The stars are aligning. Pace must think Christmas has come early. We all know he values 6th round picks like they are 1st rounders, id say this guarantees we draft a T now. One 6th rounder to trade for Minshew. The other 6th rounder to draft our future HOF Tackle. #superbowlbaby
6th round seems waaaaay too early for Pace taking an OT. If I had to bet, undrafted free agent. The Minshew part hurts because I can totally see Pace/Nagy bringing in the handlebar stache and giving us a 20-minute shitshow presser of 'Coach Defillipo got a good couple of games out of Gardner' when he was in Jax. You have to consider the market. The Jets and the Jags are the two teams that have tons of money to throw, lots of 2021 draft capital, and two high draft picks--aware one team's getting Trevor Lawrence and one could have Darnold/next best QB. Ravens and Giants are linked, but both have their own cap problems with available funds, players to keep, and extensions upcoming. Cant consider it unless a package including a 1st round pick is coming back, so if the Jets are calling with pick #23 overall as the starting point or Jax with 25 as the starting point--you have to listen. Even then I'd still be 50-50 because Allen Robinson is such an underrated WR and allows the opportunity for young playmakers, namely Kmet and Mooney (call me a pessimist all you want, I'm done with Anthony Miller). AR being on the field means one of these guys may get a mismatch on any given play.
Well Pace is 2 for 2 so far this offseason between this and the A-Rob tag. 3 for 3 if you want to count severing ties with Massie.
Pace gets absolutely ZERO credit for ARob in my book. In fact it shows just how low his bar is if people are actually giving him credit for making a no brainer move like using the tag. But that doesnt necessarily mean a happy player. This whole farce re ARob has come about entirely cos of Pace spending 2 years bungling the job.
Restructuring Mack yet again is a terrible terrible move, Pace has just all but guaranteed this is Mack's last season in Chicago unless they give him an extension to allow them to smooth the money out over a longer timeframe which itself would be a very bad idea. I dont know recall the precise numbers but i know Mack was already due to have huge CAP hits in 2022 & 2023 before this restructure. Now his numbers will be astronomical, to the point you just cant work with them. This is so Pace, not being able to see past the end of his nose re the cap. Very Saints. This is gonna end up being a repeat of the Peppers scenario where constant restructures get you to the point where you simply cant afford to keep the guy on the team so you have to cut him but continue eating huge cap hits for someone who's not even around anymore. Terrible terrible terrible. Oh and not that i put much stock in all the trade talk personally, but whatever moves the Bears plan to make for Wilson or whoever, you can now take Mack out of the equation because no way in hell any team is taking on that contract now.
The production the last 2 years simply doesn't justify the contract. This team has too many other holes that need to be prioritized. Without a restructure there's no chance of starting to fill those holes in 2021. This is the right move. As for Peppers, yeah it sucked he went on to GB to have a couple good years, but the same thing applied when we signed him to such a massive deal in the first place. It just didn't make sense too keep him around, even if we didn't restructure, due to how the rest of the team around him was in decline. This is the nature of the cap and it bites you in the ass when a multitude of bad moves by the GM begin to pile up.
Trent Williams is a free agent. Let me believe Pace can pull over 20$ mil a year out of his ass to fix the OLine... When Pace wasn't fired, we all just knew he was going to kick the financial can down the road. I hope he at least tried to lower Fuller's with an extension...reducing his 20 mil would be incredibly helpful. It's a win at this point if Pace goes back to basics/what he did when he first got here. Find the right guy who needed a change of scenery/were injury bouncebacks but could be cheaper contributors instead of the big money guy who cripples you when you swing and miss and we've seen it twice (Burton and Quinn). I'm talking about Akiem Hicks, Jerrell Freeman and Zach Miller the notable ones. They can be found every year. I'm confident in his drafts and most of his undrafted free agents overall except for his 1st round choices and fetish of just giving away picks when he doesn't have to...
Just like our politicians. I wouldn't go that far. Even after the 1st round he's neglected the OT position for 6 years now. No excuse for that and no confidence that he will change that practice.
