Is A Roquan Smith Extension Foregone Conclusion For New Chicago Bears Regime?

The countdown to training camp is ticking louder every day, especially for Roquan Smith. It remains unclear how aggressively new Bears general manager Ryan Poles is pursuing a contract extension with Smith, who is due to become an unrestricted free agent after the season.

There was an expectation the Bears would pay the fifth-year linebacker handsomely after Poles traded cornerstone defender Khalil Mack in March. They still might but if there’s no deal in place when the team reports to Lake Forest it will at least suggest Poles is prepared to deal both NFL sack leader Robert Quinn and Smith for draft picks, either before the September 11 opener or the trade deadline.

Poles appears to be treating the upcoming season as a prelude to his real rebuilding of the 6-11 team he inherited from Ryan Pace and former head coach Matt Nagy. He and his head coach, former Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, must conclude whether the 25-year-old Smith is indispensable or merely the best young player on a declining defense.

Smith is due to earn $9.735 million under the terms of the fifth-year option that was picked up by Pace in May, 2021. The website Spotrac lists his market value as $17.6 million and ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler has reported that a Smith extension could wind up costing the Bears $20 million a year.

The NFL’s five highest paid linebackers have deals that range from $19.7 million to $28 million per year. Two of those came with six-year deals; the other three run for five years.

It’s worth noting that the smallest of these top-of-the-market contracts belongs to Darius Leonard, who excelled for Eberflus in Indianapolis.

If Leonard is the standard for Smith to be judged against, you can see why the Bears’ new front office could hesitate about locking itself in behind Smith. Leonard was graded by Pro Football Focus to be the sixth best linebacker in 2021, behind only Micah Parsons, De’Vondre Campbell, Alexander Johnson, Fred Warner and Peter Werner.

Smith meanwhile has produced lots of anecdotal evidence supporting his case — for instance, 30 tackles for loss the last two seasons, which is more than every other NFL linebacker except T.J. Watt — but PFF
PFF
grades him as a poor run defender and a second-tier starter.

While Smith has been a second-team All-Pro two years in a row, PFF graded him lower in 2021 than in the first three years of his career. It ranked him 64th among 87 qualifying linebackers despite his top-end speed, with a 30.0 grade in run defense (81st among qualifiers) and only a 55.1 grade in pass rush (75th among qualifiers).

Smith is essentially representing himself in negotiations, which would become a complication if he is unsigned when the season begins. The Bears have the financial flexibility to do an extension but Poles has shown an intent to rebuild the Bears from the ground up, with quarterback Justin Fields the only holdover player the new regime seems to unequivocally endorse.

In addition to Smith, the Bears face a crossroads with running back David Montgomery. He is entering the final season of his four-year rookie contract. He’ll earn $2.79 million in base salary this season while Spotrac estimates his market value at $12.9 million.