Ryan Poles opens up on the Larry Ogunjobi situation
For those of you that don't remember, the Bears and Ogunjobi initially agreed to terms on a 3-year deal of $40.5 million which included $26.35 million guaranteed. However, a few days later, it was announced that Ogunjobi had failed his physical coming off a foot injury. This was a really tough blow.
It was not easy on GM Ryan Poles as well. Here is what he had to say:
Even though the circumstances were tough on Poles, we might still see him signing the star defensive tackle.
Ryan Poles said last week he is still very open to signing Ogunjobi but at this point, that has not materialized.
I feel like this quote says a lot and that Poles is still trying to see if he could bring back the 27-year-old star. There is a chance that he could even sign Ogunjobi to a cheaper, shorter-term deal than the one they agreed on a few weeks ago. One might say that if Ogunjobi recovers fully, he could turn out to be a potential steal. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though...
When healthy, Ogunjobi is one of the league's best interior defensive linemen in all of football and could provide tremendous help defending the run. Ogunjobi has missed only two games in the past four seasons. He had a career-high 7 sacks, 12 TFL and 16 QB hits last season. He would fill the Bears' immediate need at three-technique. In fact, Ogunjobi was also ranked as a top 10 interior defensive run-stopper per PFF for the past 4 years. He played a pivotal role in the Bengals' amazing run defense last year.
However, make no mistake about it, he is not only a run stopper. Actually, he had 41 total pressures last season. For example, Bilal Nichols had 31, Akiem Hicks 15 and Eddie Goldman 8.
