Bears Sign Bates

The #Bills will match the RFA offer sheet for OT Ryan Bates, per GM Brandon Beane. It’s a 4-year deal for Bates.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 28, 2022

So it was never going to happen anyway, the Bears plan was to match. 

@"StickyBun" said: So it was never going to happen anyway, the Bears plan was to match. 

Good move by the Bills....they let him test the market and get a value...and then resign him with the right of first refusal.  

The Bears OL is not good - they let Daniels walk  - and yet they have a young QB who they have to protect.  Poles is a former OL who is credited with drafting the two starting OL for the Chiefs last year but the Bears have no 1st round draft picks for a few years :)  They do have 3 Top 75 picks this year so they may be able to plug in a rookie OL but they are in full rebuild with very limited  talent accross the board.  They also have about the same CAP space as we do at 16 million. Poles has a lot of work to do.

We are lucky to be in a division with 2 crappy teams (on paper of course) playing 4 games.  Of course the Packers are the perennial division winner.  I am hoping KOC can go at least 4-2 within the division.  Zimmer was able to get us to 4-2 last year with losses to the Lions and Pack.  Years prior the Bears were a thorn but they are gutted so we really should go 4-0 vs them and the Lions!