OUTSIDE CHANCE
Seemingly set at OLB, don’t be surprised if Bears look to future in securing edge rusher
Last of a 10-part series previewing the NFL Draft and analyzing the Bears’ needs Few teams throw more money at outside linebackers than the Bears.
They employ the highest-paid edge rusher ever, Khalil Mack. And the $14.7 million cap hit they’ve allotted for fellow outside linebacker Robert Quinn this year is more than they’ll give Mack.
Last year, only three teams spent more on edge rushers. This year and next, only two will.
So why in the world would the Bears consider picking an edge rusher in the first two days of the draft? Because Quinn probably won’t make it to 2022.
Despite signing Quinn to a five-year, $70 million deal last offseason, the Bears can let him walk after this year, having paid him $30.1 million over two years. They seem likely to do just that after Quinn was the most disappointing player on the team last season, totaling only two sacks even though teams sent extra blockers at Mack
on almost every down.
At least Quinn had a small salary-cap hit of $6.1 million last year. This season, that figure has ballooned to the ninth-highest among the league’s outside linebackers. In 2022, it increases to $16 million — for a player entering his age-32 season. While the Bears are optimistic that Quinn will have a bounce-back season, he’d likely have to turn in All-Pro effort to be worth keeping at his 2022 price.
The Bears can get a jump on replacing Quinn in this year’s draft. Picking No. 20 overall, they could land the best college edge rusher — be it Michigan’s Kwity Paye, Georgia’s Azeez Ojulari or one of the Miami duo of Jaelan Phillips and Gregory Rousseau — as opposed to the sixth-best quarterback, third-best cornerback, fifthbest offensive lineman or fourth-best wide receiver.
That move wouldn’t maximize the Bears’ 2021 roster, though. And general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy need to win this season in order to start worrying about what awaits them in 2022.
Pace has built his roster to make a college edge rusher redundant. Signing the Broncos’ Jeremiah Attaochu to a one-year deal gives Pace a better third pass rusher than last year’s choice, Barkevious Mingo. In two seasons with the Broncos, Attaochu had 8½ sacks in limited action. Mingo, who signed with the Falcons last month, has 7½ since 2014.
The Bears took an outside linebacker in last year’s draft, too, trading a 2021 fourthround pick to the Vikings for the fifthround selection that yielded Tulsa’s Trevis Gipson. He played only 71 defensive snaps as a rookie, though, and doesn’t figure to play enough this season to make his case to start in 2022.
Outside of quarterback, the Bears’ salary-cap sheet shows that Pace values outside linebacker as the second-most important position on the field. Using a firstround pick on an edge rusher who wouldn’t be guaranteed to start, though, is a luxury he can’t afford.