Chicago Bears: Is the team having the worst offseason as Bleacher Report claims?

The Chicago Bears were in dire need of some added talent to the roster this offseason. Most notably, the team needed some different faces on offense. Bleacher Report believes the Bears have had the worst offseason though.

To kick off free agency, Ryan Pace and the Chicago Bears added Jimmy Graham to the fold. The Bears were in desperate need of tight end help and Pace went to a familiar face in Graham. Graham is 33 years old and turns 34 in November. Pace then went on to sign Robert Quinn while simultaneously cutting Leonard Floyd. The other big move the team made was trading a fourth-round pick Nick Foles.

Bleacher Report recently wrote an article claiming the Chicago Bears are the biggest losers in free agency this offseason. Although I have questioned the Nick Foles trade over and over again, I have to wonder if there was not a method to the madness (more to come on that on a different day).

I have gone on record stating I do not hate the Graham signing. He might be up there, but he has also been the healthiest tight end among the top names in free agency. Austin Hooper and Eric Ebron have both missed quite a few games over the last few years. Graham, on the other hand, has only missed one in the last four years and seven in his entire career.

Personally, I am not expecting much out of Hooper in Cleveland and who knows what to expect out of Ebron. My guess is though that these three ends up somewhere near one another in the stat book unless one suffers a serious injury.

Looking at the signing of Robert Quinn has me baffled on why Bleacher Report would find the move a bad one. Quinn has racked up more than half of the sacks of Leonard Floyd’s career last season alone. He may be 30 years old this season, but he looks to benefit from being a part of a top-notch defensive front. Even if Quinn does not hit double-digit sacks, I am expecting seven or eight before the season is over. Calling this a bad move is dumbfounding.

Bleacher Report’s reasoning was that the team could have signed Shaq Lawson or Dante Fowler, Jr. for similar money. Both players are younger than Quinn, but they also have had less success overall. Outside of last season, Fowler has struggled to even start consistently. Lawson is in a similar situation. He has only started 10 games in one of his four seasons and only recorded four sacks. Quinn brings more upside to an already dominant defense.

Finally, this brings us to the Nick Foles trade. Honestly, I found the trade to be the second-worst trade of the offseason. That, however, does not pair up with the two other big moves to be the absolute worst offseason of 2020. Ryan Pace overpaid. There is no denying that to be true. However, the DeAndre Hopkins trade was easily the worst move of the offseason thus far.

Not to mention, what about the teams that allowed their top quarterbacks to walk away? The Patriots are having a quarterback competition that includes Brian Hoyer this season. The Chargers look to be counting on Tyrod Taylor to lead their way to success. Although I expect both teams to draft a quarterback relatively early, counting on a rookie hardly leads to many victories.

If you want to call the Chicago Bears offseason one of the worst of 2020, so be it. But to crown the team and Pace as the absolute worst is not really plausible in my opinion. Hopefully, we find a way to have an NFL season this year and hopefully, Pace can prove his detractors wrong.