Mack to season-ending IR for foot surgery

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Maybe he will be done as a Bear as well. Coming off surgery there will be little (worthy) interest in Khalil's trade market.
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This feels like management creating excuses for why we had a shit season.

"Well Andy got hurt and Justin is a rookie, our defense's production went down because of injuries" blah blah blah
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Good. Season ended with the 49ers game, no point dicking around. Play for the future. Get Mack healthy either for our team or for an off season trade. I think this should remove any doubt that we need to play Jenkins over Peters if (and only if) Jenkins is 100% healthy and not at risk of further injury.
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Well that sucks.
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I don't know that this will be used by Bear ownership to create an excuse to bring everyone back. The age and atrophy of the defense is on full display - Mack, Hicks, Trevathan - as is the lack of explosive weapons on offense - not to mention chronic coaching incompetence. I do believe the Bears need to make a strong push starting Sunday, injuries or not, for Nagy to keep his job. Pace is likely (guessing) a bit more problematic - but his record speaks for itself. 1 winning season to date. 2 playoff appearances (one with an 8-8 record), no playoff wins. Traded up twice in 5 years to draft a QB. Took 7 seasons to draft an OT in the first 5 rounds. Had to sign his left tackle off a fishing boat right before the start of the season. Has yet to add truly explosive playmakers at WR or TE. Left the CB so bare that one of their starting CB's (Vildor) is arguably the worst in the league. Good enough to bring back?
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I think its a good thing. If he is hurt let him get it fixed. We arent going anywhere this season. Whether Pace and Nagy or one of the other get fired, lets not get stupid wins that mean nothing. It is time to build around Fields and get people in the charge that can build our team. False hope has always made us hold on to things for too long. I love Mack but if next year we can trade him to get some great O line picks to help Fields im so down with it
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This is the risk with putting so much into just one player. It's not just Mack's record-setting salary it's the draft picks given up too.

After 2018 all those that championed the trade were raving about how right they were. Those who had doubts bought into the hype. In hindsight who was right?

What might have been if the Bears had spent some of that $140m on retaining Amos and keeping the highly promising partnership between him and Jackson together? What might have been if they had invested those first round picks they gave up on some top OL prospects or nabbed a player like TJ Watt? What if, what if, what if?

What's done is done, but in future I'd rather reward homegrown players with big contracts than give up a slew of high draft picks and a massive contract in a trade.
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This season is lost and his contract is still $24m in dead money to move next year if I understand the financials (and I don’t). Cap cannot improve until 2023 so maybe some big pieces sitting out and getting healthy is right long term play even if it sucks short term.
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he's clearly been playing hurt for quite a while, about time they let him get healthy after the steelers game put a fork in the season. Huge loss to the D, but it is what it is. Would be way worse if the Bears kept trotting him out there while hurt, knowing we cant ship him off next season ( and i dont think there is honestly any intention in halas hall to move him ).
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HisRoyalSweetness wrote: Fri Nov 19, 2021 9:43 pm This is the risk with putting so much into just one player. It's not just Mack's record-setting salary it's the draft picks given up too.

After 2018 all those that championed the trade were raving about how right they were. Those who had doubts bought into the hype. In hindsight who was right?

What might have been if the Bears had spent some of that $140m on retaining Amos and keeping the highly promising partnership between him and Jackson together? What might have been if they had invested those first round picks they gave up on some top OL prospects or nabbed a player like TJ Watt? What if, what if, what if?

What's done is done, but in future I'd rather reward homegrown players with big contracts than give up a slew of high draft picks and a massive contract in a trade.
Indeed, what if what if.
Agreed, homegrown is alright with me, homegrown is the way it should be.

I keep going back to the 2018 season when Pace seemed to go all in: give up a ton for Mack, hire the offensive guru HC, "unlock" the Mitch potential, bring in Trey Burton and ARob, a healthy Hicks and one of the best starting DB group we've seen in awhile with Fuller-Amukamura-EJax-Amos. A 12-4 season resulted in hosting a first round game double doink loss. Almost.

The subsequent offseason saw the 100th NFL anniversary and everyone slapping the team on the back, including the coach of the year (hard to believe now), and blowing up expectations. The league caught up to Nagy, the D took a step back and didn't help the offense to score points and it's been average since then. I was going to lament the number of games Mack has missed the last few seasons but he's started every game except in 2018 when he was out for two in the middle of the season. Seems like we've seen too many games of half-speed/strength Khalil.

