The Chicago Bears released veteran right tackle Bobby Massie this spring, freeing up $5.4 million in cap space. The Bears re-signed Germain Ifedi, who is currently listed as the team’s starter at the position on the depth chart, and they will presumably grab an offensive lineman or two in the draft in order to fill the void left by Massie.
A nine-year NFL veteran, Massie spent his first four years with the Arizona Cardinals before heading to Chicago, where he started 64 games in the last five seasons. A knee injury limited him to eight games in 2020, and at 31-years-old, Chicago opted to part ways with him instead of keeping him around for another season. Massie has yet to find a new home, but one analyst thinks he would be a great fit playing for Chicago’s biggest rival.
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Analyst: Green Bay is Best Fit for Massie
Brad Spielberger of Pro Football Focus took a look at the best available free agents this week, and he proposed some interesting potential pairings. He named a few of Massie’s best fits, and Green Bay was high on the list, along with Kansas City and Las Vegas.
“Starting-caliber tackles are difficult to come by, and Massie has been a mid-tier starter for the majority of his career. Since 2017, he has earned a solid 73.4 pass-blocking grade, including a 57th percentile rank on true pass sets, showing that he will provide at least adequate play at a position group that suffers massively from glaring holes,” Speilberger wrote. “Massie has been less effective in the run game, grading above 60.0 just twice in his five years with the Bears, so his best fit may be in a pass-heavy attack.”
While the Packers have balance on offense, they do pass more than they run, but Massie’s most attractive quality may be his price tag.
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Packers Could Get Massie at a Reasonable Price
After sitting unsigned for the last several months, Spielberger thinks a team in need of depth on its o-line could pick Massie up on the cheap, predicting he’ll sign a one-year, $2.5 million deal when he does land somewhere.
“Massie’s four-year, $32 million extension in 2019 had a team option for 2021, which Chicago chose to decline, making him a free agent ahead of the 2021 offseason. Massie has been a solid, if unspectacular, right tackle in Chicago the past two years but has missed 14 games over the same span,” Spielberger added.
Massie is no huge talent, but as Spielberger noted, he has been a reliable presence for the Bears over the last five years. Per PFF, he has played 3,980 snaps for Chicago in his tenure with the team, and he earned a respectable 72.6 overall grade in a limited 2020 campaign, so he’ll likely land somewhere before the new season starts.
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Ex-Bears Starter Dubbed Perfect Fit for Packers