The Chicago Bears have not been shy about spending money during the offseason, but what has not worked in their favor is some of the deals they have made.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles has been feeling the pressure of producing a good football team on the field and has gone out of his way to retain talent and sign big-name free agents. The last few years have shown that he has not always been accurate with those moves.
Which ones, though, have been misses? Perhaps not in the sense that they are bad players, but they may not be meeting the standard of the contract those players signed with the Bears. Two of those guys have been called out.
Are Cole Kmet and Tremaine Edmunds overpaid?
Bleacher Report writer Gary Davenport picked one NFL player from each position that he considered to be the most overpaid. The first Bear to show up on the list was tight end Cole Kmet.
"In 2023, the Chicago Bears gave tight end Cole Kmet a four-year, $50 million contract extension. He responded with the best season of his five-year career: 73 catches for 719 yards and six scores.
In 2025, however, the Bears used their first pick on Michigan tight end Colston Loveland, clouding Kmet's future.
Kmet is a good player and a fan favorite in Chicago. And despite all the trade speculation, he isn't especially likely to be moved.
But when the seventh-highest paid tight end in the league isn't even the best player at the position on your team, something is out of whack."
Last year was a down year for Kmet, who posted his worst stats since his rookie season in 2020. He finished with 47 receptions for 474 yards and four touchdowns in 17 games. The only positive on the season was that Kmet caught an outstanding 85.5% of his passes.
He is still looked at as the starting tight end entering the 2025 season, but Loveland is going to give him a run for his money. Kmet, at least, has the advantage of being healthy and working out at OTAs while Loveland was sidelined with injury.
A $50 million contract should yield better numbers than Kmet had, but some would chalk it up to a rookie quarterback struggling in his first year. Another season of those numbers and Kmet could be shown the door.
The other Bear on Davenport's list is linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, whose statistics might suggest he's performing well, but his tape indicates otherwise.
"Over his seven seasons in the NFL, Tremaine Edmunds has been consistently productive. The 2018 first-round pick for the Buffalo Bills has tallied at least 100 total tackles every season he has been in the league.
Annual salary is the only place you’ll see Edmunds compared to (Fred) Warner. Edmunds is what he is: a good-but-not-great linebacker who is wildly overpaid.
His pact was a bad contract when it was signed. It hasn't aged well, either. But at least the Bears can get out of it in 2026 with a relatively minimal dead cap hit."
Pro Football Focus called Edmunds' contract one of the worst in the NFL and has been a topic of discussion all offseason. He still put up respectable numbers as one of the Bears' leading tacklers last year with 110.
Edmunds is missing that difference-maker linebacker in the middle that made some of the greats, like Brian Urlacher, Dick Butkus, and Mike Singletary, so special. Sure, he can make the tackle when needed, but this defense was ranked near the bottom against the run, so he didn't do too much to help with that.
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He's not the only linebacker who has been under scrutiny in Chicago, as T.J. Edwards has faced his share of criticism. The Bears need monster seasons from their starting linebackers, or they might look elsewhere, similar to what they might do with Kmet.