Call it what it is: This game was terrible and hard to watch. But, for the first time in three weeks, the Bears came out on top of the poorly-played game and there were a couple good signs. Rapid fire…
• There are two big stories in this game. Two stories that could have a big impact on the Bears future: Their defense got a stop when they needed it and Jeremy Langford looks damn good.
• Before getting into football talk, I want to thank everyone who for their kind words after the passing of my father. It was obviously a difficult week, made more difficult by the Bears.
• We all want to believe the Bears are a drastically different team because they have John Fox leading the way instead of Marc Trestman, but in their last two games they have played almost exactly like they did under Trestman. I get there is a lack of talent, but they have just as much as the Lions and the Vikings, there’s no excuse for them to lose either of those games the way they lost them.
• If the Bears and the Vikings were to swap quarterbacks, the Bears would have the first pick of the draft and the Vikings would win the Super Bowl. Don’t listen to what you read on Twitter, Bridgewater is bad. Meanwhile, there aren’t 10 quarterbacks in the league who are better than Jay Cutler right now. There may not even be five.
• So, why did Adam Gase decide to take Cutler out of the game for most of the first half? Look at the Bears first six games and they were at their best when Cutler was moving around and making things happen. I get that he didn’t think they could block the Vikings’ front four, but by continuously throwing slip screens, he gave them no chance. As soon as he stopped doing that, the Bears started moving the ball. It isn’t difficult to figure out.
Andrew Dannehy continues his look at why the Bears will exceed expectations in 2015.
Alshon Jeffery and Matt Forte are the team’s two best skill position players and both are looking for a big pay day. The last time Forte was in this position, he was having the best year of his career and was on pace, before injury, to finish with one of the most productive seasons ever from a back. We haven’t seen Jeffery playing for a contract yet, but you can bet he saw the money handed out to Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas and wants to get his.
If both players have monster seasons, in addition to the other players they have, the Bears offense is going to move right along. Now, add in the fact that Marty Bennett also wants a new contract and Jay Cutler is essentially playing for his NFL life.
Nobody on the Bears was motivated last year. After a relatively successful offensive showing in 2013, they got arrogant. They can’t afford to do so again this year.
Fox has been through this before. He’s taken over two teams that were disasters the year before, one going 1-15 the other 2-14, a 5-11 team shouldn’t be a problem, right?
In both of the previous instances, the Panthers and Broncos won six more games in Fox’s first year and this Bears team has significantly more talent than those teams did.
The Bears issue wasn’t/isn’t talent, it was all the X-factors that the really good teams don’t even worry about anymore. There was no chemistry and no leadership, Fox has proven he can help with both problems.
New general manager Ryan Pace has mostly received positive reviews for his work since being hired in January, but he has made one key decision that will end up costing the Bears in a big way.
He has not given receiver Alshon Jeffery a contract extension this offseason and reportedly has no plans to.
Head coach John Fox shed some light on the reasoning for this when he hinted at Jeffery being out of shape in 2014, which contributed to his injury problems. Of course, Jeffery still managed to back up his breakout 2013 season with 85 catches, 1,133 yards, and 10 touchdowns.
At this point it’s clear that Jeffery is an excellent NFL wide receiver, and those players don’t come cheap. When I looked at a possible extension for Jeffery earlier this offseason, I examined similar players to him who re-upped with their teams after 3 years and estimated he would be looking at a deal in the neighborhood of $10 million a year, with roughly $20 million guaranteed.
That’s a pretty price to pay, but here’s the simple truth: the longer the Bears wait to pay Jeffery, the more money they’re going to have to pay him.
With one year left on a rookie contract that will pay him around $4.5 million, Jeffery is doing just fine for himself financially, but his next deal is the one that provides life-altering financial security. Jeffery and his agent are well aware of this fact, but this year the leverage lies with the Bears, because they are the only team that can negotiate with him, and they can guarantee him a lot of money right now before he has to risk a career-ending injury in 2015 that could mean he doesn’t end up seeing that money at all.
