Chicago Bears: 5 players who shouldn’t return in 2021

Chicago Bears say goodbye to an old foe, now a friend

When the Chicago Bears signed Jimmy Graham this past offseason, the move was widely criticized. Many wondered why Ryan Pace would give an aging tight end that much money, when there appeared to be other options available.

Defenders of the move sold the reality that the Bears could get out of the deal after just one year and save a lot of money. Well, it may be time to exercise that escape valve.

Releasing Graham this offseason would save the team roughly $7 million in cap room. Granted, Graham was fairy productive, at least in terms of putting up 50 receptions and eight touchdowns. However, his snap count diminished as the season went on, and it would be hard to justify paying him $10 million to be almost exclusively a red zone target.

The downside is that it opens another hole that the Bears will have to fill, but they can’t continue to pay aging veterans in the hopes of squeezing out mediocre results. While they may not need to begin a full rebuild, some type of soft reset is probably in the cards and that means getting younger and cheaper contracts where they can.