I did this post last offseason in the midst of Ryan Pace's nightmare March. I've been so plugged in to NFL free agency this year that I've done a companion post for major moves in the league at large, seen here.
This year, I'm going to evaluate Pace's moves again. I'm bummed that I don't have a blogged record of my take on Marcus Cooper's signing from last year, so I'll be sure to include every even vaguely noteworthy transaction from the Bears this March.*
It's essential to remember that every GM in every sport spends his entire allotment of cash/cap space every year with only the most extreme exceptions. Accordingly, get ready for the Bears to spend a boatload of money, regardless of who they spend it on.
Important reminder: no grade inflation here! A "C" is average. A "D" is below average. An "F" is
failing. A "B" is above-average. An "A" is peak value.
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Wednesday April 11 @ 3:12pm
Bears Do NOT Match Offer Sheet Signed by WR Cameron Meredith (2 years, $9.6M ($5.4M guaranteed)
Bears: F-. Resigning Marcus Cooper was the worst move of Pace's tenure for just 16 days.
The bungling of the Meredith situation is likely to be the final straw for me with the GM. Pace will end the offseason with something in the neighborhood of $20M in unused cap space. Even if a good chunk of that goes toward extending a young player like Eddie Goldman or Adrian Amos, there's no way he couldn't have fit roughly $5M for Meredith into the cap puzzle for this year and next. A young, ascending player will walk out the door.
To make matters worse, Pace could've kept Meredith for $3M by assigning the second-round tender. I was surprised that Pace opted for the low tender, but it made sense provided that Pace planned to match any vaguely reasonable multi-year deal agreed to by Meredith. Basically anything less than $20M over three years should've been a slam dunk for the Bears with a young, big target with strong hands. It's nearly unthinkable that the Bears truly valued Meredith at somewhere north of $2M but south of $3M. In a wide receiver marketplace where Markus Wheaton got $6M, Meredith was certainly worth at least that much. Instead, he's gone and the Bears have nothing to show for having unearthed a promising young player.
This is asset management at its worst. The wide receiver depth chart looked strong with Allen Robinson, Meredith, Taylor Gabriel, Kevin White, and Josh Bellamy. Adding a draftee to the mix would've completed the position and given the team a bevy of mid-20s options to compete for snaps as Mitch Trubisky develops. Keeping Meredith on an inexpensive deal would've freed up Pace to draft a player at another position. Now, instead, the Bears almost certainly need to use an early pick on Meredith's replacement. That pick won't be an edge pass rusher, a guard, a cornerback, or an inside linebacker, all positions that the club also needs to address in the early stages of the draft.
This is a colossal miss and it means that the team will enter the season with two of its top three receivers coming off of season-ending injuries from last September. Meredith's presence would've mitigated some of that risk, despite his own season-ending injury suffered last August. Instead, his absence only exacerbates the problem.
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Monday March 26 @ 12:19pm
Bears Sign CB Marcus Cooper for 1 year, $??? ($??? guaranteed)
Bears: F-. Arguably the new worst move of Ryan Pace's tenure as GM. Even with so little at stake here -- reportedly the deal is for just over the veteran's minimum with incentives that can take it up to $2.5M -- this is an irredeemable transaction. From a purely analytical standpoint, there's no reason to bring in a player like Cooper. He ranked 101st of 112 qualified corners in 2016 (45.5 PFF) before inexplicably inking a "three-year deal" with the Bears last March. Cooper was somehow, mind-bogglingly worse in 2017 (42.5 PFF). That's not a player that should sniff any roster.
And that's before we talk about the Steelers game. In the game, Cooper was beaten handily throughout the game, but his moment of shame arrived as he slowed to a trot returning a blocked field goal for an easy touchdown, so much so that he was caught from behind before fumbling into the end zone, costing the Bears four points in the process (and it wasn't seven only because of a Pittsburgh penalty). That effectively ended his run as a Bear: Cooper 199 defensive snaps through four games but just 47 the rest of the season combined. It's worth remembering too that his high-snap game, Week 10 against the Lions, featured just 12 snaps. Eight of those snaps came on one drive on which Cooper managed to allow (i) a 17-yard pass to TJ Jones on 3rd and 15, and (ii) a 28-yard touchdown to Marvin Jones on 2nd and 8.
