Chicago Bears: 3 reasons Julio Jones isn’t worth a trade

Julio Jones’ Contract is too expensive for the Chicago Bears

In 2019, Jones signed a three-year, $66 million contract extension, which put him under contract with the Atlanta Falcons for five years from that point. That, if completed, would make Jones an unrestricted free agent in 2024.

Since his extension, Jones makes an average of $22 million per year. To put that number in perspective for the Chicago Bears, Allen Robinson is making the most on average this season with his $17,880,000 salary. With their projected $5,025,277 cap space in 2021, this move just doesn’t make the most sense.

Now, I know it’s possible to cut players and make room for bringing in players, but a wide receiver doesn’t seem like a justified position to spend $22M. If this kind of move was being rumored to bring in a corner, maybe for someone by the name of Kyle Fuller, $20M would make more sense.

But, as the Chicago Bears made evident to many, they were not willing to pay someone $20M per year. No one on the team makes that much, so it would be absurd to pay Julio Jones that much, especially on the tail end of his career.

He may have more seasons left in him, but when paying someone that much money, the risk goes higher as the player gets older. In a sport that can cause retirement after one bad injury, those odds creep up the older a player gets. The odds get astronomical once you add in a history of injuries.

As someone that makes poor financial decisions from time to time, this has the same kind of ring to it; yes, it may be cool at the time, but it is soon regretted.