As the November 1st trade deadline rapidly approaches, rumors are starting to heat up across the league regarding which players could possibly be on the move prior to the deadline.
One of the players that are reportedly being shopped around is Bears’ Pro Bowl pass rusher, Robert Quinn, according to Jason La Canfora of the Washington Post.
After producing a whopping 18.5 sacks a season ago, Quinn has struggled to replicate that success in 2022. Quinn’s overall grade has plummeted to 40.4 through six games, per Pro Football Focus.
Also, outside of only tallying one sack thus far, Quinn’s pass-rush win-rate is also down from 21.9 percent to just 11.5 this season.
The 32-year-old defender signed a massive five-year, $70 million deal back in 2020. If he’s traded by the deadline, he’ll still be owed about $7.1 million for the remainder of this season, but the Bears will likely be willing to eat a chunk of his salary in exchange for a better draft pick.
As mentioned here, Chicago is gonna have to eat some salary to get this done, which they absolutely should do.
Will still be owed about $7.1M at the deadline, agreeing to convert $5M+ of that into a bonus to boost the draft compensation return makes too much sense https://t.co/hj2TImg3nv
— Brad Spielberger, Esq. (@PFF_Brad) October 19, 2022
After this year it gets a bit more complicated.
There’s a very real chance that Quinn’s best days are behind him, yet, over the next two years he has base salaries of $13.9 and $12.9 million, respectively, with cap hits that exceed $17 to $18 million-plus.
If he’s cut, Quinn accounts for dead-cap hits of $8.4 million in 2023 and $4.2 million in 2024.
Even if Chicago is on the hook for some of that, that’s a tough sell to a Titans team that currently rosters three high-priced defenders upfront in Harold Landry, Bud Dupree and Denico Autry — and that’s not even including Jeffery Simmons, who will break the bank at some point.
The team could move on from Dupree after this season, but it’s hard to imagine their preference for his potential replacement being an expensive, soon-to-be 33-year-old defender who’s showing obvious signs of regression.
I’m all for the Titans making a trade to improve the roster, but this seems like the type of move that has more downside for the acquiring team than it does upside.
Truthfully, the defensive line is already the strength of this Titans team, and that’s without their Pro Bowl edge defender, who should be back next year.
Making this type of desperation move seems to be counter intuitive when the Titans have much bigger needs on offense and in the secondary.
If the Titans are going to make any type of blockbuster move for a high-priced veteran, it needs to be for a talented receiver or offensive lineman that could immediately help them in the short term, while also being a potential building block for the long haul.
