Bear Digest

Put Joe Thuney officially to front of line for next Bears extension

Bears GM Ryan Poles is adamant about wanting the four-time All-Pro guard to be back in 2026 with a contract extension, as the team ponders potential lineman in draft.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears GM Ryan Poles on the 2025 draft picture.mp4
Bears GM Ryan Poles on the 2025 draft picture.mp4

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Chicago Bears

Bears GM Ryan Poles has been in a contract extension mood lately and it could continue.

Asked Tuesday about getting left guard Joe Thuney an extension beyond 2025, Poles was far more definitive than Thuney was himself when he'd been asked about seeking one after being traded to the Bears.

"Yeah, that's definitely, I would say, one of the priorities moving forward," Poles said of a Thuney contract.

After the trade, the four-time All-Pro seemed like he was just hoping to be polite upon arriving at Halas Hall for the first time.

"I’m not really sure," he had said. "I kind of let my agent handle all that. I just try and focus on the game and football, just getting ready for the season. That’s really what I’m focused on."

Linebacker T.J. Edwards and cornerback Kyler Gordon both received extensions last week, Edwards for two years and $20 million and Gordon for three years and $40 million.

After those signings, the Bears are down to $12.7 million in effective cap space available for the 2026 season. Again, that's not just for 2025, that's for 2026. They have just $3.8 million in effective cap space for this year. Effective cap space includes the amount their draft pick pool will require.

so any sort of extension would likely include some restructuring of current contracts. Players like Montez Sweat, Tremaine Edmunds and DJ Moore have contracts that could be restructured. Then there is the possibility some players under contract in the future could be cut or dealt to get their cash off the books.

Braxton Jones doesn't have a contract for next year either, and currently is rehabbing from his broken ankle. His availability for the start of training camp is up in the air still, although Poles has said he thought the fourth-year left tackle was progressing nicely.

The Bears could always draft another tackle or use Kiran Amegadjie at left tackle. Amegadjie struggled in his limited playing time last year but the 2024 third-rounder from Yale had no offseason practice, no training camp and played almost each time without prior practice because he was an emergency fill-in.

Amegadjie as getting over a quad muscle surgery last offseason.

"I think we're fortunate to have those guys in the building, right?" assistant GM Ian Cunningham said. "Braxton's coming off injury and doing a great job in his rehab but he's a proven starter in this league. He's mentally and physically tough. We know he's gonna come back fully healthy and do a really good job.

"Having Kiran, last year, we knew what the issues were, just obviously him and his injury, but the mental toughness, the resilience, what he showed in that Washington game gave us hope, and obviously we saw what happened in Minnesota but it was on a short week and a rookie and those sorts of things, but we have high hopes for both of those players."

Then there is the possibility of drafting a tackle. Some of the tackles are not plug and play. Missouri's Armand Membou, for example, has never played left tackle. He has only been a right tackle.

It's entirely possible the Bears could draft someone at right tackle and move Darnell Wright to left tackle.

"That's a conversation, we’ll see how everything goes," Poles said. "He clearly has the ability to play left and right. We saw that in college. That was part of the value in taking Darnell.

"If he had to play left, I think he could play left. Obviously I think we’re all excited about his stuff to go right.”

Wright was a tackle who Pro Football Focus didn't have graded in the top 18% of college tackles as a pass blocker or top 34% as a run blocker, and had his best year then. But the Bears saw something in him to make him the 10th pick of the draft and he has started all but one game the last two years.

Wright did have a good number of plays at left tackle but they were all in 2021 and 2020. He had 934 those two years, including 920 in 2021. He had 1,448 plays at right tackle.

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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.