Early this morning, Spotrac reported that the Chicago Bears restructured the contract of center G
arrett Bradbury, converting $1M in incentives into guaranteed salary, meaning he’s now due $4.7M in 2026, with $3.7M guaranteed.His previous 2026 cap hit was $5.7M. I’m not exactly sure how the numbers work, but I was told by someone who does know that this move made a $1M incentive that was counting against the cap no longer count against the cap.
Why did the Bears and Bradbury make this deal now?
Right
before the NFL Draft, the Bears cleared over $10M in salary cap space for this season by restructuring Cole Kmet and Jonah Jackson. That seemingly cleared most of the way for the rookie class to be signed. Maybe they were a few bucks short?
Or could it be that a minor free agent deal is nearing for a veteran player?
Or maybe it’s the first in a string of moves to create a bunch of 2026 cap space for a major free agent? In February, Over The Cap estimated that the Bears could create over $80M in cap space by doing several simple restructures.
Then again, teams always need cap space to make moves during the season, and this Bradbury move could be as simple as that.
The most likely scenario is that this is a big nothingburger, but speculation is rampant on social media, so why not bring that discussion over here to WCG?
