Josh McCown played quarterback in a lot of places over the course of his career before he landed in Chicago, but he never had more success than he did with the Bears last season.
McCown said he isn’t sure why everything came together after Jay Cutler was injured last season, but his 13 touchdowns and one interception opened up a lot of eyes around the league. That makes it easy to understand why McCown would want to remain in Chicago with coach Marc Trestman and a talented receiving corps, but Cutler just got a big new contract and this may be McCown’s last chance to secure a starting job so he knows that leaving may wind up being the best course of action.
“It’s hard to want to be anywhere else. But the balance of that, too, is our reality. This is probably going to be the last time I stand in free agency with this kind of leverage. So there’s an understanding of an opportunity here to gain some more resources both to take care of our family and to do more good with,” McCown said, via Dan Wierderer of the Chicago Tribune. “I have to be willing to go somewhere else, if that’s how it breaks.”
There’s been talk of interest from the Jets and the Buccaneers are another team that’s signaled their interest in adding a veteran quarterback. There will be others that can offer McCown a better chance of playing time and bigger salaries than the Bears are likely to provide, which means that McCown will probably be trying on a new uniform sometime this month.