NEWSLETTER
The Miami Dolphins are a team in transition and their re-boot is underway after hiring two assistants away from the Chicago Bears.
However, there’s one Dolphins-related move that Bears fans should be more interested in than the departures of Dowell Loggains and Jeremiah Washburn, and that’s their plans for free-agent-wide-receiver-to-be-Jarvis Landry.
Eric Edholm of Pro Football Weekly sees Miami being one of the more aggressive teams in the offseason. And, more to the point, he believes Miami can clear enough salary cap space to keep Landry’s talents from leaving South Beach.
“There’s no indication that the team wants to move on from him, despite his occasional distractions, after refusing to move him at the trade deadline,” Edholm writes. “They’re confident Landry will be back and at a salary they can live with.”
Well, that would certainly throw a(nother) wrench in the Bears’ offseason plans if they included paying top dollar for one of the league’s top free agent receivers.
Landry moved to the top of the list of wide receivers who are on the cusp of becoming free agents when Davante Adams re-signed with the Green Bay Packers late in the season. Landry led the league in catches (112), finished fourth in targets (160), secured nine touchdown receptions (tied for the fourth most in the NFL), and came 13 yards shy of his third consecutive 1,000-yard season.
If Alshon Jeffery’s deal to stay with the Philadelphia Eagles set the market, then Landry can easily command $14 million a year and more than $50 million in guarantees.
Chicago, in case you didn’t know, has a ton of cap space, a young quarterback who needs needs reliable targets, and, obviously, a wide receivers room that desperately needs to be re-worked (that’s the nice way of putting it). But if Landry joins Adams and Jeffery in signing before even hitting free agency, it would thin out the top of the market before the Bears even had a shot … and that would sting.
