Kevin Fishbain talks potential salary cap casualties for the Bears
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What are the Bears' current salary cap challenges?
Kevin Fishbane, Bears beat writer for the Athletic. If Justin Fields is great, he'll be great with Byron Pringle and Darnell Mooney and equate him to St. Brown. You would like better players around him, but I think you'll still be able to find a way to evaluate your quarterback, even if it's not greatness around him. Kevin Fishbane talking Bears. Matt Eberflug, George McCaskey, Ryan Poles, Kevin Fishbane. On Chicago Sports Radio, 104.3 The Score.
Kevin Fishbane is a regular guest here on Rahimi Harris and Grody. And we love talking to him in the offseason, too. And he joins us now via our Circa Resort and Casino hotline, CircaLasVegas.com. He is one of the senior writers at The Athletic covering the Bears. He also has a great podcast, Breaking In with Kevin Fishbane, a sports media podcast. And he joins us via Twitch, twitch.tv slash TheScoreChicago. Hey, Kevin, how are you?
I'm good, guys.
Which Bears players might become salary cap casualties?
Happy offseason.
Happy offseason, except unfortunately in the very well-written and illustrated story that you posted with The Athletic last week, talking about the very realistic issues with the Bears' salary cap problems. It was a nice table that was also illustrated to and showed whether it was money owed or dead cap money or how they would count against the cap. What were your takeaways from just the research you put together when you wrote that story?
This is new territory for Ryan Poles, really, and the Bears. I mean, for the past few years, they've always been up there as having a ton of cap space, great draft capital. And now this is what happens when you're good. This is what happens when you sign a bunch of veterans and you start making some bigger splashes in the trade market and extending those guys. You're up against the cap. So they've got some decisions to make. And I always allude to a conversation I had with Ryan Poles a couple years ago where he leaned on his experience at Kansas City. He goes, it gets harder when you are winning football games because you can't keep everybody. And this is really going to be... the first offseason that we might see some of what, you know, it's a business, as you guys know, but are tough decisions.
If Ryan Poles doesn't re-sign Jaquan Brisker, that was his second ever draft pick.
How does Ryan Poles' experience affect the Bears' decisions?
If the Bears decide to part ways with Tremaine Edmonds, that was really his first huge free agent splash that they made. So Nishon Wright, who was the story of the year, they might not be able to re-sign him. So these are the things that come with cap restraints and having a bit of a better team and owing other guys some money um but the other the flip side of that leila is there's only one player really that you could talk about getting an extension done now and that's darnell right uh and by restructuring some of these guys contracts you can flip the script uh and create a lot of cap space but that also kicks the can down the road a bit
All right, now you got me stopped at darn all right. If the Bears were to engage in an extension or even the talks of an extension with darn all right, what are we looking at here, Kevin, money-wise?
It's interesting, Mark, because I talked to a couple agents who do not represent right, just kind of floated it to them. If you were his representation, what are you asking for? One of them said, I'd reset the market. He was second-team all-pro. You look at his age, you look at – The accomplishments you remember, he did all that last year, most of it with a brace on his arm. You could say like, hey, we'll go ahead and get the you know, we'll top Penny Sewell, which right now is the top right tackle contract. Now, remember, I always like to point out that when a guy resets the market, he's only reset the market. until the next guy resets the market, right? Like, you know, and again, this is just one agent's kind of thought process.
And now they have the fifth year option at their disposal that buys them some time. If they don't get a deal done this year, they can apply the franchise tag next year. So there's a lot of tools at their disposal.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the Bears' current salary cap challenges?
0:04–0:59
2
Which Bears players might become salary cap casualties?
0:59–2:18
3
How does Ryan Poles' experience affect the Bears' decisions?
2:18–5:10
4
What are the implications of restructuring contracts for the Bears?
5:10–7:13
5
How can the Bears create cap space through restructuring?
7:13–9:10
6
What are the potential financial impacts of extending Darnell Wright?
9:10–11:31
7
How does the trade market influence the Bears' cap strategy?
11:31–13:10
8
What is the overall outlook for the Bears' salary cap management?
13:10–15:46
Speakers
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