Bears No Ideal Fit for Potential Free Agent Lineman

The right guard situation for the Bears looks no more clear now than after James Daniels left in free agency.

Dakota Dozier and Sam Mustipher have split first-team OTA reps and neither would have been thought of as a potential guard starter before this season—Mustipher because he has ever played there and Dozier because he has started only one season of the eight he's been in the league.

As a result, and unless the Bears appear more willing to get their two rookie guard candidates more involved with starters at practices, any linemen hitting the open market who plays this position must be considered a possible signing. After the June 1 cutoff freed up cap space, the Bears are reported to have $22 million available in cap space by Overthecap.com, and could look to spend some.

Pro Football Focus and Pro Football Network's Mike Kaye believe Philadelphia guard Isaac Seumalo is going to be a cut victim at some point now that the June 1 deadline has passed.

There are several reasons signing Seumalo could be an option for the Bears if he does hit the open market, starting with the fact he was a third-round draft pick who is still only 28 and has started 43 NFL games.

Seumalo is not an average 330-pound immobile slug, and at 303 pounds he can be athletic enough to try to fit the new Bears blocking schemm.

He's also not going to cost much as his 2022 Eagles cap cost of $7.7 million, since cut victims rarely find it back to their previous pay level.

Seumalo's fit with the Bears would not necessarily be an ideal one for several reasons.

1. Playing speed. He's lighter than many guards and fast when he gets moving but not particularly quick out of his stance. His time of 5.18 in the 40 measured in the top 32% of offensive linemen in his draft class but he has been beaten down by injuries since coming into the league and more important than his 40 time was his 10-yard split, which was slower than 64% of linemen in his draft class at 1.81 seconds. These percentages are per Mockdraftable.com. 

2. The injury situation. It is huge here as Seumalo had a Lisfranc injury to his foot, which is painful and can take a while to heal. It aleady kept him out of 14 games last year. He had missed seven games in 2020 after a knee injury. The only year he played a full schedule since becoming a starter durig 2018 was 2019. 

The Bears have already had their share of free agents with injuries. See Larry Ogunjobi for an example. They had enough issues with linemen and injuries last year as rookie Teven Jenkins missed most of the year due to back surgery and rookie Larry Borom was out with an ankle injury early in the year.

3. Scheme. Seumalo hasn't been blocking the wide zone like the Bears will use. The Eagles like to emphasize RPO with Jalen Hurts at quarterback and rely on inside zone or a split zone scheme. So Seumalo hasn't really had to be out on the move after making a drop step or bucket step like is required of linemen using the wide zone like the Bears will use. It's not to say he couldn't adjust, but the Bears have drafted two guard candidates faster and with experience at this sort of blocking in Zachary Thomas and Ja'Tyre Carter so why not rely on them to develop in a year that already looks like a wash as the team dumped dead cap to 2023 free agency.

4. No Connection. It's been mentioned that Bears assistant general manager Ian Cunningham is a former offensive lineman who came from the Eagles organization and has insight into Seumalo. Cunningham wasn't part of the scouting of Seumalo for the Eagles because he was with Baltimore's scouting department in 2016. The familiarity Cunningham had with Seumalo was from after the Eagles drafted him and he began playing.

The Eagles haven't cut Seumalo yet and it's after June 1 but they could be holding out hope for now of acquiring a draft pick in exchange rather than simply putting him out on the open market.

In that case, it could go right up until training camp and it wouldn't help the Bears as much without an offseason to prepare a new player. It wouldn't be wise to trade for him because of the injury issues and the existing contract. 

Unless they somehow were able to sign Seumalo at a veteran's minimum or low-bargain rate, this is a move they could afford to avoid.