What will our record be this season?

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Originally Posted by JJ-30

Now that we have almost no CAP money left in which to fix the Offense I see us going 5-11 and this maybe our best year for awhile. If yesterday tag is any indication of this off season and I think it is we will not go Offense in the first round of the draft.

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I know this thread is just about shooting the breeze while we are in a dead zone of the offseason, but trying to predict this now with a thousand factors yet to be determined is about as accurate and trying to forecast whether it will rain or shine 5 weeks from next Thursday.

Yesterdays Melton tag is the but the first of many personnel moves upcoming and it was widely expected anyway. Our current cap number is not set in stone at all and Emery has made it clear in press conferences that he recognizes the deficiencies at the OL and TE positions. He expressly didn't pull out the self-delusional JA mantra that "the talent is there". It will be addressed. How successfully or unsuccessfully we won't know until at least November.

I think this season will be a reality check leading us into a rebuild but this is from what I see now. Fa and draft can change my opinion

Ok first off I am not worried about 5 weeks from now I am worried about 9 days from now. We have 3 to 5 million to spend if FA that won't buy much and sure won't get any top players.

We still have other players to sign that should pretty much take care of the rest of the CAP if not more.

Cuts, sure we can make cuts, get rid of the dead weights on the team, but who is to say that replacing this guys aren't going to cost us more. And try to remember for every cut we have to replace the guy with someone.

Restructure, sure but most of the restructure deals we make won't be for much of a saving as far as the CAP goes, cutler could help but we are being told nothing will happen until next year, Tillman I am sure will restructure his deal, maybe even Marshall, but there is no reason for Pepper to restructure his deal and if we cut him we take a 6 million dollar hit on our CAP so cutting him doesn't seem to be the answer.

Ok lets go to the draft, first round, I don't see the Bears passing on either Alec Ogletree or Manti Te'o and as it looks one of them will be there at #20 if not both. In rounds 2 and 4 we are hearing we might go TE and then WR. Thats just great now we have two new rookie weapon on Offense, not sure how they will help with Cutler still running for his life, since we haven't been able to make any big moves to improve the O line.

Of course we always have the JA move to fall back on, wait for the second round of FA and pick up O linemen no one else wants. That has worked so well in the past and heck they do come cheap, especially when there no CAP money to spend.

And so everyone knows where I am coming from I ran out of Bear Kool-Aid and I broke my rose colored glasses.

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Originally Posted by MPBears68

I know this thread is just about shooting the breeze while we are in a dead zone of the offseason, but trying to predict this now with a thousand factors yet to be determined is about as accurate and trying to forecast whether it will rain or shine 5 weeks from next Thursday.

Yesterdays Melton tag is the but the first of many personnel moves upcoming and it was widely expected anyway. Our current cap number is not set in stone at all and Emery has made it clear in press conferences that he recognizes the deficiencies at the OL and TE positions. He expressly didn't pull out the self-delusional JA mantra that "the talent is there". It will be addressed. How successfully or unsuccessfully we won't know until at least November.

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I have no idea. :( This season scares me though lol

There have been some good points here.

1. We can cut players, that's true, but then we have even MORE holes to fill on our roster. No free lunch here.Anyone cut, will need to be replaced. Decent replacements cost money. Decent FA's are often overpriced for what you get.

2. Melton's cap hit is significant. I'm not saying it was wrong to keep him, but it does hammer our cap situation.

3. Restructuring contracts is not a panacea. Sure it will free up some cap space. But we are not suddenly rich with cap money.

4. We have an aging team on defense. Any of the old players (not just Urlacher) can hit the wall at any time now (pull an Orlando Pace). Time bombs ticking.

5. Our offense has serious needs beyond the offensive line woes, and our OL woes are not going to be entirely fixed in one off-season. I just don't see how we can do this money-wise or draft pick wise. Not 100%.

6. We have 2 draft picks this year that could net us decent starters who could help us day-1. With no third round pick this year, that leaves us 4 later picks that may net us a couple of "projects" for the future and a couple that are training camp fodder at worst, or hail mary's for the future at best. J'Marcus Webb is probably the poster boy here for those last picks.

Then, even if we have the most gifted of coaching staffs now, keep in mind that this is their first year together. New everything (heck, they're even remodeling Halas Hall), so print up the new playbooks, roll out new schemes, reduce Webb's to "stick man cartoon form" & pray we can to better than 8-8.

Miracles DO happen. Seriously. But just because we had a 10 win season last year under Lovie Smith's regime, doesn't mean we'll have MORE wins THIS season. Ultimately it can be a good thing, but it may not be a good thing this first season under Trestman. This could be a multi-year project.

w/no draft or FA that is an impossible set of questions to answer. Hell I'd be unwilling to give anything other then guesses until a few weeks into training camp to see how everyone is doing.

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Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

There have been some good points here.

1. We can cut players, that's true, but then we have even MORE holes to fill on our roster. No free lunch here.Anyone cut, will need to be replaced. Decent replacements cost money. Decent FA's are often overpriced for what you get.

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What are you talking about here, JABF?

Let's take everybody's favorite waste of $3 million in cap space, Kellen Davis. Do you think cutting him "creates a hole"? LMAO. The hole is ALREADY THERE, my friend. It's not like we are cutting loose a productive or even serviceable player just to save money because he's "too expensive". We would be cutting someone who TOTALLY SUCKED and cost us games and was way overpaid to begin with. In the worse case scenario, a cheap rookie from the draft starting in place of Davis would leave us no worse off in terms of on-field production. And for similar money, we can get a vet FA who will give us much more. Have you forgotten how much this guy BLEW both receiving and blocking?