For this reason, deals that are the most team-friendly are typically signed with one year left on a players’ contract. This is how the Steelers locked up Antonio Brown through his prime for just over $8 million a year and $8.5 million guaranteed coming off an 1,100 yard season, while teammate Mike Wallace signed a contract for $12 million a year and $30 million guaranteed in free agency 12 months later despite being 2 years older than Brown and coming off an 800 yard season.
If the Bears make Jeffery play out his rookie deal in 2015, then he has the ability to negotiate with 32 teams instead of just one, the leverage shifts to his side, and he becomes significantly more expensive to keep around. Let’s look at some similar players to Jeffery who recently hit free agency to see just how high those prices get.
There have been a couple of big-name wide receivers to hit free agency coming off their rookie contracts in recent years. In 2015, Randall Cobb signed for $10 million a year, $13 million guaranteed, but he took a hometown discount to stay with Green Bay and could have gotten $12 million a year (it’s understandable that Cobb took a discount to play with the best QB in the NFL on a Super Bowl contender, but don’t expect the same from Jeffery).
Jeremy Maclin also got $11 million a year, with $22.5 million guaranteed, in 2015, while 2013 saw Mike Wallace ($12 million a year, $30 million guaranteed) hit it big. Even the older Vincent Jackson, who hit free agency at 29 and with 2-3 more years of his career spent than the three above, got $11 million a year and $26 million guaranteed in 2012.
Alshon’s past two seasons (2,552 yards, 17 touchdowns) are every bit as good as the combined best two seasons for Cobb (2,241 yards, 20 touchdowns), Maclin (2,282 yards, 20 touchdowns), and Wallace (2,450 yards, 18 touchdowns). And those three have the advantage of having caught passes from great quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger or having played in the most stat-happy offense in the league under Chip Kelly, neither of which can be used to deflate Jeffery’s numbers and keep his price down.
Jeffery also has another year to add to his resume before hitting free agency, which will very likely find him hitting the market with a more impressive body of work than any of his recent peers. He should even look better than Jackson, whose two best seasons prior to free agency totaled 2,273 yards and 18 touchdowns, though Jackson did have three 1,000 yard seasons on his resume, a feat which Alshon seems likely to match but which neither Cobb (1), Maclin (1), nor Wallace (2) could.
Indeed, Wallace is the closest recent comparison to Jeffery as of right now, and he struck the biggest deal of the bunch at a time when the salary cap was $30 million lower than it will be in 2016. Wallace was also coming off an uninspiring 64 catch, 836 yard season when he hit free agency, meaning his value was not exactly at a maximum.
I think it’s safe to say Wallace’s deal is a floor for what Jeffery could expect to receive should he be allowed to hit unrestricted free agency next year, with the potential being there for him to get a significantly bigger contract. That means Jeffery is looking at an additional $2 million a year, minimum, on a contract signed next year, which adds up to $10 million (all of it fully guaranteed) more on a five year deal than the Bears could probably lock him up for right now.
Of course, the Bears could let Jeffery play 2015 under his rookie deal and stick him with the franchise tag to prevent him from hitting free agency, but this is an expensive option as well. The Broncos and Cowboys are doing that this offseason with Demaryius Thomas and Dez Bryant, and they are both getting $12.8 million, fully guaranteed, from their teams in 2015.
The franchise tag guarantees you the average of the top 5 cap hits at your position in that year, and right now that means Jeffery would get $15.3 million dollars in 2016, though that could go up with new contracts to Thomas and Bryant or down with restructures of contracts to players like Calvin Johnson. And that only secures one year of services for Jeffery, who would then be a free agent looking at a huge contract in 2017.
Of course, it could be argued that the Bears are willing to let Jeffery walk next offseason so they can get a compensatory pick in the 2017 draft. This makes little sense for two reasons. First, the highest compensatory pick you can receive is only at the end of the 3rd round. As one of the 10 or 15 most productive receivers in the NFL, Jeffery is worth more to a team than the 100th pick in the draft.
