Explaining the Bears conservative free agent moves | Take The North
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Dan, how are you seeing things right now for what the Bears might be able to still do in this offseason, if anything, of serious consequence? Look, the conversation is layered, and it goes back to kind of what we've forecasted all along. And really, Ryan Poles forecasted it coming out of the season where they understood the constraints that they were facing. Salary cap in particular puts them in a position where I think as of Thursday morning, OverTheCap.com had the Bears with like $493,000 of current cap space, and that's before – they have to go out and sign the draft class that they're going to put together in April, right? And so you're going to have to make moves regardless to free up cap space just to keep the players you currently have on your roster.
At some point, there's going to need to be a restructure or some movement of some sort that allows you to create the cap space needed just to be functional. And so they're going to have to have some space available for them during the season so that they can make moves when emergencies arise in that regard. So look, they don't have a lot – of wiggle room to play with right now. I know that social media was a buzz last week when Adam Schefter in a back and forth on ESPN said that the bears are broke. This is what he was talking about. Salary cap wise, they were up against it, you know, and they are up against it and they'll still be up against it. And so right now I think you're seeing some of the, the, the, the later waves of free agency produced depth signings.
We had a couple of those this week. that add to your defense depth wise. And ultimately your next big thing, in my opinion, is the NFL draft, which is coming at the end of April. And that's going to be your next chance to add higher quality players. Right. And obviously those are a little bit more cost efficient because of the rookie contracts. But that's where we're at right now. And so, look, like I want to get your feedback on this and then we'll talk about this kind of common question that lingers out there. Why aren't the Bears being more aggressive?
Well, yeah, and I guess I'll kind of react to what you're saying and get into that a little bit. I think one of the things that precludes the Bears from being more aggressive on defense, and yes, there might have been a time when the Bears were in on the Max Crosby deal, which would have forced them to give up resources and draft picks and all of that.
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Chapters
4 chaptersSpeakers
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