Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has shown plenty of ability to pull rabbits out of his hat over his first two seasons and he did that often enough to get the team into the divisional round of the playoffs last year.
Williams and the Bears hope to make an even deeper run this season and quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett knows how he’d like to see Williams lead the team to those heights. While the last-second wins and miraculous throws from Williams are a thrill to watch, Barrett said that his message to Williams this offseason is that we “don’t have to work as hard for our money” if they’re better about making the easy plays when they present themselves earlier in games.
“Late in some of those games, we were making some heroic plays . . . but it wasn’t necessary if we execute in the first quarter and second quarter,” Barrett said, via Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times. “We might be up two touchdowns by the time we get to the fourth quarter. We can be efficient and take what the defense is giving. You don’t necessarily have to put the cape on and make those crazy plays because you already were killing them in the first three quarters.”
The Bears talked a lot about Williams getting to a 70 percent completion rate last offseason. He finished at just over 58 percent, which leaves a lot of room to improve while setting the table for fewer hair-raising finishes this time around.
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It’s good that the Pope is from Chicago.
At this point, Illinois may need divine intervention to get a stadium deal done for the Bears before the current legislative session ends on May 31.
“I’ve seen miracles happen every year,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said Friday regarding the possibility of the legislature passing a bill to keep the Bears from moving to Indiana, via Olivia Olander of the Chicago Tribune. “Every single year. I feel confident that there will be a bill that gets brought up in the Senate, and then hopefully they’ll pass it and send it over to the House, and that bill will be about whether or not we’re keeping them in the state of Illinois or letting them go to Indiana.”
The clock is ticking. The Bears have gotten from Indiana that which they want from Illinois. And now that the Bears have slammed the door on the notion that a new stadium in Chicago is possible, the options are simple: Arlington Heights, Illinois, or Hammond, Indiana.
The overriding question is whether Indiana is a bluff. A leverage play. A border bridge the Bears won’t cross.
If the powers-that-be in Illinois find out too late that it isn’t, the Bears may be lost not only to Chicago but also to Illinois entirely.
For now, it’s up to the Illinois legislature. Over the next eight days, the process may need a little help from the native who has shown a sudden affinity for 6-7.
The Bears are where we thought they were.
Despite a suggestion that the Bears have been dangling the possibility of building a new stadium in Chicago, the team has issued a clear statement closing the door on remaining in the city where they have played for more than 100 years.
“The Chicago Bears have exhausted every opportunity to stay in Chicago, which was our initial goal,” the team said in a statement issued on Thursday, via the Associated Press. “There is not a viable site in the city. As a result, the only sites under consideration are in Arlington Heights and Hammond.”
The new statement is stronger than the statement the team issued on Wednesday to the Chicago Tribune: “The team has been clear with the city of Chicago and state leaders there are only two viable stadium locations under consideration, Arlington Heights and Hammond, and a decision is expected between the two later this spring or early summer.”
Indiana is ready to roll. Illinois is working on a package that would help the Bears build a new stadium on property the team owns in Arlington Heights. And the Bears seem to be very intent on building in one of those two locations, and nowhere else.
Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson is not participating in the team’s voluntary offseason program.
Defensive backs coach Al Harris revealed Johnson’s absence on Thursday when Adam Hoge of CHGO Bears asked how Johnson was doing.
“We’re going to talk about the guys that’s just been out there,” Harris said, via Hoge. “To respect to Jaylon and the organization, we’ll just talk about the guys that’s been out there.”
Johnson’s absence from Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the program is not unusual, as he spends his offseason in California with his daughter. The Bears don’t begin organized team activities until next week, and Johnson is required to attend only the mandatory minicamp on June 9-11.
His absence is notable, however, given that he played only seven games last season and failed to make the Pro Bowl for the first time since 2022.
Johnson will enter the third year of a four-year, $76 million contract under the microscope, with no guaranteed money left on his deal after this season.
“I have no doubt that, fully healthy or whatnot, that we’ll get what we need to see,” Harris said. “No doubt about that at all.”
The Chicago Bears have narrowed their stadium options to two locations. Neither is Chicago.
Chicago still isn’t giving up on disrupting the duo of finalists: Arlington Heights, Illinois, and Hammond, Indiana.
Via Jeremy Gorner of the Chicago Tribune, Illinois Senator Bill Cunningham said the effort to build the stadium in Arlington Heights has experienced new resistance from some legislators who believe the team is open to staying in Chicago.
The Bears denied that contention in a statement released on Wednesday night.
“The team has been clear with the city of Chicago and state leaders there are only two viable stadium locations under consideration, Arlington Heights and Hammond, and a decision is expected between the two later this spring or early summer,” the team said.
Cunningham contends otherwise.
“But by virtue of the fact that the Bears did outreach to the city as [of] late April, that has given credence to the mayor’s claim that a lakefront site is still viable,” Cunningham said. “That has helped him to convince Chicago legislators to move slowly, to give the city a chance to better develop a new lakefront plan and to not support the Arlington Heights site.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker recently have been squabbling about the possibility of the Bears remaining in Chicago.
