The Bears have slipped up the past few weeks with three straight losses as the offense has been unable to get going, and now their defense is taking a blow. Defensive tackle Roy Robertson-Harris will have season-ending shoulder surgery, sources told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link).
Robertson-Harris has started six of eight games so far this season, and usually plays around half the snaps as a run-stuffer. He’s also shown a bit as a pass-rusher the last couple years, notching 2.5 sacks last season and three the year before. An UDFA from UTEP back in 2016, he’s already carved out a nice career for himself. He missed his entire rookie season on the NFI list, but became an immediate contributor as a sophomore.
The team thought highly enough of him to place a second-round tender on the restricted free agent this past offseason to prevent teams from poaching him. That paid him a little over $3.2MM for this season. The big fella will hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent this March, and Rapoport writes that he’s headed toward a “nice payday in free agency.”