As we saw with Cutler, bring in the star QB and assemble a killer D. Unfortunately the draft picks given up were not there to help build talent on offense. This season should have been a rebuild season, but Pace/Nagy are in CYA mode. We'll see if the McCaskeys can swallow hard and build the team around JF1 without giving up any more draft picks. Maybe even acquiring a few more picks with a Mack trade? Yeah, I doubt any team would give up something significant for a player over 30 with his injury history and big contract.
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Are we setting up a trade for the off-season to get some much needed draft capital?
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HisRoyalSweetness wrote: Fri Nov 19, 2021 9:43 pm This is the risk with putting so much into just one player. It's not just Mack's record-setting salary it's the draft picks given up too.

After 2018 all those that championed the trade were raving about how right they were. Those who had doubts bought into the hype. In hindsight who was right?

What might have been if the Bears had spent some of that $140m on retaining Amos and keeping the highly promising partnership between him and Jackson together? What might have been if they had invested those first round picks they gave up on some top OL prospects or nabbed a player like TJ Watt? What if, what if, what if?

What's done is done, but in future I'd rather reward homegrown players with big contracts than give up a slew of high draft picks and a massive contract in a trade.
It’s really hard to say HRS, I wouldn’t be spiking the football on either side. Mack almost won us a super bow in 2018. And you have to think about what the other side got / did with their assets - very little as is usually the case. Pointing to TJ Watt is a futile way of looking at things, we still could’ve had Watt if we knew what a talent he was - a lot of teams missed that one. Including the Raiders who had our picks! Had they taken Watt it’s be a stronger point IMO.

But yea if we had a time machine and could grab the perfect guy with every pick, then of course by all means never trade any picks away!
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HisRoyalSweetness wrote: Fri Nov 19, 2021 9:43 pm This is the risk with putting so much into just one player. It's not just Mack's record-setting salary it's the draft picks given up too.

After 2018 all those that championed the trade were raving about how right they were. Those who had doubts bought into the hype. In hindsight who was right?

What might have been if the Bears had spent some of that $140m on retaining Amos and keeping the highly promising partnership between him and Jackson together? What might have been if they had invested those first round picks they gave up on some top OL prospects or nabbed a player like TJ Watt? What if, what if, what if?

What's done is done, but in future I'd rather reward homegrown players with big contracts than give up a slew of high draft picks and a massive contract in a trade.
You're not wrong. What If's can go a lot of different ways.

Hindsight is 20/20, but what I will say is the fundamental flaw of the Mack trade is Ryan Pace's focus on building the traditional Bears Defense instead of adapting his thought process to an evolving league.

The rules haven't favored a player like Mack for a long time. How many times has Mack been held with no call? No one gives a damn about defensive players anymore and making sure the game is being called fairly for them.

Now what if Ryan Pace spent that same money and draft picks on trading for a QB? In 2018 that wasn't going to happen with where we thought we were with Mitch, but just pretend for a moment. Say the trade was Mitch plus 2 firsts?

The one that really hurts, like you said, was not investing in the OL.

But here's the thing.

If Parkey makes that FG and we go on to win a Super Bowl, which I think we would've done, that Mack trade would be easily worth it. Even if nothing changed with 2019 and 2020. Winning the SB in 2018 would've meant everything.
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Yeah, obviously 'what ifs' are unknowns and there can never be any guarantees how they would have panned out. The point is really questioning the wisdom of putting so many resources into one player who may get injured and not play (Mack this season), injured and play but at reduced effectiveness (Mack the last two seasons) or simply not perform up to his contract (Jackson the last couple of years, Quinn last year, Robinson this year). In the case of the latter, the team only gave up money and well designed contracts can give the GM an out after a year or two. In the case of Mack though it was both a monster contract and a number of high draft picks. That's a massive risk to take even for a high-calibre professional like Mack who always gives his all. I would make the same argument if the trade had been for a superstar on offense.

Mack's contract and the loss of draft picks has reduced the chances to build a more rounded roster. For what he's been paid the team could have had 2 to 3 players with cap hits in the $7-12m range and a couple of 1st round picks on rookie contracts with 5th year options too. If even 3 or those 5 panned out the team would probably have been better because since 2018 Mack hasn't been the difference-maker he needed to be to live up to the value of his contract let alone that value plus the traded picks.

