Where Washington Football Team ranks in Matthew Stafford sweepstakes
6. Chicago Bears
The Bears are just a quarterback away from being one of the better teams in the NFC, right? Well, it’s not quite that simple.
In theory, yes. If the Beras had a top quarterback on their roster, they would have a chance to be a top-10 team. They have a good defense that carried them to the No. 7 seed in the NFC playoffs this year.
That said, the Bears don’t exactly have the cap space needed to make a splash move at the quarterback spot. As it stands, the Bears are $10 million over the salary cap. To absord Stafford’s cap hit — he’s listed at $33 million cap hit but it would likely be closer to $20 million for the team acquiring him as the Lions would pay a prorated part of his bonus — they’d need to create about $30 million via roster cuts.
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That’s not easy to do because a lot of their money is tied up in defensive talent. Or in their best offensive linemen. In short, the only way for them to acquire Stafford would be to make their team significantly worse. And not only would they have to cut all of these players, they’d have to give up draft capital to land Stafford too.
So, would it be nice for the Bears to land a talent like Stafford? Absolutely. But can they realistically do it without tearing down the few strengths of their team? It’s hard to see a way for them to do it unless they get creative with some restructures.
And also, it’s hard to imagine the Lions being willing to trade Stafford within their own division. Consider this a pipe dream for Bears fans who are still wishing that the team took Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson over Mitchell Trubisky.