Somebody is going to overpay horribly for Mathis and get burned. Undersized edge rushers rarely last into their thirties, and Mathis will be 31 next month.
To continue the topic of Bears and free agency, ESPN Chicago just trotted out a list of the Bears current Free Agents. There’s 14 in all and the list is obviously headlined by Forte.
To break it down. Matt Forte is the big name and could be a big problem, the Bears can and will franchise him if it comes down to it but after the drama it created this season I wouldn’t be shocked to see him hold out if this is the case. Not sure what the number will be if they do franchise him, but with the big contracts handed to RBs this year I expect it to be a big number. Hopefully restraint will prevail and he’ll sign a long term deal that’s not painful for either side. Getting that ironed out might be key to addressing the glaring needs at CB and WR.
Kahlil Bell is a RFA and will be back, the question will be if another team drives up the price on him after his strong showing to end the season. The fumble issues are bad and won’t have anyone seeing him as worthy of RB2 in a committee money, the Bears should get him at backup money. Barber might be cut, so some of his money would go to Bell. We’ll see.
Josh McCown and Caleb Hanie are both UFAs and the Bears obviously need to address the position. Neither is likely a strong candidate for the QB2 role, but McCown (Hanie is toast, duh) could be in line for the QB3 role if the Bears give up on Enderle in the wake of Martz leaving. McCown is a Martz guy too, but he earned some consideration. If I had to guess, the Bears will try and add a veteran as QB2 and resign McCown for cheap as a QB3 while letting Enderle go in hopes of adding him to the practice squad. At least that’s probably the wise move…
Kellen Davis is a UFA at TE. He won’t see a ton of interest from other teams and a lot of pundits are down on him. Personally, I am with Lovie on this guy. He’s got the potential to be a very good all around TE, Martz’s system just wouldn’t allow it. He blocks great and is a better pass catcher than Spaeth. I expect him to return with a very favorable contract and the TE position will be set with the possible addition of a rookie draft pick late.
Finishing out the offense, Roy Williams is a UFA after his one year “put up or shut up” deal. He actually was more serviceable than people give him credit for, but he needs to go in order to make room for better players. His modest salary will hopefully go to Michael Floyd’s rookie contract.
On the other side of the ball, Amobi Okoye also signed a one year “prove it” deal and was similarly average. However, he’s young and still has some room for growth and was definitely solid enough to warrant returning. He wanted to be a Bear last off season and that isn’t apt to change, he’ll sign a modest, 2 year deal and be back to give welsome depth. Izzy Idonije is a favorite in the organization and also will get another contract at a fair price. He’s probably going to need to take a slightly lesser role as a rotational player because the Bears need more sacks out of the guy opposite Peppers, but Izzy is a great guy to keep in the mix and he wants to be here.
There’s lots of guys who could be on their way out in the defensive backfield. Brandon Merriweather, Zack Bowman, Corey Graham, Tim Jennings and Craig Steltz are all UFAs and none of them are guys who must be retained. It’s likely that a few of them will return simply because we need to maintain some continuity and depth, but none should be considered as starters in 2012.
Bowman and Jennings represent our starting CBs opposite Tillman and both guys disappointed. Bowman is a physical freak and training camp tease but he’s unable to translate any of that to game day. I suspect the Bears are done waiting on him and he’ll be gone. Still, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him surprise a team somewhere else. Jennings is a nice player but he shouldn’t be a starting CB. If he wants to be paid like one he’s probably gone, but if the market is soft and he accepts a 3rd CBs money you keep him, however he cannot be the plan at CB next season.
Graham is a tricky one, he’s an elite special teams player and makes the Bears entire 3rd phase awesome. He’s basically impossible to replace, but he aspires to be a starying CB somewhere. That’s a stretch, but he could make someone a solid Nickel and the Bears are set there in Moore. We’ll see what the market looks like for him, but I’m going to brace for bad news. We need to spend money on LBs, WRs and a CB and if the price for a special teams specialist goes up it might impede that. Then again, there’s going to be a lot of vacancies in the secondary and Graham might get a look as a FS if Wright falls out of favor and we lose all our depth to suckiness.
Speaking of Safeties, Merriweather is done. It was a worthwhile gamble, but he sucked out there and that money he’s making should be spent to reel in an elite CB. Steltz is nice utility player and he wants to be in Chicago, he’ll be back as a backup to Wright and Conte next year. He’ll be reasonably priced and gives nice special teams help.
To summarize:
Forte - Yes
Bell - Yes
Hanie - No
McCown - Yes
Williams - No
Davis - Yes
Merriweather - No
Steltz - Yes
Graham - No
Bowman - No
Jennings - Yes
Okoye - Yes
Idonije - Yes
Massey - No
Williams and Merriweather alone represent $6M in savings. Hanie was raking in $1.2M, and cutting Barber would save us another $2.5M. I don’t expect anyone besides Forte to get big raises. So there’ll be some money available, and a couple cap casualties in say Chris Williams and Frank Omiyale would go a long ways to paying for upgrades on the OL.
In a nice little shot at the Bears, Donovan McNabb says he was expecting the Bears to call, but they never did. He went on to say that it didn’t work out that well for them.
I kinda agree. The Bears lost at least two (Raiders, Broncos), maybe 3 (Chiefs) of those 5 games solely due to Hanie sucking, and, although McNabb was no great shakes, he didn’t kill his team.
I was forced to start Donovan McNabb on my fantasy team due to an insane run on QBs in my fantasy draft plus injuries. I paid close attention to him. He is no longer able to move out of the pocket. He still has a good arm, but lacks any semblance of accuracy. He didn’t seem to have any ability to check-down to other receivers if his primary was covered. In short, he looked old, slow, and confused. I don’t think he would have added anything to the Bears.
As a Packer fan, I would have loved to see the Bears sign him!
Just want to mention explicitly the Packers lost. Nobody seems to be talking about that here. No perfect season, no Super Bowl, no NFC championship game. 
I mentioned it in the “An Apology to All Packers Fans” thread. I would link to it, but I can’t remember how.
Packers fans are in a no-win situation. If we talk about it, we will be accused of being whiners. If we don’t, well … we get bits of silliness like yours.
Personally, I prefer the latter! 
McNabb to the Bears was foolishness. McNabb is old and washed up and while he couldn’t have been worse than Hanie he wouldn’t have been better. The knock on McNabb in recent years is that he’s really lazy. Physically out of shape and always unprepared and unwilling to put in the practice time. No way he’d have helped us when he wouldn’t have bothered to learn Martzs system.