The Bears biggest FA moves last season were:
Letting S Adrian Amos sign with GB (for $36M, 4 yrs) and signing S Ha Ha Clinton-Dix (for $3M, 1 yr).
Letting slot CB Bryce Callahan sign with DEN (for $21M, 3 yrs) and signing CB Buster Skrine (for $16.5M, 3 yrs).
Signing KR/WR Cordarrelle Patterson (for $10M, 2 yrs).
Trading RB Jordan Howard to PHI (under contract for $2M, 1 yr) and signing RB Mike Davis (for $6M, 2 yrs).
This is now looking like a pretty solid set of moves, and better than I thought at the time.
At safety, Amos & Clinton-Dix are both playing similarly well (PFF actually has Clinton-Dix graded slightly higher), so getting the much cheaper one looks like a great deal. I thought this was a good move
at the time (I thought Clinton-Dix was "just a slight downgrade" from Amos) and it's looking even better now.
At slot cornerback, Skrine has been decent (PFF has him graded as a bit above average) while Callahan is missing the whole season with a foot injury. And Callahan's injury history is part of why the Bears didn't re-sign him. So this is looking like a good move.
At the time I thought it was a mistake because Skrine was "not a good football player", but it looks like I was wrong. (Although
I did wish that they'd signed Brian Poole for cheap and he has been great in NYJ according to PFF.)
At KR, Patterson has been great. He has a TD, the league lead in kick return yards, and over 30 yards per return.
Football Outsiders rates the Bears kick return unit as the 3rd best in the NFL, worth 5.8 points over average. $5M/yr is a lot for a kick returner who only plays a bit part on offense (with 117 offensive yards so far), but it seems like it's in the right ballpark for what they've been getting. I was against the Patterson signing
at the time based on the price, but at this point it's looking okay.
At RB, the biggest move was actually in the draft where they traded up to take Montgomery, rather than in free agency or the trade. The Bears cut Mike Davis, paying him $2.6M to touch the ball 18 times over 7 games. Carolina then picked him up on a cheap deal but he hasn't seen the field yet for them. Obviously not a good signing. Part of what happened is that they didn't really need him after drafting Montgomery, but it is also looking like an overpay given Davis's talent level. Howard has been solid in Philly, with 119/525/6 rushing over the 9 games he has been healthy for, plus 10/69/1 receiving. It looks like I didn't weigh in on these moves at the time.