Garrett Bradbury is heading back to the NFC North. Days after Drew Dalman‘s retirement, the Bears have a deal in place to acquire Bradbury from the Patriots, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport reports.
Chicago is sending a 2027 fifth-round pick (per ESPN’s Adam Schefter) to New England for Bradbury, who logged six seasons as the Vikings’ starting center before being cut in 2025. The former first-round pick started every game for the Patriots last season, doing so after logging 88 starts with the Vikings from 2019-24.
The 2025 offseason dispersed Dalman and Bradbury elsewhere. A four-year Falcon, Dalman signed a three-year, $42MM Bears deal. Soon after his Vikings release, Bradbury landed in Foxborough via a two-year, $9.5MM pact. The Bears will pick up Bradbury’s $3.7MM 2026 base salary.
This trade comes after Tyler Biadasz, who visited the Bears in the wake of the Dalman retirement news, agreed to a three-year Chargers deal worth $30MM. Chicago will save quite a bit at center compared to Dalman or Biadasz, though Bradbury will likely be a downgrade from Dalman’s 2025 work.
Pro Football Focus graded Bradbury as the NFL’s No. 29 overall center last season. The Patriots voyaged to Super Bowl LX, but their O-line featured shaky stretches beyond merely Will Campbell‘s late-season struggles. Ryan Poles and Ben Johnson are certainly familiar with Bradbury from previous NFC North clashes, but it is worth wondering if the Bears will add a center option in the draft as well. Bradbury will turn 31 in June.
The Vikings gave Bradbury a three-year, $15.75MM deal in 2023; that came after then-GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah did not pick up the Rick Spielman draftee’s fifth-year option. PFF has never graded Bradbury as a top-10 center, but the advanced metrics site did place him 11th in 2022. Rankings outside the top 20 have followed in the years since.
More to come.
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