It's also worth wondering about Leonard Floyd's effectiveness. Many consider him a bust not least because he didn't put up big sack numbers despite playing opposite Mack, but he put up better numbers before Mack's arrival and he's putting up excellent numbers with the Rams. Floyd was more productive both before and after playing opposite Mack (sack rate of 0.52 per game in the two years before, 0.22 per game with Mack, 0.69 per game with the Rams.) One thing I've noticed is that he predominantly lines up on the left, which is where Mack usually does. As soon as Mack arrived, Floyd played mostly on the right. Perhaps he's just better off the left edge and would have been the player the Bears thought they were getting when they picked him if Mack hadn't taken that spot. I'm not for one minute suggesting that Floyd is remotely in Mack's class, but he's been productive in LA and earned himself a big contract but one that is still dwarfed by Mack's.

As for winning Super Bowl LIII if only if it hadn't been for the double-doink, that's a massive projection. The Bears would have had a shot of course, but they struggled offensively at home against the Eagles which is why they needed to make a last second FG in the first place. There's no real reason to think they wouldn't have struggled against the Saints and Rams too and then in the Super Bowl the Rams held the Patriots to just 13 points and still lost. Of course if the Bears had won we'd all be looking at things differently but it's not like they missed out by a whisker. They went out in the first round of the playoffs and there would have been a lot more football to be played.
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"For what he's been paid the team could have had 2 to 3 players with cap hits in the $7-12m range and a couple of 1st round picks on rookie contracts with 5th year options too. I"


That could also be read as 1 Year of Mack gets you one year of Mike Glennon and Dion Sims
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I loved the Mack deal at the time. But in hindsight, it was a bad deal because he changed from a consistently disruptive force to a consistently injury affected player after year 1 with us. It's too bad.
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Why does this feel (with DT also going on IR) like this season just shifted to prep for 2022? I mean we've known this for some time. But if you're the coaches, you're shooting for the playoffs until it's no longer an option. But now..........
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Mikefive wrote: Sun Nov 21, 2021 10:00 am Why does this feel (with DT also going on IR) like this season just shifted to prep for 2022? I mean we've known this for some time. But if you're the coaches, you're shooting for the playoffs until it's no longer an option. But now..........
This season became about 2022 once we drafted Soldier Fields.
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For me all Pace’s trades are compared to rock bottom and that is the ridiculous way we traded up for Trubisky.

Nothing against Mitch, but that trade was utterly ridiculous and unnecessary.

Mack’s been a good player for the bears, he hasn’t let anyone down. I’d trade him for a couple of firsts, maybe a first and a second.
The team won’t mature quickly enough to get the best out of Mack in my opinion
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HisRoyalSweetness wrote: Fri Nov 19, 2021 9:43 pm This is the risk with putting so much into just one player. It's not just Mack's record-setting salary it's the draft picks given up too.

After 2018 all those that championed the trade were raving about how right they were. Those who had doubts bought into the hype. In hindsight who was right?

What might have been if the Bears had spent some of that $140m on retaining Amos and keeping the highly promising partnership between him and Jackson together? What might have been if they had invested those first round picks they gave up on some top OL prospects or nabbed a player like TJ Watt? What if, what if, what if?

What's done is done, but in future I'd rather reward homegrown players with big contracts than give up a slew of high draft picks and a massive contract in a trade.
I hated it at the time: viewtopic.php?p=205698#p205698

But then allowed myself to come around when he was playing well: viewtopic.php?p=207967#p207967

You do need difference makers to win superbowls and the reason we've been capped out isn't just down to his contract but overall I think it's now pretty plain to see that signing any player to a league setting deal is a bad idea. Potentially QBs excluded but I've already said my piece on that a few times. It's just so difficult for any one player to have enough impact on a season to justify paying them the kinds of cap that Mack got. And then when it meant we lost 4 draft picks that, even irrespective of how they pan out, generally cost less for equivalent performance than vets... well that adds to it.

If we'd have front loaded more it might have become viable but the situation now with him dropping off a bit and getting injured more, at the time when his cap numbers are around $30m with the prospect of a big dead cap hit at some point. Just ouch man.

