Did the Chicago Bears make a mistake by not cutting this veteran?

With Teven Jenkins battling back tightness and the lack of offensive tackle depth the Chicago Bears have after letting Charles Leno, Jr. go this offseason, did the Bears make a mistake in not letting Jimmy Graham go?

How does Jimmy Graham relate to the Chicago Bears Teven Jenkins dilemma?

According to Spotrac, the Chicago Bears had a “potential out” of Jimmy Graham’s contract going into 2021, which would have only resulted in a $3 million dollar cap hit, rather than the $9 million dollar cap hit they would have paid if they cut him in 2020. With Graham on the roster, they are now paying him $10 million dollars this season.

With there being a solid group of free agent offensive tackles this off offseason, hindsight with Teven Jenkins’ availability in training camp could have resulted in the Chicago Bears cutting Jimmy Graham and giving the team a needed boost in money to go get themselves a veteran left tackle.

Especially with the fact that any offense nowadays needs that anchor at left tackle, or right tackle for lefty quarterbacks, putting all of your eggs in one basket (that basket being a rookie that played a lot of right tackle) is risky.

Would it have been smarter if the Chicago Bears could have foreseen this? Absolutely, but on paper — specifically paper in the finance department — would say it makes more sense monetarily for the team to keep Jimmy Graham until he becomes an unrestricted free agent in 2022, and part ways without any cap hit.

It also makes sense financially to have a left tackle that makes an average of just under $2.1 million, considering the NFL average for left tackles is right around $14 million. So, my quick math skills have Teven Jenkins’ salary to be about seven times less expensive than the average left tackle. It makes sense, but boy was it risky. And the Chicago Bears might be living with this for the 2021 season.

That is unless the Chicago Bears can free up some cap in other ways, as it seems another team could find necessary use for the third quarterback on this Bears roster.

However, after all things are said and done, it’s early on in the offseason, and it’s unclear how serious Jenkins’ back tightness is. If it’s serious, the Chicago Bears should highly consider adding one of the remaining left tackles available.

Top available OT free agents:

• Mitchell Schwartz
• Russell Okung
• Rick Wagner

My hope is that another offensive tackle is signed by the Chicago Bears, that way there is:

a) More offensive line depth
b) Teven Jenkins doesn’t need to step into one of the most important and hard-to-master positions as a rookie.

With this being early on in the season and training camp, this isn’t an imminent threat yet, however, it could be if things don’t get better soon.