Cooper is unplayable. Bringing him back is a bad move that doubles as a terrible message.
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Saturday March 17 @ 12:35am
Bears Match Offer Sheet for CB Kyle Fuller; Bears Sign CB Kyle Fuller for 4 years, $56M ($18M guaranteed)
Bears: B-. I'm pleased that Fuller is coming back. His bizarre 2016 knee injury lost season notwithstanding, he had a solid if unspectacular start to his career before really improving in 2017 and establishing himself as a plus starter. Given that history, he's not without risk here.
Even with that, however, Pace played this swimmingly. By having so much cap space available and given changes to the CBA this decade that prevented the more creative poison pill contracts in ROFR situations from the past decade (looking at you, Steve Hutchinson and Nate Burleson), it was effectively impossible for a team to craft a poison pill deal here that put Fuller out of reach.
The fact that the Packers were the team that ponied up the offer sheet that Fuller ultimately signed before coming back to the Bears just made it that much sweeter. Solid deal.
Bears Do NOT Release TE Dion Sims
Bears: D-. Ugh. I know that Pace signed Sims because he believes in him and that's great. However, Pace has invested heavily in receiving options at the tight end spot (Shaheen, Burton) and there's no way on God's green earth that a blocking tight end is worth the $5.333M net cap space that Sims will occupy in 2018. That's just a bad, bad move.
Bears Sign TE Daniel Brown for 1 year, $0.925M ($70K guaranteed)
Bears: C+. This is a good moment: while we don't yet have the terms on Brown's contract, we do know that Pace did not tender him as a restricted free agent, so he presumably came in well under the RFA tender amounts here. I suspect that Brown gets the minimum or something close to it. That's a nice move for the fourth tight end.
Bears Sign QB Tyler Bray for ??? years, $??? ($??? guaranteed)
Bears: C. This is fine, I guess. There's basically no way that Bray makes the roster, so this just adds another voice to the QB room that has familiarity with Matt Nagy's system. I guess that's valuable.
Bears Release CB Marcus Cooper
Bears: C. The most obvious no-brainer move.
Bears Release WR Markus Wheaton
Bears: C. An obvious no-brainer of a move. The murmurs that the Bears may take another look at Wheaton in camp before releasing him terrified me and made no sense given the message that it could send to the young roster. Thankully, Pace didn't drop the ball here.
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Thursday March 15 @ 9:51pm
Bears Agree to Terms with OLB Aaron Lynch for 1 year, $6M ($??? guaranteed)
Bears: B+. I expected Lynch's deal to come in between $3-5M, at which price point I would have given this an A-. Instead, a B+ will do.
Lynch is precisely the type of player that the Bears needed to find at OLB. He comes with plenty of risk: Lynch fell out of favor with the new regime in San Francisco, logging just 157 defensive snaps this year and finding himself inactive for multiple games. He played just 222 games the year before under Chip Kelly's regime. Lynch reportedly showing up to training camp 20 pounds overweight this year. The red flags are voluminous.
So why is he worth the shot? Pass rushing prowess. Lynch has always had big-time skills, dating to his time as a top-30 national recruit at Notre Dame (before he transferred to South Florida). Lynch entered the NFL as a fifth round pick but immediately found his way into the 49ers rotation as a rookie, earning a top-10 pass rushing efficiency grade from PFF as a rookie. His 2015 season was the real breakout as he compiled an 80.0 grade playing nearly two-thirds of the San Francisco snaps. Expecting big things in 2016, he instead began the year with a four game suspension for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy and never got going en roue to a putrid 51.3 grade in his final season playing in a 3-4 defense. With the shift to a 4-3 and Lynch coming off of a poor year in limited reps, he barely got on the field this year...yet curiously, he produced his second strongest grade at 78.7.
His pass rushing grades have consistently been strong with his run grade normally lagging a bit behind but in the respectable range. Coverage, however, is not part of his game and never really has been.
A one year deal for a player with Lynch's conditioning issues is ideal as he's playing for his next deal all year. Reuniting him with Vic Fangio likely doesn't hurt. The fact that Lynch just turned 25 last week is delightful
I still suspect that a draftee will play a big role in the rotation at OLB alongside Leonard Floyd but finding a high-upside rusher was essential. Lynch fits the bill.
