Bears 2026 Offseason Needs, Part 1: Zero Safeties Under Contract and a Championship Window to Protect

This is the price of winning.

The 2025 Chicago Bears won the NFC North for the first time since 2018, hosted their first playoff game in over a decade, and staged the greatest comeback in franchise playoff history against the Packers. Ben Johnson's first season as head coach unlocked Caleb Williams and turned a franchise that hadn't won a postseason game in 15 years into a legitimate contender. It was everything Bears fans had been waiting for.

And now comes the hard part.

The Bears are currently roughly $4 million over the $303.5 million salary cap, with key contributors hitting free agency at nearly every position of need. General manager Ryan Poles acknowledged the tension at the NFL Combine this week, telling reporters that "this is a unique situation where we've gotten our roster in a position where we have a lot of talented players, a lot of guys getting paid well, and that puts some constraints on the cap. So, we got to make some tough decisions."

Those tough decisions have already started. On Tuesday, the Bears granted linebacker Tremaine Edmunds permission to seek a trade, a move that could free up $15 million in cap space if no deal materializes. More moves are coming.

About This Series

With free agency opening March 11 and the NFL Draft set for late April in Pittsburgh, the next two months will define whether the Bears can turn a breakthrough season into sustained contention. The offense is largely set—every starter is under contract, and the offensive line that Ben Johnson built is one of the best in football. The defense is another story.

Over the coming days, we'll be breaking down each of the Bears' biggest offseason needs in a multi-part series. For each position, we'll examine why it needs to be addressed, who the realistic options are in both free agency and the draft, and how Poles might navigate the cap crunch while keeping this team's championship window wide open. Here's what's ahead:

Part 1: Safety (today) — Zero safeties under contract. The most urgent hole on the roster.
Part 2: Defensive Tackle — Poles is targeting speed and violence up front. The Combine is confirming it.
Part 3: Edge Rusher — Montez Sweat needs a running mate. Is Maxx Crosby the answer?
Part 4: Left Tackle — Ozzy Trapilo's torn patellar tendon leaves a gaping hole protecting Caleb's blindside.
Part 5: Linebacker & Secondary Depth — The Edmunds fallout and what comes next.

We're starting with the position that might be the most alarming of all.

The Cupboard Is Empty

Here is the current state of the Chicago Bears' safety room for 2026: empty.

Both starting safeties—Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker—are unrestricted free agents. So are key depth pieces Jaylon Jones and Gervarrius Owens. Backup Elijah Hicks is also heading for the open market. The Chicago Tribune noted that four Bears safeties—five, if you count nickel/safety hybrid C.J. Gardner-Johnson—are in need of new contracts.

As it stands, the Bears have zero safeties under contract for 2026.

That's not a typo. The position group that logged more defensive snaps than any other last season—Brisker played 1,024 and Byard played 1,023—could be completely gone by March 11 when free agency opens.

This didn't happen by accident. It's the natural consequence of building a winner. The Bears poured resources into the offensive line, locked up key offensive pieces, and made a series of calculated bets that the defense's secondary could be addressed later. Later is now.

The Case for Kevin Byard

Let's start with the obvious: Kevin Byard turned back the clock in 2025 and had one of the best seasons of his 10-year career.

The 32-year-old free safety led the NFL with seven interceptions—the second time in his career he's finished atop that leaderboard—and earned First-team All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors. He finished the regular season with 93 tackles, four tackles for loss, and eight pass breakups across 17 games. Pro Football Focus graded him at 74.2 overall, ranking 14th among 98 qualifying safeties, with a 72.5 coverage grade that ranked 19th.

What the numbers don't capture is what Byard meant to the locker room. A two-time team captain, Byard delivers pregame speeches before every game and was the emotional anchor of a defense that led the NFL with 33 takeaways and 23 interceptions. His 36 career picks rank second among active players, behind only Harrison Smith.

The concern, obviously, is age. Byard turns 33 in August. Safety play tends to decline in the early 30s as the speed and range that make the position so demanding start to fade. But Byard has never missed a game in his career—164 consecutive appearances and counting—and he just posted a First-team All-Pro season. There aren't many 32-year-old safeties doing that.

