Important NFL date sheds more light on what help Bears can afford

Some of these teams have huge piles of cash squirreled away to pay extensions to quarterbacks or others, but not all need it for that ridiculous expense.

The real tough part for the Bears is divisional foes Green Bay and Detroit both rank among the teams with twice as much space or more. Any valued pieces still unsigned who could fill in roster gaps for the Bears would have a much better chance of landing one-year contracts with the Lions ($40.2 million left), Packers ($28.9 million) or other perceived NFC contenders like the Commanders ($21.1 million) or 49ers ($53.5 million).

Joe Thuney provides

It could have been far worse, though.

The Bears have operating cash largely because of Joe Thuney's contract extension last month.

The deal's structure was lauded when more exact terms became known. It gave the Bears $8 million more under the cap this season by pushing cap cost into the future. So they could get a one-year fill-in type of player onto the roster.

However, in forcing money against the cap into future years, the Bears now face a situation where they are already $4.6 million OVER the projected salary cap in 2026 without even counting in what they'll need for their draft picks.

Thuney's 2026 and 2027 cap hits are now $21.5 million each season, but only $8 million for this year. Half of this year's cost was moved into the future as guaranteed money when the extension was signed.

There is one good thing about that 2026 cap or the Bears, and it provides a bit of an edge on other divisional teams. The Packers are already $9.9 million over the 2026 cap, the Vikings $53.7 million over it and the Lions $55.4 million over it.

It's much easier to negotiate being $4.6 million over, and even one simple restructuring gets them just below it without cutting players.

Then again, in some cases there are contracts they might want to lose next year anyway. Production this year is the key to that.

The bottom line is the Bears are very limited and must be extremely selective in adding any players to the roster while other teams are more able to engage in a bidding war for available players.

They had to pay $10 million very late in the process in 2022 for Riley Reiff and $10 million in 2023 for Yannick Ngakoue after camp had already started.

Fortunately for the Bears, spending money like that for someone to play a major starting role like those players did is no longer their roster situation. They're looking more for depth pieces, like another back to take up reps in a shared backfield or an extra edge rusher off the bench in a rotation.

It all means they need to look a little lower on those stacks of players that include J.K. Dobbins, Nick Chubb, Jadeveon Clowney and others, to consider people like Jeff Wilson, a 30-year-old back like Jamaal Williams or even a defensive edge like Tanoh Kpassagnon, unless the top free agents still available want to play somewhere for much less money—as if anyone ever does.