Thread: Your Free Agent Wish List [Top 10]

Originally Posted by Chi66

I'm not really a fan of pursuing Abrahams personally. He seems like guy who gets it done on speed and dunno how effective he'd be on Soldier Field conditions, plus he's gettin on in years and once he slows down he could be straight ineffective. If we're going to upgrade the DL it's Mario or bust when it comes to free agency if you ask me. If we grab Vincent Jackson I'll be ecstatic that Cutler has a true #1 but as of right now I think Mario would have a bigger benefit to the team. Peppers changes how our D plays and adding another younger version could only do good, also gives us a replacement plan for when Pep does retire.

I would have been happy with Mathis as a fall back but not so much Abrahams but now there's no longer a choice. As far as experienced pass rushers go there's MWill and there's Abrahams. If we don't go after MWill big time then I'd just as soon draft a younger pass rusher who'll cost us no more and most likely less than Abrahams and use the cap $$$ at WR's instead. Out of the available FA's including VJax, M.C., Meachem, and Eddie Royal there is not one rookie I would spend a first round pick on over these guys including Eddie Royal.

Sign Royal and any one of the others and a rookie pick in round 2-4 and we upgrade what we have now considerably. Imagine VJax, Royal and Bennett as the three top receivers along with Davis at TE being used at a receiver again. A great starting trio and very good 2nd tier depth behind them.

I still say if it came down to a choice between MWill and VJax I'd take Mario everytime but like I said, that's me.

In no particular order and considering ALL possibilities :

Chase Daniel
Robert Meachem
Laurent Robinson
Eddie Royal
Chaz Schilens
Visanthe Shiancoe
Jared Gaither
Khalif Barnes
John Abraham
Kroy Biermann
Carlos Rogers
Cortland Finnegan
Terrell Thomas
Aaron Ross

- any player who could actually wind up being who we actually DO pick up if you think out of the box a little.

Originally Posted by lklrlolnlilklsox

Well, word has it that they are very interested in Abraham, so what does that tell you?

It tells me they have the luxury of going after a guy like Abraham instead of MWill because their line is already stacked: JPP, Tuck and Osi.

Originally Posted by lklrlolnlilklsox

This is all good and fun in your imagination, but in reality, all paying him less this year means is his contract will be even more burdensome for the remainder of its life. IF, he gets Pep money and we pay him <$10m this season, that means he's going to average somewhere around $20m for the remainder if his agent is any damn good, and that makes signing him even more nonsensical. People are saying he would be replacing Pep who we cut in the remaining couple years, well, I deal in the here and now and right now Pep is still an absolute beast of utmost importance to the success of our entire D. We also have to re-sign Okoye now and Melton next year.

First of all I said nothing about cutting Pep. All I said was that his contract will be up and in 2016 when he's 35 years old and probably ready to retire but MWill is only gonna be 31 and still in his prime. We get a window of four years of both of them playing together. That's a #1 overall pick and a #2 overall pick as your DE bookends. How often do you get an opportunity like that?

Within this 4 year period we're likely to see Uralcher finish his career and some big time $$$ comes off the books, Briggs will be gone, Peanut too, and Forte will probably be about finished but Mario will still have at least a couple of years left to go. We've got a window of opportunity that's gonna begin to close pretty soon if we expect to win a SB with most of the crew we have on board now. Personally I think guys like Pep and Peanut and Urlacher deserve a shot at a ring before they retire.

How do we a afford it? The same way I've laid out in two other threads. In order to pay top price talent we need to get younger and less expensive elsewhere. We always seem to have journeyman talent nearing the end of their careers and while not that costly individually they are collectively. A great example would be Izzy and Spencer another or Barber and we stop making expensive mistakes with guys like RWill and Meriweather. As much as I love the guy if we have MWill we don't need to re-sign Izzy and we replace a $2.5 mil cap cost with a rookie at $500k and start coaching him up playing in rotation with Pep and MWill. Now multiply Izzy times 4 or 5 other guys nearing the end of their careers and equally costly and all of a sudden you've lowered the cap cost by $8-$10 mil by going younger.

In the Angelo era we didn't do this because we failed to draft well enough to replace those guys with less expensive talent. With Emery in charge that will change. Comparatively speaking rookies are cheap. Carimi's entire contract was for $7 mil and change over 4 years when a few years ago his signing bonus alone would have been that much or more.

With the new CBA the rules have changed. The cap may remain more stagnant for a while before it begins to rise again but it will so some of the future increases will be absorbed by that. The other major change was the new rules regarding rookie compensation. It makes stocking up on more rookies and guys still playing off their rookie contracts a great way to manage cap costs. This is just the second draft under these new rules but as time goes by and rosters become younger and less expensive it's gonna spill over into vet deals as well.

The All Pros will still get their money but the journeymen will have to compete with the younger guys even more than now. Another good example would be AA. A guy like that can't expect that extra mil or so without the risk of being cut because there's a rookie who's 80% as good as you are just waiting to take your place for less money and after a year of playing he'll be just as good and still a lot younger. This new CBA will change the way you manage your roster and the teams that are better at it than others should have an advantage cap wise. I believe that's the reason why Phil Emery got the GM job. He had the best credentials out of all the candidates for building from the draft. We didn't need a money man. That's what Phillips and Stein are for and Stein is damn good at his job.

It's not my imagination sox. You're looking at roster and cap management the way it was before this new CBA and I'm looking at it as we travel down the road 3 or 4 years from now and beyond. In their own way the owners swung some decided advantages back to their side of the pond. The NFLPA basically sold out the rookie and the journeyman in favor of the stars. The top players who always get a big piece of the pie because of franchise tags will still get it but the $$$ has to come from somewhere and where is cutting back on the NFL's version of the "middle class". Why do I want to pay an 8 year vet journeyman OG $3 mil a year when I could plug a 2nd year guy in still working off his 3rd round rookie contract making less than $500k and let him play up to the vets level.

You've said it yourself when others talk about signing a guy like Nicks for $60 mil when he's not gonna be an impact player on your team. Is he better than Lance Louis or CWill? Yeah he is but is he $5-$6 mil a year better? No and can you win with guys like Louis and CWill? Well we were before Carimi, Cutler and CWill got hurt and I think we can assume we will when they all return.

It's a new ballgame sox. There just haven't been enough innings played for everyone to figure it out yet. That new CBA slapped a major compensation reduction on rookies. No more Sam Bradford $50 mil worth of guarantees contracts so that savings will flow to the vets. But....the vets who will benefit the most will be the top tier guys as usual and the 2nd tier guys may actually see that rookie cap pulling their pay scale down. I'm talking about more than just money here. I'm talking about acquiring talent too but I see a new way to do it and I think the teams that realize it first will become the winners over the next ten years.

So can we afford MWill? You bet your ass we can and we should find a way to afford him given the potential benefits. Abraham may be a short term solution but seeing as he and Pep are about the same age we'd just have two major pass rushers to replace in a few years rather than one and Abraham is not Mario Williams by a long shot. One side note to this. Mathis just agreed to a 4 year $36 mil deal with Indy so that shoots the idea of getting guys like him and Abraham for around $5 mil per year right in the ass.

Pep averages $14 mil per year off his deal. Is he worth $5 mil per year more than Mathis? If the answer is yes then MWill is also worth $5 mil more per year than Abrahams who will no doubt be looking for money similar to what Mathis got. I would have been interested in those two for around $5-$6 mil per year but at $9-$10 mil, no way. Give me MWill instead.

Sorry this got as long as it did but it takes a while to describe what I see happening economically as it relates to cap management and player contracts.