Bears sign veteran QB Andy Dalton, per report

Everything was on the table.

That’s what Bears fans have been told for the past three months since the 2020 season ended. General manager Ryan Pace assured fans that the Bears would leave no stone unturned to find better quarterback play in 2021.

But after a reported “aggressive” push to trade for Seattle’s Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson, the Bears chose 10-year veteran Andy Dalton on Tuesday.

[Live updates: Bears free agency news and notes]

Dalton, 33, is signing with the Bears on a one-year, $10 million contract, worth an additional $3 million in incentives. The signing first was reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Schefter also reported the news that the Bears sought a trade with Seattle for Wilson. The Seahawks weren’t interested in trading the 32-year-old eight-time Pro Bowler.

Instead, Dalton is coming to Halas Hall. The Texas native spent his first nine seasons in Cincinnati before playing one season in Dallas last year. Dalton joins veteran Nick Foles as the only quarterbacks on the Bears’ roster. Mitch Trubisky is a free agent, and signing Dalton is the final nail in that coffin for the Bears. Trubisky is likely to seek employment elsewhere in 2021.

Dalton has started 142 games in his NFL career, far more than Foles (55). He quarterbacked five Bengals teams to the playoffs – but never won a playoff game. His career 87.5 passer rating is only slightly better than that of Trubisky (87.2) and longtime Bears quarterback Jay Cutler (85.3).

Dalton will be reunited with former Bengals offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, who now works in the same role for the Bears. Lazor was Dalton’s quarterbacks coach in 2016 before becoming offensive coordinator for 2017 and 2018.

Although Dalton is a proven veteran who can help a team to the playoffs, he isn’t the home run signing Bears fans had in mind. Bears chairman George McCaskey and CEO Ted Phillips kept Pace and head coach Matt Nagy in charge knowing the monumental task ahead of them this offseason.

“They have vigorous discussions, and we think that their collaboration will result in the right decisions for the Bears,” McCaskey said Jan. 13.

Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff and Carson Wentz went off the board weeks ago. Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick signed elsewhere Monday. In Seattle, Wilson was never truly available. The Deshaun Watson saga appears to be heading for a prolonged battle that could stretch into training camp.

The options left available to Pace and Nagy were imperfect.

Dalton appears to have been the next best quarterback in their eyes. He was available last year – first reportedly via trade, then via free agency after the Bengals released him in late April – yet the Bears instead traded for Foles in March.

Bringing in Dalton now indicates strongly that the Bears will select a quarterback in next month’s draft. A realistic scenario includes Dalton and Foles battling for the starting job, with a rookie sitting on the bench as the third-string quarterback.

If the Bears want one of the top four quarterbacks – maybe even top five – in the draft, they likely will need to trade up, giving up more assets in the process. They could draft a quarterback in the second round, but no quarterback at that stage is a sure thing.

[2021 NFL mock draft: Hub Arkush version 1.0]

“On the quarterback, it’s a critical position for us, and like I said, every single thing is on the table,” Pace said March 2. “I think we owe that to ourselves – our own quarterbacks, trades, free agency, draft, we’re working through that.”

In that same media session, Pace alluded to the fact that in 2018 Khalil Mack once was considered unavailable by the Raiders’ front office. That, of course, changed, and the Bears traded for him in a blockbuster deal just before the 2018 season.

“You lean on those relationships, and you’re able to quickly determine what’s real and what’s not and different possibilities,” Pace said March 2. “And there’d be some things that might not even be in the media right now that are potential possibilities that we’re talking about. That’s normal every year.”

Pace hoped to use a similar playbook to find a quarterback in 2021. According to Schefter’s report, he tried to make it work with Seattle and Wilson. But it’s never going to work if the other team isn’t interested. With the hours until free agency officially begins at 3 p.m. Wednesday counting down, the Bears needed to make a move.

That move was Andy Dalton.