1. Jimmy Graham Cap Hit $5.3M
For three straight weeks, I have asked where Jimmy Graham is as Damiere Byrd consistently gets more snaps than him. Byrd has a cap hit under $1M while Graham is making 5x as much and playing 5x less.
It is great that contracts do not dictate playing time, but the Bears had months to release Graham and at least save a portion of this cap hit. They kept him, which meant he was expected to have a role on this offense. A season-low seven snaps on Sunday says otherwise.
Again, when you combine the salaries of Jimmy Graham, Danny Trevathan, Eddie Goldman, Nick Foles, you have $24.8M in cap space dedicated to basically nothing. You have $4.28 with the tackles giving well below-average play.
That is enough to sign an elite game-changer or three or four solid players. The worst part is you have articles of me questioning all of these decisions as they happened. Almost no one expected these decisions to work out. Alas, they have not, and the Bears are much weaker from a roster standpoint for it.