It’s possible that whoever signs him will get a pretty good deal. He wants to play, but the closer it gets to the season, the more he’ll think about taking less. Call it “the Lance Briggs effect” if you will. He’ll either jump in for someone who gets injured during camp (which isn’t easy if they expect him to make the calls), or settle for a backup role that could become a starting role next year. We’d fit that second mold, and if we signed him for a fitting contract, there’s a good chance we’d get a pretty good deal. Probably a small starting salary and SB with higher salaries in a year or two, saying he’ll either be a starter or cut.

I don’t think I’d be opposed to such a contract, but it would shake stuff up on an already shaken line and possibly send some bad messages to someone like Hartwig, who’s a slightly less talented version of Bentley anyway. We’re also really tight against the cap and there’s not a whole lot of hope that a Starks deal will give us some relief, either. I don’t see us mortgaging our salary structure’s future to take a chance on a guy like Bentley.

Not a terrible line of thinking at all by you. I wish teams would roll the dice more, both in game situations and in their personnel moves. But teams seem to err on the side of cautiosness. If that move blew up in the face of a team, GM and Coach both are fired.