The consensus from analysts around the league is that bringing Byard back should be a priority for Chicago, but on a short-term deal that reflects his age. 247Sports' Zack Pearson projected a two-year, $20 million deal ($10.9 million guaranteed) in his Bears mock offseason. Given the thin safety market and Byard's leadership, that feels like the most likely outcome—if the Bears can find the cap space to make it work.

The Brisker Question

Jaquan Brisker's situation is more complicated.

After missing 16 combined games over his first three seasons due to injuries—including the final 12 games of 2024 with a concussion sustained in Week 5—Brisker proved he could stay healthy for a full season. He played all 17 games for the first time in his career, finishing the regular season with 93 tackles (52 solo), a sack, an interception, and eight pass breakups. He then went out and had 14 tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss, and two pass breakups against the Rams in the divisional round. If that was his last game as a Bear, he made it count.

Brisker's versatility was on full display in Dennis Allen's defense. According to Pro Football Focus positional data, Brisker lined up at free safety (441 snaps), in the box (370), along the defensive line (142), in the slot (96), and even out wide at cornerback (22). That kind of chess-piece flexibility is rare and valuable.

But there's a catch. Brisker's overall PFF grade of 60.4 ranked just 68th among 98 qualifying safeties, and his coverage grade of 50.9 was below average at 76th. Bears Wire noted that Brisker allowed a 127.6 passer rating in coverage, a number that raises eyebrows, though some of those struggles were tied to injuries at cornerback that forced Brisker out of his natural role. When the secondary finally got healthy late in the season, Brisker played noticeably better.

Brisker is only 26 and has shown flashes of being a high-end starter. But his inconsistency in coverage—combined with the Bears' cap constraints—could price him out of Chicago. Multiple outlets have suggested Brisker may draw interest on the open market that the Bears simply can't match, especially with so many other needs demanding resources. The question is whether another team's offer will be high enough to make the Bears walk away from a 26-year-old starter with upside.

Free Agent Alternatives

If Brisker walks and the Bears bring Byard back on a short-term deal, they'll still need to add at least one more starting-caliber safety—and probably more depth beyond that. Two names keep surfacing.

Windy City Gridiron identified Bryan Cook of the Kansas City Chiefs as a potential Byard replacement who could give the Bears production in 2026 and youth going forward. Cook, 26, was a second-round pick (62nd overall) out of Cincinnati in 2022 and has spent the last four seasons starting alongside Justin Reid in Kansas City's secondary. He was a key contributor on the Chiefs' back-to-back Super Bowl-winning teams in 2022 and 2023, including a fumble recovery touchdown during the 2023 campaign. In 2025, Cook posted career highs with 85 tackles (50 solo) and six passes defensed while serving as a reliable run-support presence. He's now an unrestricted free agent after playing out his rookie contract. The fit makes sense on paper—Cook is young, durable, and brings championship experience—but the red flag is that he recorded zero interceptions in 2025. For a team losing a league-leading ballhawk in Byard, that's a notable gap. An ideal contract range would fall somewhere between $12 and $15 million.

Then there's Kamren Curl—a name Bears fans already know, and not for the right reasons. Curl was the Rams safety who intercepted Caleb Williams in overtime to set up the game-winning field goal that ended Chicago's season in the divisional round. He's also one of the best safeties set to hit the open market.

Curl, 26, is one of the better seventh-round stories in recent NFL history. Drafted 216th overall out of Arkansas by Washington in 2020, he developed into a full-time starter with the Commanders before signing a two-year, $9 million deal with the Rams ahead of the 2024 season. In 2025, he started all 20 games including the playoffs, played on 99 percent of the Rams' defensive snaps, and finished with 122 tackles, two sacks, and two interceptions. Pro Football Focus graded him as the second-best safety in the league in run defense at 87.9. He's a high-volume tackler with over 385 career tackles and elite box-safety utility—essentially the physical, run-stuffing complement to a rangier free safety like Byard.

The problem is cost. Projections have Curl commanding a contract in the range of four years and $40 million on the open market. For a team that's currently over the cap, that kind of money is hard to find—especially with needs at defensive tackle, edge rusher, and left tackle all competing for the same dollars.