Cheers Ryan.
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This sucks, but it's also good. The foot has been an issue since last season.
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malk wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 8:03 am You do need difference makers to win superbowls and the reason we've been capped out isn't just down to his contract but overall I think it's now pretty plain to see that signing any player to a league setting deal is a bad idea. Potentially QBs excluded but I've already said my piece on that a few times. It's just so difficult for any one player to have enough impact on a season to justify paying them the kinds of cap that Mack got. And then when it meant we lost 4 draft picks that, even irrespective of how they pan out, generally cost less for equivalent performance than vets... well that adds to it.
It's fair to argue that Mack's immediate predecessor as the highest paid defense player in the league, Aaron Donald, has had the impact to justify his contract having been the defensive player of the year 3 times out of the last 4. Like any player he could have had injuries too so it was still a risk, but without having to fork out high draft picks for him on top of the salary it was a significantly lower risk than the Mack signing.

It's the combination of the cost in draft picks and the cost of the salary that is the problem with big trades. They rarely work out well for the team acquiring the player.
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HisRoyalSweetness wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 1:48 pm
malk wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 8:03 am You do need difference makers to win superbowls and the reason we've been capped out isn't just down to his contract but overall I think it's now pretty plain to see that signing any player to a league setting deal is a bad idea. Potentially QBs excluded but I've already said my piece on that a few times. It's just so difficult for any one player to have enough impact on a season to justify paying them the kinds of cap that Mack got. And then when it meant we lost 4 draft picks that, even irrespective of how they pan out, generally cost less for equivalent performance than vets... well that adds to it.
It's fair to argue that Mack's immediate predecessor as the highest paid defense player in the league, Aaron Donald, has had the impact to justify his contract having been the defensive player of the year 3 times out of the last 4. Like any player he could have had injuries too so it was still a risk, but without having to fork out high draft picks for him on top of the salary it was a significantly lower risk than the Mack signing.

It's the combination of the cost in draft picks and the cost of the salary that is the problem with big trades. They rarely work out well for the team acquiring the player.
Donald, in 7 seasons of amazing, incredible play, has made the postseason 3 times with a 3-3 record. Now the first 5 of those seasons he wasn't paid lots but the first 3 ended 6-10, 7-9, 4-12.

I'm absolutely not saying that any of this was his fault but at some point teams need to look at the correlation between individual players and team success. And if you don't have a very good idea that the player, individually, is contributing a number of individual wins to the team's record then what is the ultimate utility of giving them 10, 12.5, 15% of your entire cap?

Because Donald gives you about 25% more performance than, say Hicks (pre injury) for 2x-2.5x the cost. And all that performance amounts to about 60 impact plays a season, say 12 sacks, 20 TFL and 25 QB hits.

And I don't really blame the teams or GMs here. You can't let Aaron Donald walk under any circumstances. But you then look at the Patriots glittering rings and it's mostly on the back of a HoF level QB that is the GOAT because he took less money in salary than he needed to. Then very few massive contracts given out so the team could usually have 22 players who were at minimum good and whatever you could get additionally to that. The NFL is a league with pretty high variance for a few reasons but it does feel like you're only as good as your worst 10 players and no amount of transcendent talent above that can compensate.

Basically the league needs a max salary in the worst way. Imo it would spread around the money to the guys at the bottom who put their body on the line for relatively little and without whom we wouldn't have games. But just from a competition standpoint, there are so many amazing players that we don't get to see in the post season due to poorly constructed teams that are made in a way that the league structure incentivises.

Fwiw I'd also add some kind of Bird rights structure to make it easier for teams to retain their drafted players, allowing them to go over the cap in some way to keep players they want to to reward good drafting. Oh and whilst I'm fixing the league, rookie Proven Performance Escalator's shouldn't count against the cap either.
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It wouldn't surprise me if Mack retired.
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wab wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:37 am It wouldn't surprise me if Mack retired.
I would be pretty darn surprised
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RichH55 wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 4:22 pm
wab wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:37 am It wouldn't surprise me if Mack retired.
I would be pretty darn surprised
I don't see him retiring but I could see him start ring chasing after we cut him (whenever that might be).
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malk wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:04 am
RichH55 wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 4:22 pm

I would be pretty darn surprised
I don't see him retiring but I could see him start ring chasing after we cut him (whenever that might be).
Not this offseason IMHO
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