Bears Agree to Terms with P Pat O'Donnell for 1 year, $1.5M ($??? guaranteed)
Bears: B+. It's no secret that the Bears sought an improvement at punter, pushing their offer to Bengals punter Kevin Huber up near $3M per year over a three year term. Ultimately, Huber stayed in Cincinnati, so the Bears opted for a reunion with O'Donnell.
I'm a pretty big O'Donnell fan and figured that he'd net an expensive multiyear deal this spring, so getting him back on an inexpensive one year deal is a huge win. O'Donnell isn't some camp flier; he's a legitimate NFL punter with four years of experience kicking in unfriendly Chicago. I suspect that he'll win over his new coaching staff quickly.
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Wednesday March 14 @ 9:25am
Bears Agree to Terms with OLB Sam Acho for 2 years, $7.5M ($3M guaranteed)
Bears: D-. Acho seems to be a great presence in the Bears locker room, regularly plays about half of the team's special teams snaps, and he has held his own when forced into regular duty on defense (67.3 PFF in 2017). This contract, however, is commensurate with a fringe starter and that's way too pricey for Acho. For reference, he has made the minimum in each of his three years as a Bear.
The team will be best served if he is the fourth or even fifth option at OLB this year behind Leonard Floyd and a couple/few yet-to-be-determined pass rushers. This kind of contract isn't befitting of a player in that role.
I suspect that we'll be in this space next year discussing how Acho was released because his contract outpaced his production.
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Wednesday March 14 @ 8:57am
Bears Agree to Terms with QB Chase Daniel for 2 years, $10M ($7M guaranteed)
Bears: D. Now this is terrible value. And it's even worse than meets the eye because Daniel can void the second year of the deal. All downside risk for the Bears on this one.
Daniel has become a professional backup quarterback, making hay primarily with coaches from the Andy Reid coaching tree. That's fine. It's important to have a good backup quarterback. That's obvious.
Is Daniel a good quarterback? Nobody knows. He has thrown three passes over the last three years and never even sought out a viable opportunity to start. Kudos to Daniel for making a career out of being a backup quarterback, I guess.
But for the Bears, this is a questionable allocation of resources for a team with gaping holes in its OLB rotation and additional needs on both lines. It's a big expense for a team in need of more defensive backs. All of that would cap this deal at a C. The drop to a D comes with the terms of the contract. If Daniel proves to be a great quarterback if forced into action, the Bears don't reap the benefit on the back end. If he proves to be a dud, they're saddled with the contract. I refuse to believe that Daniel had so much bargaining power that he forced such a favorable contract.
I'm sure we'll hear arguments about how Daniel is really an extra QB coach in the coming days. That's cute. It shouldn't cost nearly this much and the QB coach isn't one snap away from having the season on his shoulders.
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Tuesday March 13 @ 10:11pm
Bears Agree to Terms with CB Prince Amukamara for 3 years, $27M ($18M guaranteed)
Bears: B. Now this is good value.
Amukamara came to the Bears after a steady diet of league average seasons compiled with the Giants and Jaguars. He also came with some injury concerns. When Amukamara suffered an ankle injury during the third preseason game and missed the first two weeks of the regular season, it looked like it would be more of the same.
Nope. Instead, Amukamara reached a new level for his career, posting a strong 81.2 grade that placed him around the 70th percentile for corners and making it through the rest of the season unscathed.
He'll be 29 this season, so the effective two year term on his deal makes plenty of sense. This is also appropriate pay for a #2 corner, but considering that Amukamara's success was compiled in large part because he spent so much time matched up against the opponent's #1 receiver, he looks like a really solid addition at well below the cost of Malcolm Butler or Trumaine Johnson despite superior recent production. Amukamara's injury history keeps this from being a home run, but this is a strong deal, especially if/when the Bears extend Kyle Fuller to keep the tandem intact.
Bears Agree to Terms with WR Taylor Gabriel for 4 years, $26M ($14M guaranteed)
Bears: C-. The Bears have enjoyed recent success with speedy skill players from Abilene Christian in recent years as both Danieal Manning and Johnny Knox made significant contributions under Lovie Smith. Thus, it seems sensible enough to take a shot on Gabriel, too.
