Getty The Bears are slated to let a former starting offensive lineman hit free agency.
The Chicago Bears aren’t planning on keeping starting right tackle Bobby Massie around for the 2021 season, according to NFL insider Ian Rapoport. A nine-year veteran, Massie was drafted in the fourth round of the 2012 NFL Draft (112th pick overall) by the Arizona Cardinals. He spent four years with the Cards before the Bears signed him to a three-year, $18 million contract in 2016.
In January 2019, Chicago extended the 6-6, 325-pound tackle through 2022, but the injury bug bit him a bit too much over the last few seasons, and considering, as Rapoport noted, the team would save $5 million by releasing him, it isn’t an unexpected move.
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Massie Was Bears’ Starting RT for Last 5 Seasons
GettyBobby Massie, Germain Ifedi and Sam Mustipher of the Chicago Bears.
Massie started 64 games for the Bears over the last five seasons, playing 91 percent or more of the team’s snaps on offense in each of his first three seasons. He started 10 games in 2019, and eight this past season, missing significant time with a knee injury.
Per Pro Football Focus, the 31-year-old allowed three sacks, three quarterback hits, 16 pressures and 10 hurries in his eight starts in 2020, but he also earned a career-high overall offensive grade of 72.6. His best season as a Bear came in 2018, when he played 1,097 snaps at right tackle and surrendered just one sack and two quarterback hits.
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Bears Will Likely Make Several More Cuts Over Next Few Weeks
Based on the team’s current salary cap (They have –2,827,958 of cap space, per Spotrac, so releasing Massie would finally get them out of the red, but barely), more cuts will be coming for the Bears. The Bears already released veteran corner Buster Skrine, and now Massie is likely next, although the team has yet to make the move official. Here’s what general manager Ryan Pace had to say about his plans for free agency and building a new roster this offseason:
Without getting into specific players, this is going to be a year, it’s gonna be about adjusting. We’re not the only team in the league who is dealing with these circumstances. Everyone’s prepping for at nighter camp. We have a plan in place with that. It involves different things. There’s different ways for us to create room with our cap, not just releasing players. That’s a hard part of the business. We had a difficult decision with Buster yesterday and there’ll be some decisions to make. I think you’re going to see more of that around the league than you’ve ever seen. But we’re prepared. We’re expecting the cap to be about 180 [million], so we’re prepared for that and we’ll operate accordingly.
Operating accordingly should mean several contract restructures, with Eddie Jackson, Kyle Fuller and Akiem Hicks likely candidates there — and yes, there will be more cuts. The only question now is who stays and who goes.
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