The Bears selected Ozzy Trapilo in the second round of the 2025 draft, and he played 14 games, with six starts at left tackle, in his rookie season. Trapilo, the third left tackle for the team, stabilized the position until a patellar tendon injury in the wild-card playoff win over the Packers.
The Bears are now back to where they were — in search of a left tackle.
Trapilo will miss most of the 2026 season, General Manager Ryan Poles confirmed Tuesday.
“We expect him to come back and heal from it,” Poles said, via Kole Noble of AtoZ Sports. “There’s a plan in place. I can’t get into the timelines or anything like that, I just don’t know. But, yeah, we expect him to be back and be himself. Pretty significant injury that he’s got to get through, but in terms of affecting his overall career or next year, I don’t see that being an issue.”
All-Pro left guard Joe Thuney finished up the Bears’ season at left tackle, but the Bears will not move him there full time. And right tackle Darnell Wright will not make the move to the other side, Poles said.
That leaves Theo Benedet and Kiran Amegadjie as the only options on the roster for now.
The NFL’s Rooney Rule calls for teams that develop minority executives or coaches to receive a pair of third-round picks when they move on to other clubs as General Managers and head coaches, but the Bears are currently not expected to receive those compensatory selections after Ian Cunningham left the team to become the GM in Atlanta.
According to the NFL, the Bears are not getting those picks because president of football Matt Ryan is the top football executive in Atlanta. Ryan said earlier this month that Cunningham is the one “driving the ship” and Cunningham said at a Scouting Combine press conference on Tuesday that the Bears should be getting picks based on his understanding of the rule.
“I haven’t had much time to really dive into the wording of it,” Cunningham said. “It was always my interpretation that if a general manager gets hired, that team would receive two third-round picks. I’m the General Manager. I was hired. I would think that they would get two third-round picks. I don’t know the wording of it. That’s just my perspective. I wouldn’t be sitting here if it weren’t for them giving me that job and helping me grow to get this job right now.”
Bears GM Ryan Poles called it “a little odd” that the Chiefs got picks when he was hired in Chicago and called the entire rule “strange,” but that it is also “very clear” that the Bears should be receiving those picks in the current situation.
The Bears are moving closer to a move to Indiana.
Via NBC 5 in Chicago, the Indiana House of Representatives based a bill that would devote up to $1 billion in public funding for a stadium in Indiana by the overwhelming vote of 95-4.
That doesn’t mean Illinois is giving up on keeping the Bears.
“I’m very interested to see how the people of Indiana and the voters of Indiana feel about the massive increases in taxes that are being proposed, about paying for a stadium in Indiana for the Chicago Bears,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said.
Pritzker added that the negotiations with Illinois are ongoing.
“I believe the Bears should be based in Illinois, and I’m going to do everything I can without harming the taxpayers of Illinois in the process of trying to keep them in the state,” Pritzker said.
The end result is that the Bears remain in good position, with two states vying to host the team. One of them will end up building a new Bears stadium, sooner or later.
When Ryan Poles left the Chiefs to become the Bears’ General Manager in 2022, the Chiefs got two third-round compensatory picks because Poles is Black and the NFL rewards teams that develop minority head coaches and GMs. Poles is not a fan of that NFL policy.
“I’ll be honest, I think it is a little strange,” Poles said. “At the end of the day you should want to develop your staff regardless of the color of their skin. I think that’s important. I think we take a lot of pride with the Bears in how we have our setup. I take a lot of pride in that, so to be compensated for that is a little strange.”
The Chiefs used one of those third-round picks to draft linebacker Leo Chenal and used the other in a trade for wide receiver Kadarius Toney. Poles said he found it odd to see his old team get players because of him.
“I saw the Chiefs get a pick because of me and then I watch that player go and play, it’s just a little odd,” Poles said. “But at the end of the day if they think that’s what’s best to help incentivize, that’s what they wanted to do.”
The rule is relevant to the Bears this offseason because Ian Cunningham, who is Black, left to become GM of the Falcons — but the Bears are not expected to receive compensatory picks for Cunningham because Matt Ryan, not Cunningham, is viewed as the Falcons’ primary football executive. Poles said that while the rule doesn’t change the way he operates, he does wish the Bears would benefit from it as long as it’s in place.
“At the end of the day, that’s not the purpose of why we develop our staff, but if that’s the rule they have in place, then I think it’s very clear in this situation what should happen,” Poles said. “But we’ll see what they think.”
Poles seemed to be suggesting that the Bears are still holding out hope that they’ll receive two compensatory picks, which would require the NFL reversing course from what it previously said about Ryan being the primary football executive. Those two picks would be helpful to Poles, even if he questions the wisdom of the rule behind them.
Bears quarterback Tyson Bagent could be on the move this offseason.
The Bears signed Bagent to a two-year extension last summer that keeps him under contract through the 2027 season, but neither General Manager Ryan Poles nor head coach Ben Johnson ruled out trading him during Tuesday press conferences at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Poles said that the team has received calls about Bagent from other clubs and called the prospect an “interesting dynamic that we’re going to have to work through” because it would also involve finding a reliable backup to Caleb Williams.
Bagent has appeared in seven games and thrown six passes in that role over the last two seasons, but Johnson said that the quarterback’s preseason work has left the team with the belief that Bagent is capable of being a starter in the league.
“You want to see him have a chance to do it himself,” Johnson said. “We’ll always do what’s best for our team and our organization. I do think there’s a lot of merit to having a strong No. 2 quarterback, which he certainly fits that bill. I’m of the mind that he’s probably one of the best 32 in the NFL.”
Poles said trading Bagent would be a “really tough decision,” but it is one that the Bears could opt to make if the right offer crosses the table in the coming weeks.
