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Bear Digest

Identifying the Non-QB Who Can Swing the Chicago Bears' 2026 Season

The success of a season and ever a career could revolve around one player making the difference this season after 2025 struggles.
Gene Chamberlain|
Success for the Bears can hinge on one player returning to form this season.
Success for the Bears can hinge on one player returning to form this season. | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears


Of NFL players who are paid more, much more is expected.

Quarterbacks always face the highest scrutiny, but there are highly paid players at other positions whose salary cap hits dictate success be assumed.

The Bears have a few players like this besides Caleb Williams, but they have only one whose 2025 production left so much to be desired that it can't happen again or the entire team's fate can turn downward.

In an article for Pro Football Focus, Bradley Locker sought to identify 10 NFL players who basically are linchpins for teams this season. These are non-quarterbacks capable of swinging the team's fate from Super Bowl contender to also-ran status or vice versa.

He identified cornerback Jaylon Johnson as the non-quarterback on the Bears who sits in this hinge position.

"Johnson was once regarded as one of the premier cornerbacks in football, but his stock has only fallen since," Locker wrote. "He'll need to regain form to help the Bears beef up their questionable defense."

No other way to put it

Johnson isn't the only player in this position for the Bears, but he is the only one in it who faltered last year.

Defensive end Montez Sweat also could be regarded as a linchpin type and perhaps because he is highly paid there has been an excessive amount of criticism directed his way. However, no one can look at team highs of 10 sacks, 18 quarterback hits and 13 tackles for loss — especially when he played half a season without another edge rusher to apply pressure on the other side — and say he came up short. It's the expectations of Sweat's critics that need an adjustment.

However, Johnson did have the poor 2025 season and in his case there is no way the Bears can afford this again. Johnson must be a bounce-back type this season or their defense will suffer.

While there are questions about the Bears defense, they've been directed more at dubious analytics on the defensive line, like pass rush win rate. The really tangible issues their defense suffered from last year were inability to stop the run, and the health of linebackers and defensive backs.

Until he had the off-season groin injury, and subsequent groin injury that led to surgery, Johnson was still one of PFF's darlings among cornerbacks. They had him ranked 11th in the NFL among players at his position before 2025, after he'd been second after 2023 and received a $76 million contract extension.

Johnson himself admitted how far he was from 100% after he came back from surgery and played last year. He only played in seven regular-season games, so there's every reason to expect he can return to form.

"I’m not going to get back to my full self until I get a full off-season to really attack my body head to toe, and not being in having to prepare or a game where I can just really take all the time I need to get my body back together," he said to reporters at Halas Hall last year after his return. "But right now I’m just as best as I’m going to get out of it."

A Spot-On Analysis of Jaylon Johnson

Even though Johnson's problems last year were more the result of an injury and now he could be healed, what Locker says about his status as a player who could make or break their season is entirely correct.

If Johnson fails to return to his 2023-24 form, the Bears' secondary is left again without a lockdown cornerback. It sure won't be erratic Tyrique Stevenson, and counting on rookie Malik Muhammad to do it is grasping for straws. Rookie cornerbacks taken in the middle of the draft are lucky to make a roster let alone become Pro Bowl types. Slot cornerback Kyler Gordon might be a bigger question than Johnson doing it after missing so much offseason work. It's going to need to be Johnson making the comeback.

In Johnson's case, if it turns into another disappointing season after he received a contract extension, the result could be more than a losing Bears season. It's the next-to-last season on Johnson's extension, so his contract becomes entirely disposable after 2026. According to Overthecap.com, they'd save $16 million trimming him while eating $9 million in dead cap. It would be a move similar to what they did with Tremaine Edmunds this year.

The difference is Johnson has the opportunity now to turn it around and lead a secondary that helped take the ball away a league-high 33 times but also allowed the second-most pass completions of 20 yards or more (61).

There's every reason to believe he can do it, and the Bears' defensive success could hinge on it.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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