{"id":691726,"date":"2026-01-20T18:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/691726\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T18:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:03:15","slug":"first-choice-in-free-agency-is-to-remain-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/691726\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;First choice&#8217; in free agency is to remain in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the season over in Chicago, the attention turns to whether the Bears can keep the core together that propelled the club to its first NFC North title since 2018.<\/p>\n<p>One of the several free key free agents is safety <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/players\/kevin-byard\/\" title=\"Kevin Byard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Byard<\/a>, who led the NFL with seven interceptions &#8212; the second time in his career he&#8217;s led the league in picks. Byard said Monday his &#8220;first choice&#8221; would be to remain in Chicago, but noted he can&#8217;t predict the future.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With the success that we all had this season as a team, I think a lot of guys on this team are going to be coveted around this league, honestly,&#8221; he said, <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break: break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/chicago.suntimes.com\/bears\/2026\/01\/19\/bears-safety-kevin-byard-free-agency-staying-first-choice-do-best-family-nfl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">via the Chicago Sun-Times<\/a>. &#8220;And I think the same way the organization is always going to do what&#8217;s best for the team, I think I owe that to my family as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A three-time Pro Bowler, Byard played a key role in Dennis Allen&#8217;s defense, owning the range to cover swaths of space and the smarts and savvy to cover up mistakes on the outside. Byard was named a first-team All-Pro for the third time in his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the season over in Chicago, the attention turns to whether the Bears can keep the core together&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1227,391,7,4861,88,6,609],"class_list":{"0":"post-691726","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-around-the-nfl","9":"tag-chicago-bears","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-kevin-byard","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-no-minute"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115928747541303152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}