NEWSLETTER
Days after his visit to Chicago, there isn’t much happening on the Morgan Moses front.
Well, save for this:
OL Morgan Moses intends to make at least one other visit before deciding where he will sign.
— uSTADIUM (@uSTADIUM) June 4, 2021
Translation: Moses hasn’t received a contract offer he is willing to accept. Therefore, his free agency tour continues. Frankly, the only way to stop a player from continuing a trek like this is by not allowing them to leave the building. And the way to do that is to give them the contract they seek then and there. Moses had a cap number north of $8 million in 2020. He’ll likely have to take a pay-cut in 2021 with the shrunken cap and all. But maybe he can be had on a competitive one-year deal that allows him to reset his value in a free agent market that figures to have a larger cap for teams to navigate.
In any case, Moses doesn’t seem eager to jump on the first offer to come his way. Nevertheless, it’s something for us to keep an eye on for as long as he remains available.
In the meantime, the Bears still have 96 offensive line combinations from which they can choose to deploy once the regular season begins.
No, seriously.
Before we dive into it, I’d like to give props to Michael, Eli, and Mario for helping me sort through the madness and crunch the necessary numbers to get to this point.
So, here we are, at a final destination that really isn’t a final destination. You see, the Bears have some offensive line issues. And while the good news is that the team has able bodies and depth, locking in a five-man starting rotation isn’t easy. In more good news, most everyone in the offensive line room has experience at multiple positions. Not only is this valuable when it comes to not repeating last year’s mistake of not having adequate depth on the line, it’s important for GM Ryan Pace when it comes to roster building. He said as much himself recently while dissecting his draft class.
So here’s where the offensive line for Chicago’s football team stands in early June…
LEFT TACKLE: Teven Jenkins, Germain Ifedi, Cody Whitehair, Alex Bars, Larry Borom
LEFT GUARD: James Daniels, Cody Whitehair
CENTER: Sam Mustipher, Cody Whitehair, James Daniels
RIGHT GUARD: James Daniels, Cody Whitehair, Alex Bars, Elijah Wilkinson
RIGHT TACKLE: Germain Ifedi, Alex Bars, Larry Borom, Elijah Wilkinson
I’m not diving into math formulas at this hour. And you’ll thank me later for it, because you don’t want to be doing math on a Friday either. But there are 96 starting combinations that can be made with the players listed at the positions above. I suppose that number can grow further if we allow ourselves to imagine Ifedi moving inside to right guard, which is where he began last season.
All in all, the grand takeaway here is that the Bears have options. Lots of them. If they add Morgan Moses, great. Not only would that solidify the group with a proven veteran, it could allow the team to upgrade at multiple spots at the line of scrimmage. Being better in the blocking game entering this season than they were when last year was put to rest should be a top priority for these Bears. Addressing depth is one way to go about getting to that point. Now, it’s up to the players to win some jobs for themselves.
