O.K., Capologists: Here are the numbers. What are your thoughts?

[Toast88]

Ever so slightly off topic - but if Dalton is leaving but Foles is staying, or the team are trying to trade him, why is Dalton starting and not Foles - who you would surely want to give reps or showcase??

Makes no sense

I'm sure in Nagy's mind, he started Dalton because he believes he gives the team the best chance to win the game, which is the only thing Nagy cares about at this point.

But yes, I agree---makes no sense. And at this point, I think I'd disagree that Dalton gives the Bears a better chance to win than Foles, but Nagy clearly thinks so.

 

[Visionman]

Packers' cap situation:

Holy shit.

Total Cap Liabilities: $253,277,656

• Top 51: $252,627,738
• Team Cap Space: (-$40,426,300)

View attachment 16478

But if it pays off with a SB for them this year, it’s all worth it…

 

[Toast88]

But if it pays off with a SB for them this year, it’s all worth it…

That's true of every move every year, but yes, you're right.

 

[Rise]

Don’t forget they also take a $5 million hit for Andy and another $5 million or so hit for Graham cause Pace kicked those cans down the road. Isn’t he great?

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

Unfortunately like most of Pace's free agents who don't work out we are going to be paying for their corpses beyond the years they are on the team. This isn't unique to Pace, a lot of teams do this, that means their void years are already future cap hits.

In the grand scheme, these cap hits aren't that bad unless we're talking about Mack/Quinn -

Jimmy G through 2025 VOID years 2023 -2025
Mario Edwards Jr 2025 VOID years 2024-2025
Danny T 2024 VOID years 2023-2025
Jeremiah Attachou 2024 VOID years 2023-2024
Germain Ifedi 2023 VOID years 2022-2023
Andy Dalton 2023 VOID years 2023-2024
Angelo Blackson 2023VOID years 2022-2023
Damien Williams VOID years 2022-2024

Cut post June 1:
Danny T +2.4M (-3.5M 2023)
Eddie Goldman +5.1M (-6.6M 2023)

Cut pre June 1:
Tarik Cohen +3.5M (-2.2M 2023)
Mario Edward Jr +3.7M (-438k 2023)

Cap space $57.5M

I said it before, it's not a dire situation a good GM can dig this out in a year I think.

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

Here's the only thing about dead cap money, and a lot of this depends on whether we retain Pace or jettison him.

If we retain Pace, then I could see where people are coming from on dead cap space with regards to cutting people.


However, if we get a new GM who wants to remake the team as quickly as possible, they might be willing to part with some of those players in bad contracts and just live with the dead cap space for a year, and for once good reason:

If you do move on from those contracts in 2022 (and if I am wrong on this, someone please correct me), then all of the player money gets pushed to 2022. So if they have to eat it anyway, it may be worth it for a new GM just to "rip the bandaid" off for some of these players, because it then opens up way more flexibility for 2023 and beyond.

 

[dennehy]

Unfortunately like most of Pace's free agents who don't work out we are going to be paying for their corpses beyond the years they are on the team. This isn't unique to Pace, a lot of teams do this, that means their void years are already future cap hits.

In the grand scheme, these cap hits aren't that bad unless we're talking about Mack/Quinn -

Jimmy G through 2025 VOID years 2023 -2025
Mario Edwards Jr 2025 VOID years 2024-2025
Danny T 2024 VOID years 2023-2025
Jeremiah Attachou 2024 VOID years 2023-2024
Germain Ifedi 2023 VOID years 2022-2023
Andy Dalton 2023 VOID years 2023-2024
Angelo Blackson 2023VOID years 2022-2023
Damien Williams VOID years 2022-2024

Cut post June 1:
Danny T +2.4M (-3.5M 2023)
Eddie Goldman +5.1M (-6.6M 2023)

Cut pre June 1:
Tarik Cohen +3.5M (-2.2M 2023)
Mario Edward Jr +3.7M (-438k 2023)

Cap space $57.5M

I said it before, it's not a dire situation a good GM can dig this out in a year I think.

Goldman frees up $6m if they cut or trade him pre-June 1. Bears get almost nothing from cutting Trevethan, although he is obviously declining. AFAICT Edwards would only give $400k cap relief as a pre-June 1 cut. And the Bears are going to be thin at IDL anyway.

 

[Canth]

For the actual usage they had for him, one of the most glaring contract is the Jimmy Graham one. I have no idea why they didn't just cut him in the offseason considering how few snaps he has actually been given during the season. That was just dumb especially in a cap crunch year.

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

Goldman frees up $6m if they cut or trade him pre-June 1. Bears get almost nothing from cutting Trevethan, although he is obviously declining. AFAICT Edwards would only give $400k cap relief as a pre-June 1 cut. And the Bears are going to be thin at IDL anyway.

Edwards is a real pos and he can take his boneheaded penalties , and wife beating somewhere else. Not a guy I want on my team.

 

[dennehy]

Edwards is a real pos and he can take his boneheaded penalties , and wife beating somewhere else. Not a guy I want on my team.

