{"id":806881,"date":"2026-03-11T19:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T19:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/806881\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T19:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T19:04:20","slug":"bears-star-safety-kevin-byard-to-sign-with-patriots-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/806881\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears star safety Kevin Byard to sign with Patriots: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bears<\/a> safety Kevin Byard, one of their best players the last two seasons, is leaving in free agency to join the Patriots. He agreed to a one-year, $9 million deal Wednesday, NFL Network reported.<\/p>\n

Byard has often credited Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, who coached him with the Titans, as a strong influence on his career.<\/p>\n

Byard, 32, was a rock for the Bears, and general manager Ryan Poles said at the end of the season he hoped to re-sign him. He played every game for them over two seasons, and last season was an All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection with an NFL-best seven interceptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be effort on both sides to try to get something done, but who knows?\u201d Byard told the Sun-Times last month<\/a>. \u201cPoles and [coach] Ben Johnson have got a lot of decisions to make on a lot of guys on the team, so we\u2019ll see who\u2019s the top priority. I would hope that I am [back], but you just never know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bears seemed to move on this week by agreeing to sign former Seahawks safety Coby Bryant to a three-year, $40 million deal. All moves can become official Thursday at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n

Byard outperformed his two-year, $15 million contract with the Bears by delivering 223 tackles, eight interceptions and two fumble recoveries. He also was a team captain.<\/p>\n

The Bears\u2019 other starting safety from last season, Jaquan Brisker, remains unsigned in free agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bears safety Kevin Byard, one of their best players the last two seasons, is leaving in free agency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2070],"tags":[374,692,391,2493,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-806881","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-chicagobears","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116212102781330138","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806881","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=806881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}