Chicago Bears: What Quintin Demps, Pernell McPhee cuts mean

The Chicago Bears just let Quintin Demps and Pernell McPhee hit the streets. Here’s how that affects the team ahead of this offseason and the 2018 season.

Though the Chicago Bears made noise in the trade market yet, they haven’t been idle with their roster moves. A short while ago, the team announced that it had cut safety Quintin Demps and outside linebacker Pernell McPhee.

Both players struggled with injury issues last season, with Demps landing on IR with a fractured arm and McPhee battling the chronic knee problems that have plagued him since his days in Baltimore.

Neither one really had a place in the team’s future, prompting the Bears to make the moves. And as we’ll see, these cuts have a few implications for the Chicago Bears going forward.

Clearing cap space

With the Bears primed to make a run at several high-priced free agents, the team has made an effort to shed money before free agency begins March 12^th.

As such, cutting guys like Demps, McPhee, Josh Sitton, Markus Wheaton and (soon) Mike Glennon just made too much sense. Especially with injury-plagued guys, it’s simply not profitable to keep them around when you can pay younger, more available options.

Now, the Chicago Bears have more than $60 million to throw around when the bidding starts in two weeks. Once Glennon gets cut, that number will head into the $70 millions.

Amos wins job

The decision to cut Quintin Demps should tell you all that you need to know about how the Bears feel about Adrian Amos.

Sure, maybe he’s not an All-Pro safety (no matter how good Pro Football Focus thinks he is). But he improved by leaps and bounds over his first two seasons in the league and clearly earned the right to start at strong safety alongside Eddie Jackson.

Their two styles complement one another remarkably well, allowing Amos to play downhill and Jackson to dissuade deep shots down the field. We didn’t really need to see any more of Demps, who didn’t play that well even when healthy.

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Why pay him more to do a notably worse job than Amos, whom this regime drafted by the way?

Edge rusher battle wide open

I went on record a while back saying that the Chicago Bears would probably select an edge rusher with their first pick of the 2018 NFL Draft.

While I don’t know if that’s necessarily true anymore, they will definitely add to their depth there in the draft. They badly need someone to dominate opposite Leonard Floyd. We’ll see if Ryan Pace falls enough in love with a Tremaine Edmunds or Marcus Davenport to take a chance at No. 8.

And of course, Bears can also supplement their depth and talent with a big free agent signing. With several top receivers off the free agent market, edge rusher should be the next position they attack.

For example, if Ziggy Ansah or Robert Quinn hit the open market, they’d better sling a lot of money to get one of them in Chicago. Period.

Plus, you can see if young players like Isaiah Irving are worth anything as rotation players that can rush the passer occasionally. But that can’t be your go-to backup. The Chicago Bears need players on the outside. Pernell McPhee couldn’t stay healthy enough to give them that, so they have to take more shots at getting that position right.

Next: Jordan Howard promises 2018 Bears playoff berth

Neither move really changed a whole lot in terms of the roster in the grand scheme. The Bears probably already knew they had their safety tandem locked up. And they probably also knew that they had to beef up their outside linebacker room with McPhee and Willie Young progressively getting older and more hurt.

But the extra money they gain from this move (and the ones to come), as well as who becomes available in free agency, can change the game for the Chicago Bears. If they play it right, that Jordan Howard playoff prediction could very well come true.