Chicago Bears Free Agency news and rumor tracker for Monday, March 15

With the way their salary cap lines up right now, I doubt we’ll see the Chicago Bears be big players in free agency, but they will make room for one major acquisition (i.e., a quarterback) if the opportunity presents itself.

The Bears are still interested in Russell Wilson, and probably every other available QB, but it takes two to tango and right now the dance floor is empty.

The league year officially opens up on Wednesday, March 17 at 3:00 p.m. CT, and that’s when all trades and free agent signings can be announced, and also when teams must be under the salary cap, so we should see plenty of movement the next 48 hours.

Today the always wild early negotiating period will kick off at 11:00 a.m. CT (not 3:00 p.m. as the league originally reported), and we’ll keep track of all the rumors and news right here in this tracker.

News and Rumors

• We’ll have our day 2 Bears tracker up on Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. CT (link)
• Brad Biggs reports that Andy Dalton could be in play for the Bears. (link)
• Nick Foles has been linked to the Broncos by Benjamin Allbright a few times this offseason. Denver is one of the few teams that makes sense for Chicago’s veteran QB. (link)
• Former Bears OL Kyle Long is set to work out for the Raiders on Tuesday, (link)
• Washington may no longer have interest in Mitch as they just signed Ryan Fitzpatrick. (link)
• Still no news on Russell Wilson being traded, but it would appear the Seahawks have their eye on San Darnold at QB. (link)
• The contract details are in for Chicago’s Mario Edwards Jr. deal and it’s cap friendly in 2021. (link)
• The 49ers have Trubisky as one of three QBs they are looking at to back up Jimmy Garoppolo. (link)
• Jameis Winston is heading back to the Saints on a one year deal that could be worth $12M. (link)
• Brad Biggs is reporting that the Bears have checked in on free agent left tackle Trent Williams. (link)
• The Jaguars will be signing Roy Robertson-Harris. (link)
• Brad Biggs is reporting that the Khalil Mack restructure will give the Bears a cap hit of $30.3M in 2022. (link)
• Washington could be bringing in Mitchell Trubisky to compete with former UDFA QB Taylor Heinicke. (link)
• On the NFL Network, Ian Rapoport reported that the Bears are interested in Andy Dalton, but also that they are in on every available QB, so nothing to see here...
• Brad Biggs believes there’s a scenario where the Bears target Jameis Winston. (link)

The Bears have already made a few moves to create some cap space including restructuring Khalil Mack, Eddie Jackson, and Cody Whitehair (link), they released Bobby Massie and Buster Skrine, but they have also added some salary as well. They franchise tagged Allen Robinson, they re-signed Mario Edwards Jr., Cairo Santos, and Patrick O’Donnell, and they re-signed several exclusive rights free agents.

The deadline for teams to exclusively negotiate and re-sign their own free agents is today at 11:00 a.m. CT, so once that passes here are all the Chicago players that will now be able to negotiate with other teams.

Chicago Bears 2021 Free Agents

Mitchell Trubisky, QB

Cordarrelle Patterson, WR

Dwayne Harris, WR

DeAndre Carter, WR

Demetrius Harris, TE

Jason Spriggs, T

Germain Ifedi, OL

Rashaad Coward, OL, Restricted Free Agent - It was reported the Bears were not bringing Coward back.

Roy Robertson-Harris, DL - Signing with the Jags (our story here)

Brent Urban, DL

Daniel McCullers, DL

John Jenkins, NT

Deon Bush, S

Sherrick McManis, DB

Tashaun Gipson, S

Artie Burns, CB

DeAndre Houston-Carson, S

Michael Joseph, CB, Exclusive Rights Free Agent

Barkevious Mingo, OLB

Eddy Pineiro, K, Restricted Free Agent

Patrick Scales, LS