Did Chicago Bears overpay Justin Jones out of desperation?

The Chicago Bears had a rough 24 hours in free agency. They thought their big prize this offseason was going to be Larry Ogunjobi, but a failed physical changed their plans. This is the issue with the two-day tampering period as well because Ogunjobi verbally agreed, but the team could not bring him in for two more days.

During that time, the rest of the defensive lineman market dwindled away as players found deals elsewhere. So, when the team failed Ogunjobi they had to pivot quickly or risk going further down their list of free-agent options.

This caused them to immediately sign Justin Jones to a two-year deal worth $12M. Jones could live up to the deal, but it is tough to justify paying him that at this point in his career.

Chicago Bears should have kept Bilal Nichols

The first thing that fans will scream when they see this is that the Bears are changing from a 3-4 defense to a 4-3. While that is true, all defenses are in sub-packages more than 2/3 of the time, so this is really just an issue 1/3 of the time.

Beyond that, there is an argument that Bilal Nichols was stuck playing in a 3-4, when he may be better off in a 4-3 look. We highlighted that moving Larry Ogunjobi a bit away from the center resulted in more production for him. This could be the case for Bilal Nichols.

Beyond that, Nichols lines up in the B-Gap on 54.5% of his career snaps while Justin Jones is in the B-gap 67.9% of the time. The difference is 13% of the 33% of snaps when the team is actually in base.

Either way, the reality is that scheme fit or not, Nichols has been much more successful throughout his career than Justin Jones. They came out during the same draft class, so below you can see their career numbers. Jones was drafted higher, but one has been much more productive.

The difference is noticeable across the board. According to PFF, Nichols has 84 career pressures and 83 run stops. Justin Jones is at 66 pressures and 64 run stops.

Some of this has to do with Bilal Nichols playing more. Nichols has 2,155 snaps to 1,881 for Jones, but he has a 3.9% pressure rate to 3.5% of Jones. He also leads Jones in run stop rate 3.8% to 3.4%.

Considering a higher snap count was actually a reason the Chicago Bears preferred Larry Ogunjobi over Bilal Nichols, it has to sting that Jones has been able to get on the field less than Nichols has.

Why does all of this matter in comparison to Bilal Nichols? That is because Nichols signed a deal for 2-years and $11.5M. That is less than Justin Jones just got from Chicago.

Chicago Bears overpaid Justin Jones but had no choice

This is obviously an overpay for Justin Jones, and if you asked Ryan Poles on truth serum he would nod and agree. The reality is that they were stuck, though.

Had they signed Larry Ogunjobi over Bilal Nichols, the difference in availability, versatility, scheme fit, and production all favored Ogunjobi. In favoring Ogounjobi over Nichols they missed out on Nichols when it was time to pivot.

This left them with Justin Jones, who admitted he was about to sign with the Indianapolis Colts. With that in mind, the Chicago Bears already missed out on plan A. They probably would have preferred Nichols to Jones even in this new scheme at the same price, but Nichols was gone.

Now, they had to outbid the Colts or risk sliding even further down the list of preferred options. Fans screaming that Akiem Hicks would come back at a similar price should realize that Nichols and Justin Jones are 25 years old, while Akiem Hicks is 32 years old.

Larry Ogunjobi was 27 years old, and they have yet to sign a free agent over the age of 30 years old. They obviously preferred betting on the young upside, but in doing that, had to pay Bilal Nichols money for a player who is not quite as good as Bilal Nichols.

A lot of this was out of their control, but this has to be looked at as a big loss for the Chicago Bears.