Bears president Ted Phillips and general manager Jerry Angelo were clear about one thing at the start of the offseason--any tightening of the belt at Halas Hall in the wake of the economic downturn was not going to have an effect on the football budget and how they do business.
Phillips made the point in February when discussing the organization's decision to freeze ticket prices at Soldier Field. Angelo echoed those sentiments later that month at the scouting combine in Indianapolis. Fast forward to mid-May and the Bears have $20.8 million remaining under the salary cap according to figures obtained by the Sun-Times on Monday. That makes them one of six teams in the league with more than $20 million available. It was announced last week that a final adjustment to the salary camp for 2009 raised it to $127.997 million. The Bears' adjusted cap for this season is $135.9 million, the result of a number of factors, including the Marcus Hamilton likely-to-be-earned incentive that gave the club a credit from last season.
Here are the top six in terms of available space:
Tampa Bay $37 million
Kansas City $31.8 million
Green Bay $29.4 million
San Francisco $26.4 million
Philadelphia $23.1 million
Bears $20.8 million
So, the question is what do to with the money? Angelo recently joked that it's not like he has a $20 bill burning a hole through his pocket. He was asked directly about the possibility of some extensions on Sunday at the team's fan expo.
"I think we were unprecedented in terms of all the people we did extensions with,'' Angelo said of last year. ``So in part that made fewer players come up, but those that do well, we'll definitely do what we've always done in the past. I've always said this, 'They take care of their business and business takes care of itself.'''
The Bears were so pro-active in signing players who were coming out of contract last year that there really are not that many to choose from. We detailed the list of free-agents-to-be in discussing the ramifications of an uncapped year here.
