Chicago Bears: Five players the Bears will likely cut before the season

Which players are in danger of getting the ax from the Chicago Bears before the 2018 season starts?

Now that the Super Bowl is over, let’s get back to speculating on who the Chicago Bears will take in the 2018 NFL Draft and sign in free agency to help them make good on those 100/1 Super Bowl odds for next year. By the way, for perspective, the Philadelphia Eagles started out with 40/1 odds before the 2017 season began…

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And to be sure, we will do a ton of speculating about that in the next couple of months.

But with all the excitement around the Chicago Bears and who they might pick up in free agency and the draft, we can’t forget the other side of the business.

As new players come in, a few old players have to hit the road.

It’s the case all the time, whether they’re fan favorites (Matt Slauson), guys they just need to move on from (Jay Cutler) or flat-out nuisances that no one can wait to get rid of (like at least one player on this list).

And with a new coaching staff in town, a couple of players from the John Fox regime are especially in peril.

Let’s take a look at five players who could get the dreaded tap on their shoulder between now and Week 1 of the 2018 season.

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Mike Glennon

Duh.

Whether you rolled your eyes when the signing first happened or after watching Glennon utterly fail on the football field, this one’s a no-brainer.

And at least from this standpoint, the Glennon move didn’t really cripple the Chicago Bears too much.

Everyone who was upset about the Bears signing Glennon for three years, $45 million can relax. In cutting Glennon this offseason, Chicago will only pay the $18.5 million they guaranteed him total ($16 million last year, $2.5 million this year).

See? That’s not THAT bad. And it also seems to indicate that the Bears knew that they wanted Mitch Trubisky to take the reins by Year 2 of his career, one way or another. This more or less seals it.

At his current value (and perhaps no matter what), Glennon offers nothing that the Chicago Bears can benefit from.

He’s expensive, not really experienced enough to be considered a “mentor” and is just plain bad at football.

If you want a veteran mentor for Trubisky, keep Mark Sanchez and perhaps sign another vet that hits the street to compete for a backup spot. We can live with that. And Sanchez would probably serve better as a backup than Glennon (though that isn’t saying much).

Ryan Pace rolled the dice with Glennon both to serve as a bridge and just to see if there was anything there he could mine from him.

There wasn’t. At the very least, though, he gave Trubisky four games to watch and learn, though what he learned from Glennon I can’t really say.

So…thanks for the memories?

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Josh Sitton

Much like the Matt Slauson move a few years ago, this one would fall under the “somewhat” surprising category just on principle. Sitton is one of the Chicago Bears’ better offensive linemen, and going into the season without him decreases the stability, in theory, of the offensive interior.

Throw in the fact that they’d need to cut him by March 9 to save on his $8 million option, and that’s a big gamble.

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However, there are reasons for why the Bears would elect to do this.

For one, it obviously saves quite a bit of money and creates more cap space. Of course, that may or may not matter a ton this year. But with the Bears likely to sniff around free agents like Jarvis Landry, who will want $14+ million per year, that cash could come in handy.

Also, Sitton hasn’t proven overly durable in his two seasons with Chicago, missing six games since he got here. With Kyle Long missing significant time as well and facing an uncertain future health-wise, the Bears need guys who can play every week, especially up front.

If Sitton can’t give the Chicago Bears that, he’s not worth that money, especially at age 32.

That said, if the Bears do cut him, they had better sign someone in free agency, draft Quenton Nelson or hope that Jordan Morgan can get good fast.

Jerrell Freeman

When Freeman played for the Chicago Bears, he was excellent. In fact, during his first year with the team in 2016, he was a top-five inside linebacker in the NFL.

The problem was…well, all the other stuff.

Getting banned for four games in 2016 due to a performance-enhancing drug suspension.

Tearing his pectoral muscle in the first game of the season and never playing again in 2017 (though I’m blaming that on the training staff more than anything).

Then, receiving another suspension for PEDs—this one’s for 10 games—that he couldn’t even serve because he was hurt. That means that ban carries over into this coming season, making him ineligible to even take the field until Week 11. That’s not good.

With Matt Nagy rebuilding the Chicago Bears in his image, don’t expect to see Freeman here when the season starts.

At age 31, his health will start to decline one way or another. And aside from that, he clearly has some issues that need attending to. Hopefully, whether or not he plays football again, he can find his way to recovery and a healthy lifestyle again.

Unfortunately, despite his strong play during his tenure here, he’ll likely have to find those things somewhere else.

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Hroniss Grasu

I was considering Kevin White for this spot given his injury issues and ineffectiveness even when he did play. However, his $5.27 million 2018 contract is guaranteed due to his status as a first-round draft pick. As such, the Chicago Bears would likely far rather see if he can make an impact with this new coaching staff than cast him out immediately.

Grasu, on the other hand? Cutting him would be easy.

The former third-round pick out of Oregon would only carry $190,480 in dead cap if the Bears released him before next season. That’s less than chump change for an NFL franchise.

And I think we’ve seen enough to know that Grasu probably won’t turn into an adequate NFL center.

Even prior to his ACL injury in 2016, Grasu struggled to function against NFL interior linemen, generally giving up a lot of size and strength. And after returning from injury last season and getting chances to play when Josh Sitton, Kyle Long and Tom Compton missed time with injuries, he couldn’t keep anyone out of backfield.

Now, maybe we’re too quick to give up on him. Perhaps he’ll play better another year removed from his ACL injury. And maybe the arrival of Mark Helfrich, his old coach at Oregon, can help him re-discover his comfort zone as a player.

He certainly will at least get an opportunity to show what he can do in camp.

But if the Chicago Bears decide that Grasu’s play and his limited positional versatility make him a liability, cutting him won’t be hard.

Quintin Demps

This one won’t surprise anyone.

After signing a three-year, $13.5 million contract last season, Demps lasted just three very underwhelming games last year before tearing his triceps.

In the process, he never came close to producing a takeaway and let Austin Hooper embed him in the Soldier Field sod in Week 1.

Once he fell due to injury, Adrian Amos stepped in and played the best football of his career, all but cementing him as the Week 1 starter at strong safety next to Eddie Jackson this coming season.

Additionally, the Bears have a glut of young safeties that won’t count almost $4 million against the cap if retained. That’s not looking particularly good for Demps.

And in any case, the Chicago Bears really aren’t going to miss him at all. Truthfully, it’s hard not to feel like the safety play improved as the year went on without him.

That said, hopefully he can get back to himself after this injury and play at a high level again.

Next: Only a matter of time before Sitton is gone

With the Bears trying to rise up in the NFC, there will need to be a little bit of blood-letting to make room for the guys who will take this team to the next level.

Hopefully in a few years, the last vestiges of the disastrous John Fox Era will be washed out of the franchise and the Matt Nagy Experience will yield some division-winning, and maybe even championship, success.