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Former Chicago Bears James Daniels and Mitch Trubisky are going to be reunited in Pittsburgh.
One of the youngest free agents available on the market at just 24 years old, Daniels is signing a three-year, $26.5 million deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers, as reported by NFL insiders Tom Pelissero and Mike Garafolo:
The move is a homecoming of sorts for Daniels, who grew up about an hour and a half outside of Pittsburgh in Warren, Ohio. The young offensive lineman spent three seasons playing with Trubisky from 2018 to 2020 in Chicago, and he’ll be blocking for the 27-year-old quarterback again in the Steel City after the Steelers inked the QB to a two-year deal worth up to $27 million with incentives on March 14.
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Daniels Was One of Top OL on Free Agent Market
The Bears selected Daniels in Round 2 of the 2018 NFL draft (No. 39 overall). The versatile offensive lineman spent three years playing center with the Iowa Hawkeyes, but the Bears chose to move him to left guard.
Chicago shuffled its o-line around in 2019, moving Daniels back to the position he played in college, but that didn’t last long. Daniels wound up having nine starts at left guard and one at right guard his rookie season, and he played eight games at center and eight at LG the following year. The Bears’ decision to constantly shuffle Daniels around on the line was much-maligned, and many feel as though he could flourish if kept at one position.
A torn pectoral cut his 2020 season short, and he played in just five games that year, but his injury history is relatively clean other than that.
PFF ranked Daniels fifth overall in its interior offensive line rankings this offseason, and he was bound to have a solid market.
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Bears Have Yet Another Hole to Fill on Their Offensive Line
The Bears currently have just under $37 million in salary cap space according to Spotrac, and that’s not deducting new defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi’s three-year, $40.5 million contract from the books. With the team’s needs at wide receiver, o-line and corner, getting into a bidding war over Daniels never seemed likely — particularly after new general manager Ryan Poles’ recent comments criticizing the lack of effort to help Bears’ QB Justin Fields he saw on film from the o-line last year.
“It agitates me to see a quarterback get hit and be on the ground — and I watch the five guys (on the offensive line) and their body language,” Poles told The Athletic in February, adding:
“If I see my guy on the ground, I’m running over there, getting him up, making sure he’s clean, ready to go. I don’t know if I saw that enough in the tape that I watched, and that’s critical. And also to protect your guy. If you see something cheap, something dirty, you need to set the tone that that’s not gonna happen, because if you do let it happen once, it’s going to happen over and over and next thing you know, your quarterback is hurt. So that (nastiness) mentality is critical and is something we need to add.”
It’s clear Poles and company want to completely re-vamp the o-line, and now, they have another hole to fill on the interior.
Daniels has started 48 games for the Bears since his arrival in 2018, playing in 54. He allowed 40 pressures and three sacks in 1,121 snaps last season, per PFF.
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