With trading still a possibility on up to and during the draft for the Bears, the salary cap is always an issue they must contend with even though they're better off than most teams.
It's time for a final cap health check.
Teams in need of cap space have the ability to find it by turning some of the salary in a player's current contract into bonus money prorated against the salary cap in future years.
Borrowing from the future for now is a practice the Bears used repeatedly under Ryan Pace and the end result eventually is so much dead cap space being taken up by players no longer playing that you're unable to afford nice things. That's why GM Ryan Poles had to do what he did when he took over and gutted the roster. They cleaned up the cap and it was painful.
However, the Bears are now in a good cap situation and if they needed a bit of extra money there are a few contracts where they could find it.
According to Overthecap.com, the Bears have $40.1 million in effective cap space left after the trades and signings they've made. Effective cap space is a more accurate figure than the simple salary cap total because it includes the amount they need to pay from the rookie pool for their draft picks and also the top 51 players in terms of cap cost who are under contract for 2025.
The Bears are now 16th in available cap space. All of the money they before the trades has been whittled away from the 69 million they had a week ago.
The Patriots have $117.3 million left, the Chargers $83.3 million and Arizona $74.5 million.
Plenty of teams are more able to delve into free agency looking for help than the Bears are now.
In addition, the Bears will want some money to give out a contract extension to Kyler Gordon, if not one or two other players.
Big clumps of unguaranteed cash in salaries are the best place to find ways to restructure and get back salary cap space.
The Bears could spend down close to the cap, in theory, then get back enough money to operate with during the season as they bring in players in case of injuries and do extensions for one or two players. Something like $10 to $15 million in available cap space left for operations is best now.
You never know what kind of injury might happen in OTAs and minicamp. Everyone thought guad D.J. Dozier was going to be part of their plans in 2022 and then he suffered a torn ACL in offseason practice and they were left trying to fill his spot at the last minute out of weekly operating money.
This is the other personnel issue tied to the cap. If they wanted to trade someone for draft picks or another player, all of the remaining prorated bonus money counting against the player's contract in future years immediately becomes dead cap space.
This is why it's difficult for a player like Myles Garrett to be traded at this time. He has far more bonus money being counted annually against the cap than the team can manage and all of this would be money no longer available to the team if he's dealt. It changes as the years go by with the contract, though, and next year he'd be easier to deal.
Again, just like with their cap situation for
Here are the Bears' most tradeable players by cap situation and this doesn't include Jonah Jackson and Joe Thuney because why would you trade for someone and then turn around and trade them to someone else. Duh:
The most tradeable player contracts are always with players in the final year of their deal because there is no reason to trade someone after June 1 in most cases. Almost all the prorated bonus has run its course. Here are tradeable players in the final year of their deals.
