Hoge's 10 Bears Things: 10 priorities for 2021 offseason
After an 8-8 season that ended with an ugly playoff loss, the Chicago Bears enter the offseason with an outlook that isn’t exactly bright. They have salary cap issues and lack a top draft pick, although they will pick in the first round for the first time since 2018. Big decisions are on the table and those decisions start this week at Halas Hall. With that in mind, here are 10 top priorities in this week’s 10 Bears Things column:
The Bears are stuck in the middle to the point that almost any direction they take in 2021 can be defended or heavily criticized.
General manager Ryan Pace did a great job rebuilding one of the worst defenses the franchise has ever had, but he only has one winning season in six years and has struck out at the quarterback position.
Head coach Matt Nagy’s .560 winning percentage is tied for third in team history (with Lovie Smith) among coaches that made it at least 48 games, but he was brought to Chicago to fix the offense and the Bears have scored one or fewer touchdowns in 18 of his 50 games, which is alarming.
Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky is obviously not the long-term solution at quarterback, but given the lack of options in the upcoming offseason, he might be the team’s best solution in 2021.
Being competitive is a good thing, but the Bears are very flawed. Even in 2018, when they won 12 games, they didn’t seem quite ready to win a Super Bowl. Since then, they’ve regressed significantly.
The middle is not where you want to be, but unlike baseball and basketball, you can make it out of the middle without going into a full blown rebuild. That’s why the decisions made at Halas Hall this week about the future of the franchise are so crucial.
Critical transactions that can alter the next five years await, so determining the person in charge of making these decisions – especially at the quarterback position -- is priority No. 1.
When I spoke to wide receiver Allen Robinson at the Super Bowl almost a year ago, a long-term future with the Bears seemed like a certainty. Both sides were happy and motivated to get a deal done before the 2020 season began. Pace’s track record of rewarding deserving veterans with a contract extension before the start of the regular season also pointed to getting it done.
Perhaps COVID-19 altered those plans a bit, but the pandemic didn’t stop other teams from handing out extensions over the summer. And the fact that Robinson – easily Pace’s best offensive acquisition in Chicago – is headed towards free agency this spring is not a good look for the organization.
“I personally feel like we had an opportunity to be able to get something done over the past 365 days,” Robinson said Monday. “But again, I don't know that that really affects me too much as far as however things play out."
Of course, Robinson’s demands are a part of this too and if the Bears felt like they didn’t have enough leverage, they now have the franchise tag at their disposal.
"I think everybody knows a little bit on how I feel about (the franchise tag), but I'm not really going to get into that right now,” Robinson said.
It’s unfortunate it got to this point, but it’s probably going to get uglier. The Bears would be foolish if they didn’t use the franchise tag because, at worst, they can tag-and-trade Robinson, getting good compensation in return. It would also prevent Robinson from signing with the Green Bay Packers, which would be the nightmare scenario.
Regardless of the challenges this offseason, the Bears can’t let their best offensive player walk away for nothing.
If the Bears don’t draft a quarterback in 2021, they should no longer be able to participate in the NFL Draft. Pace said he’d ideally draft a quarterback every year and he’s done it once in the last six years. It’s a position that requires constant swings and the Bears have only drafted four quarterbacks in the last 15 years. Worse, Trubisky is the only one of those four quarterbacks taken in the first four rounds of the draft.
That’s simply astounding for a franchise with endless quarterback issues. And it’s a pretty good explanation for their problems.
Nothing should be ruled out at the quarterback position in 2021, including trading a boat load of assets for either Deshaun Watson or Dak Prescott if either is available, or moving up for one of the top four quarterbacks in this year’s draft.
And if all else fails, re-signing Trubisky on a cheaper deal can’t be ruled out. Foles’ contract likely puts him on the 2021 roster, but his $6.6 million is a cap hit you can live with for a backup quarterback in today’s NFL. He better be your backup though.
Robert Quinn’s cap hit was only $6.1 million in 2020 and it rises to $14.7 million next season. That means Khalil Mack (at age 30) and Quinn (at age 31) will account for $41.346 million of the Bears’ cap space in 2021, which would be 23.5 percent of the total cap if current projected estimates for 2021 are correct.
Mack tied for 14th with nine sacks in 2020 and tied for 13th in total pressures with 33. Quinn only had two sacks in 15 games and tied for 77th with 17 total pressures.
For reference, former Bears first round pick Leonard Floyd – who signed with the Rams in the offseason – finished with 10.5 sacks and tied for 27th with 28 pressures.
Quinn’s contract won’t allow him to go anywhere until at least 2022, so in the meantime, the Bears need to figure out how to get the most out of all that money invested in the pass rush. If Quinn was playing hurt this season, then they need to get him healthy. If he’s not comfortable in a 3-4 defense (his two worst seasons have come in 3-4 defenses) then they need to scheme differently. If he can only play on artificial turf, then put artificial turf in at Soldier—eh, we know that’s not happening.
This may require a new defensive coordinator. League insiders have questioned Chuck Pagano’s ability to scheme his pass rushers open, something that former Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio did quite well.
Whatever it takes, the Bears can’t have a quarter of their salary cap combining for fewer sacks than the top seven pass rushers in the NFL did by themselves (Leonard Williams finished No. 7 with 11.5 sacks).
This might be fifth on the list, but it should probably be the first move made. Santos was somewhat of an accidental revelation this year, signed in August as insurance after Eddy Pineiro suffered a groin injury, but whatever. The Bears just spent four years in kicker hell and Santos is still only 29, which might as well make him a rookie in kicker years.
