Business never stops for the Chicago Bears, even in the middle of a season. GM Ryan Pace has a long list of objectives ahead of him. This presuming he’s still in charge by the end of December. Most of them center on the offense. Can he extend Allen Robinson? Can he find an actual good quarterback? Will he be able to repair a broken offensive line? However, this can’t distract from some big decisions on the defensive side as well. One of them centering on cornerback Kyle Fuller.
There is no denying the facts. He’s been one of the best in the NFL at his position this season. Despite being on the field longer than most in the league due to atrocious offensive play, Fuller has allowed just 46.6% of passes completed in his direction. Quarterbacks have a 61.3 passer rating when throwing at him. To say nothing of how consistently good he’s been in run support as well.
The guy is playing the best football of his career.
This is great and not-so-great news for the Bears. It’s great because it’s helping their defense remain among the NFL elite. However, it also presents a problem on the financial front. Chicago is facing a major salary cap crunch in 2021. Even with a rollover of their current cap, they’d have no more than $3-4 million. This with 30 pending free agents including Robinson to deal with. Not great.
A big part of the problem is Fuller. His cap hit next year is huge at $20 million. This leaves Pace with a dilemma. Does he think about extending the star corner despite him creeping closer to age 30? Or does he consider trading him while his value is peaking for cap relief and some draft picks? It’s not an easy choice. Based on what Brad Biggs said in his latest Chicago Tribune article, it seems the team is leaning towards the former.
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“Fuller is under contract for one more year, and the Bears reworked his contract the day before the 2019 season ended, a move that created $6 million in cap savings for this season.
As a result, Fuller has a cap hit of $20 million for 2021. Extending him could lower that number, but that can’t be done on the cheap. Fuller, 28, is in the prime of his career and likely will want to be squarely in that echelon just below Ramsey, the league’s highest-paid cornerback at $20 million per season.”
Kyle Fuller deserves to stay but is it the right call?
This guy is one of the great success stories in Bears history. After a nice rookie year, he watched his career almost hit a breaking point after missing all of 2016 with a knee injury. He fought through adversity, had a strong comeback season in 2017, and was an All-Pro in 2018 after signing a major contract extension. Now he’s on track to go down as one of the best cornerbacks in franchise history.
Yet at some point, the Bears have to accept reality. Their massive investments in defense haven’t done enough to make the team a consistent winner. Is it time they sacrificed some of that money in order to rebuild their broken offense? Besides, it would be hard to justify the decision to make Kyle Fuller one of the highest-paid corners in the NFL while still refusing to give Robinson his own well-deserved payday.
It isn’t an easy choice.
Then again everybody has learned the salary cap is a myth. GMs can always find a way around such issues with savvy contract construction. Extending Fuller isn’t a huge challenge. When the Philadelphia Eagles traded for Darius Slay this past offseason, they immediately extended him and lowered his cap hit to just $4.3 million. Chicago can do this next offseason and lower Fuller’s $20 million hit by a ton. That would bring instant relief.
Odds are the salary cap will start rising again by 2022 and beyond once the pandemic has subsided anyway so it’s not a bad plan long-term either. This would allow them to keep him and Jaylon Johnson together as one of the most formidable corner tandems in the NFL. It isn’t uncommon for corners to remain solid into their 30s. Johnathan Joseph was a constant presence for Houston even up to last year when he was 35-years old.
There is no reason to think Fuller can’t remain a fixture on this defense for years to come.