The Chicago Bears are in a bit of a precarious spot. It's easy to tell them to shake everything up by pursuing one of the top quarterbacks expected to be available in free agency next month. Mitch Trubisky isn't working out. So just fix it. Nothing is that simple in the NFL. GM Ryan Pace constructed this roster with one baseline hope. That Trubisky would ascend while he was still on the team-friendly rookie contract.
This allowed the Bears to spend more freely to put quality veterans on the roster to accelerate their rebuild. It almost worked in 2018 as the team went 12-4. However, everything fell apart last season as Trubisky regressed. Now pretty much every national expert believes the smart thing to do is just cut your losses and move on. Get the best possible veteran to take over. Except they for one inescapable reality.
Quarterbacks are expensive.
Don't believe it? Here is a projection of the market value for every notable free agent QB set to hit the market on March 18th. This comes courtesy of Spotrac who used comparisons to previous quarterbacks based on age, contract status, and production to apply a per year average. Suffice to say, most of them won't look palatable to the Bears.
- Tom Brady - $33.8 million per year
- Dak Prescott - $33 million per year
- Ryan Tannehill - $30.5 million per year
- Jameis Winston - $26.7 million per year
- Philip Rivers - $24.3 million per year
- Teddy Bridgewater - $20 million per year
Chicago Bears would need to completely quit Trubisky
As of today, the Bears are projected to have somewhere in the vicinity of $13 million in salary cap space at the start of the new league year. This before re-signing key free agents like Danny Trevathan, Nick Kwiatkoski, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and others. They would have to do some serious reworking of their payroll to clear up enough cap space to even remotely consider handing out one of those contracts.
Also, keep in mind those are projecting market value. Teams could easily end up paying more in the right circumstances. Recent reports suggest Bridgewater might have a big market, which could balloon his number to $30 million per year.
A move like this would have to be the Bears believing that they are truly a quarterback away from contending for a championship. That means wiping the slate clean on Trubisky and pouring their resources into getting one of those guys.
One begins to understand why that might not sound so appetizing for Pace.
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