I truly dislike evaluating deals without financials fully in, but I have a pretty good feeling about where Gabriel's market ended up: I'd guess that he got somewhere between $6-7.5M per year with effectively two years guaranteed, placing him just south of the Albert Wilson contract (even though Wilson is much more of a slot man than Gabriel, who primarily lives outside). Let's evaluate it as such.
He's coming off of a rough season in which the now 27-year-old posted a poor 65.9 PFF grade. He's 5-8, 165 pounds, and he brings little as a blocker in the running game. So how in the world did Gabriel snag a long-term deal as a diminutive undrafted speed receiver?
Simple: 2016 happened. Gabriel exploded onto the scene after escaping Cleveland, joining up with the Kyle Shanahan party that propelled Atlanta to the top of the offensive charts. Gabriel ran the best screen routes in football in 2016 according to PFF, earned an 81.3 grade for his efforts, and used his 4.28 40 speed to juke Malcolm Butler to the turf in the Super Bowl. Gabriel's elite speed worked wonders in that offense.
Unfortunately, he doesn't run great routes from what I've seen and Gabriel's size likely renders him a liability whenever a running play goes to his side.
It's a worthwhile risk, especially if the deal is a glorified one year deal instead of two, but there's not tremendous value here to love.
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Tuesday March 13 @ 1:46pm
Bears Agree to Terms with K Cody Parkey for 4 years, $15M ($9M guaranteed)
Bears: C+. This one required some research but I'm happy with the result. (UPDATE 3/14/18 @ 5:26pm: the numbers came in and woof, are they hefty. Pace had to go near the top of the kicker market for Parkey. As a reminder, Parkey was available on waivers in both September 2016 and September 2017. This grade tumbles from a B+ to a C+ with these financials.)
The Bears definitely needed a new kicker, preferably a good one, and they went out into the marketplace to find an NFL leg with experience and recent success on placekicking. That's good.
Parkey enjoyed a stellar rookie season in Philadelphia in 2014, converting 32 of 36 field goals, including all four of his tries outside of 50 yards. He hurt his groin early in 2015, and when he came to camp in 2016, he found his job poached by Caleb Sturgis. He moved on to Cleveland in 2016 where he went just 8-of-13 outside of 40 yards. Zane Gonzalez took his job, so Parkey moved back home to kick for the Dolphins in 2017, recovering his field goal form en route to a 21-for-23 season, including 7-for-9 outside of 40 yards.
There are two reasons for concern. First, while Parkey's field goal numbers picked up in 2017, he missed three extra points (he missed one in his prior three seasons combined). That offsets the gains on field goals. There's also something to the much friendlier kicking confines in Miami compared to the dreaded conditions at Soldier Field: former Bears kicker Connor Barth hit at least 82.1% of his field goals in the five seasons preceding his arrival in Chicago, but he slipped to just 74.3% as a Bear. Alarmingly, while Parkey has only missed three field goals over his last 23 games, those three misses were (1) in Pittsburgh in January, (2) in Baltimore, and (3) in Kansas City in late December. The Bears better hope that Parkey can handle a chilly day, and having grown up in south Florida and played college ball at Auburn, it's a sensible concern.
Second, placekicking is only about half of what a kicker does. The other half is kickoffs and Parkey's numbers tell a confounding story in that regard. Most teams appear to prefer kickers who routinely blast the ball through the back of the endzone, generating touchbacks and keeping the opposing return game out of the equation. Hopefully that wasn't Miami's approach in 2017, as their 41.79% touchback rate was the fourth worst in the NFL. Two pieces of evidence suggest that Miami wasn't simply trying to blast balls out of the back of the endzone. First, Dolphins Special Teams Coach Darren Rizzi heaped praise on Parkey for his ability to handle multiple types of kickoffs. Second, the average starting field position for Dolphins opponents following a kickoff was their own 23, best in the NFL and better than a touchback average.
If Miami was playing around with kickoffs because Parkey lacked the kickoff power to get the ball 8-9 yards deep in he endzone, the Bears will be in trouble as he's going to have an especially rough time in Chicago. If, however, they were aggressive in trying to force returns in order to pin teams deep in their own territory, Parkey's directional and varied kicking will be a huge asset. This grade accepts the latter theory, even without the benefit of financial data on which to evaluate the agreement.
