The way it's structured it seems the Bears are thinking 5 years.

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That's not entirely true either, IMO.

The cap will not stay where it is, it will go up. Who knows, maybe it goes way up?
Of course, the big wild card in how many years the deal actually goes is how successful Cutler and the team is between now and then.

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Wasting so much cap space this year is a disaster though. We need it now more than ever.

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The landowner effectively owns part shares in millions of part-time slaves called, "taxpayers." -Roy L
A Personal Relationship with Jesus?

The deal contains no signing bonus, creating a pay-as-you-go series of cap charges for the Bears, based only on his base salaries.

In 2014, Cutler will earn a base salary of $22.5 million. In 2015, the base salary is $15.5 million. In 2016, it increases to $16 million.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... hereafter/

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Once Shea moves to LB, this team will be fine.

Yes. They will have to cut or restructure a lot of deals.

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Well, Cutler wasn't going to play for free this year no matter what. At least I don't think he was.

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So the speculation earlier was that the cap hit this year was going to be 12 mil? But now it is 22 million?

How the fuck does that work?

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It also means that Emery better have an awesome draft. He said the D will be younger next year.

Can you explain to me why they would take a cap hit of $22.5M next season for him? It makes no sense at all. They need the money to upgrade the defense.

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Cutler and Peppers were a combined $25 mil hit on the cap in 2013.

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IF that's true, there clearly has to be a Bears-friendly reason for it. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. Cutler doesn't care when he gets his money as long as he gets it.


edit: Don't forget, Peppers $ is gonna come off the books. Almost certain at this point.

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Bears could've had Cutler's compensation strictly be bonus.

Isn't the "Bears-friendly" part that it's a 3 year deal?

There was no logical reason to do it. Peppers potential $7M savings doesn't change that. The Franchise tag was only for $16M. This is beyond dumb. If they tagged him for 3 years it would have cost them $60M. They could have paid him after next season IF he played well. They basically gave him the tag for 3 years.

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Cutler has to have nude pictures of Virginia McCaskey.

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But it's impossible to tag for 3 years, isn't it?

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Did anyone read the article? It clearly states that the friendly part is the cheap option years with little cap implication.

Yes.

You're all going to be psyched at the bargain he is in years 4 and 5 as we go for that 4th and 5th Super Bowl.

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So they essentially "tagged" him for 3 years, at a savings of $6M over the life, and the complaint is......?

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There is no bonus. It's a guaranteed contract for 3 years. IF they needed to tag him for 3 years it would have only cost them $60M. Of course they could have signed him to a long term deal after tagging him after the first or 2nd season.

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You're joking right?

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Not at all. You're saying they should have tagged him for 2 years and then signed him for a long term deal if they wanted?

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Or let him go.

Who do you want to be the QB next year and at what price?

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They can IIRC. If they did it would cost them a lot more for the 3rd tage

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Right, that's how could've been 12 but is now 22.

I thought 2 years was the max.

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I'm NOT saying that. I'm saying it would have made more financial sense to do that INSTEAD of what they just did. They NEED money this offseason and they just gave it all to Cutler when they could have given him $16M for 1 season. The cost of tagging him for 2 seasons would be less than what they are paying him now.

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I just looked it up - it looks like it can be 3 years in a row, but it goes up 10% for each of year 2 and 3, and best I can tell no team has ever done 3 years on any player.

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