{"id":703204,"date":"2026-01-25T05:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T05:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/703204\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T05:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T05:24:17","slug":"bears-free-agency-rumor-links-chicago-to-12-million-star-running-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/703204\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears free agency rumor links Chicago to $12 million star running back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bears free agency rumor links Chicago to $12 million star running back <\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Chicago Bears<\/a> are entering the offseason with a ton of optimism, as Ben Johnson’s squad won the NFC North and a playoff game in 2025.<\/p>\n

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General manager Ryan Poles will look to bolster his division-winning roster this offseason and turn the Bears into a legitimate Super Bowl contender in the NFC. Poles could do so by acquiring a dynamic running back who has been linked to\u00a0 Chicago in free agency.<\/p>\n

According to NFL insider Tony Pauline of Essentially Sports<\/a>, league insiders believe the Bears will pursue Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a> free agent running back Travis Etienne in the spring.<\/p>\n

“League insiders have long believed the Chicago Bears will be suitors for Etienne if he hits free agency. This is despite having a solid 1-2 punch with D\u2019Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai,” Pauline wrote.<\/p>\n

Etienne\u00a0had a productive season in 2025, tallying 1,107 rushing yards and seven scores. He added six scores through the air with 292 yards.<\/p>\n

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If Jacksonville doesn’t re-sign Etienne, Chicago would be an electric landing spot. Etienne would be an ideal fit in Johnson’s offense and form a dynamic duo with either Kyle Monangai or D’Andre Swift in the backfield, assuming the Bears move on from one to make room for Etienne, likely Swift.<\/p>\n

Spotrac projects Etienne will land a deal worth just below $7 million annually<\/a>, which is a fair price for the star running back. The Bears will need to create some cap space<\/a> to sign the Jaguars playmaker, but they can make it work.<\/p>\n

We’ll see what the future holds for Etienne, but there’s no denying that the Clemson product would take the Bears’ offense to another level.<\/p>\n

More NFL news<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bears free agency rumor links Chicago to $12 million star running back originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,1035,692,391,2493,4903,7,125,2526,6,1034,3394,6697,7150],"class_list":["post-703204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bears","tag-bears","tag-ben-johnson","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bears","tag-chicagobears","tag-dandre-swift","tag-football","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-kyle-monangai","tag-nfl","tag-ryan-poles","tag-the-bears","tag-tony-pauline","tag-travis-etienne"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115954074504283034","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703204","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=703204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}