The plan to fix the Bears looks simple enough. All they needed to do was spend the first year clearing out bad contracts and setting themselves up to treat this year like a buffet between the draft and free agency.
But that’s not how it works in the NFL. Everything is competitive. General manager Ryan Poles’ rebuild strategy could be airtight — that’s unclear at the moment — but even then, the rest of the league isn’t going to merely step aside and let him enact it.
The Chiefs and Eagles, fresh off a Super Bowl matchup, are forced to cut salary, but they aren’t just sitting around waiting for the Bears to catch up. And plenty of teams that need to rebuild are sketching out plans of their own. Poles must not only get it right, but do it better than other teams with similar ambition.
He is juggling a lot right now between decisions on his own players, what to do with the No. 9 overall draft pick and whom to sign in free agency when it opens Monday.
Free agency is a pivotal piece of the equation this year because the Bears have a league-high $94.7 million in salary-cap space, according to OverTheCap. That’s nearly $30 million more than the next team, the Falcons. All but nine teams are at $17 million or less in space.
In good fortune for the Bears, some of the top free agents play positions of serious need, like Chiefs left tackle Orlando Brown and Eagles defensive tackle Javon Hargrave. Poles also could use his wealth of cap space to absorb a highly paid player in a trade. Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey, Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans and Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins are among those thought to be available.
Immediately after the season ended, Poles pumped the brakes on any wild expectations of what the Bears might do in free agency and warned everyone they weren’t “just gonna go crazy.” He reiterated that stance at the NFL Scouting Combine last week. Poles, who has emphasized value at every turn since taking the job last year, was asked if he can find it in the first wave of free agency and replied flatly, “Not really.”
He went on to explain that he understands that a team typically must overpay to get top free agents and his personnel department will factor that into its budget for elite talent. Nonetheless, he prides himself on discipline, and said his staff has already set parameters for what it’s willing to offer.
The caution in free agency — as well as when trading for high-priced players — is not only the astronomical cost and how a bad contract can derail a team years later, but that another team was willing to let that player leave. It’s much surer to build the core of a roster through the draft, which is cheaper and allows a team to develop the player and have a full grasp of his capability.
However, not all free agents and trade candidates are the same. When the Raiders dumped quarterback Derek Carr, who signed with the Saints for $150 million, teams absolutely should’ve been hesitant. But Brown and Hargraves, for example, are available purely because of cap crunches. Evans, Hopkins and Ramsey are all on teams staring at a rebuild and needing to create future flexibility as fast as possible.
Brown has been on the Bears’ radar all year — before that, even. Poles was the Chiefs’ executive director of player personnel when they traded for him in 2021. Brown, 26, made the Pro Bowl each of the last four seasons, and Spotrac projects his market value contract at $112.1 million over five years. Unless Poles knows something that the rest of the NFL doesn’t, the Bears need a meeting with Brown.
They should be at least talking with all the top free agents.
Poles’ primary precaution is avoiding a quick spike in wins at the cost of it crumbling shortly afterward and the Bears being in a salary-cap quagmire. Shortsighted moves along those lines are why this job was open for him to take in the first place.
But he knows better than anyone how thin this roster is. It just went 3-14. It is by definition the NFL’s worst. Looking up and down the Bears’ sideline last season, it was tough to identify more than 10 players who could be significant pieces of their future. The wait can’t be indefinite. The Bears need a lot of help, and they need it soon.
