The Chicago Bears are bringing linebacker Danny Trevathan back on a new contract days before he was scheduled to become a free agent.
According to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, the sides agreed to a three-year deal:
The 29-year-old played in nine games for the Bears in 2019, racking up 70 tackles and one sack.
Terms of the deal were not immediately available.
The Bears were projected to enter the offseason with $24.5 million in salary-cap space, according to Spotrac.com. Trevathan played his last two seasons in Chicago with a base salary of $5.8 million and a cap hit of $7.65 million.
The linebacker was one of multiple back-seven players in Chicago slated to reach free agency, including Prince Amukamara, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Sherrick McManis and Nick Kwiatkoski.
With Trevathan now coming back, Bears reporter JJ Stankevitz expects Kwiatkoski will not be returning to the team.
Chicago had the eighth-best defense in the league in 2019 after leading the NFL in 2018. Both seasons featured Trevathan as a leader on the unit. Now that he's coming back, the Bears can gear the rest of the offseason toward an offense that took a step back last year with quarterback Mitchell Trubisky under center.
Team are able to begin negotiating with players on March 16, with free agency scheduled to open on March 18 when the new league year begins.
Those dates are no longer set in stone as the coronavirus and ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations threaten the NFL's offseason schedule. According to Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio, the league is considering postponing the start of free agency.
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