After feel-good year, Bears' offseason has been no place for sentimentality

In the seconds before he ripped off his shirt to celebrate the Bears’ “Black Friday” win against the Eagles, coach Ben Johnson handed out just two game balls.

One went to cornerback Nahshon Wright, who, Johnson said, should have won the honor in each of their previous three weeks.

“Shonny,” he said, “You played some [bleeping] good football.”

The Bears’ locker room erupted, knowing what the honor meant to Wright. He’d barely cracked an NFL roster the year before, playing just one game for the Vikings — and zero snaps on defense. Now, with the rest of the NFL world watching in prime time, he’d stripped the ball from Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts on their feared “Tush Push” — and recovered the fumble himself.

The play came two weeks after Wright mourned John Beam, his junior college coach who had been shot dead on campus. Al Harris, Wright’s position coach, called Wright hourly for days to make sure he was OK.

Wright was the feel-good story of the Bears feel-great season.

Tuesday, he agreed to sign a one-year deal with the Jets for just $5.5 million — not out of the
Bears’ price range, even with their cap limitations.

If you’re looking for sentimentality, go to YouTube and play a “Good, Better, Best” video. Because you won’t find it in the Bears’ offseason. Eight of the 22 starters who played in the Bears’ final game won’t be under contract for them when the league year begins at 3 p.m. Wednesday. Less than half have a chance of returning.

That happens every year in the NFL. For the first time since 2018, though, the Bears assembled a team that their fans grew to love. Unemotional offseason decisions just hit different.

“It's just not going to be the same going forward,” Johnson said in the minutes after the Bears’ overtime playoff loss to the Rams.

It never is. But this feels harsh. And it will feel even stranger as players officially land elsewhere and pose with their new jerseys and starched baseball caps.

The Bears have made feel-good moves before— and then lost plenty of games when the season began. Losing trusted veterans and locker-room favorites, though, comes with a new set of challenges for Johnson and his staff.

Last year’s locker room was the best Johnson had ever been around. Over and over last year, he credited veteran leadership with making that the case. Now it’s on the head coach to identify new leaders within the team — or hope the team’s major additions are up for the task.

Then there’s the question of what they do on the field. On paper, the Bears’ roster is different — but, thus far, not markedly better— than it was at the beginning of March. The Bears’ defense is faster. Their cap sheet is cleaner. But what they’ve lost — or are set to lose — is significant.

In the last week, the Bears:

• Agreed to trade receiver DJ Moore, whose 46-yard walk-off winner in Week 16 against the Packers might have been the highlight of the Bears’ season. The only receiver they’ve signed since is Khalif Raymond, whose best career season featured fewer receiving yards than the career-worst one that got Moore traded. Johnson knows Raymond from their time shared in Detroit, though, and considers him a positive influence.

“Best teammate I’ve ever had,” star receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown wrote on social media Tuesday.

• Cut Tremaine Edmunds, who led the Bears in tackles and was second among NFL linebackers in interceptions last year, to save $15 million. They replaced him with Devin Bush, who is joining his fourth team in eight seasons.

• Watched Drew Dalman, one of their four Pro Bowl players, retire. The Bears traded for Patriots center Garrett Bradbury, who ably replaced franchise icon David Andrews last year for the Super Bowl runners-up.

That list of moves doesn’t include safety Kevin Byard, who was the most respected player in the Bears locker room — and the NFL’s interceptions leader last season. The Pro Bowl player remains a free agent, though, after the Bears decided to sign the Seahawks’ Coby Bryant to a three-year deal Monday. On Tuesday, they agreed to add the Bills’ Cam Lewis — who, like Bryant, has experience at both safety and cornerback — to a two-year deal.

If Byard returns, then, it would have to be on a sizeable discount from the contract that was projected for him. Byard has weighed in on the Bears’ moves via social media the past week, though, writing a simple “Wow!” when Dalman retired and “My dawg!” when the Bears put out an appreciation post for Edmunds after cutting him.

Fellow safety Jaquan Brisker doesn’t seem likely to come back, either. He’s resorted to posting emojis — praying hands, arrows and eyeballs — since legal tampering started Monday.

Others set to become free agents who started the playoff loss to the Rams include nose tackle Andrew Billings — who will be feted Wednesday as the Bears’ Ed Block Courage Award winner — as well as guard Jordan McFadden and cornerback/safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

Some could return. Many won’t.

That’s life in the NFL. On a winning team, though, turnover feels different — and the stakes are higher.