This story just keeps getting dumber. We’ve detailed how the Green Bay Packers signed Chicago Bears cornerback Kyler Fuller — then carrying the transition tag — to an offer sheet. The tag gave the Bears the right to match the offer, specifically five days to match.
We’ve also detailed how the contract, negotiated by director of football operations Russ Ball, contained no poison pill, i.e. nothing to really make the Bears think twice about matching. It should be noted that the Bears had at least double the amount of salary cap space as the Packers did at the time.
The Bears took about two hours to announce they would match the deal. But okay. No harm really. All the Packers did was negotiate a contract for their division rival.
Well, it turns out there was some potential real harm there. Even though they said they were matching, the Bears didn’t actually file the paperwork until the last possible minute.
They did hold the money for five days, according to Gutekunst. Verbally matched the day of, didn’t file paperwork until fifth day
— Michael Cohen (@Michael_Cohen13) March 28, 2018
Why is this significant? The Packers money was tied up in the offer sheet with Fuller for five days. During that time they couldn’t spent that money on anyone else.
Did the Packers potentially lose out on another player because they had money tied up with the Bears?
It’s certainly possible.
Interestingly, Gutekunst defended the move earlier this week. Of course, what’s he going say? Yeah, we might have fucked that one up…
It’s something I might call a rookie mistake.