Getty Ex-Bears QB Andy Dalton has landed with the New Orleans Saints.
The Red Rifle is heading to The Big Easy.
The erstwhile Chicago Bears quarterback is signing a one-year deal with the New Orleans Saints for $6 million, with $3 million guaranteed, per NFL insider Adam Schefter.
Saints are signing former Bears’ QB Andy Dalton to a one-year deal worth up to $6 million, including $3 million guaranteed, per source.
Dalton played in eight games for Chicago last season, starting six. He went 3–3 in those six starts. The veteran QB completed 63.1% of his passes for 1,515 yards, eight touchdowns and nine interceptions with the Bears. The season prior, with the Dallas Cowboys in 2020, he had a 64.9% completion percentage while throwing for 2,170 yards, 14 touchdowns and eight picks in the 11 games he played in relief of Dak Prescott.
Now, he’ll be the presumed backup for Jameis Winston and the Saints, who have won the last seven games they’ve played against the Bears.
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Dalton Had ‘Up & Down’ Year With Bears
Former Bears head coach Matt Nagy named Dalton the team’s starter over Justin Fields heading into the season, but a bone bruise acquired during a scramble Week 2 against the Cincinnati Bengals resulted in Fields taking the reins — and the young QB never gave them back.
“It’s been up and down,” Dalton said about his time with the Bears after his regular season concluded on January 7. “There’s been a lot that’s gone on and a lot of things that have been unexpected at times but you know, it’s kind of just one of those things that you have to learn and grow from each experience that you have and that’s kind of just where I’m at.”
Dalton wound up starting a bit more when Fields was out with cracked ribs, but the veteran signal-caller was also hampered by a groin issue, and he missed time after a positive COVID-19 test. He admitted to wondering what things would have been like if he hadn’t gone down early in the season.
“I think about that all the time,” Dalton said. “But I do understand that everything happens for a reason, and trust in God’s plan over mine. I may not understand why it happened … but I know that I can trust that there’s good that’s come from it. There’s been a lot of growth for me as a person, as a player, since then. That’s some of the positive that you can take away from it. But I do think, ‘What would have happened if I didn’t get hurt Week 2?’”
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Bears Already Have New Backup QB for Fields
The Bears made the signing of backup QB Trevor Siemian official on March 29.
We have signed Trevor Siemian to a two-year contract.
Welcome back to Chicago, @TrevorSiemian! 🐻⬇️
Thus, it’s looking as though the Saints and Bears have swapped backups, as Seimian spent his 2021 campaign in New Orleans. Siemian’s deal is a two-year, $4 million contract with a $1 million signing bonus and $3,035,000 guaranteed, per Spotrac.
New Bears GM Ryan Poles said at the NFL’s annual owners meetings the team is working on trading Nick Foles with Siemian’s contract now on the books, so Chicago’s QB room is going to look quite different in 2022.
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