Chicago Bears Release C Roberto Garza, Sign C Will Montgomery
Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports
The Chicago Bears announced today that they have released veteran center Roberto Garza and replaced him with center Will Montgomery, who played for head coach John Fox in both Carolina and Denver. This ends a ten year run for Garza with the Bears during which he started at both guard and center and served as a team captain the last few seasons. Since taking over as a full time starter nine years ago, Garza has only missed 6 games and 4 of those were last season. Garza has been a warrior for the Bears and it is sad to see him go, but his performance on the field slipped noticeably last season. He was still a solid run blocker, but struggled in pass protection with a -6.7 grade from Pro Football Focus. Overall Garza was fairly solid finishing 14th of 29 centers that played over 50% of their team’s snaps, but at 36 years old it’s likely his play would continue to decline.
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
The Bears replaced Garza with Will Montgomery, 32, a former 7th round pick of the Panthers in 2006 when John Fox was head coach in Carolina. Montgomery started 4 games as a rookie for Fox, then 2 games for the Jets in 2007, before ending up with the Redskins from 2008-2013 and becoming their full-time starting center from 2011-2013. During his three year stretch as a starter, Montgomery accrued a positive 30.3 grade, including a 25.2 grade in 2012 when he was the 5th best center in football according to Pro Football Focus. Montgomery had some struggles in pass pro, but has graded out consistently as an impact run blocker.
The Broncos signed Montgomery to a 1-year, $1.2M contract before the 2014 season to back-up starting center Manny Ramirez, but Montgomery took over as the starter in week 10 and kept the job though the Broncos playoff loss to the Colts. He finished the season with a 6.6 overall grade from PFF, which would have been the 11th best mark among centers last year if he played enough snaps to qualify. Montgomery has been an asset as a run blocker his whole career and should improve the Bears running game.
Last year’s backup center Brian de la Puente is still a free agent and could be brought back to compete with Montgomery for the starting gig. Or the Bears could add a young center in the draft to groom behind Montgomery for a year or two. Details of Montgomery’s contract have yet to be released, but I’m predicting another short-term deal close to the veteran minimum.