the Bears have completed a contract with Forte and will announce it later this week.

If the Bears let Forte leave without compensation I will lose my mind.

Now that's a thought all though I never knew Larry Mayer to play that kind of game but you could be right. Time is running on the decision to tag him or not and maybe they've worked out a deal in principal but are hammering out details.

So if that's the case after all is said and done will Forte say how happy is to know that the Bears have shown their appreciation and that he looks forward to spending his entire career with the Bears? Sometimes I think these guy all read off the same script. LOL

Well, Forte is on his way to perhaps getting a deal then if this is true. And then Detroit is not going to use the franchise tag on Cliff Avril? Wow. Maybe lady luck is shining upon us this day.

Jerry Angelo pissed me off by not spending what he had last season. We could have had Bushrod or Colon as our LT, but he screwed us.

Originally Posted by bearsinhouston

I think teams have the ability to roll over last years cap space? Not sure of the process or if it has to be declared and by when, but if so, we'd have quite a bit in the war chest -- assuming they wanted to spend it.

They do houston and here's the thread I did on it earlier today we may want to keep bumping this up to remind us. Depending on the cap limit which should fall between $120 mil and $125 mil the Bears will have a cap excess of somewhere between $25 mil and $30 mil. Go to the thread and you can read Clayton's article about how much some of the other teams have. We're king of hill in the NFCN but we're just a middle income type in the scheme of things. There are teams with twice what we have. Here's the link;

Adjusting The Salary Cap for 2011 Rollovers................

Adjusting The Salary Cap for 2011 Rollovers................

Adjusting salary cap for rollover totals

February, 13, 2012 Feb 13

5:45
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By Kevin Seifert




As we continue to explore the dry but important implementation of the NFL's new salary cap, I point you in the direction of John Clayton's Monday morning mailbag. Clayton describes a new facet of the 2012 cap: The ability of teams to roll over leftover space from the previous year, something that has pushed the available space of some teams to more than $60 million.

Alas, that won't be the case for any NFC North team in 2012. Each of them have rolled over 2011 leftovers, but the new space won't make a dramatic difference on the numbers we discussed last week. Again, it's important to stress that the NFL cap situation remains fluid, and the numbers will change between now and the start of the new league year on March 13. But let's give you an idea of what the rollover means for NFC North teams:

Chicago Bears
Last week's figure: $101.8
Rollover: About $7.7 million
What it means: The Bears are projected to have about $25 million in cap space.

Detroit Lions
Last week's figure: $122.8 million
Rollover: About $1.3 million
What it means: The Lions are very close to the projected cap number of about $120 million.

Green Bay Packers
Last week's figure: $115.3 million
Rollover: About $5.8 million
What it means: The Packers are about $10 million -- $11 million below the cap.

Minnesota Vikings
Last week's figure: $115.3 million
Rollover: About $1.9 million
What it means: That rollover is projected to be mitigated by a reconciliation (don't ask) that will basically leave the Vikings where they were: About $5 million under the cap.