Bears Ink Draft Picks Paea and Conte, Carimi Talks Ongoing
The Bears locked up 2 more draft picks late Thursday night and early Friday morning, coming to terms with 2nd rounder DT Stephen Paea and 3rd rounder S Chris Conte.
Now only 1st round selection Gabe Carimi remains unsigned. Some of the new CBA rules surrounding rookie wage scale could you the stumbling block in getting the big fella into camp on time for the first scheduled practice at 2:30 PM on Saturday.
Here’s how Brad Biggs explain it:
"That’s because teams at the bottom of the round near where the Bears are at No. 29 are battling right now with agents about fully guaranteeing these four-year contracts.The revamped system to pay the first-round draft picks has put a huge cash hit on the draft picks with the promise of a quicker path to free agency for them. According to a league source, there is a big fight at the bottom of the round right now because teams are trying to not fully guarantee all of the contracts. That’s got the agents hacked off, and the NFL is hopeful that contracts will not be fully guaranteed through the entire round to avoid pay for first-round picks escalating like it did in the past decade."
I expect the dominoes to fall into place rather quickly and all rookies to be in camp to start practice. With no offseason program, each training camp practice will be golden and the Bears can’t afford to have anyone miss any time.
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