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Tuesday March 13 @ 11:34am
Bears Agree to Terms with TE Trey Burton for 4 years, $32M ($18M guaranteed)
Bears: C+. The offensive splashes don't stop! In prepping for free agency, I identified Burton as a preferred target given his age (26), recent production (75.6 PFF), and growth. Burton spent his first two NFL seasons as almost exclusively a special teamer, but he grew into 300 snaps a year over the past two seasons. Curiously, his snap counts actually dropped in the playoffs for the Eagles, where he played in just over 20% of their snaps. He caught only one playoff pass for 12 yards. Of course, he also memorably threw a fourth down touchdown in the Super bowl. That'll get you noticed.
So why the slightly above-average grade? Burton is an upside play, pure and simple. He was blocked by a top-5, in-his-prime tight end in Zach Ertz with the Eagles, so the Bears are banking on Burton's versatility (he began his Florida career as a quarterback) and athleticism (he ran a 4.62 40 at the Combine).
Here's what I wrote about Burton in proposing a 4 year, $24M deal (that would really be a glorified two year deal):
Burton is what Sims was supposed to be: a younger, up-and-coming tight end who helps solidify the position. With the Bears targeting a run-heavy attack, having multiple playable tight ends is a must. Sims was a massive disappointment in Y1 of his deal, and given his history as an undrafted free agent and a part-time player, the Bears should be able to slide Burton into Sims' cap slot with ease. At 26 and coming off of a solid 75.6 PFF season, Burton would bring that much-needed additional big-bodied receiving target who can block. A $2M signing bonus, a $2M Y1 roster bonus, a $2M Y1 salary, and a guaranteed $5M in Y2 works. Annual salaries of $6M and $7M in Y3 and Y4, respectively, all make sense. The Bears could also consider taking a run at Buccaneers restricted free agent Cameron Brate, a huge red zone target coming off of a grade 80.0 season and still only 27, but I suspect Tampa Bay will match a Brate offer when forced to decide.
Allen Robinson was a must for the Bears: they simply had to find a productive receiver or two this offseason. Burton, on the other hand, is a toy for Matt Nagy and his offensive staff. He's unlikely to find himself in regular blocking situations -- pressure's on, Adam Shaheen -- but in passing situations, the Bears can line up Burton and Shaheen, giving them a certain big-bodied mismatch in the middle of the field.
This likely renders the Orchard Lake St. Mary's reunion between Allen Robinson and Dion Sims a very short-lived one as Sims seems likely to head out the door, leaving a $666,667 cap hit behind.
I suspect that Burton's deal will have something in the neighborhood of $16M guaranteed and $3M in dead money after 2019, so the two-year audition period should hold.
(EDIT at 1:15pm: One item I forgot to mention above: Burton has regularly been a key contributor on special teams, playing at least 55% of Philadelphia's special teams snaps each year and at least 60% in each of the past three seasons. I suspect that he'll become a special teams leader in Chicago, too.)
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Tuesday March 13 @ 8:44am
Bears Agree to Terms with WR Allen Robinson for 3 years, $42M ($25M guaranteed)
Bears: B+. Wow! This is a great way to jump into free agency for the Bears. A year after being relegated to inflated contracts to flier-type, middle class free agents, the team made one of free agency's first big moves, nabbing the leaping Robinson from Jacksonville. Robinson brings elite playmaking ability, something that has been his trademark since his days at Penn State where he seemingly routinely made plays like these. That said, don't overlook his route running, the under-the-radar skill that, combined with tremendous field awareness, enabled his leaping ability to shine despite a lock of top end speed.
I wrote about Robinson in my free agency preview, figuring that the market would get too rich for him and do so quickly. As it turned out, both he and Sammy Watkins took three year deals in an effort to hit free agency again in their late primes. That played to the Bears' advantage as, even though Robinson is coming off of an ACL injury, they obtained the better player on a short deal. Watkins' health seemingly proved to get him a bump when the Chiefs gave him $48M over his truncated term, making the Robinson deal look even better.
My thoughts from last week:
There are numerous options here, but the most attractive possibility in my book is Allen Robinson (25). Like Sims, I'm biased having watching Robinson in high school and cheered for him at Penn State, but there's little denying that he'd immediately become the team's best receiver if he came aboard. He is coming off of a knee injury that cost him all of 2017 -- save for three snaps -- but he's worth the risk.
