The buzz behind the notion of the Chicago Bears doing everything in their power to acquire a quarterback at the top of the 2016 NFL Draft is reportedly building. Albert Breer of NFL.com published an article on Friday wherein he revealed that "rival teams" believe new Bears GM Ryan Pace and head coach John Fox are going to do their damndest to ensure that they procure their very own hand-picked signal-caller come next April with whom they can presumably usher in a new era of football in Chicago.
At 0-3 and staring a potential 0-4 start in the face thanks to the rapid rise of the Oakland Raiders and the injuries to Alshon Jeffery and Jay Cutler, which will and may, respectively, sideline them for this weekend, Fox and Pace may certainly find themselves in position to do just that come the spring.
Signal-callers likely to be available at that point include Cal's Jared Goff, a player who has steadily risen up draft boards thus far this season, Penn State's Christian Hackenburg, a guy who was recently compared to Hall of Famer Troy Aikman, and Michigan State's Connor Cook, the player many presume to be the first one off the board, but who hasn't performed up to snuff to this point in 2015.
While it's already been made clear with the trades of ill-fitting pass rusher Jared Allen and former second-round pick, linebacker Jon Bostic, that Fox and Pace are beginning the transition from a roster that had fallen into disrepair under previous Bears head coach Marc Trestman, pieces like quarterback Cutler remain. Cutler, despite his atrocious season last year and his mediocre start to the 2015 NFL season, is no lock to be gone by next year thanks to his behemoth contract extension handed to him by ex-GM Phil Emery. Cutler's set to count $17 million against the cap in 2016, while carrying a dead cap penalty of $13 million.
Eating that $13 million would be hard and it's likely Chicago would prefer to keep Cutler for 2016 and send him packing the next offseason when his dead cap figure drops to a much more manageable $2 million. And really, depending on the player Fox and Pace are able to draft - assuming Breer's report is accurate - it may be best to hang onto Cutler, let him ride out a tough 2016 season as the rookie learns the ropes from the bench and then move forward with the new Bears team in 2017.
Then again, depending on Cutler's approach, that could make for a very tense situation in Chicago.
In the end, the only things certain at this point are that Cutler is not the answer at quarterback for the Bears and Fox and Pace have a lot of heavy lifting ahead if they're going to fix what ails their team.
What they do in and, potentially at the top of, the 2016 NFL Draft will go a long way towards determining their plan for the franchise's future.
