Here’s the thing. It’s easy for a lot of Chicago Bears fans to demand that the team shelve the Mitch Trubisky experiment and pursue a top name on the market this offseason. Be it via trade or free agency. It’s quite another to actually make it happen. The logistics are beyond complicated. Not just because it might take some convincing to get a big name to sign in Chicago, but also resources.
Right now the Bears are projected to have somewhere around $20 million in salary cap space according to Spotrac. That is not a lot, especially with 22 pending free agents on their roster alone. They’d have to do some serious reworking of their payroll to accommodate a veteran quarterback of any notoriety. Don’t believe it?
Maurice Moton of Bleacher report did some research recently on what the top free agent quarterbacks could end up commanding on a per-year basis in 2020. Here’s what he came away with.
- Dak Prescott – $34-35 million per year
- Tom Brady – $30-31 million per year
- Drew Brees – $28-29 million
- Ryan Tannehill – $26-27 million
- Jameis Winston – $26-27 million
- Philip Rivers – $25-26 million
If anybody wanted a reminder of just how crazy the quarterback market is these days, this should illustrate it plain as day.
Chicago Bears aren’t in a position to meet those demands
This should dump a cold bucket of water on any hopes the Bears might be aggressive for a new quarterback this offseason with any proven pedigree. It’s not a question of want at this point. They simply aren’t in a position to do this. Their cap structure was built these past two years with the express hope that Mitch Trubisky would continue to develop into a franchise quarterback while still on his rookie deal. His regression has obviously thrown a wrench in those plans.
Unless one of those prominent names is willing to take a substantial discount to play in Chicago, the odds are the Bears will be scrounging the bargain bin for other options to help compete with Trubisky next season. That is unless GM Ryan Pace gets creative with some of the current contracts, which seems unlikely at this point. The Bears will shake up their quarterback position, just not to the massive extent some are hoping for.
