Chicago Bears: 5 cheap quarterbacks to replace Mitch Trubisky

The Chicago Bears need more quarterback depth next season

On the morning of January 13th, the Chicago Bears held a press conference with Chairman George McCaskey, President Ted Phillips, Head Coach Matt Nagy, and General Manager Ryan Pace. From everything the four of them said during the press conference, it is safe to assume the Bears will be moving on from former second overall pick Mitchell Trubisky this offseason.

Both Nagy and Pace said one of the biggest needs this offseason is to address the quarterback position and they are right. Only Nick Foles is under contract next season and if he plays similar to how he played this season, the Bears won’t be winning many games.

All in all, the Bears need to find cheap options to compete with Foles to start for their team. The options may not win them many games or even help much, but they can’t ride into next season with only Foles and potentially a rookie. They need to get a quarterback at least with some starting experience as well.

The free agency class isn’t very deep this offseason, but there are plenty of cheap options out there. The Bears are likely out on quarterback Dak Prescott as he will cost too much and it is highly unlikely the Dallas Cowboys let him escape. Here are some cheaper options they can target though.

Chicago Bears’ cheap free agent quarterback target: Andy Dalton

Andy Dalton was released last season after the Bengals got their first overall pick to draft Joe Burrow. The Cowboys played this smart as they waited for Dalton to come to them very cheap. It paid off as well as the Cowboys lost Prescott early in the season to a season-ending injury.

Dalton stepped in early on and struggled due to the new offense and weapons he was not yet comfortable with, but he did play well down the stretch in important games almost getting the battered and weak Cowboys to the playoffs.

At the end of the season, Dalton completed 64.9 percent of his passes for 2,170 yards, 14 touchdowns, and eight interceptions for an 87.3 passer rating. He only started nine games, so if that was a 16 game season, he would’ve been just shy of 4,000 yards.

Dalton isn’t a savior by any means, but a veteran quarterback that can come cheap maybe what this Bears’ offense needs. He additionally has familiarity with Bill Lazor as his offensive coordinator in Cincinnati.