The modern NFL shifts rosters faster than ever. With the averaging coaching tenure shorter than a Minnesota summer, new regimes want their guys. Heavy roster churn and impatience to develop players combined with an exploding cap makes for interesting free agency every year. Let’s take a moment to examine the legacies of the departing for other teams and try to place them appropriately in team history.

I’m sorry, what just happened?

A year ago, center Drew Dalman was the free square on the Bears bingo card for their off-season. A move so obvious that everyone knew it was going to happen. The former Falcons pivot was entering his age 27 season in the prime of his career. He delivered, earning a Pro Bowl for his play between Jonah Jackson and Joe Thuney, giving Bears fans the comfort of an interior offensive line in front of Caleb Williams for years to come.

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His sudden retirement announcement will mean that Caleb Williams will work with his third center in three years. That center will almost certainly be Garrett Bradbury, the 8th year pro acquired from New England. Don’t be surprised if Chicago prioritizes a center in the draft this year to develop behind Bradbury, setting up for a succession plan in 2027. Dalman’s legacy is essentially, “wtf, man?!”

Hey, that guy played for the Bears once

Devin Duvernay was signed to handle return duties where he did a solid job averaging 11 yards per punt return and 26.7 yards per kick return. Olamide Zaccheaus will unfortunately be best remembered for some of his drops rather than his 39 catches for 313 yards and two scores. Duvernay signed for 1-year, $2.5M with the Cardinals while Zaccheaus returns to the team that drafted him in Atlanta. It appears that the Bears will replace both with Kalif Raymond, who has been a successful punt returner and useful wide receiver with Ben Johnson during his time in Detroit.

Jonathan Owens got a handful of starts at safety in 2025, pulled down an interception, and recovered a couple of fumbles. He’s headed for Indianapolis. Durham Smythe signed on to play for the Baltimore Ravens, leaving Chicago with 4 catches for 25 yards. Chris Williams signed with Atlanta. He was a bright spot in 2024 with 3 sacks playing in the defensive line rotation, but saw his playing time cut this year. Amen Ogbongbemiga was in Chicago long enough for me to learn how to spell his name and picked up a sack, a tackle for loss, and a pass defensed in 25 games in Chicago.

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There’s no legacy here.

Draft disappointments

Jaquan Brisker will continue his career in Pittsburgh on a one year contract. For a player coming off a healthy year making every start signing a one-year deal, the league is telling you they worry about his long term health. That’s unfortunate for Brisker, who is certainly a talented player. He finishes his time in Chicago with 4 interceptions, 7 sacks, 12 tackles for loss, and a lot of trash talk. For a second round pick in Ryan Poles’s first draft, Brisker will go down as a miss.

Dominique Robinson signed with the Houston Texans, leaving Chicago with 3.5 sacks and just 8 starts over his four years in Chicago. Robinson seemed to fall out of favor with the Matt Eberflus regime in 2024, but Dennis Allen was able to coax solid play from Robinson in a back of the rotation role. We can quibble about production from a 5th round pick and disappointment, but Robinson never seemed to improve.

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These moves shrink the initial Poles draft class remaining down to three with Kyler Gordon earning a big second contract and Braxton Jones and Elijah Hicks returning on one-year deals. Velus Jones Jr., Zachary Thomas, Trestan Ebner, Doug Kramer, Ja’Tyre Carter, and Trenton “The Gill-otine” Gill previously departed.

Thank you for your service

CJ Gardner-Johnson played a whole ten games for the Bears this last year but really added a spark to the team when it needed it. He was seemingly everywhere early on, recording a total of three sacks, two picks, and forcing a fumble. There was plenty of speculation about bringing him back, but he’ll instead head to Buffalo. CJGJ was a rare mid-season signing that worked. The only good news is my podcast partner won’t have to worry about messing up his name anymore.

Cool story

Nahshon Wright will head to the New York Jets, a team that just…didn’t have an interception last season. It’s a modest one-year deal for the breakout corner at $3.5M. That’s a bummer for Chicago’s hopes of cashing in on a comp pick, but the fact that Chicago very easily could have matched that number if they wanted to shows you that they were comfortable with what they had remaining. Still, Wright took the ball away at a legitimately impressive rate and held onto a starting role even when Jaylon Johnson returned to the lineup. He’s a beacon of hope that Al Harris University can produce results for future Bears corners.

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What could have been…

Kevin Byard III is a really good football player. The safety signed with the New England Patriots on a one-year deal worth $9M. Byard played for Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel in Tennessee from 2018-2023, before he was traded to Philly near the trade deadline in 2023. Byard earned his third First Team All Pro honors in 2025 on the strength of his seven interceptions. It’s the second time he’s led the league in interceptions. Byard joins Eddie Jackson (2018), Mike Brown (2001), Gary Fencik (1981), Richie Petitbon (1963), and Rosey Taylor (1963) as Bears safeties to earn First-Team All Pro honors.

