Bears walking up to NFL starting line with wallet nearly empty

The Bears are dangerously close to the salary cap and all of the demands by fans that they sign players or trade for someone mean nothing when they don't even have operating cash, let alone space for big contracts.

As a result, some sort of moves or restructuring of a deal to help them come up with 2025 operating cash can be expected.

According to Overthecap.com, the Bears are complying with the cap, but barely. They are $927,762 under it.

Teams have to be at or below it by the start of the regular season. So even though the cuts have been made, there are teams moving players around between the practice squad and elsewhere. This could explain why they cut both their long snapper, Scott Daly, and return man Devin Duvernay.

GREATEST CHICAGO BEARS WORRIES HEADING INTO 2025 REGULAR SEASON

GREATEST CHICAGO BEARS STRENGTHS HEADING INTO 2025 REGULAR SEASON

Jason Fitzgerald of Overthecap.com has posted about teams on the verge of not complying with the cap and has the Bears mentioned in his article, although they are OK for now.

The other teams he mentions are the Giants, Falcons, Bills and Texans. All four of those other teams are actually over, the Giants a full $8.095 million over it.

It's often said the cap is a very soft one because it allows teams to prorate bonuses into the future and make moves when it appears they have no money this year.

The Bears are not in good shape for doing something like this as their cap space for 2026 is currently zippo. They are over the projected 2026 cap by $8.39 million.

With no money free now, none next year, the only way the Bears are making deals to sign anyone to a longer-term deal is to get some cash back first for this year.

Then they'd need to address the cap in the future. The 2026 cap isn't as much of an issue because they might cut someone by then or trade them.

Either way, theirs is not a cap situation conducive to signing people like edge rusher Za'Darius Smith, let alone a trade for edge rusher Micah Parsons.