After spending four days covering the Bears at the NFL owners meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., last week, here are eight things I learned:
(1) Fourth-year safety Jaquan Brisker has been cleared to return after missing the final 12 games last season with a concussion.
"He is fired up," said general manager Ryan Poles. "We text all the time about draft stuff. He wants to win, and he wants to be successful."
Since being selected by the Bears in the second round of the 2022 draft out of Penn State, Brisker has started all 35 games he's played in three seasons, registering 249 tackles, 11 tackles-for-loss, 6.0 sacks, three interceptions, 13 pass breakups, four forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.
"I will say this having competed against him for the last few years: He is a guy that you have got to know where he is," said coach Ben Johnson, who spent the past three seasons as Lions offensive coordinator. "You have got to account for him. He likes to play down in the box. He likes to get involved."
(2) Signing nickel back Kyler Gordon to a contract extension is a priority for Poles.
The first player that Poles drafted as Bears GM, Gordon was chosen in 2022 with the No. 39 pick in the second round out of Washington, nine slots ahead of Brisker.
Gordon has appeared in 42 games with 34 starts over three seasons, recording 207 tackles, nine tackles-for-loss, 1.5 sacks, five interceptions, 17 pass breakups, four fumble recoveries and two forced fumbles.
"[An extension] will still be a priority," Poles said. "In our exit meetings at the end of last season, I told all the guys in terms of the future … I have got to get with our [new] coaching staff and see how the different players fit based on the scheme.
"We have been able to have those conversations, and I know Kyler is a guy that we want to be a part of this moving forward. The timing of that, I am not sure how that all is going to work out, but that is a priority."
(3) The proposal to ban the "tush push" was tabled at the owners meetings, but the Bears would have voted to prohibit the play due to health and safety concerns.
"I know they say that we do not have sufficient injury data on it," said Bears chairman George H. McCaskey. "But to us, it appears to be an inherently unsafe play. I had the opportunity during committee meetings here earlier in the month to sit in the back of the room for the health and safety meeting with [NFL chief medical officer Dr.] Alan Sills and Dr. John York, and they expressed concerns about the safety of everybody involved in that play."
It had been illegal to push a ballcarrier, but the rule was eliminated by the NFL in 2004 because it was difficult for officials to determine in a scrum of bodies whether offensive linemen were blocking defenders or pushing the runner.
(4) Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren lauded the team's fans for their support.
"I want to thank our fans," he said. "I just looked at the statistics. We have a renewal rate of 96.3% of our season tickets, which is phenomenal. What that shows is … we have the best fans in all of professional sports. I am just grateful for that, and I am looking forward to being able to put a really good product on the field this year."
(5) Johnson vowed that Bears players will be coached hard and held accountable.
"Absolutely," he said. "We are going to be very, very clear with what we want. The communication is going to be crystal clear. The structure is going to be there from Day 1. We are going to be organized and we are going to be consistent. If we fail to meet the mark, the players are going to know about it. And when we do meet the mark, the players are going to know about it. That is how the coaching staff is going to coach. Those are the guys we brought in and I am in encouraged by what I have seen so far."
Asked what accountability will look like, Poles said: "I think it is just being able to call out the things that are not up to standard right there in the moment man-to-man and sometimes it is in a group setting like, 'This is not how we want it.' And you address it immediately.
"I think that is something that Ben is going to be really good at and we will do together across all spaces of football. It is something that we have talked about a lot, and I feel confident that the guys are going to feel that when they get back."
(6) The Bears likely will have 3-5 season-long captains this year.
"My plan right now is we are going to end up having a team vote on that and we will see what those numbers end up coming out," Johnson said. "But it could be anywhere from probably 3-to-5 captains."
(7) Poles anticipates that offseason acquisitions Joe Thuney and Grady Jarrett will not only perform well on the field but also provide veteran leadership.
Thuney, a left guard, has won four Super Bowls with the Patriots and Chiefs and was named first-team All-Pro each of the past two seasons with Kansas City. Jarrett, a two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle and two-time nominee for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, was considered the heart and soul of the Falcons defense.
"That is the added bonus of bringing those guys in, because they can show [teammates] how to do it," Poles said. "I always think it is important that, in order to lead, you also have to be taking care of business on the field and be productive.
"I have seen situations where there are older guys who are not really in their prime and they are almost in survival mode trying to finish out their career and it just does not hold as much weight. When a guy is playing at a high level and has won a bunch of games, I think it is weighted heavier. Guys will follow and listen to players like that."
(8) One intriguing prospect to watch this spring will be second-year offensive tackle Kiran Amegadjie, a 2024 third-round pick from Yale.
Last summer as a rookie, Amegadjie missed most of training camp while recovering from surgery to repair a quad injury he had sustained the previous October at Yale. He eventually appeared in six games with one start that came when he filled in for an injured Braxton Jones at left tackle.
"I liked Kiran a lot coming out [of college] last year," Johnson said. "He was a guy we had earmarked as a potential developmental prospect. He had a lot of traits to work with.
"I do not know if the vision last year in Chicago was for him to have to play so quickly. But they were kind of forced into that spot. And so he had some ups and some downs as you would normally think for a rookie lineman, much less one who you thought would take a little more time to get playing at a high level.
"We are not discouraged at all by what he put on tape. He got put into some tough situations last year. And I know coach [Dan] Roushar has been really, really excited to get to work with him soon."
