Bear Digest

Potential Khalil Mack signing has alternate dark path for Bears

The Bears aren't the only team involved in the discussion and rumors about Khalil Mack's next team and in some cases it can mean another division team gets help.
Gene Chamberlain|
Khalil Mack closes in on James Conners for a tackle. Mack's potential return to Chicago has become a hot button for discussion.
Khalil Mack closes in on James Conners for a tackle. Mack's potential return to Chicago has become a hot button for discussion. | Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The dark side to discussion about a possible return by Khalil Mack to Chicago is the thought the L.A. Chargers can prevent it.

It's dark to the Bears because it could represent both a blow to their 2025 plans but also strengthen a division rival.

The Chargers can't afford to keep Mack as their cap situation stands. However, there is as much speculation coming out of L.A. about the team trading defensive end Joey Bosa to clear salary cap space in order to retain Mack, just as there is concern over talk they could lose Mack—a report that caused quite a stir in Chicago because the Bears were said by AM-670's Chris Emma and ESPN's Jeremy Fowler/Dan Graziano to be a team interested.

What would be even worse for the Bears than the Chargers being able to afford to keep Mack by trading Bosa is where they could be sending Bosa to, and that could be the Detroit Lions.

Such a trade has been proposed by several sites, while another such trade suggestion by The Athletic has them sending Joey Bosa to San Francisco for Brandon Aiyuk to team with his brother, Nick. In either case, the Chargers have cap space available to retain Mack.  

It's just that the first trade idea would also give the Lions a formidable complementary edge rusher for Aidan Hutchinson, in addition to keeping Mack out of Bears hands.

It must be remembered all of this trade talk is only based on rumor or trade proposals made by media and not by the actual teams, but when other people are thinking these up as ways to deal with the salary cap and talent acquistion, it's a good bet teams have also thought about this.

Even if Mack made it to free agency, there's no guarantee he'd be headed for Chicago.

Fowler and Graziano's ESPN article tracked interest in Mack coming from Tampa Bay as well as the Bears, should he even become a free agent.

Mack coming back to the Bears would, indeed, be an interesting situation.

It would also mean the Bears are spending more money than possibly any other team does for two edge rushers, although if Joey Bosa went to the Niners they would likely be spending more to retain the Bosa boys.

It all makes for a tangled web of free agency drama for when teams start cutting players to get under the cap and make trades as free agency is about to begin next week.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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