Chicago Bears State of Affairs Salary Cap & Front Office

today I wanted to talk about the Chicago Bears cap space update the situation and give more credit to Ryan Po's and the Chicago Bears front office this roster was a disaster just three years ago but on top of that our salary cap was also a mess but looking at our situation today the salary cap is healthy Ryan Poes Anan Cunningham have almost completely eliminated the dead money issue that plagued this franchise over the last decade on top of that we currently have one of the most talented rosters we've had in a long long time to go with that we still have $10.6 million in cap space for this season and currently have close to 75 million in cap space for next year I've praised Ryan poles a lot for the work he's done on this roster and I remember a lot of people putting him down over the last couple of off Seasons saying he could have done more but I don't think people realize how bad of a situation Ryan Pace put us in I've talked in the past about how Po's hands were tied and how the Bears had over $93 million in dead cap space it was by far the most in the NFL and it was 45% of our salary cap think about that for just a moment nearly half of our salary cap space to fill the entire roster and build a team was dead cap space that was unable to be used by Ryan poles yet people wanted to judge him for his first two years how can you build a team like that you have a bad salary cap and you didn't have many draft picks that's how the Ryan Pace era was and that's what Ryan poles walked into yet not only has he just made great decisions he has completely turned around where this franchise is at we've done a complete 180 from where we were when he took the job the Ryan Po's era is just different I've been talking about it for nearly 3 years now but his work is finally starting to pay off he had 45% dead cap space in his first year on the job last year he had over 25% in dead cap space but this year it's down to just 5.5% think about this for a second the Broncos only have 29.5% dead cap space this year after eating Russell Wilson's giant contract the Broncos cut Russ and took a dead cap hit of $53 million and even with that 53 million in dead cap space the Broncos still only had 29.5% of their cap wasted it's still not close to the 93.2 million in dead cap space that Ryan poles had to operate with in his first season as GM 45% literally half of the team's cap space to build an entire roster was dead cap space almost entirely created by Ryan Pace's affinity for restructuring contracts and adding void years which are extra years of dead cap space after a player's contract runs out on top of that he lik to overspend in free agency especially on Aging veterans it's just not a sustainable way to run a franchise it's something teams could maybe do if they're Allin and trying to win a Super Bowl which the Bears were never really in serious contention for during the Ryan Pace era sure maybe things could have went differently without the double doink but I'm not trying to go down a revisionist history the bottom line is we were not Super Bowl contenders yet Ryan Pace continued digging our franchise into a deeper and deeper hole but yet somehow Ryan poles has not only just climbed out of the hole but put this team in an incredible position going forward he has the dead cap hit number all the way down to just 5.5 5% this year but next year currently there's just $100,000 in dead cap hits which sounds like a lot of money to us but most teams in the NFL have millions and millions of dollars in dead cap hits and we're just talking about how Ryan poles is at over 130 million in dead cap hits in his first two seasons with the Bears so as we set here today less than 1% of the salary cap is dead cap space on top on top of that he doesn't have any bad contracts that he's written so there's most likely not going to be any more dead cap hits add it either he's done a great job of protecting this franchise's future not only has Ryan poles fixed the mistakes that Ryan Pace has made but he's also put this franchise in a better position than it's been since probably way back to the 85 Super Bowl team the complete overhaul he's done on this roster and the future of this franchise is remarkable I actually thought that Ryan po should have won GM of the year last season after making what I consider the best trade in NFL history by fleecing the Carolina Panthers let's revisit that trade though for a moment the Panthers got Bryce young the Bears got Caleb Williams DJ Moore Darnell Wright Tyreek Stevenson Tory Taylor and have a second round pick next year just absolute craziness but I believe the poll's resume going into this season is even stronger after landing Caleb Williams and Romo dun inside the top 10 he also stole Keenan Allen from the Chargers then he signed DeAndre Swift and Kevin Bard and I think he's just completely transformed the future of this franchise our salary cap is in tremendous shape we have almost all of our draft picks going forward with an extra second rounder meaning that Ryan poles continues to to have a ton of flexibility to make more big moves going forward and this team is now in position to add more players and more Talent even a couple of big contracts over the next four years before we get done with Caleb Williams rookie contract basically we have a real chance to compete going forward thanks to Ryan poles and Ian Cunningham but since I mentioned Ian Cunningham I do want to touch on one point he was named the executive in NFL that is most likely to become a GM next season I do think Ian finally lands a job as a general manager next year and that will be a blow for this franchise but I do have full confidence in Ryan Pole's ability to lead this team going forward however Ian Cunningham and Ryan Pole's time together I think has been really underrated and it's special they are actually scouting games together today and I think they're going to take full advantage of the final year they have together but when Ian does leave we will get two third round picks one each in back-to-back years and that will help Ryan poles even more but I will miss Ian Cunningham going forward but having another GM in the league that Ryan poles is good friends with will never be a bad thing and the future of this franchise is just so bright thank you to Ryan poles I believe he's the best GM we've had this Century I won't go back to the 80s or the 70s or even before that so let's not go there guys but football is back we are one week away from the Bears kicking off the season against the Tennessee Titans how excited are you guys let me know what you think and tell me what your thoughts are on the job that Ryan poles has done and do you think he has another move up his sleeve this year stay tuned guys I'll be here covering it every step of the way remember to hit that like button for me and until next time Bear Down [Music]