The stakes are high. Illinois faces a May 31 deadline to get something done. If they don’t, Indiana could end up getting the Bears. If Indiana is a real option and not simply a leverage play to get a new stadium in Illinois — in Arlington Heights or Chicago.
The Bears are signing running back Salvon Ahmed and safety Anthony Johnson Jr., according to Jordan Schultz of The Schultz Report.
Ahmed, 27, did not play last season after a hip-drop tackle seriously injured his ankle and ended his season during a training camp practice with the Colts. He was on the practice squad of the Broncos and Colts in 2024 but did not play a regular-season game.
From 2020-23 with the Dolphins, Ahmed rushed for 593 yards and five touchdowns in 38 games.
Johnson, 26, entered the NFL as a seventh-round pick of the Packers in 2023. He played for the Giants in 2024 and was on the Giants’ PUP list all of last season.
In 21 career games, Johnson has 29 tackles, an interception and four passes defensed.
The NFL believes the Bears will soon make a choice between a new indoor stadium in Illinois and a new indoor stadium in Indiana, and that either location can work.
That’s what NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said after team owners were updated on the Bears’ stadium situation at the league meeting. Hammond, Indiana, has already made its case for the Bears, and Goodell thinks the finishing touches on the proposal for a site in Arlington Heights, Illinois, will be done soon.
“They’ll have two viable sites that the Bears can make their decision from,” Goodell said.
Either way, the Bears are leaving the city of Chicago, where they have played for more than a century. The only question now is whether they’ll remain in Illinois, or leave the only state they’ve called home.
After consecutive years of leading the Bears in receiving, DJ Moore’s production dipped in 2025.
But now Moore is back with a coach who helped him get to one of his most productive seasons, as the Bills traded for him in March — reuniting him with his former offensive coordinator, Joe Brady.
As it turns out, he’s reuniting with quarterback Josh Allen, too, though not necessarily in the traditional way.
“We go, actually, way back,” Allen said in his Tuesday press conference. “We sat next to each other at the rookie premiere, signing Panini cards and autograph cards next to each other. … So, [we were] getting some good conversations back then.
“It’s pretty cool to have him here now.”
Moore hasn’t been on the field with Allen for long, but the two are establishing chemistry. Allen noted that he can already tell Moore is a great teammate.
“He’s really one of the guys,” Allen said. “Obviously, it’s a really natural relationship that we have. Fits in this locker room extremely well, very talkative with the guys. And just very excited to work with him.”
Plus, unlike last year, Allen won’t have to establish chemistry with a key receiver on the fly.
“[Y]ou’re able to do more [in OTAs], to see what works and what doesn’t,” Allen said. “Obviously, again, we go out there, we make mistakes — which is going to happen. Chalk it up to the first couple days of OTAs and be like, hey, we like this, we don’t like this.
“And, again, just continue to work on it and find ways that we can learn how to complement each other and just build that chemistry and camaraderie.”
Moore caught 50 passes for 682 yards with six touchdowns for the Bears last season. In 2020 — his one full season with Brady as his play-caller for the Panthers — Moore finished with 66 receptions for 1,193 yards with four TDs.
Arlington Heights, Illinois, is in competition with Hammond, Indiana, to become the next home of the Chicago Bears. And Arlington Heights’ mayor says there’s a major problem with Hammond.
Mayor Jim Tinaglia is an architect by training, and he says he knows first-hand that sites like the proposed Hammond location for a new stadium can have massive problems. The Hammond location is surrounded by slag, treated human waste, hazardous waste sites, an oil tank storage complex, and the Midwest’s largest oil refinery, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“I would throw up the red caution flags immediately,” Tinaglia told the Tribune. “I’ve worked on enough sites with gas stations or dry cleaners or some sort of hazardous material to know it contaminates the ground. I would be very concerned about selecting a site like that.”
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., however, says the Bears are well aware of the waste products nearby and have studied the safety of a stadium built there.
“I understand people want to take a close look, but the Bears know far more about environmental concerns in that area than any of us, because they’re spending millions of dollars on it,” he said.
Proposals for the Bears’ next stadium are on the agenda for this week’s league meeting. The Bears say they will choose the location they’ll build on soon.
The NFL’s owners will meet in Orlando on Tuesday. On the agenda is the question of where an inevitable new stadium will be built.
Via Courtney Cronin of ESPN, the membership will receive a “special briefing” on the Bears’ stadium situation.
Per Cronin, “Club and league staff will update the 32 clubs on progress on the only two viable stadium solutions at Arlington Heights and Hammond, Indiana.”
Those continue to be the only two realistic options. Despite periodic efforts by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to keep the Bears in town, it’s become (and continues to be) a foregone conclusion that it’s Arlington Heights or Indiana.
Indiana is ready to go. Arlington Heights, and Illinois, are still working on it. Bears president and CEO Kevin Warren has said that they expect to know where the stadium will be built by early summer.
It still feels like Indiana is the leverage to get the best deal in Illinois. Still, if Illinois won’t do enough, there’s an alternative that would make the Bears no different than the Giants and Jets — named for a place in one state, playing in another.
