We knew the Bears offered OG Ryan Bates an offer sheet last week. However, we were not aware of the details of the contract. It is a 4-year worth $17 million and the first two years (about $8.8M) are fully guaranteed. This was reported by Brad Biggs after the news that Ryan Bates was going to come back to the Bills came out.
It's hard to complain about this offer from Ryan Poles. The deal is worth around $4,25 million annually. Poles certainly could have been more aggressive and offered higher than that. But, he stuck to his plan to be selective and conservative with the contract he is offering.
If Poles did offer more to Bates, he would have been with the Bears. However, as much as we liked the lineman, it was still a gamble because of his very little experience in the NFL. Only time will tell if this was a mistake by GM Ryan Poles...
