Chicago Bears: Three reasons Jordan Howard trade was a win

2. The Salary Cap

The NFL is a hard league to manage a football team in. There is a hard salary cap and you can’t spend a penny over it. The Bears are becoming one of the elite teams in the league in a short time. They proved that with a magical 2018 run that saw them go from a last-place finish to winning the NFC North.

With that comes paying the great players that help you become successful. One reason the New England Patriots have been so good for so long outside of their big guns showing up year in and year out is Bill Belichick manages the salary cap well. He will move players a year or two early rather than a year or two too late.

This might have become a problem with Howard. He has only one year left on his rookie deal that would have paid him about two million this season. The Bears probably were not going to give him a multiyear extension after that contract expired in 2020 so they traded him now. It is Philadelphia’s problem now to re-sign him.

The Bears have a good chunk of their defense locked up for a few runs at the playoffs so they need to take advantage of that. Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky is also still on his rookie deal and it is important to try and win while that is still the case. They now have four running backs on their roster that don’t even combine for four million of cap space in Davis, Cohen, Taquan Mizzell, and Ryan Nall. Letting Howard go was something that probably had to be done to solidify a future plan for the cap and the team going forward.