Analyzing the Bears' trade for center Garrett Bradbury

Chicago is sending a 2027 fifth-round pick (per ESPN’s Adam Schefter) to New England for Bradbury, who logged six seasons as the Vikings’ starting center before being cut in 2025. The former first-round pick started every game for the Patriots last season, doing so after logging 88 starts with the Vikings from 2019-24.

The 2025 offseason dispersed Dalman and Bradbury elsewhere. A four-year Falcon, Dalman signed a three-year, $42M Bears deal. Soon after his Vikings release, Bradbury landed in Foxborough via a two-year, $9.5M pact. The Bears will pick up Bradbury’s $3.7M 2026 base salary.

This trade comes after Tyler Biadasz, who visited the Bears in the wake of the Dalman retirement news, agreed to a three-year Chargers deal worth $30M. Chicago will save quite a bit at center compared to Dalman or Biadasz, though Bradbury will likely be a downgrade from Dalman’s 2025 work.

Pro Football Focus graded Bradbury as the NFL’s No. 29 overall center last season. The Patriots voyaged to Super Bowl LX, but their O-line featured shaky stretches beyond merely Will Campbell‘s late-season struggles. Ryan Poles and Ben Johnson are certainly familiar with Bradbury from previous NFC North clashes, but it is worth wondering if the Bears will add a center option in the draft as well. Bradbury will turn 31 in June.

The Vikings gave Bradbury a three-year, $15.75M deal in 2023; that came after then-GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah did not pick up the Rick Spielman draftee’s fifth-year option. PFF has never graded Bradbury as a top-10 center, but the advanced metrics site did place him 11th in 2022. Rankings outside the top 20 have followed in the years since.

The Bears, who officially placed Dalman on the reserve/retired list today, look to be passing on a free-agent market that also includes Connor McGovern, Cade Mays, Lloyd Cushenberry and Ethan Pocic. Tyler Linderbaum is PFR’s No. 1-ranked free agent, but with Biadasz potentially being too pricey for the Bears (if that is indeed the case), the four-year Ravens starter’s explosive market certainly would be.

Chicago looks set to plug Bradbury into an O-line returning starters Joe Thuney, Jonah Jackson and Darnell Wright — while LT Ozzy Trapilo will spend part of the season rehabbing a patellar tendon tear — while New England will need a new center. Ben Levine’s Patriots Offseason Outlook mentioned Bradbury as a potential cut candidate. It is worth wondering if the Patriots will be in the market for a free-agent upgrade soon.