Ben Johnson is raiding his former locker room again.
The Bears have agreed to terms with wide receiver and kick returner Kalif Raymond on a one-year, $5.1 million deal, according to NFL Network's Mike Garafolo. Raymond, 31, spent the last five seasons with the Detroit Lions — the same organization where Johnson served as offensive coordinator from 2022 to 2024 — and is one of the most accomplished punt returners in football. The deal becomes official when the new league year opens Wednesday, March 11.
What He Brings
The receiver part of Raymond's game is real but modest. In his most recent season he posted 24 receptions for 289 yards and a touchdown in 15 games. That's a reliable slot option and a legitimate weapon on third downs in the right matchup — but it's not why Chicago is paying him $5.1 million. It's the other part.
Raymond is a two-time AP Second-Team All-Pro punt returner, earning that distinction in both the 2022 and 2024 seasons. He led the NFL in punt return yards in 2024 and was one of just six players league-wide to return a punt for a touchdown that year. Over his five seasons in Detroit, he totaled 171 receptions for 2,185 yards and seven touchdowns as a receiver, returned three punts for scores, and finished his Lions tenure holding the franchise record for career punt return yards at 1,485. He left the record on the shelf and brought himself to Chicago.
An undrafted free agent out of Holy Cross in 2016 who spent time with the Broncos, Jets, Giants, and Titans before landing in Detroit, Raymond is a player who has made a 10-year NFL career out of being exactly what a team needs him to be. The Bears need him to be their punt returner and a dependable receiver for Ben Johnson's offense. That's a comfortable assignment for someone who has been doing it at an All-Pro level.
The Johnson Connection
This isn't a blind signing. Johnson coached Raymond for three seasons in Detroit, and Bears wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle-El — who also came over from the Lions staff — coached him there as well. Raymond is stepping into a building where two of his most familiar coaches are already waiting. That kind of comfort tends to accelerate the adjustment to a new system, and Johnson has shown repeatedly — with Raymond, with Grady Jarrett, with others — that he values players he knows and trusts over unfamiliar names at the same price.
Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who shared a locker room with Raymond since his rookie season, said farewell publicly this week and called Raymond the greatest teammate he'd ever had. That's a meaningful endorsement from one of the better receivers in the NFC — and a reminder that the Bears keep pulling pieces out of the organization that beat them twice in the regular season last year and ended Johnson's tenure as Detroit's coordinator before he took the Chicago job.
One More Thing
Ben Johnson has not beaten the Detroit Lions as Chicago's head coach. The Bears won the NFC North last season and still got swept by Detroit in the regular season. There is no obvious way to quantify how much Raymond — a player who spent five years in that Lions locker room — helps close that gap. But there's something worth noting about a head coach who keeps finding reasons to add former Lions to his roster. Johnson knows that team. He knows what it takes to beat them, and he clearly believes that some of what made Detroit good over the last several years is transferable to what he's building in Chicago. Raymond is another data point in that argument.