The Chicago Bears will be on the lookout for possible help for their roster in the next few days. This as teams begin whittling down their own depth charts to the required 53 players. This can sometimes lead to some unexpected moves. Bigger names hitting the streets for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s health and others age. A big motivator in many cases is money.
One name that is gaining traction on that front is Buffalo Bills defensive end Trent Murphy. According to Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com, it’s believed that Murphy is no longer the starter there with new arrivals supplanting him this summer. This makes it hard to imagine they’ll keep his inflated cap number to just be a backup.
“Speculation about Murphy’s spot on the team started after the Bills signed Mario Addison and drafted A.J. Epenesa. Murphy has reportedly looked solid in camp, but a $9.775 million cap number is aggressive for a rotational player.”
That isn’t just his opinion either.
Sal Maiorana of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle covers the team closely. He listed Murphy as a definite candidate for cutting for those same reasons. Murphy is a tough, dependable player but the Bills don’t have a lot of money to spare and have some contract extensions to think about.
“McDermott loves him as a leader, but the Bills have several leaders in their defensive line room with Jerry Hughes, Mario Addison and Quinton Jefferson. Murphy is superfluous, and while he led all Bills’ defensive linemen last season by playing 65% of the snaps, there’s no way he would get that many this season.
Hughes and Addison are the starters, rookie A.J. Epenesa and second-year man Daryl Johnson can be part of the rotation, and Jefferson is a player who can line up inside and outside. There’s not enough of a need for Murphy when the Bills can save more than $7 million and put that money toward an extension for linebacker Matt Milano.”
Chicago Bears could fortify their pass rush with Murphy
This entire offseason has shown the Bears are committed to beefing up their pass rush. They threw a ton of money at Robert Quinn to sign him to a five-year deal. Then they traded up to draft Trevis Gipson in the 5th round. The message is pretty clear. Murphy though is far more proven than anybody else the Bears have not named Quinn or Khalil Mack. Gipson is a rookie and Barkevious Mingo is more of a special teams guy.
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Murphy has 18 sacks over the past 45 games he’s played. He also has experience playing outside linebacker in a 3-4 defense. Something he did for three years in Washington. His final season there he collected nine sacks in 2016. He’s an average starter overall but could be a perfect fit as that #3 rotational rusher.
If he becomes available, other teams are certain to be interested. Even so, the Bears need to monitor this carefully.
