Thread: ESPN: "Some teams face big free-agent calls" (Bears)

Originally Posted by BigBadPapaBear

If this team can avoid major injuries the sky is the limit for these guys.

With one exception that I can think of (2010 Packers) basically every champion has a relatively low number of injuries. I know when we went to the SB, we were very fortunate in that area.

Also, weren't the last two times the Steelers were in the SB, they had one of the worst offensive lines, and when GB beat them, wasn't that pretty much the same deal?

Originally Posted by BearStuff

With one exception that I can think of (2010 Packers) basically every champion has a relatively low number of injuries. I know when we went to the SB, we were very fortunate in that area.

DING, DING, DING, WE HAVE A WINNER! We were also ridiculously fortunate in that area in 2010 when we went to the NFCCG...and of course, got beat by the injury riddled Packers that you refer to.

That's the article John Clayton wrote isn't it? I don't know how he can project an exact number when we don't know what the cap limit will be and he doesn't make note of that but anyway the Bears manage their cap well so I'm not to concerned.

You have guys like Spencer and Spaeth who are making $2.5 - $3.5 mil who can be replaced with younger talent. It's unlikely that Campbell will return so there's $3.5 mil almost for certain. Some of the big dollars in Hester contract won't be earned and you can take guys like Peanut who have big cap numbers that you still want to keep around and turn salary into bonus and spread out the cap hit. There are also bonus dollars charged against the 2012 cap that won't be earned and will end up being a credit to the 2013 cap so those numbers Clayton is putting out are very raw right now.

You also gotta remember that Cliff Stein is one of the best cap specialists in the NFL and I'm sure he has most of this laid out on some form of a spreadsheet matrix where he can look at what he has coming up, what he has to work with, what can be pushed around and what can be delayed.

Cliff's office is probably like the big board in the "war room" on draft day only his big board is on a computer monitor on his desk. There's money and there'll be more than enough to keep the core guys. Even if they sign Cutler to an extension now they can structure it so the bigger cap hits come later on when there's more cap space and some of the other big cap hits have retired.

Give the guy a huge round of applause. He got done what I would have said three weeks ago wouldn't he got the Forte deal done. Emery gets the credit publicly but Cliff Stein is the numbers guy who negotiates all of the deals and has been for quite a while even when Angelo was around.