How about Campbell? Do you think losing his $3.5 million salary "creates a new hole"? See above. (yes, I realize that he's a FA)

Hester? There's another $2.1 mill. What hole is created there? He had 2 good returns last year. Teams lost their fear of kicking to him after about week 8. And we all know what a stellar receiving weapon he was. Either Weems (another cut candidate) or a rookie WR draftee can give us as much or maybe more for far cheaper.

Spaeth? He's a good blocker and that is something, I agree. Is he worth a nearly $3 million cap hit this year? I'll grant you a "minor hole" might be created there at best.

What about Garza? He's vet depth at best at this point and thats probably a generous assessment. A pretty minor hole at most would be created by losing his $2.1 million in cap hit, especially if we draft a C high.

Point is, no one is seriously talking about cutting highly productive players here in a "panic fire sale" that will be difficult or overly expensive to replace (as Melton would have been if let go). We are talking about cutting overpaid and/or over-the-hill players which nets millions to the bottom line even after filling their roster positions.

OK, I'll play the optimistic here lol
I'll say 12-4
...Just several months ago most Bears fans were enthusiastic with the departure of Smith & staff. Tice was considered a terrible play caller. Lovie's Tampa2 was getting tiresome and predictable in certain situations. Players were not developed from that coaching staff. Even with all of this, the team still managed 10-6.

In Emery, I do trust. He is very professional in nature and I honestly believe Trestman will be the same way. With that thought, and the thought of a new system on both sides of the ball, I think this will be a surprise year in many ways. I feel players will have the mindset they should. They will not feel comfortable under Lovie's wing.

I can see the Defense producing on the same level, with or without Urlacher. I also can see the Offense rising up from a 14 point/game average.

Now my optimistic thought may fall flat on it's face with what appears to be a tougher schedule this year, but I'm ready and waiting to BEAR the "F" DOWN in 2013 and hope for the best.
:bearbang[1]:

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Originally Posted by MPBears68

What are you talking about here, JABF?

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I'm not saying it's bad to cut the players, and I agree that we should offload salaries for players who no longer produce at a high level. I'm A-OK with that.

My only points are that there's a lot of moving parts to taking the team to the next level. It's like a used car that Angelo/Lovie left us fans, that needs attention in a lot of areas. We have a limited budget to fix this old car. Parts are wearing out (gettin' old) and they're only going to give us 6 new parts in the draft this year. The FA parts can cost an arm & a leg :smile:.

Now it gets more complicated.

We want this car to perform better than the Angelo/Lovie days. So we gotta hope those new draft parts and FA parts are better than the old Angelo/Lovie parts, and still within our budget (cap). In addition to all of this we have to pray the existing old parts hold together (especially on defense.....some of those parts are old as the hills).

Then we have a whole area of this car that has REALLY bad parts - the offensive line.

We need to rip those babies out and throw them away. But, we do have two OL parts that broke (Louis & Carimi) and we have tried to have them "fixed" but we don't know if THOSE two parts will work very well now. The Carimi part was horrific last year.....but we're hoping that part is now fixed and can run at the RT spot. If not, we may have to bolt him in as a "guard" part. But some say he's too tall to fit as a guard part. In that case we may have to trade him (or even shit-can him).

The one OL part we think MIGHT be better is the "Webb" part. This is the strangest part we've had in many years.

We think this Webb part may carry us to victory lane, but it's making funny sounds and some people say we need to unbolt this Webb part, from the left side of the OL, and bolt it in to the RT side (better performance that way). Yet others say we need to rip the "Webb" part out completely, and use it as a backup part........but what's that part gonna back up? Great, more money we have to spend.

And some say the "OT Long" part (a $10 million dollar a year part) is the only way to go. Yet this part breaks a lot. Miami is going to shit-can this part. But WE can get it for the $10 mil a year.

But something smells here. They want to get rid of the part, and we're supposed to WANT that part and pay $10-million dollars a year for it. I just don't follow that at all, but perhaps the Long part is magic (like the old parts that Tice used to sprinkle his magic pixie dust on).

Some of us swear that the Bushrod part is the way to replace the Webb part.

But others swear that the Bushrod part is no better than the Webb part - that we REALLY need that fancy Albert part (it does cost more than the Bushrod part, but cheaper than the Long part).

Are you following all of this mechanic stuff to this point? I won't even go into the many other parts that the old car needs (WR parts, TE parts....the TE is shot.......backup QB part, and the MLB part is so old it's gonna give out any day.....and on and on and on. Lots of parts needed.

http://classicoldsmobile.com/forums/...-motor-out.jpg

But it all gives me (and probably Emery) a headache. The bottom line is that we need a lot of new parts. Other parts are wearing out. Others need to be ripped out and thrown away. And the money isn't there to do all we want.

And we want to win a Super Bowl with this old car. I don't know if we have all the parts to compete in THIS year's race. :lol-032:

We now have this:
http://memimage.cardomain.com/member...85_10_full.jpg




We want one of these:

http://viterbivoices.usc.edu/wp-cont...ster_20062.jpg

LOL, my friend. Fortunately men like Emery, Stein, and Trestman are paid big bucks to make the "parts" fit and stay under budget. There's an interesting article/post on WCG about the cap and what to do about it. It might put your mind more at ease (or maybe not lol).

Uncle Phil strikes me as the kind of manager who doesn't take a morning dump without first having a plan and several backups in mind to boot. The Melton tag was no surprise to any Bears fan not living under a rock so he wasn't caught unawares. The only cap "surprise" so far this young offseason was a positive one--that the 2013 cap was set $3+ million HIGHER than had been anticipated. Em is on it.

BTW, I forgot to add in Matt Toeina. He's a sure-fire cut that doesn't "create a hole" (he barely was active last year) and nets another $1.225 million in cap savings. Don't panic.