That's fair enough. But doesn't seem like the Bears feel that way or they would have already cut him.

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

That's fair enough. But doesn't seem like the Bears feel that way or they would have already cut him.

It’s too bad he’s super talented but very undisciplined. Minus his legal shit

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

Here's the only thing about dead cap money, and a lot of this depends on whether we retain Pace or jettison him.

If we retain Pace, then I could see where people are coming from on dead cap space with regards to cutting people.


However, if we get a new GM who wants to remake the team as quickly as possible, they might be willing to part with some of those players in bad contracts and just live with the dead cap space for a year, and for once good reason:

If you do move on from those contracts in 2022 (and if I am wrong on this, someone please correct me), then all of the player money gets pushed to 2022. So if they have to eat it anyway, it may be worth it for a new GM just to "rip the bandaid" off for some of these players, because it then opens up way more flexibility for 2023 and beyond.

Needs to be a new gm all day so we can get out of this mess. And again it goes to this should have been done last offseason. The cap was lowered and team wasn’t set up to compete. Instead they let this jerk off trade more pics and redo more contracts to sink the team well into the future

our offseason should look allot like what happened to the raiders when McKenzie took over. He had a pace cap situation to deal with and used the first year to get out of it

 

[Hutch1975]

I would field offers on Mack. I think he will still have potential high value to the right team. I think it's pretty obvious he's been playing at less than 100% and with surgery and rest I'd expect most NFL people to be very bullish on him. With Gipson emerging, they should listen for the right deal. IMO that would mean a late first and change or similar. They could prorate his dead cap to create some significant cap space in that situation as well, or take the big hit this year and be in a stronger FA space in 23.

That said if you keep Mack and he is healthy you probably have the best EDGE group in the league by a pretty wide margin.

My inclination is to restructure Mack, Jackson, Whitehair, and Goldman. That saves almost $22.5 million according to spotrac's cap calculator. If I can get Quinn to restructure, that takes the savings to $30 million if I wanted to push it, but after his 2021 season, I'd rather not.

Now, if it comes to a trade, of the three, I'd field offers for Quinn. His cap number is more managable for teams and he's coming off a monster season. Maybe Quinn doesn't get a first-round pick, but with our 2022 second-rounder (#39 overall per tanakthon), I think we coud get Denver's #42, #62, #76, and #94 picks. Two second-rounders and three third-rounders should help bolster the O-Line (Zion Johnson and Daniel Faalele), plus get some help at CB, ILB, and WR.

 

[dennehy]

My inclination is to restructure Mack, Jackson, Whitehair, and Goldman. That saves almost $22.5 million according to spotrac's cap calculator. If I can get Quinn to restructure, that takes the savings to $30 million if I wanted to push it, but after his 2021 season, I'd rather not.

Now, if it comes to a trade, of the three, I'd field offers for Quinn. His cap number is more managable for teams and he's coming off a monster season. Maybe Quinn doesn't get a first-round pick, but with our 2022 second-rounder (#39 overall per tanakthon), I think we coud get Denver's #42, #62, #76, and #94 picks. Two second-rounders and three third-rounders should help bolster the O-Line (Zion Johnson and Daniel Faalele), plus get some help at CB, ILB, and WR.

No of that will happen and your ideas are really off-the-wall.

 

[Toast88]

No more major restructuring. It's time to pay the piper and get out from under the bullshit.

 

[Bearcub13]

I am not going to lose sleep worrying about the cap situation. If we are fortunate enough to get a legit GM we can divest ourselves of our long term contracts and get back to building a team. I know Pace took a swing at it in 2018 and double doinked the season in the wild card game. Bu, dragging 100 million dollars of mostly dead weight around will cripple any team. You have to be lean and mean and adaptable. For next season, I say cut as much dead weight as possible, bring in a couple offensive lineman to help make sure Fields has a chance to be successful and invest in one more quality receiver to throw to. Then just build through reasonably priced free agents for rotational depth and then through the draft which Pace has clearly not valued. Go Bears, lets just beat the Vikings for the hell of it!

 

[Aquineas]

There are many people here who pretend to be salary cap experts. But we actually do have some very smart people in this group who know the salary cap backwards and frontwards.

Can some of you do a cap breakdown with some deep analysis as we head into next year?

I'll start out with the basic numbers and leave it up to others to analyze. Apologies if I mess any of this up. I admit I'm not a cap expert, and I'm going purely off of OverTheCap numbers.


