Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune thinks the Bears might have a problem if, as expected, the new free agency rules revert back to 2009 rules. Under those conditions players with four or more years of service will be unrestricted free agents.
“How will it affect the Bears? If you are cornerback Corey Graham, safety Danieal Manning or linebacker Nick Roach, it’s good news. Although the Bears tendered a qualifying RFA offer to all three, under these guidelines they will be unrestricted.”
I mildly disagree with the premise that this will be a big deal for the Bears in that I don’t think they will miss any of these guys all that much. Corey Graham is a role player, Danieal Manning is an easily replaceable strong safety. You could make an argument for Roach as being the one who would hurt the most to lose but a healthy Pisa Tinoisamoa is, in my opinion, every bit as good (the key being the “healthy” part of that sentence). Admittedly Tiniosamoa isn’t under contract either but it isn’t expected that he’ll be hard to re-sign.
All in all I don’t see this as being a big problem and, if I were to guess, I’d say its less of a problem for the Bears than for most other teams in the league. The odds are good that the Bears put as high or a higher priority on re-signing Anthony Adams and Olin Kreutz.
Authors note: Most of you will note the inactivity on the blog lately. I’ve been working on putting in government grants for my real job. The light is near the end of the tunnel though and you can expect to see many more posts starting late next week. With any luck, that will co-incide with an end or near-end to the lockout, anyway.