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Bear Digest

What the Final Chicago Bears Roster Says About the Front Office's Vision

It's all about Ben Johnson, and this needs to be remembered as the Bears play in one wild, high-scoring game after another this season.
Gene Chamberlain|
Too much pressure is being put on rookie Dillon Thieneman as a result of injuries and poor roster building in the secondary.
Too much pressure is being put on rookie Dillon Thieneman as a result of injuries and poor roster building in the secondary. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

In 2025, the Chicago Bears front office underwent change.

It went from Ryan Poles making mistakes to a Ben Johnson-led operation. Yes, Poles is still the GM and conducts the affairs of the office, but Johnson is the major influence behind Halas Hall's closed doors and should be.

Johnson proved last year he could come in and turn around a franchise floating like a rudderless ship. Check that. Call it a sinking ship. Now it doesn't just sail, it motors along. Everything worked the way it should and the Bears had their best season since 2010 but the major changes he made were to the offense, his area of expertise.

On roster cutdown day Sunday, more evidence of his influence came to light. Not all of it was positive.

Sure, they determined Gervon Dexter didn't fit what they wanted to do on the defensive line. The failure in the process was getting only a fifth-round pick in return along with a player who might have been cut anyway, one who doesn't even play a position of current need. Clark Phillips isn't a slot cornerback and never has been. The Bears have plenty of outside cornerbacks but slot is the issue and so is safety.

Ben Johnson knows offense, not building defenses

While blame for the trade execution goes to the GM, this mess in the secondary is ultimately Johnson's doing. More specifically, it's defensive coordinator Dennis Allen's with Johnson's blessing.

The Bears either traded or cut their top four interceptors from last year and the defensive lineman who was second in sacks over their past three seasons. They basically gutted their defense, tore out its heart entirely. This was done at the direction of Allen through Johnson with Poles executing the details.

BIGGEST BEARS ROSTER QUESTIONS AFTER TRIMMING ROSTER TO 53

Allen has a different vision than most coordinators for a defense. He likes very specific things, like bigger defensive ends to maintain the edge and not give it away. He doesn't like massive defensive tackles.

Allen needs speed in the secondary because they're used in ways that stretch athletic limits. They need to blitz more. They need to cover more in man-to-man than what the Bears formerly did. They will disguise in ways that demand DBs to come from great distances presnap just to be in position so they can cover. They have to be excellent open-field tacklers because of how they are stressed.

What went wrong

The biggest problem with what they've done for this season is they didn't complete the conversion and they've left themselves thin at several spots. Injuries in camp are the main reason for all of this, but it happened nonetheless.

There will be problems at safety with Cam Lewis, a smaller player who is better suited for the slot. There will be problems from rookie Dillon Thieneman, at least initially. Besides lacking experience, he's not playing the safety position within the defense he was drafted to fill. Lewis is in the spot they drafted Thieneman to fill.

Thieneman must be in the box more than they intended because a 5-foot-9, 183-pound slot cornerback is the other safety. Lewis has made more than 43 tackles in a season only once and physically will be challenged to handle his role, let alone come into the box. So the 201-pound Thieneman must be there.

They acquired Xavier Woods but he has shown them even less than Lewis or he'd be playing that position instead of the former Bills player.

Bears better score a lot of points

This is a tremendous problem, and the slot cornerback spot has issues as well. Malik Muhammad isn't a slot cornerback and is being forced to play it. Josh Blackwell is a backup slot and hasn't been trusted to play defense by this staff since they arrived at Halas Hall. Maybe they move Elijah Hicks, now healthy, to starting safety and then Lewis to slot cornerback. But this hasn't happened and it hasn't been something they've done all offseason or camp because Hicks hasn't been available and starting slot Kyler Gordon has been out injured.

It's almost as if they're entering the regular season using a secondary totally unprepared and not really sufficiently backed up for what lies ahead.

Thinking their defensive tackle issues are solved by sixth-round Jordan van den Berg might be a bit presumptuous. The chances are very remote than a sixth-round defensive tackle is going to make a major rookie impact. The most successful NFL defensive tackle drafted in Round 6 or 7 during the 2020s has been Jonah Laulu with 39 tackles and five sacks in two seasons, followed by Roy Lopez, who has 83 tackles and five sacks in five seasons. They're not names flowing off the tongue.

None of the failures to supply adequate backup personnel and solve their injury issues in the secondary should surprise anyone. Johnson is essentially in charge of everything but he is not a defensive coach. He is constantly attacking on offense.

Johnson knows offense. No one said he knows how to build a defense. That's being left to Allen through Johnson and Poles, and it's questionable whether this is working out.

Johnson wants lots of point. According to his backup QB, Tyson Bagent, he wants the league's highest-scoring team. He'll need it because this defense appears capable of giving up more than anyone in the league.

The Bears' roster for this year says nothing about Poles' vision but more abouit Johnson's and Allen's.
All of this is the tradeoff you get with someone running the show who is an offensive genius and the GM has no history of drafting defensive talent.

Bears draft picks in Ben Johnson era

Offense

C Logan Jones, Round 2, 2026
WR Zavion Thomas, Round 3, 2026
TE San Roush, Round 3, 2026
G Luke Newman, Round 6, 2025
RB Kyle Monangai, Round 7, 2025
TE Colston Loveland, Round 1, 2025
WR Luther Burden, Round 2, 2025
T Ozzy Trapilo, Round 2, 2025

Defense

DL Shemar Turner, Round 2, 2025
LB Ruben Hyppolite II, Round 4, 2025*
CB Zah Frazier, Round 5, 2025*
S Dillon Thieneman, Round 1, 2026
CB Malik Muhammad, Round 4, 2026
LB Keyshaun Elliott, Round 5, 2026
DT Jordan van den Berg, Round 6, 2026

*No longer with team

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Published
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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