2021 OFFSEASON BEGIN
Bill Callahan gets the axe as Head Coach in favor of....a former Raider! Tony Pashos served as the Assistant Coach for Chicago from 2016-2020 and now appears ready to take on his first Head Coaching gig.
Two cap casualties in FA1:1--C Stefen Wisniewski (49/49, yr 11) and K Dustin Hopkins are released.
QB James has the "Watch Closely" tag on him. He is in the final year of his contract. I can really use some cap space. My choices are:
- A: Extend his contract with a high-bonus, low-first-year offer, saving me over $6M this year--enough to perhaps fill a hole or two in FA. The risk here is that if he can't perform like his old self, we'll take a huge cap hit.
- B: Trade him and go with Santiago VanderLey, who may be "good enough." The main issue I have with that move is that VanderLey is also in the final year of his deal, and because he started last season, he wants a fairlybig contract. Extending VanderLey and trading James would give a net cap savings of around $8.5M this year and a bit less than that in future seasons.
- C: There are four veteran QBs in free agency rated in the 41-48 range, all wanting modest money (around $3M this year). I could cut bait on both expensive QB options and go "game manager" all the way.
In the end, I decide that I don't like the idea of having to pay VanderLey that much when last season could have been just good dice rolls. I decide against Option C because I don't think I have enough defensive talent to make a "game manager" work, and it doesn't appear that there will be enough in FA to build it quickly. So with some trepidation, I extend Erick James's contract at the beginning of FA1 so I can pursue some guys.