There has been plenty of speculation regarding the future of Jay Cutler with the Chicago Bears. After Josh McCown emerged as a capable starter in the NFL, Cutler's status with the team was officially put in question. It does not help that Cutler has an expiring contract with the Bears. After the quarterback stressed that he is hopeful to remain with the team, Phil Emery is still keeping the franchise tag an option.
Earlier in December, Emery made comments over the challenge that come with the pending contract of cutler. This year, the franchise tag for a quarterback would be around $16 million in guaranteed money. That is an awful lot of cash and would put the Bears in a tight situation to make any other moves with other players with expiring contracts. The Bears have defensive starters to also worry about and the franchise tag would hurt the salary cap. After questioning whether that would be the right move, Emery is saying that right now, no option is off the table.
"I would say 'disregard completely' is an oversimplification of what the franchise tag is in relation to contracts and caps and player contracts overall," Emery said, via WSCR radio in Chicago. "What I had said before was that just make sure when you look at the franchise tag [you know] what that means from a quarterback's contract perspective and the amount of room and space that it eats up. It's not necessarily a solution. It's not the first thing we would think about. The first think we'd think about if we wanted to sign a player is a long-term contract. That fits better in our cap situation."
Normally, tagging a player is the jumping point for a long-term contract. The issue is that a one-year deal is very expensive and could lead Cutler to start requesting upwards of $30 million in guaranteed over the first two years. The tag would set the market value for the quarterback. He could end up using it as leverage for other teams in order to stick it to Chicago.
Cutler has stressed that he has every intention of remaining in Chicago. However, he did not deny that he would hold out until the right deal was in place.
"Well, you just don't show up for a little while," Cutler said, via the Chicago Tribune. "But everyone at some point comes back to work, right? I'm not just gonna not show up. I might be like, 'I'm gonna miss a few OTAs and go on an extra vacation.' But at some point, I'm gonna be back there."
If the Bears do not make the right offer because of the franchise tag price, Cutler could be on the way out. Both the Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans look to be in play if he walks away. The Bears must be smart if they also want to have money to use at other positions.
