The Chicago Bears have been one of many teams dreading what is to come next offseason. COVID-19 has impacted sports everywhere and the NFL was expected to be no different. Not being able to have fans attend games figured to hit the league revenue hard. Enough to where projections indicated a possible $23 million drop in the salary cap to $175 million.
This would put the Bears just shy of $7 million over the cap. Anybody with knowledge of how the NFL structure works would know what comes next. A likely purge of several veteran contracts in order to get back under the cap. Names like Kyle Fuller and Akiem Hicks looked like obvious casualties to be cut or traded. A sad end to another strong defensive era in Chicago.
However, things may not end up being as dire as first feared.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk has kept up to date on the business dealings of the league. By the sound of things, there might be a little more optimism regarding how the 2021 cap will end up shaking out. Rather than the doomsday scenario many fear, the prospects of full stadiums next year and more TV money could lead to the cap only dropping around $3 million rather than $23 million.
“Per a league source, the possibility that stadiums will be full for the 2021 season could prompt the league to not tie the hands of teams by dropping the salary cap by more than $23 million per team, from $198.2 million. Although the 2020 season will indeed result in lower revenue than usual, the potential of a return to something normal or close to it plus the coming TV deals may result in the league keeping the cap in the range of $195 million.”
If this proves true, it could have major ramifications for the Bears. Not only would they not have to gut their roster as initially feared, but it might also allow the next GM to be much more aggressive in free agency to overhaul the roster. Not to mention the possibility of hanging on to some of their own free agents like Allen Robinson.
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Chicago Bears overhaul could avoid the dreaded “rebuild”
One of the big reasons Bears fans feared the offseason so much was because the cap crunch would likely result in a roster purge. Perhaps a full rebuild even. Now? The next regime could have the option of keeping this veteran defense intact while using most of their spending money and draft picks to completely revamp the offense. If nothing else it might shorten the amount of time they’d have to spend out of the playoff picture.
Then again if they really want to go deep, they could use that extra $20 million cushion and still purge the roster. This would give them a massive amount of cap space with which to rebuild everything from the ground up. It’s hardly an unprecedented idea. Several teams have done it in recent years like Miami and Carolina. It allows an organization to get younger faster. Remember the Chicago Bears have the second-oldest roster in the league.
That will likely be a sticking point going into January.
Rest assured a lot of players won’t be safe either because of age or their suspect play down the stretch. Several faces that fans have become familiar with could be gone by the spring. This team isn’t winning a Super Bowl as it’s currently configured. It comes down to how deep the purge will go. Maybe there is still time to salvage the core they’ve built.