Chicago Bears Lack Of WR Moves Being Blamed On Jacksonville
Thus far, Chicago Bears fans have been somewhat underwhelmed by their team’s moves in free agency. Particularly when it comes to the wide receiver position. Justin Fields needs weapons if he is going to take a step forward in 2022. To date, they’ve only made two additions. One of them was the #4 option in Kansas City in Byron Pringle (which isn’t official yet), and the other is career backup Equanimeous St. Brown.
Not the most inspiring pair of additions, even though Pringle does offer some intriguing upside. They still don’t have anybody that can be considered a viable #1 or #2 alongside Darnell Mooney. GM Ryan Poles hasn’t been overly aggressive on the market, and it turns out there is a good reason for this. According to Jeff Hughes of Da Bears Blog, a lot of the sudden passiveness is thanks to the Jacksonville Jaguars and their wild spending spree at the position.
It is quite remarkable that one team can essentially ruin free agency, but that’s what Jacksonville did by giving bloated contracts to two middling players in Christian Kirk and Zay Jones. Said one personnel man to me in a text, “ZAY JONES?!?!”
Yeah, that about sums it up.
Kirk, who’d been the #3 receiver at best in Arizona for most of his time in the NFL, scored a four-year deal worth $72 million. Then they struck again by handing Zay Jones, a longtime backup with some nice moments in 2021, $24 million for three years. Both were deals considered far above the market value of both players. Suddenly the better receivers felt they needed to get even more than they were asking for initially.
Once that happened, the Chicago Bears backed off. Poles would not shell out that kind of money for primarily B-grade players. The hope is waiting things out might bring those prices back down again. Maybe then they can secure a viable starter. Otherwise, they may have to go hunting for that option in the NFL draft.
It may not be the result fans wanted, but it at least says one thing about Poles. He isn’t going to let a frenetic market dictate how he does business. He’ll have certain numbers in mind for certain players and stick to them. If the numbers get out of control, move on. Such self-control was hard to find at times with Ryan Pace.