Examining if Bears should trade for Myles Garrett, Cooper Kupp
Big news kicked off Super Bowl week, though it came from players not involved in the title game itself.
Myles Garrett started Monday off with a bang, announcing on social media that he was requesting a trade from the Browns. Then Cooper Kupp put an exclamation point on things later that evening, announcing that the Rams will be looking to trade him.
That’s two superstars available from a category of elite players teams rarely part with in their prime.
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News like that allows every fan base to dream about landing an amazing talent. Some don’t have the assets. Others won’t have the appetite for what’s required to add such a prized player.
The Bears don’t fall in the first category. They should fall in the second.
Before we get into why that’s the case, let’s narrow our focus a bit and take Kupp off the board. The Bears have invested heavily in the receiver spot, giving DJ Moore a massive contract while investing last year’s No. 9 overall selection on Rome Odunze. Plus, there’s a realistic option of bring top route runner and Caleb Williams favorite Keenan Allen on a short-term, cheaper deal.
Everyone could use a player like Garrett, but the reigning NFL defensive player of the year also fills a major positional need. Edge rusher is the biggest outside the interior offensive line, and pairing him and Montez Sweat off opposite ends would be deadly, possibly the NFL’s best tandem.
While the Browns say they’re not moving Garrett, the Bears have enticing assets available. They have every first-round pick moving forward, including the 10th selection this season, and two high 2025 second-round picks. They also have $55 million in effective cap space – the amount available after signing 51 players and its projected rookie draft class – according to OverTheCap.com.
That doesn’t mean general manager Ryan Poles and head coach Ben Johnson should make such a bold move. Garrett would count $19.7 million against the 2025 cap, a reasonable amount, on a deal that runs through 2026. There are void years after that, so the Bears would likely try to find a restructure/extension for Garrett that wouldn’t be cheap.
In addition to the salary, it might require multiple first-round picks and maybe a player – the Bears’ deal for Khalil Mack is being used by the media as a rough trade comp – to get Garrett.
That’s a massive investment in one 29-year-old, albeit an elite talent showing no signs of slowing down. It’s a go-for-it move, not one from a five-win team in 2024 with multiple needs. The Bears have massive needs at three offensive line spots. Sure, they need an edge rusher, too, and maybe a safety, considering Jaquan Brisker’s concussion situation.
Turning lots of premium assets into one solve doesn’t seem like a smart move for the Bears, a team surely looking for massive improvement under Johnson in his first season as head coach.
The Bears are in a great place with the cap and they have a quarterback on a rookie deal, making it possible to pay an elite defensive player over the next several seasons. And the Bears defense would get scary quick with Garrett in the lineup, but they simply aren’t one player away from title contention.
This is a trick Chicago has tried once before that didn’t quite work out. Then GM Ryan Pace paid a king’s ransom for Mack and it didn’t work out great. He was a first-team All-Pro and a three-time Pro Bowler in Chicago, but the Bears finished above .500 once and never won a playoff game.
While the Bears could pull off a trade for Garrett and it’s worth a conversation or two about it inside Halas Hall – Kevin Warren said this was a massive year for the football team and the organization’s stadium push – it makes more sense to use all their attractive assets to build the entire team up and help set it up for sustained success with veteran free-agents and quality drafts that could give Chicago the depth required for the possibility of paying Williams down the line.