Im a little confused, i thought you wanted them to tank so Pace & Nagy get shipped? So why are you pleased about creating more short term money for the death row GM to blow to try and save his job? Also, you say the last 2 years doesnt justify the contract, well if his play doesnt warrant his pay then why are you in favour of giving him more money now which ultimately makes it more painful when you do get rid of him? I dont really follow you buddy. As for this being the right move, be sure to remind us of that a year from now when they have to eat 20mil of cap space on a guy who isnt even on the roster. What the teams who have been good a long time do to keep good all that time is they keep the vast majority of their good players and they keep building around them. They dont say well it looks like the team is in decline fuck it lets blow it up and get rid of our good players too. You're applying Bears thinking here where the only model we know is lightening in a bottle every 10years if we're lucky. Peppers was a good player, his production the 4years after he left Chicago was almost identical to the 4years he spent in Chicago. He had plenty left to give, he was not someone you cut but that ultimately became irrelevant cos they took any decisions out of their own hands and fucked themselves medium term in the process. THATS why i mentioned Peppers, cos he was handled exactly the same way as Mack is now and its gonna wind up fucking the team down the road. Both signed 6year deals. Both had the team come to them to restructure, which made their contracts very uncomfortable later on. Then both had the team come to them again which made their contracts unworkable and now you wind up in the worst case scenario. When you have a guy on a big contract if you can get to the end without restructuring then it often becomes not a bad contract due to cap inflation. If you have to restructure you get to do it 1 time and 1 time only in the vast majority of cases. If you do it twice you're fucked.
Ha, there you go paddy boy. What did i call? 3 & 25. What did he get, 3 & 24.4. INC 14GTD. All this time and still you doubt me.
It could be my lack of understanding how this all works... but I thought if we're converting his salary to a signing bonus, it gives us a more cap space now to fix some of the holes, with the possibility of still avoiding the cap hit in 2022 if we cut him first? One more year of 8-10 sacks from Mack and I won't lose sleep over that, assuming my understanding is correct. And yeah, I do want to tank. But realistically we know Pace isn't in tank mode. It's not going to happen. So we may as well make the most of it and work to fix the holes we all know about, primarily OT. Why wouldn't you see this as an opportunity to fix that? The idea from 2012-13 was win now and Peppers contract needed to be restructured, at least it was thought, to try to achieve that. If we kept Peppers from 2014-2015 (the original 6 year deal) or maybe even extend him 2 more years to soften the blow of the contract, what does that amount to? A Super Bowl? A playoff appearance? Ha. That team needed to be blown up, you knew it, we all knew it. Not that he wouldn't have been productive. But when you make your QB highest paid in the NFL (as happened the same offseason Peppers was released), and have to essentially rebuild the entire defense (finished 32nd in 2013), it doesn't make sense to tie up so many resources in a 34 year old DE, who maybe can't play every down, and will max out at 10 sacks per year. JA made the splash to sign him and win now in 2010. It almost worked out. But we were almost certain to end up in an unsustainable situation if things didn't go according to plan, given how big that contract was.
You called it. I won't complain. It's really 2 years 14 considering guaranteed money from the Jags who have stupid money to spend. Good luck to him and may the bears get better than a 6th round comp for him. So objectively, overall--I think Pace should be fired. I've posted why before and it that horse doesn't need to be beaten to death any further. But drafting? Overall--minus 1st round--I do like them. He's found some good players. Yes, he ignored LT specifically last 2 seasons when Leno has regressed terribly--though I wish Whitehair would have gotten a shot there because that's what he was in college before being forced to the interior OLine because Charles Leno was competent at one point in his career. Seeing as how Russell Wilson isn't in the cards, he's still--for now has the #20 pick and can take one. Or find 20+ mil for Trent Williams. But I also look at the division and whom Pace is up against on draft day. The lions have hit on some early recent draftees, but have struck out a lot and have cut a ton of guys. Green Bay very much similar--but has Erin which plugs up a ton of glaring holes that are otherwise exploited when Erin is injured/not playing for them. Minnesota has actually drafted nicely recently, so I can't say. Point is--Pace has hit on guys early/2nd round, and nicely mid-late. Right now, I feel good saying Pace got 3 starters from the 2020 draft (Kmet, Johnson, Mooney). 2019 was a dud with minimal picks, 1 starter in Monty. 2018 got 3 starters (Nichols, Noquan, Daniels). 17 got 3--one's now the TE for the Phins 1 got double digit sacks while making less than Robert Quinn. 16 had 2 and 15 had 2. THat's a lot better than most GMs. The division, sans Minnesota--not as consistent and even then I think Pace/whomever Minny's GM is are close when it comes to the draft specifically. Erin is the generational QB and that's the difference where Ryan Pace and the rest of the division have failed. He's missed on QBs trading, drafting, and signing--that's the main reason why he should be canned.
