Day: January 20, 2016

How Much Available Cap Space Do the Bears Really Have?

The standard thought amongst fans is that the Bears have a tremendous amount of cap space to sign big free agents in the offseason this year. According to sportrac.com, that’s both true and not true.

The Bears will have roughly $55 million dollars in available cap space in the offseason. That ranks them second amongst the 32 NFL teams. However, their “cap health” only ranks them at 12th. That’s because they only have 14 of their 22 starters signed and those 14 take up 62% of their available space.

The bottom line is that, because the Bears available cap space has to be used to replace a relatively large percentage of the players on their roster, their ability to spend a great deal of money on only one or two free agents is limited.

Still, 12th ranks them in the top end of the league and the Bears are in great financial shape for the coming offseason. Just not as great as some people think.

Drinking the Cleveland Kool-Aid

Jeff Darcy at cleveland.com writes a rather kind piece on how the Browns are structuring their front office, labeling it “innovative”:

[Owner Jimmy] Haslam‘s unique new front office model is actually in keeping with the legacy of Paul Brown.   The iconic team namesake was known for modernizing professional football with  innovations he introduced with his teams.  His intellectual and innovative approach to the game led to decades of dominance by the Cleveland Browns.    Here’s hoping that this time history repeats itself.

Giving Sashi Brown, the team lawyer, someone who has never in his life worked on the personnel end of an organization, control over the 53 man roster is not innovative.  It’s insane.  Haslam needed less interference from these types of people not more.

I thought the hiring of Hue Jackson as head coach was a good get.  But the Browns are going nowhere looking for someone to head the personnel department while giving teams the right to refuse them an interview for a position that doesn’t allow personnel control.  Allowing Brown, someone with no experience whatsoever evaluating NFL players, the power to arbitrate disagreements between Jackson and the said yet to be found “general manager” makes the situation even less attractive to those who are even allowed to interview.

Jackson is a very good coach.  But he can’t coach a team with no talent.