NEWSLETTER
Before the NFL Draft in April, Chicago Bears General Manager Ryan Poles said it would be hard to make this year’s team. He wasn’t lying.
“We’re proud of where we’ve come from,” Poles told reporters ahead of the draft. “… It’s going to be hard to make this team now.”
That was before a franchise-changing draft that added Caleb Williams, Rome Odunze, and more to the roster. With training camp over, some players are learning just how deep this team is in some areas. The latest cut this afternoon was veteran cornerback Greg Stroman Jr., which speaks to what Poles said earlier in the offseason.
Stroman spent time on the Bears’ active roster in the previous two seasons, playing two games in 2022 and seven in 2023. This time, despite a strong preseason, there wasn’t any room for Stroman, who logged exactly one interception in each of the last two seasons he spent on the Bears’ active roster.
Stroman won’t be unemployed long. He’s shown enough during his time in Chicago to catch on somewhere, and that’s a compliment to Ryan Poles and the rest of the cornerbacks’ room at Halas Hall. Jaylon Johnson leads the bunch, and Tyrique Stevenson and Kyler Gordon are starters anywhere in this league, giving Chicago one of the best trios of corners. But it doesn’t stop there because, beyond those three starters, Chicago has done a tremendous job building a deep cornerback room.
Here’s what the Bears cornerback depth chart looks like right now.
- LCB: Tyrique Stevenson, Jaylon Jones
- RCB: Jaylon Johnson, Terrell Smith
- NCB: Kyler Gordon, Josh Blackwell, Reddy Steward
Bears secondary depth is an example of Ryan Poles’ cooking
Seven solid cornerbacks will call Halas Hall and Soldier Field home this season. Reddy Steward got a healthy amount of snaps in Kyler Gordon’s spot with the first-team defense this training camp, with Gordon sidelined with an injury.
Steward shined in the Bears preseason finale, picking off a pair of passes against the Kansas City Chiefs. Chicago Bears Head Coach Matt Eberflus complimented Steward for his goal line interception, the first of the two, after Thursday night’s preseason finale.
“Just the step in front of him,” Eberflus said. “He did a really good job. In that particular coverage down there, you don’t want to back up, and he didn’t. [He] did a really nice job of moving lateral in front of the pass lane and stepped in front of the one down there in the red zone.”
Steward was an undrafted free agent out of Troy. He showed up this summer and likely earned himself the final spot in a loaded cornerback’s room in Chicago.
“I’m just out there doing my job and reacting,” Steward said after Thursday’s game. “That’s all I can say, honestly. I thank God that I made the play [tonight] and that I reacted to it.”
Update: It turns out Reddy Steward did not make the Bears’ initial 53-man roster.
Ahead of Steward are Jaylon Jones, Terrell Smith, and Josh Blackwell, corners developed in Chicago. Smith was a fifth-round selection by the Bears last spring. In his rookie season, he logged 49 tackles, six passes defended, and a forced fumble in 12 games (four starts) with the Bears.
Jones was signed by the Bears as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Mississippi following the 2022 NFL Draft. He’s logged 70 combo tackles, two passes defended, and a forced fumble in 33 games (four starts) across two seasons with Chicago.
Josh Blackwell might be the best of that trio. Blackwell was an undrafted free agent with the Eagles but signed with the Bears in August 2022. He’s played in 26 games the last two seasons and logged 31 tackles. He’s turned into an above-average nickelback and a solid special teams contributor.
Ryan Poles and his team’s work building this roster and Matt Eberflus’s work developing players on the defensive side of the football are on full display in this secondary, and it’s a refreshing feeling in these parts.
