Thread: Bears showing interest in TE Maneri

Originally Posted by JJ-30

If this is the best Emery can come up with then I guess JA wasn't so bad a GM after all. Except for the fact that Emery might be better at drating and we still aren't 100% sure on that, I don't see any differents between Emery and JA. Just like JA, Emery came out day one of FA signed a couple of FAs and then nothing. And if JA did signed someone later it was either who or what, starting to see the same pattern out of Emery. The big differents is JA use to make sure our FA were taken care of, Emery doesn't seem to give a shit about our FA and doesn't care if they walk. As a player if I am seeing nothing from our GM as far as making deals to keep our FA why would I be the least bit interested in restructuring my deal because I know I would be low balled by the Bears.

Sure the CAP is tight, but when you see other teams make big cuts to sign younger and better players why is Emery and the Bears sitting on there hands.

Just for the record JJ, I'm not sure you and I are far apart in our perspective. The only difference is that I AM still giving Emery the benefit of the doubt, especially since he's got a new coaching staff. VERY similar to the way JA started out with Jauron, and then Lovie. I'm guessing we were all thrilled with JA back then because we had a football guy with experience in charge after the Mikey McCaskey fiasco. Currently, Emery doesn't have a body of work to judge while Angelo's history with the Bears does. It's the difference between judging on the certainty of Hindsight as opposed to the speculation of foresight. I am not BLINDLY following Emery as our savior, but I'm willing to give him time to build the team he envisions. Hell, what other choice do we have? I'm not sure what the plan is, but I do know that we can't give out the kind of big contracts we've been giving out (especially looking at Peppers) without facing the piper at some point. You don't have to go very far to see those ramifications beyond the pie charts you shared with us from Seeters. There is some significant salary disparities shown in those charts that Emery didn't create, but he's having to deal with.

Originally Posted by JJ-30

If this is the best Emery can come up with then I guess JA wasn't so bad a GM after all. Except for the fact that Emery might be better at drating and we still aren't 100% sure on that, I don't see any differents between Emery and JA. Just like JA, Emery came out day one of FA signed a couple of FAs and then nothing. And if JA did signed someone later it was either who or what, starting to see the same pattern out of Emery. The big differents is JA use to make sure our FA were taken care of, Emery doesn't seem to give a shit about our FA and doesn't care if they walk. As a player if I am seeing nothing from our GM as far as making deals to keep our FA why would I be the least bit interested in restructuring my deal because I know I would be low balled by the Bears.

Sure the CAP is tight, but when you see other teams make big cuts to sign younger and better players why is Emery and the Bears sitting on there hands.

Well shoot JJ this guy is nothing more than another TE prospect to play as a spare OT in two TE sets. He has his #1 guy now and he's a 3 down player who can block so this guy or whoever takes that spot is nothing more than spare parts and he doesn't want to spend more than pocket change on him.

He won't play all that many snaps on offense and then mostly just short yardage, goal line and probably on FG and PAT teams and maybe KR coverage. Only the top 51 contracts count against the cap in the offseason
anyway and this guy won't be in that group. He's just a guy they're looking at for camp. They need 90 now instead of 80 so he has to find them somewhere.

I don't see all that many older players that he can cut. He's let most of those guys hit FA already and checking out his options as far as re-signing them or replacing them. Right now it looks to me like all of our guys and quite a few others are falling into this second signing phase were they're willing to accept far less than they were initially shooting for. The market is dictating their value and terms and Emery is using that as a bargaining tool because the cap is tight.

It's a little unfair to contrast him with JA not only because his moves have been far better but also because JA was dealing with an ever rising cap during his tenure which made it easier to re-sign his core guys and still have cap space to shop with. He just never spent it well most of the time is all. The main reason we're seeing so many vets in FA right now is because most of the league is up against their caps. About the only teams who aren't or weren't when it began were the "bottom feeders" who didn't spend in previous years and who have been second division teams. The winners are all struggling a little.

He's not through yet and I expect to see a few more guys come on board including our own but it's gonna have to be at prices he can pay or it's not gonna happen. I still believe he'll redo at least one or two contracts to free up the space he needs but until he knows what he needs he's sitting tight and letting the market come to him. That's exactly what he did so far and it worked. He filled two big needs at prices that I'd consider very good deals considering the caliber of the players he got.

He's just bringing in prospects right now to look at and most if not all of them won't even cost him a cap hit.