Byard is a great addition for New England as they try to break their championship drought. The Bears moving on for Coby Bryant makes sense for a long-term move but I do wish there would have been a way to bring back Byard to pair with Bryant. I don’t think Byard is in a particularly strong Hall of Fame position right now, but the three First-Team All Pro selections honestly should get him into the conversation. He’s been a really good player for a long time, but he might’ve missed out on getting enough hype to get him in Canton. He’ll be remembered among the great safety seasons in Chicago history, even if his total service time in Navy & Orange was short.

Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out

I didn’t see a single off-season list that didn’t feature cutting Tremaine Edmunds to save cap space. Honestly, the highlight of the Edmunds era might’ve been the wish-casting reports that Edmunds had a trade market and could soon net the Bears some draft capital. Edmunds was signed after Ryan Poles shipped Roquan Smith to the Ravens…because he didn’t want to pay an off-ball linebacker. He signed Edmunds for 4 years at $72M with $41.8M in guarantees. He earned $57M of that contract over 3 seasons, making a modest impact on the Eberflus defense. He started off 2025 looking more like an impact player before missing time with injury and making the obvious case to be cut for cap reasons.

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Edmunds represents one of the weirdest moments in time for the Ryan Poles Bears. I could buy the trade to move on from Roquan Smith if your team building philosophy was to not pay off-ball linebackers. Roquan signed a big extension with Baltimore, 5 years for $100M. He’s earned $60M of that so far over the last 3 years with some monster base salaries remaining. However, he delivered three straight First Team All Pro seasons for Baltimore (including the 2022 season that started in Chicago).

We can certainly make the case that Roquan wouldn’t have made those First Team All Pro squads in Chicago on bad teams, but he’s a superstar and well on his way to a Hall of Fame resume. Edmunds will continue to make solid money in New York for solid, if unspectacular results. This is a significant fail for Poles.

A complicated conversation

Let’s talk about DJ Moore. The Bears dealt Moore and a 2026 5th round pick to the Buffalo Bills for pick number 60 in this year’s draft. It’s a tremendous return for Moore who had an outsized contract on the books. The trade may be the best move Ryan Poles has made this side of the Bryce Young trade…which got them DJ Moore.

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Moore gave the Bears a legitimate building block to evaluate Justin Fields in 2023. Moore delivered with 96 grabs for 1,364 yards and 8 scores. After Moore’s former team delivered the Bears Caleb Williams with the number 1 pick, the Bears rewarded Moore with a nice contract extension to work with the rookie signal caller. DJ was establishing himself as a pillar of the community and a face of the franchise.

The 2024 season was a complete disaster and ended with Matt Eberflus becoming the first head coach in Bears history to get a pink slip mid-season. Moore finished with 98 catches (!!) for 966 yards in a broken offense but was found showing up his rookie QB, seemingly quitting on scramble drills, and overall acting like a diva receiver.

Ben Johnson’s offense demands a level of precision and focus both mentally and physically to create consistent explosives. Moore’s 2025 was something straight out of a Charles Dickens novel with the best of times and the worst of times. Finishing the season with career lows in catches (50) and yards (682), Moore also recorded some of the best highlights in Chicago Bears history. No, not 2025 highlights, all-time Bears moments. From the catch in the back of the end zone against the Browns to the walk off TD against the Packers, DJ was more often than not on the other end of an important and impressive Caleb Williams pass.

Until the last pass of the season, where Moore’s decision to run his route at less than full speed likely cost Chicago a second playoff win and a berth in the NFC Championship Game. Now, I understand that final play has more interpretations than the finale of the Sopranos, but that moment was fade to black on DJ’s time in Chicago.

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I wonder how his time will age. My guess is the final play and the childish antics will fade and the highlights will play enough times to erase any bad feelings. His three years in Chicago were productive but not necessarily enough to crack anything meaningful in the record book. With 3,012 yards, he sits in 17th place between Jim Keane and Wendell Davis. His 244 catches are good enough for 14th between Bobby Engram and Desmond Clark. His 20 TDs are tied for 16th with Neal Anderson, Greg Olsen, Marcus Robinson, James Scott, and Luke Johnsos.

It’s an interesting legacy.

Top 100

In 2019, the WCG team ranked the top 100 players of the 100 years of the Bears. I revisit the list from time to time to see if any departing Bears would crack a top 100 in a revote. Do you think any of the departing Bears should crack the top 100 of all time? Hit up the comments below with your argument.