2nd, and most important, you only get compensatory picks if the money spent on players you lose is greater than the money you spend bringing in new players in free agency. Given that the Bears are slated to have more than $40 million in cap space and few big-name free agents to re-sign besides Jeffery next offseason, they will be spending money to bring in outside players, so losing Jeffery likely wouldn’t even bring them a compensatory pick in return.
Compensatory picks are for teams with too much homegrown talent to afford keeping. The Bears are definitely not in that position right now; they don’t have enough good players worth spending money to keep around. Jeffery is one of those players, and letting him walk would be foolish.
No matter how you spin it, not giving Alshon Jeffery an extension this offseason is a foolish move that will either cost the Bears millions of dollars (likely $10 million over the course of a 5 year deal) or result in them losing one of the few young playmakers on the roster with little to no return.
If Chicago is going to re-sign Alshon Jeffery, then waiting another year will only increase his leverage, even if he has a down season. If they don’t plan on making him a highly-paid part of their future, then their best plan for maximizing his value is to trade him away now instead of losing him for nothing next year.
Maintaining the status quo with Jeffery diminishes the returns he will provide to the Bears, yet this is exactly what Ryan Pace is doing. It’s a rookie mistake for a young GM who is believed to mostly be doing a good job so far.
Before the draft new Bears General Manager Ryan Pace was asked if Alshon Jeffery was a “number one” wide receiver. He was complimentary of Jeffery, but he never said “yes.” New coach John Fox indicated work ethic and conditioning were a concern for Jeffery, a possible reason they haven’t approached him about a new contract.
The Bears have been projected by many to take a wide receiver with the seventh pick of the draft. But does that really make sense?
The answer to that question isn’t as simple as determining the team’s draft strategy or analyzing the talent in the draft. It’s more about how the Bears view the best way to build their roster and, in this case, how they view their current talent.
The “best player available” argument is outdated. Every team says they’re going to take the best player available, but they always have an eye on what their team currently needs. Any player drafted in the top-10 is a player that should be a key building block for your team going forward.
In this draft, there are two wide receivers in the top tier in Kevin White and Amari Cooper. One of them figures to be available when the Bears pick, but whether or not they pull the trigger could depend on how they view their current number one receiver, Alshon Jeffery.
One of the interesting decisions new general manager Ryan Pace will face this offseason is what to do with Alshon Jeffery. Jeffery has one year remaining on his rookie deal, a time when many players sign their first big extension if they have already proven to be quality performers that the team wants to lock up for their prime.
Jeffery certainly qualifies after combining for 174 catches, 2,534 yards, and 17 touchdowns the last few seasons. So at first glance, locking up Jeffery to a long-term extension makes absolute sense, and I’m sure Pace will have discussions with Jeffery’s agent about an extension this offseason.
What will be important in those discussions is how much money Jeffery’s side asks for. He could look at Brandon Marshall’s deal from last year, which averages $10 million a year and guaranteed $22.3 million, as a baseline. The Bears could point out that Marshall was a more proven receiver than Jeffery at the time of extension, but Jeffery can counter by pointing to the fact that he is much younger, meaning the team would be paying for his prime instead of later years.
The ideal contracts Jeffery’s side will likely try to compare to are those of Mike Wallace, Percy Harvin, and Dwayne Bowe. These were all signed by players around Jeffery’s age by players less accomplished than Jeffery, and all have an average salary of $10.7 million or greater with a large amount of guaranteed money.
Of course, two of those three contracts were given in free agency rather than re-signing with your own team, and deals tend to work higher in free agency. Bowe, the only player who re-signed with his current team, was an impending free agent, so he had more leverage than Jeffery, who has one year left on his contract.
The closest comparisons to Jeffery’s situation in the NFL recently have been Victor Cruz and Antonio Brown. Both signed extensions with their current clubs with one year left on their rookie deals. Brown signed a 5 year, $42 million deal with $8.5 million guaranteed before the 2012 season, while Cruz signed a 5 year, $43 million deal with $15.6 million guaranteed prior to 2013.
