Getty Bears general manager Ryan Poles could turn Larry Borom into a trade chip.
The Chicago Bears have a little less than two weeks to finalize their initial 53-man roster for the 2024 season, but there is a chance they could move on from one of their former veteran starters — if they find a fit on the trade market.
The Bears are still working to determine their starting lineup and depth spots for their offensive line in 2024, a task made more difficult by Nate Davis’ recent injury troubles. Davis’ absence has forced them to move one of their center candidates, Ryan Bates, to right guard and rotate veteran Matt Pryor between guard and tackle at training camp.
If the Bears can get back to their original O-line plan in the coming days, though, they may not have a compelling reason to retain fourth-year offensive tackle Larry Borom.
Borom — who is in the final year of his $5.5 million rookie contract — has started 23 games at left and right tackle for the Bears over the past three seasons, but his role has diminished progressively since coming into the league as a fifth-round pick in 2022. He played a career-low 411 snaps in 2023, receiving most of his action as an injury fill-in.
Coming in 2024, Borom is vying for one of the depth spots in the Bears’ tackle rotation, but Bleacher Report’s Ryan Fowler believes he is the one player Chicago “should put on the 2024 trade block this preseason” with tackle needs starting to emerge elsewhere.
“With such heavy assets allocated to younger, starting pieces up front, Borom’s youth and experience could attract teams in need of fresh legs at the position,” Fowler wrote in his August 14 article about each NFL team’s “prime candidate” for the trade block.
Bears Can Save $3.1 Million With Larry Borom Move
The Bears moving on from Borom is well within the realm of possibility this preseason. They have two promising starters in Braxton Jones (left) and Darnell Wright (right) at their tackle positions and have added both Pyror (free agent signing) and third-round rookie Kiran Amegadjie to the mix to give them a stronger overall group for 2024.
Borom is also coming off a rough season in 2023. While he made six spot starts at left tackle and played nine games total, he seemed to regress as a pass-blocker when asked to move from the right (where he played primarily in 2021 and 2022) to the left side. He allowed three sacks, six quarterback hits and 25 pressures on 225 pass-blocking snaps, earning himself his career-worst pass-blocking grade (45.2) from Pro Football Focus.
The Bears might be willing to take one more chance on him and ride out the end of his contract in 2024 if not for the proven performance escalator he earned for playing time. Because Borom played more than 35% of cumulative snaps over his first three seasons, his base salary increases to $3.116 million for the upcoming season.
In other words, the Bears must decide whether they want to keep Borom as one of their priciest backup offensive linemen or instead cut/trade him and turn every cent of his salary into additional cap space for 2024. Not much of a choice if Borom is redundant.
The bigger question is: Would another NFL team be willing to take a chance on Borom’s 39 games of experience and give up a draft pick to acquire him from Chicago?
Larry Borom Trade Partner Could Be Tough to Find
Borom has enough NFL playing experience to draw interest from another team if the Bears decide to move on from him before the season. He has started 23 of his 39 career games over his first three seasons and has the versatility to play on either side of an offensive line. That’s nothing to scoff at for a team struggling with tackle depth.
That said, any team interested in Borom might prefer to wait until the 53-man roster cutdown on August 27 to see if they’ll have a chance to claim him off the waiver wire.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles will likely shop Borom around the trade market if he decides he does not have a place with the team in 2024, but finding a taker could prove challenging if the prevailing expectation around the league is the Bears will waive him. Teams with decent waiver priority would likely prefer to wait things out to see if they could land Borom without giving up draft picks in the process.
The one exception that could result in a trade for Borom is if the Bears fetch interest from a team with a lower-end waiver priority. For example, if the Dallas Cowboys — a 2023 playoff team — wanted Borom and knew other teams with better priority could scoop him up first, they might be willing to do a pick swap with the Bears to get him.
The resulting deal could boil down to something as simple as the Bears giving up Borom and a 2025 seventh-round pick in exchange for a 2025 sixth-rounder, but a small return is better than nothing when the alternative is cutting Borom loose in a few weeks.
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