The Bears Will Pay A Lot For Mike Glennon, But Not $43.5 Million, C'mon

Mike Glennon, an NFL quarterback nobody has thought about for at least two seasons, suddenly found himself in the news this week when it was reported that he was going to score a contract that would pay him in the neighborhood of $15 million per year. That hypothetical has reportedly become a reality.

When and if this deal becomes final, “Bears sign Mike Glennon to three-year, $43.5 million contract” will become one of the wackiest sentences to have ever been written. This is a guy who has thrown a grand total of 11 passes over the course of the last two seasons. The NFL is on drugs.

However, we all know that NFL contract numbers are meaningless until we know how many dollars are actually guaranteed. In Glennon’s case, it looks like he’s assured to get his hands on just under half of that $43.5 million:

With the deal being just three years long, I’d bet the bulk of that $19 million is getting paid out in the first season, leaving the Bears an opportunity to cut him with minimal cost if he shits the bed this year.

Still, Mike Glennon just got himself at least $19 million for spending the last two seasons doing basically nothing. Laugh at the Bears if you want, but this really says more about the state of the quarterback position in the NFL than it does Chicago’s front office. There are more teams that desperately need a semi-competent quarterback than there are semi-competent quarterbacks to go around, and that puts guys like Glennon in position to cash in. Hell, if Glennon manages to stay on the field for a full season, he probably won’t even be the worst starting QB in the league. That honor will belong to whatever pud the Jets end up deciding to put under center.