Jeffery is more proven than Brown was at the time of his signing, and that deal was 3 years ago. Cruz is a closer comparison, as both players had similar numbers prior to their extensions, so we’ll use that deal as a baseline. The 2013 NFL salary cap was $123 million, while 2015 is expected to be $140 million. Adjusting for inflation, we’ll approximate a Jeffery extension to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 years, $49 million, with $18 million guaranteed, though it could end up higher than that.
Add in the remaining 1 year and $1.5 million remaining on Jeffery’s rookie deal, and that means his total contract for the Bears would be roughly 6 years and $50 million. This is a fairly conservative scenario, as I would not be surprised to see that sneak closer to $10 million a year than the $8.3 million per year that estimate provides.
There are a number of ways you can structure a deal, which could be back-loaded to keep early cap numbers low, but let’s assume Jeffery’s contract has roughly an $8 million cap hit in both 2015 and 2016. Now let’s factor in the cap hits of Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall, and Martellus Bennett to see how much money Chicago would have invested in their primary passing game components for the next 2 years (using estimated cap figures of $140 million for 2015 and $150 million for 2016).
That’s an awful lot of money when you consider that the best Chicago’s passing offense can reasonably be expected to be at that point is a lower-level top 10 passing attack. No matter how high or low your opinion of Jay Cutler, he is never going to perform at a top 5 level in the NFL, so you’re paying huge money to have good but not great production.
Is that a reasonable path to team success? That is what Pace must balance when considering what to do with Cutler and Marshall and their contracts and how to handle Alshon Jeffery. There are massive needs on this roster that need to be addressed, and spending so much money on the passing attack may leave them underfunded.
So what should Pace do? I see a number of options that will get some sort of value from Jeffery, each of which have their pros and cons.
Personally, I like option 4 the best, but that has some negative short-term ramifications that could make it unattractive to a new general manager trying to establish some job security. The only way the Bears would be likely to field a playoff team in the next 2 years under that method is if the general manager has some excellent defensive drafts to rebuild a unit that has been among the worst in the NFL the last two years.
The following is part of a series of position-by-position breakdowns at the halftime point of the 2014 season.
The biggest issue with grading this group? Once Forte is taken out of the mix there are only three players who can even receive a grade.
Their two quarterbacks threw for 4,450 yards and 32 touchdowns. Their star tailback accumulated just a squidge below 2,000 yards from scrimmage. Their wide receivers established themselves as the best starting duo in the sport. Their offensive line was fourth best in sacks allowed and provided support for the league’s second-leading rusher. (And they did this with a pair of rookies on the right side.) The finished the second 9th in total yards per game and 2nd in points scored – only trailing the insane juggernaut that is Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos.
While most fans are unable to see the sport of football with any appropriate context, let me provide some. Marc Trestman is a first year head coach with a first year staff. One year was all it took for Trest to establish one of the league’s most prolific offenses right here in the city of Chicago.
These things only get better. Playbooks expand. Offensive lines grow more comfortable. Quarterbacks operate with a developing fluency. Fans around these parts may not understand this concept because Chicago has not – since George Halas roamed the sideline – operated with any discernible offensive system. (I could make a serious argument the T Formation of song was the last time the Bears operated uniquely on offense.) I would expect Matt Slauson and Jay Cutler to be re-signed prior to the start of the league year. I would expect Josh McCown signed, sealed and delivered rather quickly after the league year begins. The 2014 Bears offense should be expected to improve upon 2013’s landmark production.
You spend a week playing out the scenarios in your mind; how will Team A move the ball, how will Team B fair on third downs…etc. And then you sit in stunned silence as a fumbled football sits on the field and 20 of the 22 NFL players involved in the play pay it no mind. One guy picks it up. The quarterback and sideline tell him to run. Touchdown. We’ll call it The Boykin Fiasco. It is the play everyone will remember for years to come.
Here’s a bunch of thoughts from the afternoon.
