Thread: Resturcturing Current Bears Contracts

Originally Posted by WindyCity

I think now that Bowe is done that Marshall can be extended and I am hoping Tillman gets extended 2 years.

Those 2 seem like no brainers and could recoup close to 10 million.

Obvious cuts, Hester, Davis, Spaeth get you 6 million more.

I also think we pay the piper with Peppers this season. If we don't touch his contract and we release him in 2014 we owe him 6 million and we save 11 million. Any movement for this year gets added directly to the dead money next season when we need to resign Cutler, Wootton and Wright.

Ah yes but we're supposed to have far more cap space next year.

I'd dump Davis now but you'd still be using his cap $$$ to replace him unless Trestman has other ideas and he may. Hester and Spaeth would both need to be replaced as well so we won't gain full value of those cuts. Maybe a guy like Eldridge will prove to be a much cheaper alternative than Spaeth but if whoever we replace those guys with isn't already on the team some of that money is gonna get recycled into their replacements.

Personally I think Pep is still good enough for two more years so I'd go ahead and push it out into 2014 and 2015 and then look at possibly negotiating some salary reductions. After this year we'll have covered his guaranteed monies and if by chance we do release him next year it's about a break even and in 2015 we gain close to $10 mil. He's another guy you don't want to let go while he's still productive for you.

If we could redo Marshall, Tillman, and Jennings deals too I'd be a happy camper.

I would think we keep Pep at least 2 more seasons. This is probably Izzy's last year and will need to draft to replace him (holding my breath for Wootton). I can't see why Davis and/or Spaeth can't go bye-bye, Peanut and Jennings get reworked, and we gain either a TE or OL in FA. We're not the Jets for pity's sake.

Originally Posted by soulman

Melton can and will play under that tag if we don't get a long term deal done but I'm 99% certain they will once the rhetoric stops and reality sets in. He's not gonna be traded G. He's the center piece of the DLine now and virtually irreplaceable.

As for Pep you can read the above analysis. There are ways to gain some cap space now which still leave avenues open to reduce and/or eliminate some of those cap hits in 2014 and 2015. Right now we should be looking to buy some time and push cap obligations into years where they're more affordable and 2014 and 2015 should permit that.

I have a problem with that... Melton is not worth a 8.5 million next year for us. He is not the guy we should spend THAT MUCH money on for next year. The bigger problem I have is that Melton is not a DT you should have as your best DLineman. He is not dominating others like Harris did for us or others can do. He is no Smith or Wilfork or even Suh (when he actually shows up every now and then).

It's true that he is important to us, but having him playing under the Cap would be waste of resurces like Cap Space that I see as important resurce while our O is fucking bad. As of now, we can't even sign all of our own Free Agents. As of now, I start to doubt Emery. His Drafting hasn't set the world on fire and impressed - small sample size I know. The contracts he handed out are not what I thought would be good for us - Forte and so far he hasn't restructured/extended the contracts I want to be done yester yester yesterday. If all we do is keeping the team the way it was for 1 more year and just change coaching, we are not committed to winning the SB as soon as next season. Keep what we have + #20 & #50 overall is not going to win us the SB. If it does, we have big problems with fitting Cutler in and his new contract. He'd be a SB QB and they will get paid. Could get him for much less now. It's either we fail and miss the POs which would bring up more and more Emery doubters while going into a rebuild and wasting away the good years of Forte, Melton and Marshall or we end up paying much much more than we would have paid now. We won't change the QB anytime soon and we shouldn't doubt Cutler. Why wait?

Originally Posted by Coolhandluke

I'd say pepp will be here 1 more year, then emery better had been right about shea.

It would be foolish to expect McClellin to be anywhere near the same player that Pep is. Guys like him are a once in a decade kind of guy and they're all top five picks like Pep was. To think that a 6'3" guy who goes 250-260lbs is gonna have the physical tools to dominate that position the way a guy like Pep who's 6'7" and 290lbs does is a recipe for a big disappointment. Pep is a freak player.

Shea can be an impact player but he's not ever gonna be a Pep which is why you let Pep play as long as Pep can play. Guys like him hang it up when the can't dominate any longer. They never just fade away and Urlacher won't either. Once Pep is gone RDE will best be served by committee unless we find another dominant DE somewhere down the line but if we do we'll draft one. I don't think you'll ever see Emery hand out a FA contract like that again.

At most we've got two more years with this defense intact and if we expect to get to a SB we'd be better off to keep it intact than not. We have enough other things to fix on the other side of the ball right now. We need at least two more drafts and FA periods to restock that defense.