chw42

Yes I will happily eat crow for my Poles criticism. This was much needed to make this off-season make sense.

News of the Chiefs signing Marquise Brown broke like 30 minutes after the Allen news. You'd have to think they were gonna be in on Allen and the Chargers probably did not want to trade him to them or have him reach free agency to go to KC.

I wonder which 4th rounder it was for. Was it the Bears' or the Eagles'?

Now we know what Poles was saving his cap space for. Allen will get $23 million this year.

Holy fleece. Allen has a lot of dead money so I don't think the Bears would actually be paying him a ton.

If they're keeping Fields, they'd be loading up in FA. Because Poles, Fields, and Eberflus would be playing for their jobs next year.

I think he'd be fine as a spot starter or 2 inning reliever. Although if you're paying him $10 million a year, you're better off using him in high leverage relief roles. He throws 97-100 as a 1 inning reliever. 93-95 just doesn't work for him since his control is shoddy and he's basically a 2 pitch pitcher.

Is it a coincidence that they started to play better after the Cease trade rumors started up again?

The fact that Clevinger pitched fairly well last year and nobody wants him should tell you what other teams really think of him.

Curtis Samuel just signed with the Bills. There goes an option for slot WR.

If you add the trade values of the picks, the difference amounts to the 95th pick in the draft. This at least gives you an idea for Fields' value. The problem is that the longer they wait, the less spots they can trade Fields to.

Ryan Poles really asleep at the wheel. No signings for the defensive line with a bunch of cap space. Sam Howell effectively got traded for a top 100 pick and he's apparently not even bothering to trade Fields.

I'd be interested in what his extension numbers are. He's 6'4 so he's a pretty tall guy with long arms. Sometimes having elite extension hides lack of fastball velocity. See: Lucas Giolito and Triston McKenzie.

Yeah that looked really bad. They said it's a hip problem. Hopefully it's not too serious.

Just watched some videos on Thorpe and the Giolito comparisons don't just stop at his repertoire. He has a short arm action delivery just like Giolito. Giolito probably has a better fastball (especially when he had the high spin rate that gave his fastball ride), but Thorpe's control and larger array of secondary pitches could make him less reliant on velocity.

Thorpe's profile actually reminds me of Giolito after everyone started complaining that he doesn't throw hard enough or had inconsistent velocity.

This is pretty close on Baseball Trade Values FWIW

If this is after a bidding war, what was before it?

I totally expected this site to crash after I saw the initial Passan tweet.

Preller always wins bidding wars cause he's insane.

Also, there's no way Jerry gives Montgomery a deal that's Bellinger-esque. He doesn't do opt-outs.

It also sucks that Scott isn't seen as anything more than a WR4 type.

Yeah at this point, I don't expect them to make any big time signings. Maybe Armstead is still in play. But they're probably gonna sign a cheap EDGE and slot WR and call it.

Spotrac has the draft picks taking up about $14 million. I think they are around $30 million depending on how they structured the cap hits on their signings since. They had close to $50 million after the Johnson extension. Byard is around $7 million, Swift is $6 million this year, Everett is $6 million, Owens is $2 million.

I actually like the idea of Mack on a short-term deal. The Bears need pass rush help badly. Everything I've read in the past day coping with Poles not spending big is that he doesn't want to do that until they know what they have at QB in Caleb. Well, a one year commitment to a guy who had 18 sacks last year is not exactly going to screw with your future finances.