The Draft Path

The Bears hold the 25th overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft—their lowest first-round selection since 2011, a direct result of their 11-win season. While safety isn't expected to be the pick at 25, the draft class has real depth at the position in the middle rounds.

If the Bears do swing for safety in Round 1, Bleacher Report paired them with Zakee Wheatley out of Penn State in a recent mock draft. At 6-foot-2 and 202 pounds, Wheatley has the size, instincts, and versatility that Dennis Allen could weaponize in multiple roles. The redshirt senior started 28 games across a five-year career with the Nittany Lions, becoming a full-time starter in 2024 after an injury to Kevin Winston Jr. and returning for a final year rather than entering the 2025 draft. In 2025, Wheatley put up 74 tackles (51 solo), an interception, a pass breakup, and two tackles for loss across 12 starts, earning All-Big Ten Honorable Mention for the second straight season. He saved his best for the biggest stage—a career-high 16 tackles against Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl that tied for the third-most by a Penn State player in a bowl game, and the Fiesta Bowl Defensive MVP award the year prior. He's a polished, experienced defender with good instincts, though his ball production in 2025 was modest. Most analysts expect the Bears to address the defensive line with their first-round pick and look to safety in the second or third round.

That second-to-third-round range is where the class gets interesting. Treydan Stukes out of Arizona might be the most intriguing name on the board for Chicago. At 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, Stukes earned AP Third Team All-American and First Team All-Big 12 honors in 2025 after leading an Arizona defense that ranked first in the FBS in opponent passer efficiency rating. His numbers pop: 52 tackles, four interceptions, six pass breakups, a sack, and a ridiculous 34.4 opponent passer rating in 10 games. The knock is durability—an ACL tear cut short his 2024 season—but he returned in 2025 with fluid movement and elite instincts. Scouts view him as an ideal nickel prospect given his size and physicality, and he's currently at the Combine in Indianapolis looking to solidify a late-second to early-third-round projection.

Kamari Ramsey of USC is another name to watch in that range. A UCLA transfer, Ramsey is listed at 6-foot and 205 pounds and is projected somewhere between the mid-second and third round. He's the kind of versatile chess piece that defensive coordinators love—experience at nickel, strong safety, and free safety with a quick trigger diagnosing routes. His 2025 was limited, though: just 27 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, and two pass deflections in nine games due to a knee injury. The talent is there, but the missed time and inconsistent ball production will give some teams pause.

If the Bears want to wait until Day 3, Bud Clark out of TCU is the sleeper worth circling. At 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, Clark racked up 11 career interceptions—including four in 2025 to go with seven pass deflections—making him one of the most productive ball hawks in this class regardless of round. His football IQ and playmaking instincts are well-regarded, and a strong Senior Bowl showing has pushed his stock upward from a projected fifth-to-seventh-round range. The concerns are physical: he lacks elite recovery speed and carries a slender frame. But as a high-floor rotational safety who could develop behind a veteran, he's exactly the kind of late-round value pick Ryan Poles has built his roster on.

The Combine workout sessions for defensive backs began yesterday in Indianapolis, giving Bears scouts a chance to evaluate all of these prospects in person. With zero safeties under contract, expect Poles and his staff to be watching those drills very closely.

The Bottom Line

The Bears' safety situation is the clearest example of why this offseason is so challenging. The position group that was one of the team's biggest strengths in 2025—the back end of a defense that led the NFL in takeaways—could look completely different by opening day.

The most likely scenario: Byard comes back on a team-friendly short-term deal, the Bears let Brisker test the market and walk if the price gets too high, and they draft a safety somewhere on Day 2 to inject youth and upside into the room. It's not a perfect plan. Losing Brisker's versatility would hurt, and asking a mid-round rookie to step into a starting role is always a gamble. But with the cap constraints Poles is dealing with, it might be the best path forward.

"When you're kind of put in a corner," Poles said at the Combine this week. He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. Everyone in the building knew what he meant.

The Bears are in the corner. And safety is where they'll need to start fighting their way out.

Next up in our 2026 Offseason Needs series: Defensive tackle. With Ryan Poles openly targeting speed and violence at the Combine, and the Bears meeting with top prospects like Kayden McDonald and Christen Miller, we'll break down how Chicago plans to fix the interior of a defense that gave up 5.0 yards per carry last season.