NFL Trade Rumors
Projected Cap Space: $53.9 million
Draft Picks: 8
Notable Free Agents:
1 – Offensive Line
There are split opinions about how well the Bears’ offensive line played in 2024. Ben Baldwin, a writer for the Athletic who covers the NFL from an analytics perspective, tracked multiple sources all year, including PFF grade and ESPN’s win rates, and there was a significant discrepancy in how those sources saw the Bears. While first-round QB Caleb Williams was sacked an astonishing 68 times, most in the NFL last year, he would tell you he was responsible for a fair amount of those. PFF agreed, crediting him as responsible for 17 sacks, most of any quarterback. His overall pressure-to-sack percentage of 27.8 was the third-highest of any quarterback.
Still, there’s room for improvement up front in Chicago, especially with new HC Ben Johnson arriving from Detroit where major resources were sunk into building a dominant unit. All three interior starters — Jenkins, Shelton and Pryor — are pending free agents, giving the Bears an opportunity to upgrade. The good news is teams are much more willing to let quality interior offensive linemen reach free agency, so there should be options.
The Bears could also look into upgrading over LT Braxton Jones but Jones has actually been fairly solid in his three years, far and away exceeding reasonable expectations for a fifth-round pick. Although he’s entering a contract year in 2025, the Bears made a move for the future last year with the third-round selection of OT Kiran Amegadjie, who will have a chance to develop into a potential successor.
2 – Running Back
While Johnson’s offense will look different than it did in Detroit because of the different players available to him, one thing that probably won’t change is his commitment to an effective running game. The Bears averaged 4.0 YPC as a team in 2024, which was 27th in the league, so expect fixing that to be a point of emphasis for Johnson in 2025. Addressing the offensive line is an important part of that equation but not the only one. The Bears could overhaul the running back position too.
Johnson actually coached starting Bears RB D’Andre Swift in Detroit for two seasons, so there’s familiarity there. However, the Lions traded Swift going into the last year of his rookie deal because they wanted to get better in the backfield and ended up using a first-round pick on RB Jahmyr Gibbs. Swift has over $6 million of his $8 million total compensation in...
