For a sneak preview of what the upcoming Bears’ offseason will look like, simply flip back to what they did a year ago.
It’s going to get reckless.
It’s easy to imagine general manager Ryan Pace selling off draft picks and outbidding himself on free agents because we’ve already seen it.
In a similar win-or-get-fired scenario — or so everyone thought — last offseason, freewheeling Pace gave pass rusher Robert Quinn a five-year, $70 million deal, signed tight end Jimmy Graham to a two-year, $16 million contract after he spent two weeks floating in free agency with no takers and delivered the double whammy of giving up a fourth-round pick and committing to three years, $24 million to reel in quarterback Nick Foles.
Those are the moves of someone who A. Thinks his team is a couple pieces away from being a championship contender and B. Knows he’s at high risk of being axed. And both of those factors are in play this offseason, too.
OverTheCap has the Bears $89,572 over a projected $176 million salary cap for 2021, but there are some obvious cuts that would make space and there’s optimism that the cap won’t be that low.
The Bears can also restructure contracts to kick cap hits down the road, but they’ve done it so often lately that they probably can’t afford to do much more of it.
“Every year there are ways to create cap space,” Pace said. “And those are all important decisions that we have to make... [We will be] analyzing what is out there in free agency, but being conscious and being responsible.”
But don’t worry, Pace said. He’d never mortgage the Bears’ future, which could very well belong to a new general manager in 2022, to save his job — even though that’s what virtually every NFL general manager on the hot seat has always done.
“Every decision I make is the right one for the franchise,” Pace said. “That’s just how we operate. That’s just natural. It’s not going to be thinking short term. It’s always thinking [about] what’s best for the Bears. That’s every move we make.
“There will be a number of ways we can go about it. Everything is on the table... But it’s always what’s best for the team and that’s long-term.”
That’s suspect, but perhaps the Bears will have come checks in place and Pace will have the self-control to stop short of replicating the mess the Texans made the last few years.
That said, is it really so bad if he goes all-in? After decades of perpetual mediocrity, if the Bears aren’t willing to begin a proper rebuild, at least this would be interesting.
If it works and the Bears are improved and compelling, that’s a good thing. People could probably tolerate selling off the future if it meant the Bears were in the mix for the Super Bowl next season.
The problem, of course, is that it’s devastating if it doesn’t work. It’s one thing to pay the price for those all-in decisions after championships, as the Blackhawks have been. It’s another to stumble out of the fog of another miserable season only to find that you have no draft picks or salary-cap space to fix a multitude of deficiencies.
