Thread: Some News on Cliff Avril................

There's actually a glimmer of hope in this. The Lion's are pretty much hard against the cap with little to work with. In order to either keep him or franchise him for $12.4 mil they'll need to clear some cap space. Clearly Avril indicates he would consider leaving if the Lions were significantly outbid.

This could open the door for another Julius Peppers type play where we hit a team that has cap issues my offering a deal structured in such a way that would be difficult for them to match. I'm not talking about a "poison pill" type offer just one that's front loaded so much that the Lions couldn't clear enough cap space to match it.

Originally Posted by soulman

There's actually a glimmer of hope in this. The Lion's are pretty much hard against the cap with little to work with. In order to either keep him or franchise him for $12.4 mil they'll need to clear some cap space. Clearly Avril indicates he would consider leaving if the Lions were significantly outbid.

This could open the door for another Julius Peppers type play where we hit a team that has cap issues my offering a deal structured in such a way that would be difficult for them to match. I'm not talking about a "poison pill" type offer just one that's front loaded so much that the Lions couldn't clear enough cap space to match it.

I don't think the lions bid will be what we would have to beat.

Originally Posted by blinddeafmute

I don't think the lions bid will be what we would have to beat.

Good point. He and Mario Williams are two of the biggest prizes in FA but there is the possibility they re-sign with their current teams. They are approaching it differently though. Avril says "no hometown discount" and want to be "shown the money" Williams said that money isn't the biggest issue to him. There are other factors.

Personally I think MWill may be the better target. Houston is getting better but are they a true SB contender? Pep left Carolina because the team was headed south and he wanted a shot at another SB ring. If the Bears could convince MWill that he'd that one missing element in the pass rush that gets us over the top on that side of the ball and he can see we're making plans to improve the offense enough to compete maybe just maybe he becomes a Bear.

If we got Mario Williams, he'd be the last person needed to be added to the defense this year. Everything else needs to be spent on a better o-line to protect Jay and get us into the end zone (the latter being very forgotten because the interior part of the line is okay at pass protection), as well as better receivers, to protect Jay and get us into the end zone....

I smell championship, fellas. Give me Avril or Williams. We'll have the best defensive line in the NFC North then. We already have nearly as good of an interior defensive line as Detroit despite the fact that the Lions have Suh. The only issue, then, would be to get Brandon Carr to come to Chicago and then another wide receiver. The rest would then be taken care of in the draft. I can definitely see us competing hard against the Packers next year if we get those elements of our game squared away.

Originally Posted by Dagan81

I smell championship, fellas. Give me Avril or Williams. We'll have the best defensive line in the NFC North then. We already have nearly as good of an interior defensive line as Detroit despite the fact that the Lions have Suh. The only issue, then, would be to get Brandon Carr to come to Chicago and then another wide receiver. The rest would then be taken care of in the draft. I can definitely see us competing hard against the Packers next year if we get those elements of our game squared away.

As much as I would like to get Floyd, i couldn't get just one WR from FA and depend on the draft to get another one. The offense needs serious help, the defense can deal with patchwork help for one last year, but next year onwards, gotta get new blood in.

Originally Posted by Henry Burris

As much as I would like to get Floyd, i couldn't get just one WR from FA and depend on the draft to get another one. The offense needs serious help, the defense can deal with patchwork help for one last year, but next year onwards, gotta get new blood in.

I think the good news is that Emery is going to address most of these needs in some way this offseason. Not all of them will be addressed; that would be impossible to do without having the type of salary cap space that a team like Tampa Bay has. But regardless of that, I think most of our problems will be addressed somehow, either by free agency or the draft.

I think it's interesting to point out that Alshon Jeffrey has dropped all the way down to the end of the first round on many boards. Some are saying that he's the second coming of Detroit's Mike Williams. I think that's a scary thing to look at. I really don't want to take Floyd in the first round because of his legal record and the fact that it could become a hindrance to his ability to perform at a high level for the Bears when he gets to the NFL. I think, like soul, that Floyd is a boom-or-bust type of player like so many players that have come along in the past few years have been who had legal issues. One such player was Lawrence Phillips. The guy practically broke Dick Vermeil's heart with all the chances he was given to straighten his act up. And while he has gone on to have a good career in Cincinnati, Cedric Benson never amounted to much with the Bears, though I will say that, in part, was due to his playing on so many bad offenses with bad lines. Anyway, he has/had legal issues coming out the ass, and I don't think he has even scratched what potential he could have had if he had stayed out of trouble.

Do Avril and Forte have the same agent? All this stirring things up in the press and negotiating in print is useless IMO. Teams will do what they will do and I think it has more of a negative impact on fans opinion of a player than a positive one. I appreciate their situation but I don't want to hear one of the star players on my team threatening to not play. Contrast Avril's attitude and refusal to consider a "hometown discount" to remain in Detroit with that of Mario Williams who says it's not all about money.

If I were Phil Emery and Lovie Smith I'd be sitting on Mario's doorstep the moment the FA bell rang with an offer for him to come to Chicago to play opposite Julius Peppers. Give me those two bookends along with Melton, Okoye, and Paea providing an inside rush and we just fixed the pass rush problem. The nice thing is we've got the money to do it and we're only a player or two away from being a SB contender again. Emery should have a photo of MWill on the wall of his office and a firm figure from Clif Stein on what we can offer the guy.

Avril, a holdout is possible if he gets franchise tag

Lions' pass rusher says it's business Brad Biggs

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Print This February 22, 2012, 10:27 AM EST



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Cliff Avril has been making the rounds.


He’s telling everyone that asks him he would prefer the Detroit Lions don’t place the franchise tag on him.
Avril wants to be paid top dollar as one of the NFL’s emerging pass-rushing talents. If the franchise tag is placed on him, he has not ruled out a holdout. That’s what he told ESPN’s “NFL Live,” according to the Detroit Free Press.
“It's a possibility,” Avril said. “There's a lot of different possibilities of things that can happen if I do get franchised. I don't want to hold out. I definitely don't want to be that guy, I guess, but that's definitely a possibility if that's the case.”


No one wants to be “that guy” because “that guy” often winds up putting a bulls-eye on his back when he does so.


Have teammates talked to him about a potential holdout?


“Nobody's really said anything to me about it,” Avril said. “It's moreso the fans that are taking it the wrong way, I think, a little bit. I never said I was going to hold out, but it's a possibility.

“I think people are just, you know, they think of holdout meaning you're being a distraction or whatnot, but people have to realize it's also a business, and unfortunately, this is part of the business.”


Follow me on Twitter: @BradBiggs
Brad Biggs covers the Bears for the Chicago Tribune

Originally Posted by Henry Burris

If we got Mario Williams, he'd be the last person needed to be added to the defense this year. Everything else needs to be spent on a better o-line to protect Jay and get us into the end zone (the latter being very forgotten because the interior part of the line is okay at pass protection), as well as better receivers, to protect Jay and get us into the end zone....

As much as an OL is crucial to success, i think the Giants just showed us how devastating an excellent DL can be when it comes to championships. Yes, fix the OL, but dont give up on possible improvements to the DL, either. Just dont follow the Angelo method and toss a shitload of wasted draft picks at the problem expecting something to stick.