The Free Agent Bears Most Need Back

The fates of some Bears hang in balance before they return in April for conditioning work.

Bears GM Ryan Poles wasn't about to shed any great light on the fates of these players but when the Bears held their postseason press conference Wednesday he did at least provide a positive note about potential free agents.

Pro Bowl cornerback Jaylon Johnson can expect to be with the Bears next season, even if he is slated to be an unrestricted free agent.

"We have really good communication," Poles said. "The big thing was just kind of take a break here after the season and then we'll start (contract) talks again.

"I feel really good about that situation. Jaylon's not going to go anywhere and we'll work through it to get something done."

Poles saying Johnson isn't going anywhere is beyond rhetoric or a figure of speech. He might be a free agent but the Bears can just put a franchise tag on him if a contract isn't reached.

"Jaylon's not going to go anywhere and we'll work through it to get something done."

This isn't the best solution, though. It can create anamosity between player and team, and it leads to players staying away from the facility during important voluntary off-season practice time.

However, it would keep Johnson in Chicago.

Johnson was entirely positive about the coming talks and in an interview he did for WSCR's Parkins & Spiegel Show he said he anticipates getting a contract done.

Darnell Mooney Question

Beyond Johnson, the biggest name among free agents for the Bears is wide receiver Darnell Mooney. Perhaps it was an offseason when he couldn't practice with the team due to rehab from an ankle injury, or maybe it's the fact he just didn't work out well in the Luke Getsy offense, but Mooney went through two down years in production. He had 40 catches in 2022 before his week 12 season-ending injury and just 31 this season when he wasn't injured until a concussion kept him out of the last two games.

Considering Mooney had 61 and 81 receptions his first two seasons in a different offense, it would be easy to attach some blame for his lack of production on the offensive system.

"Yeah, you got to look at everything," Poles said. "But I also think there's an impact."

He referred to other players taking up Mooney's targets, liek tight end Cole Kmet and wide receiver DJ Moore.

"Cole's targets went up and you got DJ that's added," Poles said.

Kmet had 90 targets when he made his 73 receptions. That's 21 more targets than in 2022, but still three short of Kmet's high for targets in 2021.

Moore had 136 targets, a huge total, but he also made good on 96 of the targets and this only invited more throws his way.

Mooney was targeted 61 times, the same number as in 2022 when he missed the last five games injured. He didn't have great success with the targets as his 50.8% catch ratio was the worst of his career by 7.1%. He had only 41% successful plays. A play is deemed successful if it accounts for 50% of the required yards to move the chains on first down, 70% of yards needed to move chains on second down and all the yards needed on third or fourth down. Mooney's success percentage had never been below 45.7% and this season it was 41%.

His combined first down receptions the last two seasons (40) didn't reach the number he had in 2021 (81).

"He was missed early, wasn't in training camp, OTAs (doing rehab), so there's a lot of factors in there," Poles said.

Mooney was in camp. He was limited in participation early, though.

"Yeah, again, we'll evaluate the whole year and like I told a lot of the guys that are free agents, we'll be in contact with them throughout the duration." Poles said.

Poles referred back to his bucket philosophy. He puts free agents in different value buckets before deciding on signing them. Sometimes the Bears let players see their value and then sign them back.

"There are different buckets, there are guys that will go out and test the market, see what's out there for them and circle back," Poles said. "Yeah, Mooney wishes he played a little bit better this year and things went better for him, made some more connections.

"But I know he's going to bounce back and have a really good year."

The question is if it's with the Bears.

Defensive Side

The same is true for their third biggest free agent, defensive tackle Justin Jones.

Jones made a career-high 4 1/2 sacks, 1 1/2 more than his two previous NFL seasons. He also had a career-high 22 pressures, according to Sportradar. That was 12 more than his previous high and 13 more than with the Bears last season. His tackles for loss dropped from 12 to 10 but he was part of the best run defense in the league.

Having Andrew Billings in that run defense probably took a few tackles for loss from him. Billings already received his contract extension.

The Bears couldn't rule out drafting or acquiring another three technique, a position Eberflus deems critical to his scheme.

"I told (Ryan Poles) this all the time, you can never have enough pass rushers and never enough corners, so we're gonna just keep bringing them in," Eberflus said. "If we have something there aaialable to us—we love the players currently on our roster for sure, they've done a really good job, the D-line really played well this year, for sure—we're always looking to enhance that for sure."

In other words, they'll look hard for upgrades.

Two other players in question of returning are not free agents. One is Cody Whitehair, whose status as a demoted starter with a $13.25 million cap cost next makes him an obvious target as a cap-cut vicitm. The other is Eddie Jackson, whose cap cost is slated to be $18.1 million next year.

The Bears have the eighth-most cap cash available according to Overthecap.com, with $36.3 million effective cap space. However, they can turn that into $58 million by cutting both players before June 1 or to $60.7 million available if they cut them after June 1.

Jackson's departure would save them $12.6 million before June 1 and $14.1 million after June 1. It has to be weighed against the value he brings as a veteran leader for a young secondary.

"I know it didn't go the way Eddie wanted to, being dinged up a little bit there," Poles said, referring to five missed games for the second straight year due to injury.

"I thought where his impact is is with (Jaquan) Brisker—the communication on the back end," Poles said. "When Eddie was in you could tell Brisker felt really, really comfortable. That whole group, he really impacts the communication. You can really see that."

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