Glennon’s Deal with Bears Expected to Average $14.5 Million Over Three Years

Your early-morning Mike Glennon update, courtesy of the ever-hustling Ian Rapoport:

When Mike Glennon’s deal is finalized with #Bears, it’s expected to be 3 years for an average of $14.5M, source says. Will still draft a QB

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 9, 2017

Still no reports on the guarantees in the deal, but recent precedents suggest it’ll probably be in the 50 to 60% range, or about $21 to $22 million. Certainly not a crippling amount if Glennon winds up the backup by midseason, or, God forbid, the Bears whiff on this entirely. But also not an insubstantial amount, which will reduce the Bears’ potential carryover into 2018 if this season winds up another non-competitive year.

We’ll get more into this after the signing is official, and there’s time to consider all the implications in the run-up to the draft, but I think we’re going to find out that things played out this way for the Bears:

(1.) They were done with Jay Cutler, full stop, no turning back, no matter what, etc., etc.

(2.) They do want to target a long-term quarterback in the draft, but the lack of an obvious guy there at number three has given them pause.

(3.) They don’t want to punt entirely on 2017, but the cost of acquiring someone like Jimmy Garoppolo was going to be prohibitive.

(4.) They want to add a quarterback who can be a placeholder for a younger quarterback if necessary, but who also still has a little bit of potential upside left, in case that right young quarterback doesn’t develop or isn’t available in this year’s draft. In other word, this year’s “bridge” quarterback might also have to be next year’s bridge quarterback, and, all else equal, you’d rather that guy was young enough and projectable enough to possibly be more than a merely serviceable starter.

The only guy on the free agent market who fits all of that right now is Mike Glennon.

You can argue with the wisdom of any of those points, but I think they lay out the track that got the Bears to this point, and why they were clearly targeting Glennon aggressively immediately. I can, at a minimum, understand the thinking.