The Chicago Bears doubled down on the center position after Pro Bowler Drew Dalman unexpectedly retired this offseason. First, they sent a 2027 fifth-round draft pick to the New England Patriots for the soon-to-be 31-year-old Garrett Bradbury. In his seven years as a pro, Bradburry has started all 105 games he\u2019s appeared in, including every game last season for the AFC Champion New England Patriots.<\/p>\n
While he\u2019s not the same level of player as Dalman, he\u2019s a professional who fits the scheme and is a capable starter who can seamlessly slide in and do all the mental things that Ben Johnson expects from his center.<\/p>\n
And then in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Bears used a second-round pick, 57 overall, on Iowa\u2019s Logan Jones; the first center off the board. Jones was a four-year starter for the Hawkeyes, who turns 25 in October, and he followed in the footsteps of Tyler Linderbaum. Literally. Both started their collegiate careers as defensive linemen, and both capped their time in Iowa with the Rimington Trophy for the best center in college football, while being named an unanimous All-American.<\/p>\n
Linderbaum was a first-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in 2022, and he just signed the richest contract in NFL history for a center \u2014 but with the Las Vegas Raiders.<\/p>\n
The Ravens didn\u2019t seriously address the position in free agency, and the draft didn\u2019t work out for them either. Baltimore general manager Eric DeCosta said he hoped that either Jones or Florida\u2019s Jake Slaughter, two players he felt could be immediate contributors for them, would be there in the third round. But the Bears sniped them with the Jones pick, and Slaughter went to the Los Angeles Chargers at 63 overall.<\/p>\n
DeCosta is on record saying that upgrading via a trade is still an option, and the Bears just so happen to have an experienced veteran who would make a lot of sense for them.<\/p>\n
A couple of days ago, we shared what some league executives<\/a> felt about the Bears\u2019 draft via Mike Sando\u2019s article in The Athletic. However, the Bears were also mentioned in the AFC version of that insider series<\/a>, as an anonymous executive thinks the Ravens should call the Bears to see if they could pry Bradbury away.<\/p>\n \u201cBaltimore is going to let everybody who can snap the ball try,\u201d an exec told Sando. \u201cThat would not be a bad trade. If I\u2019m Chicago, I would not trade him until I know what I have with Logan Jones and know he is the guy.\u201d<\/p>\n Knowing how much this new Bears regime values the offensive line, I can\u2019t imagine they\u2019d move Bradbury unless they were confident in Jones\u2019 ability to lead the line, but also confident in the backup.<\/p>\n Second-year pro Luke Newman, a sixth-round pick in 2025, was the first guard off the bench last year for a time, and he cross-trained at center in the offseason as a rookie. Starting right guard Jonah Jackson also has some experience at center, but why mess up a good thing on the right side?<\/p>\n Newman makes the most sense, so I\u2019ll be watching to see if he\u2019s getting the third center reps in camp.<\/p>\n If the Ravens, or another center-needy team, were to call on Bradbury, I\u2019m sure the Bears would listen, but we\u2019re a long way from them entertaining a serious offer to move him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Bears doubled down on the center position after Pro Bowler Drew Dalman unexpectedly retired this offseason.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[52257,226094,399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-625181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-chicago-bears-news","tag-chicago-bears-rumors","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}