The final few pieces of Matt Forte's contract have recently been released and with that it's time for a review of where his value stands compared to what the Bears have reportedly offered.

While there have been many questions and opinions regarding Matt Forte's contract situation, the most important question left to be answered has been determining what the difference in value is between what the Bears have offered to Matt Forte versus how much he is actually worth. To get an idea as to Matt Forte's worth, we can (and will) look at the production of comparable running backs alongside their contract values. As to determining the Bears contract offer, the last of the general details was revealed this week regarding the Bears contract offer to Matt Forte.

Michael Wright of ESPN Chicago was the first to share any significant contract offer details reporting that the Bears best offer was a guarantee of close to $14M. Last week Sean Jensen of the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the value of the contract was worth $6M per year. Finally, and you may have missed it, but Michael Wright revealed this week during an interview on the Carmen, Jurko, & Harry show on ESPN 1000, that the length of the Bears contract offer was for six years, double the length of Frank Gore's contract which was 3 years. Adding it all up makes the Bears best offer to Matt Forte at 6 years, $36M with $14M guaranteed.

Now that we have the general details of the Bears best contract offer to Matt Forte, let's take a stab at trying to figure out how much Matt Forte is worth. I've added a handy dandy data table that uses the Bears best offer to Forte and includes the total yardage production of comparable running backs from the time Matt Forte came into the league, 2008, through the current week of the NFL. Running backs that were taken in the same draft as Forte have an asterisk by their names. The table is sorted by average annual worth of the contract. Let's take a look.

Though Matt Forte's total yardage production is ranked as 3rd best among all backs since he's been in the league, even with the Bears best deal averaging $6M per year, he'd still be the second lowest paid running back on this list. It's significant to point out how much Jamaal Charles is getting paid as he was drafted one round lower than Matt Forte and has produced far fewer total yards during the same time span. That fact is not lost on Matt Forte. Players are always keeping on eye on how much guys are getting paid in their same draft class. There's no way that Matt Forte would accept a contract offer lower than the one Jamaal Charles signed and the Bears should have known that.

In my humble opinion, Matt Forte is looking at Chris Johnson's $9.3M contract average as the ceiling, another running back who was drafted in Forte's draft class. When you look at the total yardage numbers of the two backs, Johnson at 2nd with 5972 and Forte at 3rd with 5639, they are comparable. If Chris Johnson is the ceiling, then who's the floor? Take a look at the next highest paid running back in terms of contract average, DeAngelo Williams at $8.6M, whom Forte has bested in total yardage by 1862. Though the Bears will argue that DeAngelo Williams was overpaid as a free agent, his deal still helped set the market for running backs who weren't free agents when they received their new deals afterwords, namely Frank Gore, Chris Johnson, and Adrian Peterson.

What all of this means is that Matt Forte's approximate market value currently sits at around $8.5M-$9M per year and climbing with each good week of play. I'm guessing that Matt Forte and company may be asking for around $9M-$10M per year which would put him above DeAngelo Williams yet close to both Darren McFadden and Chris Johnson, both of whom were drafted in the same year as Matt Forte.

Short blog post long, if the Bears plan on signing Matt Forte for six years, their offer needs to be at least $51M at an average of $8.5M per year with probably about $20M guaranteed. The Bears definitely gambled and lost by not signing Forte before Johnson & Peterson's contracts were done. The question now becomes, where do they cut their losses at? Do they value Forte enough to pay the difference to keep him or has Forte now become too rich for the Bears to keep?