Immediately after the Bears traded for pass rusher Montez Sweat, the question of his future arose.
The Bears gave up a second-round pick to get Sweat, so with that kind of compensation, they have no choice but to extend his contract. The team, which is 2-6, didn’t trade for a half-season rental, and Sweat is in the final year of his rookie contract.
The Bears could use a franchise or transition tag on Sweat before free agency, but they would prefer to sign him to a long-term extension sooner than later.
“You start to lose opportunities [by waiting until after the season],” General Manager Ryan Poles said Wednesday, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN. “It’s really hard to see. . . . If you look at the free agent stack now, it’s going to look very different by the time you get to that point of the year, because there are so many different opportunities that can pop up in terms of extensions, tags, different things like that. So we decided with that type of player we wanted to capitalize on that now.
“I feel really confident that we can get a deal done.”
Sweat, though, will have to agree to do it now, and he said Tuesday he wants to do his due diligence first.
“I just want to consider everything around me before I make a decision,” Sweat said.
Sweat, a first-round pick of Washington in 2019, has 35.5 sacks in 67 games over five seasons. He has 6.5 sacks in eight games this season, which is only 3.5 fewer sacks than the Bears have as a team.