Chicago Bears: Free agents available to replace Ryan Bates
By Joseph Herff
The Chicago Bears could look to sign Ereck Flowers
Drafted 9th overall in 2015 to be an offensive tackle for the New York Giants, Ereck Flowers truly never did live up to his draft hype. He was expected to be a star left tackle for years to come in New York and his skill truly never translated to the left tackle position for the Giants. He eventually got released by the Giants after they couldn’t find a team to trade for him.
He then was signed by the Washington Football Team where they saw he could play left guard. He then started all 16 games in Washington playing very solid earning himself a nice three-year, $30 million contract with the Miami Dolphins in 2020. He again performed at a solid level for them.
The Dolphins needed to clear cap space though, so they traded him back to the Football Team for the 2021 season in which he had another solid year. In another attempt to clear cap space, the Football Team released Flowers.
Flowers isn’t a world-beater by any means, but he can be a solid stop-gap offensive guard that could come on a cheap two-year deal and be the starter while a mid-to-late round draft pick develops underneath him.