With 18 million guranteed, this is a great deal. His franchise tag the next two seasons would have been right around this mark. He gets a negligible amount of money more guaranteed, he's happy with the extra years, Emery builds credibility with his players by getting a deal done.

Great move.

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Team Cutler.

Completely agree. And the Bears get some cap flexibility.

Agree I like it. This offense is going to succeed/fail based on improvement in the passing game. The line and receivers need to step it up. Forte is the least of our worries.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Guaranteed money matters less here because the deal is relatively short. If he's cut quickly, that's bad regardless. If he's successful the contract will be fulfilled or reworked. Total value of the contract matters more here (and that is still OK, but just OK).

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Fire Phil Emery

Some of you people get caught up in the years. Means nothing in the NFL

He gets 32 million over 4 years. 18 million guaranteed. So basically the Bears are banking on 2 years at 9 million per year. It's basically a 2 year guaranteed deal. That's how you look at it. That's very fair. After that they can cut him if he sucks.

You don't know if any of those dollars are incentive based, be they Likely or Not Likely to be earned ....

That's not how the cap would handle it though. You're still stuck with a 4.5 million cap hit in 2014 and 2015 under your scenario. Plus, if you cut him after two years, he probably sucked those two years.

True, but it would be surprising if much of the contract were tied up in performance numbers, and even less likely the numbers are very difficult to reach.

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Fire Phil Emery

Per @adbrandt (Andrew Brandt):

Even better deal!

wow.....did not like the idea of a long term deal at all but that is a great deal from the Bears standpoint. I think I've officially got Bears fever. Or sun poisoning.

You're right. But if he plays out the full contract at his current production, the Bears got a good deal. Then again, if he plays well the next two years, he'll hold out in year 3 looking to renegotiate it. Certainly in year 4.

While history is not on the Bears side in this deal, given how other RB's have performed after getting a anew contract, I'm good with this. Forte has proven himself to be a great pass catching back. I love the 1-2 RB punch of Forte & Bush. Bears are poised to have a great year this year, & given their easy schedule, I have them going 13-3 & playing in the NFC championship game.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

I have no issue with the signing. I would have liked the Bears to game the system, but whatever. The last two years are very manageable.

My only issue is that Forte has shown he can be plenty uninterested, etc. People forget the first half of the 2010 season when he didn't do a damned thing. We were all bitching about his happy feet in the backfield, hitting the hole soft, and his superhuman ability to get arm tackled. Obviously a different player now, but I don't know what the hell that was. If we are going to chalk it up to a bad situation then it would have been nice to have seen Cutler afforded that luxury.

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"Mattress technology has come a long way"

- Dan Bernstein, 2016

Glad they got the deal done, and to be honest it's not that horrific of a contract. I just worry that, as others said, this kills all incentive for him to produce.

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Who was saying that Cutler sucks? I thought it was pretty common knowledge: no offensive line + no receivers + egotistical OC = poor QB play

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Great deal for the Bears. As good as Forte could have hoped for considering he had no leverage. I think he'll earn his money all four seasons.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Don't worry. We all made it up to Cutler by acting like he had a great season last year when he had a total of 2 games over 300 yards passing because Caleb Hanie was terrible and made Cutler look like a superstar.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Jay Cutler was playing pretty well last year. Just slightly above average statistically but he was playing better than his stats suggested. If he plays like that again this year and plays all season they'll probably win 11 or 12 games.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

My point was that while people may have been too hard on Cutler for some of his struggles they make up for it by over the top reactions when he has even a minor amount of success.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Unnecessary deal.

No reason to operate this way in a Salary Cap league.

Forte will not be a premier back for more than the two seasons you could have franchised him.

Agreed. There would be hurt feelings but I think that would have been the better business direction.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.