Four players the Chicago Bears must cut immedietaly

The Chicago Bears should cut Eddie Goldman

It is time to part ways with the once-beloved defensive tackle Eddie Goldman. Once a Chicago Bear, always a Chicago Bear, but Goldman has worn out his welcome. The team was without Goldman in 2020 as he sat out for concerns with COVID-19. I’m not going to get into some of the other COVID-19 issues I have with his situation, but his performance on the field was the bigger problem.

Goldman had one good game this year. Yep, just one. His playing time dropped drastically as the season went on too. It’s normal for a big man in the middle to not show up on the stat sheet as much, but Goldman seemed to always be an exception to that rule. In 2017 and 2018, Goldman saw more than 40 combined tackles and 27 of them were solos in both years. He had 1.5 sacks in 2017 and 3.0 sacks in 2018.

His numbers started to go down in 2019 though when he only had 29 combined tackles (20 solos). He also only had two tackles for loss and one sack that year. After sitting out in 2020, he came back this year to finish with only 14 solo tackles, one tackle for loss and only half a sack. That half a sack came versus the Ravens in Week 11. This was his only good game with four solos and one sack.

Goldman didn’t show up on the stat sheet in Weeks 4 or 5 despite playing 44% and 49% of the defensive snaps. He missed the stat sheet again in Week 18, but only saw 25% of the snaps. As I said, his snap share dropped and rookie defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga saw his increase throughout the year.

Tonga finished with similar production and the Chicago Bears cannot pay Goldman $11.8 million next season. Cutting him saves nearly $7 million (even more if it’s designated as a post-June 1 cut.