With the Broncos applying only a first-round tender to receiver Brandon Marshall and the Bears already sending their 2010 first-rounder to Denver as part of the Jay Cutler deal, the Bears can’t sign Marshall to an offer sheet.
In order to sign Marshall to an offer sheet, they need a first-round pick. More accurately, they need their own first-round pick. The Bears don’t have it, so they can’t do it.
But it doesn’t mean the Bears can’t get him. They can work out a trade with the Broncos on different terms.
That said, would the the Broncos really send Marshall to Chicago, where he’d reunite with Cutler? Given that coach Josh McDaniels is carrying a 2-8 mark from the last ten games of his first season, the Broncos don’t need to have Cutler and Marshall ringing up hundreds of yards and 15 or more touchdowns.
There’s still a way it can happen. Someone else could work out a deal for Marshall, and then that team could trade Marshall to the Bears. It’s complicated, but it’s possible.
Unless, of course, the Broncos include a term like the one the Packers inserted into the 2008 trade of Brett Favre to the Jets, which increased the trade price to three first-round picks if the Jets had shipped Favre to Minnesota, Detroit, or Chicago.
Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether anyone will really want Marshall. One league source described Marshall as a “shirthead” via text message today. Then again, there’s a chance that it wasn’t a typo, and that Marshall actually wears a shirt on his head.
That would explain the whole slipping-and-falling on a McDonald’s bag.
