{"id":691761,"date":"2026-01-20T18:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/691761\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T18:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T18:22:14","slug":"chicago-bears-2026-free-agent-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/691761\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Bears 2026 Free Agent List"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The season came to an end for the Chicago Bears on Sunday, but the work of an NFL franchise never stops. At some point soon, the Bears will sign several players to reserve\/futures contracts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The 2026 league year opens on March 11, at which time free agency officially begins; however, the early negotiating period starts on March 9.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Here are all the Bears\u2019 upcoming free agents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">List courtesy of Over The Cap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Jr., S<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Unrestricted free agents are players with four or more accrued seasons and an expired contract. They are free to negotiate and sign with any team once free agency begins. The Bears can negotiate with them before they hit free agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A season is considered <a href=\"https:\/\/operations.nfl.com\/inside-football-ops\/nfl-operations\/2025-nfl-free-agency\/types-of-free-agents\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">accrued<\/a> if the player was (or should have been) on full-play status for at least six regular-season games in a given season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">*Over the Cap lists both Bates and Tryon-Shoyinka as Void free agents, because there are void years on each contract. They have Bates with voids through the 2027 season, however, with no money owed. Tryon-Shoyinka has voids through 2029 with $576,000 owed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Restricted free agents are players with three accrued seasons and an expired contract. They can negotiate and sign a new deal with any team, but the Bears can offer them a qualifying \u201ctender\u201d offer, which would allow them to match the contract.<\/p>\n<p>Exclusive Rights Free Agents<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">An exclusive free agent is a player with fewer than three accrued seasons and an expired contract. If the Bears offer Benedet a one-year deal at the league minimum (based on his credited seasons), he cannot negotiate with other teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Street free agents are out of contract right now and can sign with any team immediately. All three of these players ended the season on the Bears\u2019 practice squad injured reserve list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The season came to an end for the Chicago Bears on Sunday, but the work of an NFL&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,692,391,2672,2493,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-691761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bears","8":"tag-bears","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-bears","11":"tag-chicago-bears-free-agency","12":"tag-chicagobears","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115928822210542833","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691761","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=691761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}