Chicago Bears and Ryan Poles reach very familiar fork in the road

T.J. Watt up for grabs?

ESPN's Adam Schefter reported several teams have contacted the Steelers to inquire about Watt, who is unhappy with how extension negotiations have gone but hasn't threatened to sit out the final year of a deal that costs $30.4 million of cap space.

The Hendrickson situation has deteriorated beyond where Watt is as he missed Bengals mandatory and voluntary offseason work.

Both edge rushers will be 31 years old during this season.

The Bears wouldn't be able to pursue Watt. It's that simple.

At a salary of $21 million, it's just too much money to take on for a team with $14.7 million left in cap space and three unsigned second-round picks yet to pay. The Bears are already over the cap in 2026 by $7.2 million according to Overthecap.com. Budget cutting will be the order of the day rather than adding an extension for a player who is going to want a four-year deal averaging Myles Garrett money of $40 million a year.

These cash figures don't even include the personnel cost through draft picks of making the trade.

Hendrickson's demand for an extension would likely be about the same or a little less but the difference here is the Bears would have more means to make maneuvers with restructuring and find enough to fit his $15.8 million deal in for this year. They would then need to hack players off the payroll next year to absorb his extension much like they would need to do with Watt.

The Bears already are paying fifth most in the league for their defensive line according to Spotrac.com, and they would shoot up to No. 1 or No. 2 depending on the extension amount if they acquired either of those edge rushers.

At this point, it is not unfair to compare this Bears team's status with that of the 2018 Bears.  It is similar in so many ways that it's eerie.

The 2018 deja vu

That dominant edge rusher added to the mix could be the jet that accelerates them to the top on defense. They have a highly regarded defensive coordinator, have been building a strong defensive core already, have a young second-year quarterback and a new head coach coming in who was the most prominent name among all available offensive-side coaches. Ben Johnson is even replacing a defensive-side head coach in Matt Eberflus much the way the Bears had Matt Nagy replacing John Fox.

Sure, the Steelers are saying they're not trading Watt and the Bengals want to keep Hendrickson. And that's what the Raiders said right up until the week before trading Mack.

Ultimately, the Mack trade made for a wild one-season ride and it all ended with two doinks off Soldier Field's north end goal post. Then there wasn't a winning season over the next three years because that trade was an end all that prevented future growth.

Setting themselves up for future frustration by wrecking their ability to pay players who are productive, or even pay Caleb Williams if he proves he's the QB they've always wanted, just doesn't seem a worthwhile venture.

The other GM Ryan, Pace, already took them down that side of the fork in the road and it proved to be a dead end.

If they hadn't already invested $25 million a year in Montez Sweat, $16 million a year in Dayo Odeyingbo and paid their defensive line the fifth most in the league, it might be justified. They've already chosen their path

Packers or Lions could get them

CBS Sports names the Packers and Lions among a group of teams who might be interested in pursuing Watt. It's pretty much the same group who figure to be interested in Hendrickson. Those teams have the cap space and the status already as playoff teams to justify such a bold move.

The Bears have been building the right way. They need to keep building through the draft and find their own dominant edge rusher in the future. The idea of this regime was to build something that lasts, not one-hit wonders. They have a sufficient defensive line to help win games in the present, considering their head coach is the genius who found ways to win games in Detroit even after Aidan Hutchinson was removed from the formula.

A defensive study done a decade ago shows top edge rushers in their 30s can still be effective for several more years and are not the risk players of the same age are at many other positions.

What the Bears found with the Mack deal was even a player in their 20s who is extremely productive can have injury issues and the team can have other problems that make such a move far less impactful over time.

The Bears already decided their path with Sweat. There's no backtracking to take the Khalil Mack road all over again so that they get themselves into salary cap hell without possessing a way to improve their plight because they traded away the draft picks necessary to escape.