Brandon Marshall shouldn’t be a cap casualty

The Chicago Bears are coming off of one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history, as the expectations surrounding the offense went completely unfulfilled in the midst of more horrific play on the defensive side of the ball. Throw in poor leadership, dreadful performance from Jay Cutler, exaggerated outbursts from the oft-maligned Brandon Marshall, and hounding media coverage, and all the components of an NFL circus could be found in Chicago throughout a truly forgettable 2014 season.

With John Fox, Adam Gase, and Vic Fangio headlining a re-made and well-done staff under rookie GM Ryan Pace, there’s plenty of hope that the Bears can bounce back in 2015 after showing some promise in Marc Trestman’s first season in 2013. Fox’s first offseason will be filled with plenty of personnel turnover after the front office and coaching staff were already shaken up, and it sounds like a big chip could fall in Marshall, who is one of the best wide receivers in the game.

Marshall will make $7.5 million, $7.9 million, and $8.3 million in each of the next three seasons before becoming a free agent in 2018, and it’s a major commitment to make to someone who is starting to look like the No. 2 receiver to Alshon Jeffery. Thanks to his supposed character concerns and less-than-stellar numbers last season- we’ll get to those later- there’s actually a chance that the Bears cut him loose. In fact, ESPN Chicago’s Michael C. Wright stated in a Twitter mailbag that “nobody really knows” what will happen.

If Wright says that nobody knows what the future holds for Marshall, then I sure as heck don’t have any sort of crystal ball mechanism. But I do feel that the Bears need to keep him around until/unless his play declines to the point where we can say, without any strings attached, that his performance is no longer worth the $8 million per season.

By cutting Marshall, the Bears would save about $4 million in cap space, and that simply isn’t enough to justify releasing somebody who caught 118 and 100 passes in his first two seasons in Chicago. Jeffery outperformed him in every meaningful statistic last season, but it’s hard to evaluate a possession receiver when their quarterback played so poorly that you literally can’t compliment the QB about any part of his game that year.

So how bad were Marshall’s numbers last season? Well, per Advanced Football Analytics, he caught just 57.5% of everything thrown at him and averaged 6.8 yards per target, lower than both Jeffery and Martellus Bennett in both stats. That’s clearly not good, but therein lies the problem; the Bears only had four legitimate pass-catchers and two legit wideouts. Outside of Marshall and Jeffery, only Marquess Wilson played a major role in the passing game, and he averaged an awful 4.4 yards per target to support the star duo on the outside.

Basically, the Bears resorted to check-down routes to Bennett and Forte, then pretty much asked Jeffery and Marshall to carry the offense. For a second straight season, Marshall pretty much got swarmed by coverage in order to open things up for everyone else, and “everyone else” was mostly Jeffery.

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The Bears either need Wilson to step up, or they need to find a slot guy who can get open on the inside with short-area quickness and chain-moving ability. Cutler likes going for his outside guys a lot, but it’s important to note that Forte and Bennett were the team leaders in receptions with 102 and 90 respectively.

In all honesty, that’s an upsetting fact, because it tells me that Trestman moved away from what made the Bears offense so successful last year. Instead of calling for more passes to the best freaking WR duo in the NFL in 2013, the Bears said, “Oh hey, let’s dink-and-dunk almost the whole time with two guys who average 10.2 (Bennett) and 7.9 yards per reception and give them 128 and 130 targets respectively. Let’s make our gunslinging QB average 10.3 yards per completion- a clear career low- and then leak reports about how we’re frustrated with his inability to play ‘within the offense.'”

Aside from the running game, which only averaged 3.9 yards per carry anyway, the Bears offense was a joke last season, and the new regime can’t afford to be scared off by Marshall’s price tag. They can’t make him a scapegoat. Again, their only legitimate receivers last season were Marshall and Jeffery, and they basically over-targeted their TE and RB on short routes; the Bears need to get actual WRs to help out their two superstars.

Last season, the Bears quarterbacks averaged 6.6 yards per attempt, and Marshall averaged 6.8 yards per target. In 2013, the split was 7.7 QBs to 7.9 Marshall, which means that over the past two seasons, Marshall’s yards per target averages have been a function of the play of the offense. Why is that? Well, he’s the No. 1 possession guy, which means Cutler or any other QB will over-target him when they are in trouble, and he’s also trusted to draw out defenders and give Jeffery and others easier matchup and more space to operate both horizontally and vertically.

Nov 27, 2014; Detroit, MI, USA; Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall (15) against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

One annoying narrative is this idea that Brandon Marshall became a headcase last season with his blow-ups, but, to me, that’s all fine. Those reported locker room rants show that he cares, and you can tell he cares by looking at his elite blocking, which is the best at the WR position right now. The idea that there’s a rift between him and Cutler doesn’t make sense to me, because these issues only get reported when a team is losing. To me, the character stuff is a non-issue, and I don’t buy that Fox and Gase are unwilling to work with him; they haven’t started yet, even if he and Gase have a history together.

It all comes down to the fact that the Chicago Bears aren’t in a position to be getting rid of one of their best three players, especially considering how well he played in 2013 in a functional offense/organization. Sure, he gets paid a lot, but you can’t declare that he isn’t worth the price after one subpar season, especially since Marshall wasn’t actually bad; he was just disappointing. If he struggles or causes issues in 2015, then, fine, parting ways with him would be justified. But because he’s one of the team’s only legitimate talents/threats, the Bears can’t afford to toss him.

Even in 2013, this Bears team was carried by the stellar play of a select few players, and they vastly overestimated their overall talent last offseason, as Phil Emery failed to do jack when it came to making appropriate upgrades on defense. As long as the new regime does its job and doesn’t make any big mistakes, such as canning Marshall too early, then they will see growth.

Next: Where do the Bears rank among the best franchises in NFL history?