The Chicago Bears are playing for a lot on Sunday. Not just their personal pride after the Green Bay Packers humiliated them a month ago but also a chance at the playoffs. Something they’ve seen just five times in the past two decades. Going through their rivals to do it would make it all the sweeter. At the same time, a lot of people are wondering if this might be their last shot at the postseason for a while.
Why? Namely because of fears from the anticipated salary cap crunch this coming offseason. One that could see the overall cap drop to $175 million. This would mean the Bears find themselves just over $6 million in the red. Even with a rollover from this season, they’d be barely $147,000 over the cap. All that with 30 pending free agents to juggle including quarterback Mitch Trubisky and star receiver Allen Robinson.
If the Bears want to keep them, it could take some sacrifices.
This in the form of possibly unloading a couple of their biggest contracts on defense. The two who stand out the most include Kyle Fuller ($11 million) and Akiem Hicks ($10.5 million). Just the idea of cutting or trading those two hurts Bears fans given what they’ve meant to the defense. Not to mention how good both of them still are.
That being said, it may not end up being as bad as many fear. Albert Breer of the MMQB was asked about the cap situation in 2021 in his latest mailbag. His answer was rather revealing. The belief is that things are trending in a direction where the NFL owners will consider keeping the cap flat rather than having it drop next year. This is an effort to prevent so much roster turnover.
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“I’m more confident now than I was a few months ago that the NFL will find a way to at least have a flat (rather than a dropping) cap in 2021, and I think the season getting played on schedule is a key to that. Having all 256 games played, and the playoffs off and running, will set the table for negotiations on new broadcast deals, and if the league can strike new broadcast deals before the League Year kicks off in March, then the chances the owners work with the union to manage the cap increase.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but basically some owners view borrowing from future caps to fund the current year as an interest-free loan to players that they don’t really want to give. Having new TV money locked in, I think, will soften their stance.”
Talking 2021 Cap reduction on the pod with @JoeBanner13 pic.twitter.com/xbMes8tvPg
— Andrew Brandt (@AndrewBrandt) December 28, 2020
Chicago Bears would benefit in a huge way if this proves true
As stated earlier, the Bears would be looking at around $147,000 in the red next offseason after a cap rollover from 2020. If the cap were to remain flat instead of dropping? That means it would stay at $198.2 million. This means instead of being $147,000 in the red, they’d actually end up with just over $15 million in cap space. While that isn’t a ton, it gives the front office substantially more wiggle room than they would’ve had otherwise.
This way they wouldn’t have to gut part of their roster in order to retain key players like Robinson and possibly Trubisky. They could restructure certain contracts and offer extensions. There are a number of ways to massage the cap for some extra room in order to conduct necessary business. Hopefully what Breer says proves to be true. It would really help the Chicago Bears keep a fairly talented roster intact.
Then it comes down to who is making the decisions.
There is a strong possibility GM Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy could both be fired after Sunday. A lot is riding on that game against the Packers. Will a new GM be calling the shot? If so, this could drastically alter how the Bears handle their offseason regardless of the cap bonus.