Santos was good early in his career but was derailed by a groin injury that caused him to bounce around the league. Clearly, he’s healthy again and he ended the season by making 28 straight field goals while being named NFC Special Teams Player of the Month for December/January.
After all the kicking issues the Bears have had in recent years, re-signing Santos should be a no-brainer.
Given the rising age and salary cap percentage on the defensive side of the ball, the Bears might need to get worse before they can be dominant on defense again. That means potentially selling off good assets for draft capital.
One option would be to trade cornerback Kyle Fuller, who’s been worth every penny since the Bears matched Green Bay’s $56 million offer sheet for him in 2018, but is still not a lockdown, press-man cornerback. Trading him would free up $11 million in cap space and the team acquiring him would be getting a good, 29-year-old starting cornerback for $13.5 million in 2021. What would the trade compensation be? That’s hard to know for sure, but the Lions received a 2020 third and fifth round pick for Darius Slay last March and Slay is comparable in both age and contract range. Fuller might command a little more.
Believe it or not, trading Akiem Hicks might be another option. As good as he is, he could be a cap casualty as it is because the Bears would save $10.5 million by letting him go. Other teams know that, so they might not be eager to trade for him if he’ll the open market, but Hicks is still playing at a high enough level that letting him go for nothing would be foolish. You’d think the Bears have enough leverage to get something in return.
Unfortunately, the Bears’ best trade asset is Robinson, which is why the franchise tag must be used. These are the tough decisions that are going to have to be made this offseason.
If the Bears move on from Hicks, they’d almost certainly be replacing him with former fifth round pick Bilal Nichols, who in my estimation developed into a long-term caliber starter in 2020. He’s not as good as Hicks, but he’s also only 24 years old and still ascending. He’s entering the final year of a very cheap rookie deal and is a prime candidate for an extension. Don’t forget nose tackle Eddie Goldman should be returning in 2021 and a Nichols-Goldman pairing would still be pretty good.
All that said, Hicks was still grading out as the best player on the entire roster at times this season and you saw how much the defense missed him when he didn’t play in Green Bay. Bringing him back on a restructured deal could be a possibility as well.
The Bears found something with center Sam Mustipher and right guard Alex Bars late in the season, but that doesn’t mean those two guys should be locked in as future starters. They still have much to prove.
Moving on from Bobby Massie – who will be 32 next season – is likely because it will save $6.7 million in cap space and the Bears need to start looking for upgrades at both tackle positions.
I would re-sign Germain Ifedi, who played on a veteran minimum prove-it deal in 2020 and can play both guard and tackle. That keeps the pressure on Bars at right guard, while also creating competition/depth at right tackle.
Then I would use an early round draft pick – perhaps even the No. 20 overall pick -- on an offensive tackle. Northwestern’s Rashawn Slater is one possibility. Perhaps that draft pick would be good enough to challenge Charles Leno Jr. at left tackle or be able to start on the right side immediately.
Overall, this would be a cost-effective way to upgrade the offensive line. Remember, James Daniels looked improved before tearing his pec in 2020 and he’s coming back. If Mustipher proves to be the real deal at center, that means Daniels and Cody Whitehair are your starting guards. By drafting a good tackle early, the Bears would suddenly have a lot of depth, competition and youth on their offensive line.
If the Bears entered training camp next summer with Leno, Daniels, Mustipher, Whitehair, Bars, Ifedi and a first-round offensive tackle, they’d be in pretty good shape. And with offensive line coach Juan Castillo’s reputation for developing late-round picks/undrafted free agents, Arlington Hambright and Lachavious Simmons (seventh round picks in 2020) can’t be ruled out as depth either.
The Bears gave safety Eddie Jackson a big contract extension last winter and brought back Danny Trevathan over Nick Kwiatkoski. Both moves seemed smart at the time, but both players declined in 2020.
Trevathan looked particularly slow early in the season, but improved in the back half, so it’s possible he was dealing with something that wasn’t disclosed. He turns 31 in March and his contract is affordable with no outs, so he’ll likely be back. A rebound season in 2021 next to rising superstar Roquan Smith would be a welcome sight for the Bears.
Jackson’s decline is particularly confusing, and you wonder how much of it is linked with Pagano’s scheme. Pass rush and pass coverage are linked, so if one is an issue, the other often is too. In the last two seasons, Jackson has just two interceptions (both in 2019) and 10 passes defended, compared to six interceptions and 15 passes defending in 2018 alone. And sure, opposing offenses might be avoiding him, but Jackson also allowed six plays of 20 or more yards in 2020 when he was the primary defender targeted. That’s double what he allowed in 2018 and 2019.
The Bears gave him a four-year extension that doesn’t even kick in until next season, so he’s not going anywhere. They need him to play like the All-Pro he was in 2018.
Regardless of who is playing quarterback in 2021, it seems the offense needs to be simplified. If the players can’t handle the “details” in the scheme then either find players who can or reduce the details.
Pre-snap penalties, formational issues, substitution issues and timeouts are all a product of a complex offense that leads to confusion. It seems that confusion improved when Trubisky was reinserted into a simpler offense following the bye week.
Trubisky may not be the permanent answer at quarterback, but the Bears did find an identity late in the season by running the offense through running back David Montgomery. That can’t be lost even if the Bears change quarterbacks.
Enter the 2021 season with an identity that fits your personnel. That way you’re not searching for it in November and December.
