Drew Dalman’s shocking retirement hurts the Bears in more ways than one but Chicago does get slight relief to stop the bleeding
The salary cap implications of Drew Dalman’s stunning retirement offers slight relief for the Chicago Bears.
The Chicago Bears got hit with debilitating news on Tuesday after Pro Bowl center Drew Dalman announced his retirement from the NFL at 27-years-old.
Dalman was one year into his three-year, $42 million contract he signed with the team last year in free agency and seemed to be in the long-term plans for Chicago after such a successful first season. This kind of news absolutely throws a massive wrench into the team’s offseason plans.
While we wish Dalman nothing but the best moving forward after making such a difficult decision, the Bears now must move forward as well and figure out what the plans without Dalman are going to look like with free agency right around the corner.
Cap implications from Drew Dalman’s stunning retirement offer relief for replacement plan
It’s bad enough the Bears now are back in the market for a starting center for the second offseason in a row and have to scramble on the fly.
Chicago is already setting up a visit with recently released center Tyler Biadasz and also reportedly sniffed around about signing Tyler Linderbaum if he hits the open market next week. But, those are far from cheap options to consider and it doesn’t help that three teams in the NFC North alone are now hunting for a big-name center.
As for the cap implications, the Bears do get $10 million in cap savings to try and swing big-name center onto the books in 2026 but the team is already tight against the cap while now having to add $4 million in dead money. Next year, the Bears will save $14 million in 2027 from this retirement.
Chicago has some options to generate more savings such as going after Dalman’s prorated signing bonus (which is a bad look if the team goes down that route) or ask Dalman to reduce his base salary to the minimum and send the official retirement papers after June 1. Even with the latter, that only saves the team an extra $2 million.
Dalman was slated to have a $14 million cap hit in 2026, the ninth-highest on the entire team, a number that now drops to $4 million. Even still, it’s going to make it even harder to find Dalman’s replacement, not to mention address the other needs on the roster such as left tackle, linebacker, safety, and adding more defensive linemen.
All of this makes the next couple of days even more critical as the Bears look to revamp the roster going into the 2026 season.
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