In the span of three signings, general manager Ryan Poles and the Chicago Bears appear to have transformed one of the weakest position groups on the roster to arguably a strength capable of sparking a turnaround for the franchise.
One year removed from fielding an offensive line that allowed 68 sacks, Poles and the Bears swung big in the early days of this offseason and free agency.
Before the new league year even began, the Bears acquired veteran guards Jonah Jackson and Joe Thuney in a pair of trades, before completing the overhaul of the line’s interior by signing top free-agent center Drew Dalman.
Even rival executives have been impressed by what Poles and the Bears have pulled off.
I asked a half-dozen NFL executives which team they believed has improved the most so far in free agency, and the Bears were a unanimous choice.
“They added big-time ‘trench players’ on both sides of the football,” an NFC South personnel executive told me recently.
Those top rival executives aren’t alone in their praise of the Bears’ free-agent haul.
CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin put together a list of the 10 best moves made across the league this offseason, including the Bears’ trade for Thuney as the No. 3 ranked move made so far.
“Thuney will turn 33 during the 2025 season,” Benjamin points out for CBS. “But he’s never logged fewer than 97% of his teams’ offensive snaps over the course of his nine-year career. With both the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs, he proved durable and versatile. These are all major gets for a Chicago front that hardly let 2024 rookie Caleb Williams take a breath under center. Will Thuney alone bulldoze the Bears into playoff relevance? No. But his reliability should make him a tone-setter for the rest of the rebuilt trenches.”
Far beyond bringing big-game experience, Thuney is still playing at an All-Pro caliber level, having finished last season having not allowed a single sack, despite playing out of position at offensive tackle for a significant portion of the season, while garnering a 79.9 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, as the outlet’s No. 12 rated guard in the NFL.
Adding Thuney could prove to be a transformational type move for the Bears, at a position that is vital to success and could springboard quarterback Caleb Williams’ development. Both outcomes are well worth the 2026 fourth-round pick that Poles and the Bears sent the CHiefs to acquire Thuney.
