Bottom 10 Bears Free Agents All Time

There is plenty of competition for this worst 10 free agent list in Bears history but rest assured all of these players got their money's worth and the team didn't.

Any GM will tell you free agency is to be used as a supplementary weapon and the draft is how to build teams.

Then those same GMs run in a panic to the start of free agency, which begins with Monday's legalized tampering period before formal signings occur Wednesday.

They sign players who are overpriced or unwanted by other teams to fill holes, and most of the time they have problems. If these players weren't wanted elsewhere, why would they be good ones to sign? Occasionally someone like that slips through a crack. The Bears got good use out of cornerback Prince Amukamara for a few years when it seemed he wasn't wanted elsewhere. For the money, they got excellent play out of Tashuan Gipson at safety.

By and large, free agency is to be avoided as much as possible.

Teams rebuilding with new offensive and defensive systems need to use it, though, because they simply have too many holes to fill through the draft or with their own roster.

Here are the worst attempts in Bears history at obtaining free agents based largely on bang for the buck. The players got the bucks and the Bears got banged in the pocketbook. 

It's pretty much testament to the fact all their personnel chiefs have had problems as free agency began in 1993 and all their decision makers since then are represented.

10. DT Jeremiah Ratliff

He beat out several disasters for the top 10 like Markus Wheaton ($11 million, $6 million guaranteed, 3 receptions, 12 games, 51 yards) Marcus Cooper (3 years, $16 million, 17 games, 4 starts) and Dion Sims ($18 million, 3 years, 17 receptions) to make this list. Ratliff actually was a productive enough player to get a second contract after a year but the Bears didn't know they might be signing the "Prince of Darkness." He showed up at Halas Hall one day, was arguing with GM Ryan Pace in the media parking lot, then later police reports claimed he had said, "I am the devil," and that he "felt like killing everybody in the building." Generally, it's not a way to stick around long with a team.

9. DE Jared Allen

Signing an aging veteran to finish his career can work out great. Julius Peppers made several GMs look like geniuses by continuing to make sacks late in his career. Allen had 5 1/2 sacks in 18 games for the Bears. However, GM Phil Emery signed him for $32 million with $15.5 million guaranteed. So it's obvious they expected more than 5 1/2 sacks. Then they fired Emery. Allen didn't fit the 3-4 they were going to use in 2015 as a smaller defensive end, and so he left to end his career in Carolina.

8. T Orlando Pace

Signing Orlando Pace, a Hall-of-Fame tackle isn't a bad thing necessarily and GM Jerry Angelo had some success in the past with signing free agent tackles. However, giving him three years and $15 million—high end for 2009—after 12 NFL seasons at the age of 33 wasn't the good idea. Pace was good at watching pass rushers go by at that point, played 11 games and retired on the way to Canton

7. QB Kordell Stewart

When they signed Stewart, it came with much fanfare even though they paid only $5 million for two years. He was something different, though. He was a quarterback who could run. They had tried unsuccessfully for years to sign one who could pass so apparently Angelo decided it was time to try something different after they gave up on Jim Miller. Stewart played only seven games and couldn't run or pass at that point.

6. K Cody Parkey

For obvious reasons. If they did a Mt. Rushmore of Chicago playoff goats—not GOATS but goats—Parkey would be right there between Eddie Cicotte and Steve Bartman. Pace actually gave $15 million over four years with a ridiculous $9 million guaranteed to a kicker who made only 76.7% and double-doinked his way to infamy, not to mention the Today Show.

5. DL Ray McDonald

It wasn't the money but the signing. It embarrassed owner George McCaskey, who had agreed to let them sign a player with a domestic violence history for $1 million after he was assured the problems were in the past. And before he really even became part of the team McDonald was arrested for suspicion of violence and child endangerment after an incident when Santa Clara police said he "physically assaulted a victim while she was holding a baby."

4. OLB Pernell McPhee

It really hurts to put him on here because he was such a genuinely nice guy to have at Halas Hall. However, when you pay someone $38.7 million over five years with $16 million guaranteed at a time when that was top money, and he makes 14 sacks in three years, it's a terrible investment. To top it off, knee issues had plagued McPhee in Baltimore and Pace signed him anyway only to have the same situation occur. McPhee wasn't wanted after three seasons, left, returned to Baltimore, and has had only seven sacks since 2019.

3. MLB Bryan Cox

The first great Bears free agent bust and it came in the Rod Graves/Dave Wannsted/Michael McCaskey era. He was the most highly paid Bears defensive player ever at $13.2 million over four years in 1996 and Wannstedt thought he was getting the new Mike Singletary or Dick Butkus. Instead, they got no forced fumbles and about the same number of tackles from Cox as they had from Joe Cain the year before their big signing. And Cain was a lot funnier guy.

2. CB Thomas Smith

Mark Hatley paid the unheard-of sum of $22.5 million over five years in 1997 to obtain a cornerback from Buffalo who had six interceptions in seven years. Smith made none in Chicago, got beat often for completions. After one year and part of the next preseason he was told to leave.   

1. QB Mike Glennon

Glennon was supposed to be the bridge, and 2017 was supposed to be "his year." Well, the bridge collapsed and his year lasted only four weeks. At three years, $45 million and $18.5 million guaranteed, Pace would have spent the McCaskeys' money better by making any undrafted free agent the starting quarterback at a league minimum. After five interceptions, five fumbles, a 76.5 passer rating and one miraculous win at home over Pittsburgh in four starts, Glennon mercifully went to the bench in favor of Mitchell Trubisky. Somehow, he was still in the league last year for Trevis Gipson and Robert Quinn to sack. As a quarterback, he makes a good target.

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