Chicago Bears: Assessing the offseason

With the Chicago Bears officially reporting to training camp, the NFL offseason is officially over which means that it’s time to assess how the Bears did.

The 2019 offseason was different for the Chicago Bears. The team didn’t have a plethora of money to spend and with limited draft capital, the Bears had to use a different approach as to how to continue building the roster.

Fortunately for the Bears, most of their core is already in place and under contract for at least the next three seasons. This means that for the Bears, there weren’t any major holes to fill.

Going into the offseason, there were three main areas of concern for the Bears: Running back, safety, and nickel cornerback. In 2018, the three players that were starters at these positions were Jordan Howard, Adrian Amos, and Bryce Callahan.

All three of the names mentioned above were either traded or ended up signing elsewhere to secure lucrative contracts this offseason. Some may view these players as being significant to the Bears core and while that is true to an extent, the Bears weren’t willing to keep players around who wanted big paydays or just didn’t fit the system the team was trying to run.

The Bears did, however, make a number of quality additions, in players like David Montgomery, Buster Skrine, and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, all three of whom should play major roles in 2019.

As the Bears prepare for the 2019 season, it’s time to examine how the offseason went. We’ll examine what the best and worst additions were for the team in both the NFL Draft and in free agency.