Chicago Bears Again Sign Tough, Low-Cost Players to Compete

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles again signs low-risk, low-impact players to compete in 2022.

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles continues his bargain-basement deals tour. He went out and found players to try to strengthen two areas of concern. He signed two, but considering how bad the roster was, improvement wasn’t too hard to accomplish.

Poles signed cornerback Tavon Young and tight end Ryan Griffin (the Bears have to have the most Ryans ever to work for a team}. Both were for one year, with Young getting $1.365 million and Griffin $2.25 million.

This offseason, Poles went out of his way to find as many cost-effective deals as possible. He has an array of sixth-round picks or undrafted players who signed for one-year deals at bargain-rate salaries.

It appears that Poles is actually starting the rebuild in earnest during the 2023 offseason.

Young adds to the list of slot corners the Bears have. He is a talented player but he cannot seem to stay healthy. In his career, he had three major injuries. He missed all of 2017 (knee) and 2019 (neck) and most of 2020 (knee). Last season, though, he played in all 17 games last season, starting seven of them. He had 35 tackles, 3 passes defended, 2 sacks, and an interception. When healthy, he can be an impact player, but he’s shown that he cannot stay healthy.

For his career, Young has 127 tackles, 16 passes defended, 4 sacks, and 4 interceptions, two of them run back for touchdowns.

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Young joins Kindle Vildor and Thomas Graham Jr. as the slot corners. Apparently, the Bears don’t feel very confident with that group so they went out and got Young and not another outside corner. Perhaps having a committee helps all players concerned, especially Young. If he can limit his snaps and stay healthy he could be a big asset for the Bears defense.

Last season, Jaylon Johnson wasn’t attacked very much because of the problems the Bears had with the second outside cornerback. It looks as if Poles will take care of that through the draft.

At tight end, the Bears only had Cole Kmet and Jesper Horsted on the roster. Now they have Griffin. He doesn’t move the needle much, however. He’ll be the main backup for now, unless the Bears go out and draft another tight end.

Don’t expect Griffin to be a long-term asset. At 32, he is the first free agent over 30 that Poles signed this offseason. He wants to make the team younger and more athletic.

Griffin also adds a good blocking tight end to help the offensive line. Whether the line has improved this offseason is questionable so any help the unit gets from the tight ends is great.

Poles again signs tough, resilient players. Young has overcome injuries to continue his play and Griffin is one tough guy who will do whatever it takes to help the offense succeed. This is what Poles said about Griffin.

Ryan adds a veteran presence to our offense and tight end group, along with his toughness and a gritty style of play that will be a welcome addition to our team.

With 17 days before the NFL draft, we see how Poles is setting up to pick the prospects he wants. It’ll be interesting to see how he runs his first draft.