Bryan Bulaga did not quite make it to free agency in 2015; the Packers extended their starting right tackle at the 11th hour. This time, he could be on the move. The 10-year veteran is expected to generate immense interest, with Charles Robinson of Yahoo.com tweeting the Bulaga market should come in around $12MM per year. Bulaga signed for five years and $33.75MM five years ago, so this would mark a substantial raise for the veteran. Despite going into his 11th year, Bulaga will only be 31 come Week 1. After more injury trouble surfaced in 2017, he has played in 30 of a possible 32 regular-season games since.
Here is the latest from the NFC North:
- The Lions appear likely to have their quarterback back in time for OTAs. Matthew Stafford has healed up from the back injury that ended his 2019 season, according to his wife (Instagram link). Kelly Stafford indicated her husband has been healed for several weeks now. Kelly recently refuted a report the Staffords wanted out of Detroit, and GM Bob Quinn said the Lions are not shopping him. While this still figures to be a key year for the longest-tenured starting quarterback in Lions history, Stafford should be able to throw come April.
- If the Raiders make Derek Carr available, Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune expects the Bears to show interest. The Bears are interested in bringing in competition for Mitchell Trubisky; Carr might be overqualified for such a role. The third-place MVP finisher in 2016 posted the NFL’s 10th-best QBR last season — well north of Trubisky, whose 39.5 figure ranked third-to-last. Carr carries a non-guaranteed contract; he is set to earn $18.9MM in 2020 base salary. That price comes in $1.4MM higher than Dalton’s.
- Do not expect a reunion between the Vikings and Mike Remmers. Even if the team makes left tackle Riley Reiff a cap casualty and moves right tackle Brian O’Neill to that spot, Chris Tomasson notes the Vikings are not expected to be interested in a low-cost Remmers deal (Twitter link). Remmers was Minnesota’s right tackle starter from 2017-18 and will not return to the Giants next season.
- The Packers recently added to their coaching staff, with Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweeting the team hired Butch Barry as a senior assistant. A Wisconsin native, Barry was the Buccaneers’ assistant offensive line coach from 2015-18. He spent the 2019 season as the Miami Hurricanes’ offensive line coach.
- Additionally, the Packers promoted second-year staffer Jason Vrable from offensive assistant to wide receivers coach, the team announced. Vrable has not coached a position since serving as the Bills’ assistant QBs coach for part of the 2016 season. Otherwise, he’s spent his career as an offensive assistant or a quality control staffer.
Bringing in Carr for competition makes -0- sense. I’d be completely shocked, as in less than a 1% chance.
OTOH, since both teams have shaky faith in their QBs, I would not be shocked at a straight trade. I’d prefer Trubisky, but the grass is always greener….
Would love to see Carr in a Bears uniform considering he’s way better than Trubisky.. can you even name any of his wide receivers ? I do think it’s a long shot tho.
Carr is head and shoulders above Trubisky. This is only an issue because Pace can’t publicly admit that Helen Keller would’ve seen that Mahomes and Watson had way more upside that’s Trubisky.
Than
Carr’s not coming to the Bears to “compete” for a starter’s job knowing the outcome is as predetermined as any big time rasslin’ match.
I think a lot will depend on what the Raiders can do in free agency. I hope they land soneone they like so they’d deal Carr for Trubisky and a low draft pick. Dude is an obvious upgrade.
I don’t think Carr is going anywhere. Raiders have nobody on that depth chart that could be a suitable replacement. Chucky has no interest in drafting a QB since he has never developed those guys successfully in the past. That means any Carr replacement will have to be a veteran. There was talk of Mariota but is he any better?
Correction: Remmers was the Vikings’ RT in 2017 but was then asked to move to RG in 2018 after the team botched it’s search for an interior lineman in the 2018 draft and/or free agency.
Before the end of the 2017 season, Remmers had played 13 years of football at the high school, college and pro level without ever seeming to have played a single snap in a regular or post-season game at anything but LT or RT, so the RG experiment was a brutally bad failure. Frankly, he and his agent should have refused the move and challenged the team to cut him if they were dead-set for it.
That was the second time a team for which Remmers had done a solid screwed him over. His last year in Carolina, their LT got injured, and Remmers was asked to fill in for the whole year. They then let him walk in FA, even though he had finally solidified their RT a couple of years before.