2022 Salary Cap: $208 million, $25.7 million higher than 2021

Bears players coming off the books this year (not taking re-signings or franchise tags into account at all):

-Allen Robinson: $18M
-Akiem Hicks: $10M
-Jimmy Graham: $5.3M
-Andy Dalton: $5M
-James Daniels: $3M
-Germain Ifedi: $2.7M
-Bilal Nichols: $2.2M
-Tashaun Gipson: $1.8M
-Jakeem Grant: $1.5M
-Jason Peters: $1.5M
-Jesse James: $1.2M
-Pat O'Donnell: $1.1M
-Damien Williams: $1.1M
-Deon Bush: $1M
-Marquise Goodwin: $1M
-Christian Jones: $1M
-Damien Byrd: $1M
-Patrick Scales: $1M
-Elijah Wilkinson: $1M
-Deandre Houston-Carson: $1M
-Alec Ogletree, JP Holtz, Alex Bars, Ryan Nall, Sam Mustipher, etc.: All under $1M

TOTAL: Over $90 million

Most expensive players in 2022:

-Khalil Mack: $30.1M (up from $14.6M)
-Robert Quinn: $17.1M (up from $11.2M)
-Eddie Jackson: $15.1M (up from $5.1M)
-Cody Whitehair: $12.3M (up from $5.2M)
-Eddie Goldman: $11.8M (up from $7.8M)
-Nick Foles: $10.6M (up from $6.6M)
-Roquan Smith: $9.7M (up from $6M)
-Danny Trevathan: $5.9M (up from $5M)
-Tarik Cohen: $5.7M (up from $3.2M)

TOTAL: $118M for your 9 most expensive players. Those 9 players will make $53.3 million more in 2022 than they did this year.

^^^That's 57 percent of your 2022 cap going toward those 9. How many of those guys have been mediocre-to-below-average contributors lately? More than a few, I think.

Dead cap money still being paid out next year:

-Charles Leno: $2.8M
-Riley Ridley: $170K


So with total cap liabilities for 2022 at $170M and team cap space for 2022 currently set at $41M, what do we think, CCS? How much will re-signings and franchise tag(s) eat into that space? Are those 9 most expensive contracts going to screw the Bears as they try to build around Fields, or is it typical? Thoughts?

For a quick $30 Million, I'd definitely be cutting:
Danny Trevathan (I know you've given it your all man, but it's deteriorated)
Eddie Jackson (Too many Invisible Man impersonations)
Nick Foles (Good luck on your next team)
Tarik Cohen (Sorry about your injury last year; good luck on your next team)

 

[Luke]

Yyyup. The only feasible multi-million-dollar "outs" this offseason appear to be:

-Eddie Goldman (cap hit of $5.1M on an $11.8M contract, for a saving of $6.6M)
-Tarik Cohen (cap hit of $3.5M on a $5.7M contract, for a saving of $2.2M)
-Angelo Blackson (cap hit of $1M on a $3M contract, for a saving of $2M)

Shouldn't really entertain Mack yet ($4M total savings, but a $27M dead cap hit), and they're obviously not going to cut Montgomery ($2.5+M total savings). So yeah, not much they can really do yet to alleviate that cap hit. This is going to be a multi-year digging out.

And the guy who did it shouldn't be the guy to clean it up.

makes sense to me....


Don’t be shocked if the #Bears post-June 1 cut Eddie Goldman this offseason.

They save about $8.9 million in cap by cutting him this year, his play has fallen off a bit, and he only plays once every 3 snaps. Could use that money for WR, OL, DBs.

— Jacob Infante (@jacobinfante24) January 3, 2022

 

[HearshotKDS]

One of the tricks that helps me with perspective of the Bears situation is to remove a minimum token amount for each roster spot (Bears have 28 signed in 2022, they need 53, so 25 spots need to be filled). You can probably expect to fill any given spot with a minimum 1 year vet contract value of around 750k. For example, pig simmons and horsted are making 780k to give some idea of what level of player you are getting. You can sign rookie UDFA though for cheaper, between 300-500k. If you're scraping the barrel for cheap guys you are probably going to be signing a mix of both of these types of players. Let's use $650K as an "average" year salary for a minimum level "just filling a mandatory spot" guy, its a bit arbitrary but its close to what you see across multiple min guys and UDFA rookies.

Bears also have 5 draft picks with a $5.1M rookie pool, so that brings them down to 20 roster spots to fill and $35.8M to fill them. I think the Bears will likely not spend all $5.1M because of their lack of day 1 and 2 picks, but that's the number OTC is using so it works for now.

20 spots x 650k = $13M. So if you assume every roster spot has a cost "floor" of that, the Bears have $22.8M to play with to upgrade the full 53 roster spots from a minimum guy. Or maybe its easier to look at it like the Bears have $35.8M to fill 20 spots, so they can spend on average $1.79M per spot. This is before cuts/restructures/can kicking down the road/etc. tricks that can be used to make cap appear now at the cost of later seasons.

 

[Toast88]

For a quick $30 Million, I'd definitely be cutting:
Danny Trevathan (I know you've given it your all man, but it's deteriorated)
Eddie Jackson (Too many Invisible Man impersonations)
Nick Foles (Good luck on your next team)
Tarik Cohen (Sorry about your injury last year; good luck on your next team)

Those 4 players together carry a dead cap hit of $40 million with negative money saved. And that's not counting the people you would have to sign to replace them.

I'm not a capologist, but the more I look at this thing and read what others are saying, I'm seeing more and more why not much can be done in a single offseason.