My thoughts from today: teams that take a big step do so with impact additions, be they through the draft or free agency. Robinson qualifies as an impact addition. Is this a guarantee that he meshes well with Trubisky and the Bears' offense? Of course not. Is there risk that his injury makes him hesitant and/or saps him of some of his leaping ability? Sure, there's always that risk with an injury. Does the upside here -- that Robinson steps in as the immediate number one receiver that Trubisky so desperately needs and resets the offense, propelling it to functionality and then success -- a reasonable outcome? Heck yeah it is.
If you're still looking for reasons to hope, I'd encourage you to skim through this piece by Pro Football Focus. The TL;DR version: Blake Bortles regressed horribly in 2016 and it harmed Robinson's production in a major way. By way of example, iBortles threw Robinson 45 go routes in 2015, 25 of which were catchable. In 2016? Robinson got nearly the same number of targets on the go -- 42 -- but only 10 (10!) of them were catchable. Robinson converted all but one catchable go each year.
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Monday March 12 @ 8:43pm
Bears Tender RFA CB Bryce Callahan at Original Round ($1.907M)
Bears: D. This move isn't as unforgivable as the Meredith decision, but it still looks bad and confusing. Callahan comes with injury woes, but he's also coming off of a season in which he appeared in 12 games, a career high. He's only 26 and his 82.9 PFF grade was 31st among qualifying cornerbacks, a very strong showing. Callahan's 512 defensive snaps trailed Kyle Fuller and Prince Amukamara by a good distance, but they also outpaced fourth place Marcus Cooper by more than double. He's in his prime. He knows the defense. He produced...yet he also wasn't worthy of the second round tender?
I'm giving Pace a hair more slack on Callahan than I did on Meredith given Callahan robust injury history in contrast to Meredith's single catastrophic injury. Still, for a team light on assets, risking the loss of one of them over just $1M -- again -- strikes me as bizarre and wasteful.
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Monday March 12 @ 1:00pm
Bears Tender RFA WR Cameron Meredith at Original Round ($1.907M)
Bears: F. This was one of the easiest moves of the offseason and Pace somehow still screwed it up. The second round tender costs an additional $1M but effectively locks Meredith up for the coming season. The original round tender leaves the Bears at the mercy of the marketplace.
I fully appreciate that I lack access to Meredith's medical file and he may be worse off physically than the public knows. That said, the risk here that some team in need of receiving help and with oodles of cap space -- like the 49ers -- throws a hefty signing bonus and some lofty future base salaries at Meredith to see what happens. The Bears would still be able to keep him, to be sure, but they'd be stuck paying a significantly increased price to do so and they'd potential add dead money to the cap in a future year.
This was such an easy move to get right, yet Pace screwed it up.
Bears Tender RFA WR Josh Bellamy at Original Round ($1.907M)
Bears: D+. This seems a little rich for a gunner, but Bellamy is adept on special teams and this won't have much impact on the team's cap situation. It'll be especially interesting to see if another team makes a play at Bellamy to shore up their own special teams and, if that happens, whether Pace matches.
Bears Agree to Terms with OT Bradley Sowell for 2 years, $3M ($600K guaranteed)
Bears: C. It's hard to believe that the Bears made a significant financial commitment to Sowell given his mediocre play in limited snaps, especially considering that he's at an age (29) where improvement is nearly out of the question. Still, it's nice to take care of some of your own talent prior to the opening of free agency. Provided that this isn't for more than $3M total over two years, it's fine.
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*I do, however, have this little beauty from an email sent on March 24, 2017:
We haven't gotten to the worst part(s): Marcus Cooper, Markus Wheaton, Christian Jones, and Marcus Cooper again. If cap space evaporated after each season, I could understand throwing it at crappy players just to see what happens. But it doesn't. NFL cap space remains an asset given a club's ability to roll it over, and huge swaths of cap space enable teams to make creative moves like the Browns did with their MLB-inspired Osweiler deal. Teams with talent deficiencies need to be creative to improve their lot. Instead, Pace threw a big ol' pile of money at bit players. Who were the Bears competing with for Wheaton and Jones? That's $5.67M of net cap space (factoring in that they'd spend at least $540K replacing them with minimum-salaried rookies). Cooper was available for a conditional seventh round pick just six months ago. He made two tackles in 2015. How in the hell did he get $8M guaranteed?
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