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Bear Digest

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of 2026 Chicago Bears Free Agency

There is reason to believe the Bears haven't hurt themselves in this free agency cycle but no one is trumpeting them as winners of the offseason again at this point.
Gene Chamberlain|
How certain can the Bears be about Coby Bryant as a Kevin Byard replacement when he has played safety two seasons?
How certain can the Bears be about Coby Bryant as a Kevin Byard replacement when he has played safety two seasons? | Kevin Ng-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Ryan Poles' free agent class has met with generally positive views from the critics, although not the same rave reviews of some recent offseasons.

Perhaps this is a good thing considering how many times in recent years the Bears were said to have won the offseason and then failed to produce in the regular season. Last year they finally did produce, and the cycle finally seems to be broken.

The offseason grade from CBS Sports' Garrett Podell for Ryan Poles' work was a B, while The Athletic's  Jourdan Rodrigue labeled them as "success builders" but colleague Jacob
Robinson doesn't put them among the early risers after free agency's first week.

NFL.com's Eric Edholm has them ranked ninth in his power ratings and portrayed their free agency the same way.

"It's been a little bit of a mixed bag in free agency so far for the Bears, who have made more noise in recent offseasons," Edholm wrote.

The best success they had so far might not even be related to playing the actual game. The reason for alarm might not even be entirely clear.

Here is the good, the bad and the ugly of Bears free agency.

The Good

Thrifty Ryan Poles

The Bears ranked among the teams with the least cap space going into free agency. They had to make cap cuts to get under the cap. However, their GM still found ways to add players with talent at a few spots where they needed it and, most importantly, did it in a way to keep from blowing up their salary cap situation.

It's frequently the case where newly signed free agents do less damage with cap hits because their contracts can be structured to avoid it in Year 1 if they absorb more cash damage later in the contract. They did this last year with most of them in a year of drastic change, but not all of them.

Not a single one of the free agent signings or the trade for Garrett Bradbury resulted in cap hits among the Bears' top 14 for this season. Coby Bryant's Year 1 cap hit is the biggest at a modest $5.96 million.

They called this Matt Feinstein's time of year, and their top "bean counter" did his job.

They've squeezed a great deal of cap space out of nothing and really haven't restructured veteran deals on and on for years and years into the future to do it. This lets them get out of contracts like those for Montez Sweat and Jaylon Johnson in the future if they deem those players as underperforming per their cost.

Speed upgrade

Improving this was the stated aim, particularly on defense. Trading off Tremaine Edmunds for Devin Bush obviously did this. Bush had a 4.43-second combine timing for the 40 as a rookie and Edmunds 4.54. Bush's play speed jumps out on film and did last year to Bears offensive coaches while they prepared to face the Browns.

Coby Bryant isn't the fastest safety with a 4.54-second 40 time but he is faster than 32-year-old Kevin Byard and often the Bears' deep safety will wind up alone or stressed in coverage while coordinator Dennis Allen schemes up pressures from DBs or linebackers. That safety in coverage needs to own plenty of speed in such situations.

Even backup defensive tackle Neville Gallimore comes in with speed, at 4.79 seconds in the 40. 

DB Cam Lewis didn't record the fastest of 40 times but his pro day time for the  three-cone drill was an outstanding 6.71 seconds.

The Bad

Uncertainty

When you make changes in free agency, it's best to know you're getting exactly what you paid for, and they can't say this. While Bush had a strong 2025 season, his career from 2021-24 included a knee injury and slow recovery from it that led to the Steelers letting him leave for Cleveland in free agency. He wasn't a full-time starter in 2024 with the Browns, but then for one year looked better than he has at any time since his rookie year before the injury.

With Bryant, he is not a veteran proven safety in the mold Byard was when they  signed him in 2024. Bryant wasn't a safety until 2024 because he was a cornerback. And in that year he was more of a strong safety. He'll play more of the role he had last year with the Bears, but he's really only played that role one season.

Their improvement at left tackle is based on an assumption that Braxton Jones, Theo Benedet or roster addition Kendrick Wills can step up to replace Ozzy Trapilo but it's still no certainty Jones regains the form he had before ankle an knee injuries, that Benedet can even play up to high standards as an undrafted tackle, or that Wills is 100% over an odd knee injury.

There is uncertainty at one safety spot because it appears they're going to  lean on a rookie to start and who knows who this will even be? They're also relying on possible rookie contributors at two defensive line positions.

The worst uncertainty is that young receivers Luther Burden and Rome Odunze are ready to take over the load with DJ Moore gone, and that the strides they made last year were through their own efforts and not because defenses were cheating over to Moore to take him away as a primary target. Are they ready to be leaned on heavily?

Center decline

There is no rosy picture to paint on losing a Pro Bowl center like Drew Dalman and replacing him with a center who graded 23rd or worse in all but one of his six NFL seasons, according to Pro Football Focus.

A better center was vital for Caleb Williams' rapid development in the second half of the 2025 season. Has he advanced far enough to make up for having a fairly non-descript player snappng the ball?

The Ugly

Biggest problems persist

There were two huge problems on defense and they start with the defensive line. Yet, the good additions they made on defenses were at off-ball linebacker and safety.

The lack of an edge rush presence as a third behind Montez Sweat and Austin Booker persists.

The team's greatest problem is an inability to stop the run yet the two defensive tackles added have combined for 13 NFL seasons and between them had one season graded in the top half of the league by PFF at defending the run.

The speed they added is going to need to really get to the ball fast at linebacker and safety to make up for their defensive tackle problems at stopping the run.

Perception and reality

Perception is reality. And when the Bears didn't make a serious run at Maxx Crosby, Trey Hendrickson or Tyler Linderbaum, people around the NFL suggested they were cheap or even that the ownership McCaskey family had no money.

There are good reasons for this perception. The long-held belief that the McCaskeys have less money than other owners because football is their only business was not disproven by this free agency to date.

They’ve got an expensive stadium construction to fund and a head coach who cost them a reported $13 million a year.

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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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