All signs have pointed to the Chicago Bears making a run at former Pro Bowl guard Trey Smith once free agency opens next month. It makes sense. He’s the best offensive lineman on the market, and the Bears badly need good ones. GM Ryan Poles helped draft him in Kansas City when he still worked for them in 2021. Expectations were that the Chiefs would have to let Smith walk in free agency because they don’t have a ton of cap space to spare. They must reserve what they have to lock up key defensive fixtures like Nic Bolton and George Karlaftis.
However, there are rumblings that Kansas City would at least like to try finding a way to keep him. Does that mean the franchise tag? No. That would cost over $25 million next season, which is far too much. However, Adam Schefter of ESPN indicated they might be willing to try a different approach. It would involve using the transition tag, which isn’t an option teams look to very often.
Trey Smith getting the transition tag puts pressure on the Bears.
On its own, the tag is a one-year deal worth the average of the top 10 salaries at the position. In this case, it would be just over $22 million. It also turns the player into a restricted free agent. He will be free to speak with other teams about a possible deal. Kansas City will then have five days to decide if they want to match whatever offer he receives. The Bears did this with Kyle Fuller in 2018. They tagged him, he received an offer from Green Bay, and Chicago matched it. The tricky part for Poles is determining how high he’s willing to go for Trey Smith. He’d already be the highest-paid guard in the NFL at $22 million. Would they go higher to ensure Kansas City won’t match the offer?
Poles doesn’t like overpaying in free agency. As much as he may love getting Smith to Chicago, there has to be a point of no return. Is he $2-3 million per year better than Landon Dickerson? No. This will be a tough decision.
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–pretty well, not pretty good; quite well is preferred, children
If you watch the superbowl a couple more times you will see that Smith actually blocked Jalen Carter most of the game and did pretty good. It was the Tackles and Kelsy that couldn’t block a mild breeze.
I get it, Trey Smith has turned into a proper guard for KC. Let us not forget that he was a 6th rounder, COACHED up to be a Pro Bowler by a top notch franchise. Something we have lacked in the last 2 decades with this franchise. Meanwhile we have his old teammate, Darnell Wright, chosen in the 1st round. Long point, short. Do NOT spend 20+ million on a guard that’s surrounded by more, well coached, talented players. We have on paper what seems to be a top rated coaching staff, finally! Let’s hope we can start coaching up… Read more »
Chiefs big weakness has been their o-line. They’ll need to address it this offseason as well. Smith played out of position during the playoffs so don’t put too much into him having a bad Super Bowl. Mahomes had some magic this year but he was very average for large chunks of this season and that’s largely been a reflection on the O line. Chiefs played great defense in the 1st half but they run defense was pretty bad in 2nd half of season. Think about this, they had 17 wins this year overall and 14 were by one score. They… Read more »
If the Bears pay $22m for a second tier guard I’m going to punch myself in the dick and tell the teacher Poles did it. Exactly what fucking good is having a QB on a rookie contract if you’re just going to burn your cap space on stupid shit like that? You draft a rookie so you can spend premium dollars on premium positions. Now, I know Poles loves overpaying shitty guards, but this is just getting ridiculous.