The NFL offseason is a roller coaster. Especially for a team that feels like its window to compete for a championship may be closing. In truth that window has opened and closed on the Chicago Bears with regularity for years. They can never keep it open consistently though. Why? The obvious answer. An inability to settle the quarterback position. This is why the team is rumored to be in hot pursuit of Carson Wentz.
Yet after a blistering start to things last week that had people convinced quarterback was on the cusp of being moved, everything has faded away. No new updates have come out for almost two days now. The running theory among top insiders is no team has made an offer the Philadelphia Eagles like. So GM Howie Roseman is biding his time waiting for a better one.
Where are the Bears in this situation?
Depends on who you ask. Some think they have the best offer on the table. Others think they haven’t made an offer at all. Mike Florio admitted confusion as to why the Bears are even interested. Yes, Wentz had some good seasons in 2017 and 2019 but he’s clearly a quarterback who will need a lot of fixing. That will take time. Time this Bears regime doesn’t really have.
And it’s this point that may explain why Chicago hasn’t been more aggressive. Albert Breer of the MMQB was asked who the Bears’ quarterback would be in his weekly mailbag. While he still believes they are favorites to land Wentz, he also thinks there is an overlooked reason why they’re reluctant to come any closer to the Eagles’ desired price range.
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“Straightforward question, JT, so I’ll give you a straightforward answer: Carson Wentz…
…Both the Colts and Bears are interested, but there are hang-ups for both. My sense is Indy would want this to be more of a two-year flier than a full-on marriage to Wentz, and it’s important to remember that the Colts didn’t put their first-rounder on the table for Stafford—which shows the sort of discipline GM Chris Ballard is operating with. As for Chicago, mortgaging future assets might be a tough sell to ownership, given that the team’s football brass will be fighting to keep jobs this year.”
Carson Wentz situation may confirm a big theory about Bears
Team chairman George McCaskey said he and ownership have full confidence in GM Ryan Pace to make all football decisions in 2021. People were led to think that Pace would have zero shackles on him. If he needed to make an aggressive move that would involve future draft capital? Then he would have the freedom to do so. What Breer is saying flies in the face of that.
McCaskey and team president Ted Phillips may not be wild about the idea of giving up another 1st round pick for a veteran player. This one with far less upside in Carson Wentz. Sure he has ties to the Bears coaching staff, but he’s damaged goods too. He played his worst season in 2020, got benched for a rookie, has a long history of health issues, and is now surrounded by accusations of being difficult to coach.
Selling that to the fans is hard enough. Ownership is even tougher.
Not just because of those reasons but also because they’d be on the hook for $47 million they’d have to pay Wentz over the next two seasons. So what Breer is saying makes total sense. They want improvement at quarterback like everybody else, but Pace can’t be allowed to get carried away as he’s often done in the past. See Mitch Trubisky.
While for some this would be good news, for others it raises the original question. If the Bears are placing a ceiling on what Pace can do, why did they even bother keeping him? Yet another confusing situation as this offseason rolls on.