Bear Digest

Why Trey Smith to Chicago Bears looks like anything but a lock

Reports of apparent obstacles to the Bears acquiring Trey Smith are valid and potentially could mean they need to look elsewhere for line help.

Gene Chamberlain

Trey Smith is the hot free agent name for the Bears but some closer looks at the situation reveal reasons it might not happen.
Trey Smith is the hot free agent name for the Bears but some closer looks at the situation reveal reasons it might not happen. / Denny Medley-Imagn Images
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The speculative momentum building toward a March 10 connection between the Bears and Kansas City Chiefs guard Trey Smith continues on a daily basis.

Every analyst of the free agency market puts Smith in the top five somewhere, many in the top two, and ESPN analyst Matt Bowen reported there are some NFL personnel people who consider him the No. 1 free agent.

The need for Bears offensive line change at guard is obvious considering the importance here to what coach Ben Johnson's offense did in Detroit.

It's a slam dunk they'll go after Trey Smith if you ask people like ESPN's Jeremy Fowler. As recently as Thursday in looking at possible offensive line movement, Pro Football Focus' Zoltán Buday also went this way.

"Trey Smith would provide an instant upgrade to the Bears offensive line: Given how Detroit’s offense was built under new Bears head coach Ben Johnson, it would be no surprise if his first order of business in Chicago is reinforcing the offensive line," Buday wrote.

Big money Bears can handle

The amount being floated has been around $21 million a year for the top offensive lineman in free agency. A team needing line help badly and possessing top-10 cap space plus virtually limitless cap space for the next few years should have no issue digging up that kind of cash.

That noise you can hear heading into this dead weekend for professional tackle football isn't quite a jolting screech but it is someone tapping the brakes at least on this potential Bears acquisition.

It might cost them more than $21 million a year.

The Tribune's Brad Biggs, writing from the Senior Bowl, reports "growing sentiment" in the belief the Kansas City Chiefs could try to do a tag-and-trade with Smith the way they did last year with cornerback L'Jarius Sneed.

ESPN's Dan Graziano on Friday, has an assessment of the top 10 free agents and paints an even less optimistic picture the Bears could get Smith.

"Smith is now a priority this offseason, as Kansas City tries to keep its elite interior offensive line group together," Graziano wrote.

Just like with Biggs' comment, there is actual reporting here and not mere speculation.

"The Eagles' Landon Dickerson is at the top of the guard market, earning $21 million per year," Graziano wrote. "Based on what I'm hearing, it shouldn't be a problem for the Chiefs to give Smith a deal that at least matches that in terms of annual value and tops the $63 million in guarantees that Robert Hunt got from the Panthers."

The value of the tag for Smith exceeds $25 million but that's not viewed as too high for Kansas City if they did want to use a tag-and-trade. Nor is the cap itself a problem because they have some other contracts capable of being restructured, or other linemen who might be more expendable.

Biggs also points out there will be plenty of other teams who will want to compete to sign Smith if it turns out the Chiefs decided against keeping him.

The Patriots, Raiders, Commanders, Cardinals and Chargers all have more effective cap space than the Bears will according to Overtheap.com. In fact, New England ($112.2 million) has more than double the Bears'$54.124 million effective cap space according to PFF. The Pats definitely need line help.

What then for the Bears?

Based on this, no doubt the Bears will need to examine Colts guard Will Fries. Another potential guard is unlikely as it's James Daniels, their own draft pick who was allowed by Ryan Poles to leave in free agency. Daniels suffered a torn Achilles, which should add to past Bears lack of interest in him.

Then there is the 35-year-old route, which makes total sense for the Bears and that is Lions guard Kevin Zeitler. Bringing him in while also drafting a third-round or even second-round guard to bring along for a year would make total sense.

The other top option is their own guy, Teven Jenkins. They could do a lot worse than line up Teven Jenkins as a starter in 2025 while they hope he finally maintains good health through a full season.

Regardless, the route to No. 1 guard in the market looks at least temporarily blockaded and if the Chiefs find a way to put a tag on Smith, anticipate the Bears to look elsewhere.

They might be willing to spend but to spend and also give up valued draft picks when they feel they can always develop their own guards from draft picks seems very unlikely.

Poles puts extreme value on the draft and it's been that way for three years. It could be a place where the first real test of the Poles-Ben Johnson cozy working relationship comes if the new Bears coach is looking at Smith as a real solution on the line.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.