How do you feel about Matt Forte's situation?

Were the teams not holding up their respective ends of the contracts??? I do not remember either CJ or Forte mentioning that they were being shorted on their contracts. Am I missing something here?

 

I couldn't care less about Matt Forte. He's a football player and football players get hurt.

Maybe if Forte played better LAST YEAR the Bears would have given him what he wanted...

Let's be honest, does a guy who has never run for more than 1,250 yards in a season deserve the money he was asking for? I'd say no.

 

I'm speaking generally about things like "salary-cap casualties" and things of that nature and how a large percentage of players never see anything near their contract figure.

 

I understand your point there, BUT, I would be surprised if any of those moves were actually violations of the contract itself. Somewhat immoral, yes, I can see someone making that claim, but not in violation of the contract.

That said, both Forte and CJ signed their rookie contracts at levels that were "at market" with their respective draft positions, so it is not like they were really taken advantage of here IMO.

 

I would agree with you except that the Titans asked CJ to meet in the middle prior to last season and they would work out a long term deal before this season. CJ obliged and was simply asking them to live up to their word.

 

Agree, BUT, this season the "before the season" was VERY SHORT. To expect to get a new deal finalized in less than a week is just not being realistic. FO was not allowed to even talk to him until the CBA was resolved. The deal signed was complex, and would have taken weeks, if not longer, to finalize in a normal offseason.

Now, if the Titans FO had access to CJ and his agent throughout the offseason, and still did not have a deal done by training camp, I would be more sympathetic to the decision to hold out.

 

I understand that, but I also believe CJ (correctly) felt like he didn't have the expertise to deal with any of it, and did what his agent and advisers recommended he do. I would have done the same if I were him. That's all.

 

Forte ran for 4.5 YPC in 2010 (only had 237 runs) and has consistently been a good producer catching the ball. Essentially last year was a breakout year with his YPC and the Bears became smart enough to feed him the ball more this year.

In reality the Bears were dumb as rocks for not extending Forte. You are right Forte doesn't have a 2000 yard season to look back on. So what that translates to is they could have extended him for far less money but they didn't. Now Forte is proving he is one of the best RBs in the league and will want to be paid like one.

The bottom line is when teams get too conservative and wait for the player to prove and earn their contract they often get burned if the player actually does it and gets even better. Then you have a guy who's market value is through the roof. Basically the same thing happened with AH. We made him prove himself and he played so well couldn't keep him. Maybe if we offered him a much reduced contract a year earlier he still plays well and we keep him. It is a risk both ways. Who knows, maybe a 75% AH with a reasonable contract is better than using multiple high picks at DT to try and make up for the guy's loss (Jones 2nd rounder, Marks, 2nd rounder and now Casey 3rd rounder). Obviously AH turned out to be a turd but we don't know how things end up if he is handled differently. Offering CJ a nice but not ridiculous contract after 2009 might have been smart IMO as well. With so many years to go on his rookie contract he might have settled for less than he got this year. Then this who holdout never happens. For example Charles ran for almost 1500 yards with a ridiculous 6.4 YPC in 2010. The Chiefs gave him a 6 year 28 mil contract. Sure he got hurt but his contract might still be a bargain if he can come back to close to 100%. If he had another season as good as 2010 in 2011 he is probably looking for CJ money in 2012.

 

I totally agree on that strategy.

Titans do this on a too limited basis. Roos, Stewart & Finnegan come too mind.

Need to sign the guys, but make cutting them not CAP killers. It aint rocket surgery

 

The thing is we really have no idea what each side was expecting. The Titans might have been low or CJ might have been high. Either way there is no leverage on either side until it gets close to the start of the season. That is why so many of these deals don't get done until the last week or so. They keep playing chicken right up to when a decision needs to be made.

W can't really know if CJ was the guy holding things up or if it was MR offering him the vet minimum. What we do know for sure is in the midnight hour they converged on a deal they both could agree to. That could have happened exactly the same way even if we didn't have a lockout.