The Chicago Bears have a dilemma on their hands with their most important defensive player and it appears there may be no good answers available to them.

Pernell McPhee was the most important acquisition of Ryan Pace and John Fox’s first season running the Bears in 2015.

McPhee burst on the scene last year in Chicago notching five sacks, four tackles for loss and an interception in the team’s first seven games while also becoming the emotional leader and attitude of Vic Fangio’s defense.

Then, a damaged knee slowed him to the point where he was unable to go in two of the Bears last nine games and managed just one sack and one tackle for loss in the other seven with his explosiveness clearly gone.

The Bears and McPhee hoped that an offseason “clean-up” procedure on the knee would get him right, but when training camp opened the player was unable to go and has now spent the entire preseason on the PUP list.

We are now hearing there may be internal debates at Halas Hall among the coaching staff and front office as to whether or not McPhee should begin the regular season on the PUP list, meaning he would miss a minimum of the first six games this season, or if the club should keep him on the 53-man roster in the hopes he could be ready by Week Two, Three or Four.

And it gets worse. We are also hearing from multiple sources that McPhee may have been damaged goods from Day One and sources close to the Ravens tell us that Baltimore would never have let him out of town if they didn’t have serious concerns over whether or not the knee would ever allow McPhee to be a full-time starter and contributor. The Ravens expected what the Bears are now experiencing.

According to our sources, McPhee should make it back to the field for the Bears eventually, but there is a very real chance Chicago will never again see the player they watched the first seven weeks of the season last year.

Some are now speculating that could have had an impact on why the Bears traded up in the first round last spring to select Leonard Floyd, ignoring possibly more significant needs on the offensive line and in the secondary.

If McPhee is unable to make a full recovery, it will be a significant setback in the Bears' rebuilding plan that assumed he would be one of the key players they’d build around.