Chicago Bears: Cameron Meredith move Ryan Pace’s worst decision?

Ryan Pace has made some questionable free agency moves in his time as Chicago Bears general manager. Letting Cameron Meredith walk looks, for now, like his worst, even accounting for injuries.

Personally, when I saw the New Orleans Saints’ offer sheet to Cameron Meredith, I didn’t have any doubt that the Chicago Bears would match it.

In terms of Meredith’s value, assuming health, such a deal was a bargain. And bringing Meredith back would have proved the Bears with a very solid, dependable receiving corps.

So much for all that.

Now, I can see the logic to an extent. Clearly, the Chicago Bears didn’t really mind losing Meredith after all, which is why they only threw an original round tender on him. Plus, the knee injury he suffered, which included both a torn ACL and some MCL damage, likely played a role.

Apparently, $5 million-ish dollars a year was a bit too high for the Bears’ comfort level with Meredith’s knee. That certainly is what the Bears are projecting.

Also, some reports have trickled out over the past few weeks that the Bears weren’t sure how well Meredith fit the offense Matt Nagy wants to run. As such, perhaps they didn’t view him as a significant loss and didn’t want to invest any more than they did.

So, alright. There are explanations for why this move happened.

And yet, this could be Ryan Pace’s most irritating free agent move yet.

I doubt he’s going to say anything about it publicly to explain himself, but I’d love to hear his reasoning for creating an unnecessary roster hole for no reason.

It’s not as if the Chicago Bears are overflowing with wide receiver depth or people capable of putting up 900-yard seasons.

And if this move was about giving Kevin White a chance to prove himself, then that’s just silly. He should be able to prove himself without you weakening your team. That said, I’d rather them admit to that than saying they’re “comfortable with the group they have”. Because that means you’re good with Josh Bellamy getting receiver snaps, and that I thoroughly cannot abide.

They’re not bumping up against the cap with some desperate need to stay frugal. Unless they’ve got their eye on some big free agents next season, I’m not sure why you’re feeling shy about paying Meredith $5 million this season even if it means it takes some time to get back on the field.

And now, with Meredith gone, you basically have to draft a wide receiver in first two rounds of the draft.

From a skill perspective, a healthy Meredith was probably going to be the team’s second-best receiver. As much as I like the Taylor Gabriel and Trey Burton moves, I doubt they would flourish in that role. The Bears should utilize them as third and fourth options at most.

So now, the Bears have to draft a guy that could evolve into that secondary role next to Allen Robinson. To me, that means they really need to draft a receiver by the end of Round 2 now. A lot of the mid-round guys we’ve been talking about would be great third or fourth receivers, but with Meredith gone, just drafting that alone no longer suffices.

And drafting a receiver that high is not completely ideal, given that you still have to grab at least one talented edge defender. The offensive line could possibly be addressed later, but arguably, it might be best to do that early as well.

In short, Pace’s punt on Meredith really killed some of the vibe of what’s been an otherwise solid offseason.

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No, it’s not the end of the world, and in the end, a good draft will cure much of the bad feeling about this move.

But Pace had a chance here, at a reasonable price, to have his team in great shape heading into the draft and training camp. And even if Meredith started off camp on the PUP list, the Bears could’ve dealt with that until his return.

Here’s another thing I don’t get: when doctors looked at Meredith’s knee before, the damage to his MCL was said to be “minimal”. Total knee reconstruction was, at least in that article, deemed unnecessary, thereby helping his prognosis.

And his knee clearly wasn’t so damaged that the other teams were terrified he wouldn’t play this season.

Do the Bears know something that other teams and their doctors don’t? Do they legitimately doubt he’ll be the same player again? If so, then so be it.

But right now, given that other teams evaluated him and made offers, I’m not sure that’s true yet. And at least based on prior evidence, just saying that he tore both his ACL and MCL as if his knee was completely shredded just isn’t accurate. Then again, maybe we don’t have the full story.

Right now, it just looks like Pace intentionally made his job going into this summer that much more challenging. And he really didn’t need to.

Next: Options for replacing Cameron Meredith

I don’t really care that much about the Mike Glennon move or not signing people in the past when we all knew this team would be bad. All of that was more or less inconsequential. Maybe this will end up that way, too, if Pace grabs a stud in the draft.

But for right now, this is looking like Pace’s worst free agent move yet. And I really hope it doesn’t bite this team in 2018.