The only six pending Chicago Bears free agents worth re-signing
The Chicago Bears have plenty of holes to fill this offseason. The team has 50 players allocated to their top 51 that count against the salary cap but don’t let that number fool you. Currently, that number includes players who will not be part of the team, but their void years will count against the cap. The team also has plenty of pending free agents. If you want to look at it with your Bear Goggles On, then it can be viewed as a positive for new general manager Ryan Poles.
That’s right, we saw how Ryan Pace completely turned the Bears roster over in a few seasons when he took over in 2015. Despite some massive missteps along the way, Pace did put together a competitive squad by the time Matt Nagy took over. The problem is that his massive missteps are what got him fired and kept the team from transitioning into greatness.
This Chicago Bears team is lacking on free agents worth bringing back in 2022
Ignoring the offensive line for far too long was his biggest downfall in my opinion. Then obviously trading up for Mitch Trubisky in 2017 didn’t help as Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes took off in their careers. You all know that I am still a Trubisky supporter, but as I have said over and over again, I would have stayed at pick No. 3 and taken Watson had he fallen or Trubisky for that matter. We now know (some have been saying it for years) that much of the blame also needs to be put on Matt Nagy for his incompetencies.
Looking at the Chicago Bears’ current roster, these are the team’s pending free agents as we get close to the start of the 2022 NFL Season:
OFFENSE
- Andy Dalton, QB
- Damien Williams, RB
- Allen Robinson, WR
- Marquise Goodwin, WR
- Damiere Byrd, WR
- Jakeem Grant, WR/KR
- Jason Peters, OT
- Elijah Wilkinson, OT
- Germain Ifedi, OT
- James Daniels, IOL
- Jimmy Graham, TE
- Jesse James, TE
DEFENSE
- Akiem Hicks, DT
- Bilal Nichols, DT
- Alec Ogletree, ILB
- Joel Iyiegbuniwe, ILB
- Christian Jones, ILB
- Artie Burns, CB
- Tashaun Gipson, S
- DeAndre Houston-Carson, S
- Deon Bush, S
SPECIAL TEAMS
- Pat O’Donnell, P
- Patrick Scales, LS
For those who do not want to count, that makes 23 players who are to become free agents if the Bears do not choose to re-sign any of them prior to the start of the new league year on March 16, 2022. As I said, the positive here is that Ryan Poles should be able to turn over a new roster in his making rather quickly. Let’s take a look at the six guys I’d consider bringing back based on age, production and estimated contracts.