The Blitz: Bears favorites for Trey Smith, Press Taylor on board and Senior Bowl roundup
It’s been anything but a quiet off season for the Chicago Bears. I mean that in a good way this year.
Hiring Ben Johnson as the new head coach has created plenty of good buzz around the club, and ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler added to the possible excitement of the Bears roster for next year. Fowler ranked Kansas City Chiefs Guard Trey Smith as his second overall free agent in the 2025 class, and the league is eyeing the Bears as suitors.
Here’s what Fowler wrote:
“Some inside the league are watching Chicago here. General manager Ryan Poles, who needs to drastically improve his interior offensive line for new coach Ben Johnson, was in Kansas City when the Chiefs drafted Smith. Several teams have him as the top overall free agent.”
One word to emphasize here is Smith is a possible addition for the Bears. He’s preparing for the Super Bowl next Sunday and its not out of the question Kansas City brings him back. Smith earned $3.3 million this year and its expected a top-line guard will earn more than $20 million on the open market, and Smith could command the higher end of that considering he only 26 years old.
The Chiefs aren’t in a good cap situation next year, according to Over the Cap, but Smith has been a vital part of the team and protecting Patrick Mahomes. After 2025, when Travis Kelce and Joe Thuney are free agents or retired, Kansas City’s cap space balloons, so I’d expect a restructure of some contracts if Smith is committed to staying.
If he does hit the open market, the Bears are in a great spot with the sixth most cap space in the league and a bright offensive mind at head coach. Smith will have a number of suitors this winter and some may be further along than the Bears in terms of realized success. That will all depend on Smith’s preferences too.
Personally, man, it’d be hard to leave the winning times for the unknown.
Press Taylor joins the coaching staff
Press Taylor, former Jacksonville offensive coordinator, is the new passing game coordinator for the Bears.
The hiring follows a similar trend for Johnson in Taylor has no previous experience with the head coach or the assistants. As the Sun-Times articles details more, he coached under Chip Kelly and Doug Pederson in Philadelphia, moved to Indianapolis, then Jacksonville with Pederson.
Taylor brings some experience to the room, which is a good start. He won a Super Bowl with the Eagles and the Jaguars boasted a top-10 passing offense in 2022, his first year with the team. Jacksonville slipped to 13th in 2023, but Trevor Lawrence only played 10 games that season, backed up by Mac Jones, so the top-15 effort is commendable all things considered.
The Jags were a bottom-10 passing offense this year, but the wheels seemingly fell off the entire organization and Pederson was fired at year’s end.
It’s easy to groan at Taylor’s new gig and direct role with Caleb Williams, but that feels like an overreaction to a passing game coordinator when we know Johnson is installing the offense and calling the plays. That’s the long way to say if the head coach and the quarterback are the real deal, none of this really matters.
Last year in Jacksonville was all sorts of discombobulated as Pederson was fighting for his job very early on. The Jags’ dysfunction might have actually cost them Johnson, and almost led to their eventual hire getting away.
So, yeah, another offseason with the Bears as winners.
I’d also point to assistant quarterback coach role in Philadelphia during the Super Bowl run in 2016-17. Carson Wentz was playing at an MVP level until his injury and Nick Foles filled in seamlessly and won Super Bowl MVP.
That’s not nothing.
Senior Bowl notes
- Kevin Fishbain of The Athletic is in Mobile, Alabama covering the Senior Bowl, which is worth paying attention to for Bears fans. Fishbain noted on X, formerly Twitter, that Ryan Poles has drafted two players from the Senior Bowl in each of his drafts.
- He also speculates a mock draft from the Senor Bowl. Offensive line and edge rushers are a recurring theme in these Bears mocks.
- ESPN’s Jordan Reid, Matt Miller and Field Yates are also at the Senior Bowl. Lot of names from Fishbain’s article are recurring here. Reid’s biggest takeaways about tight ends Elijah Arroyo of Miami and Mason Taylor of LSU caught my eye. I’m not exactly anti-Cole Kmet here, but if Taylor slots into the right draft spot for the Bears, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s nabbed up if he fits Johnson’s vision. Chicago can move off Gerald Everett with only $1 million in dead cap space, and if Kmet isn’t the guy after next year, his dead cap totals only $4.8 million for 2026 and 2027.
- Dane Brugler and Nick Baumgardner of The Athletic are at the less heralded Shrine Bowl. If you’re looking for some under-the-radar guys at defensive tackle, Brugler highlights a few names on the rise.
- Not a Senior Bowl story, but Andrew Marchand of The Athletic has a profile of ESPN’s Adam Schefter that’s just interesting. Always had a lot of respect for him. Met him at the NFL Combine in 2009 right out of college and found him a bit prickly, but as my own career grew over time that’s just how busy journalists operate in the moment. To his credit, still went on the record for an interview about Downers Grove native and eventual Bears draft pick Dan LeFevour — a story lost to the print archives now.
Programming note: The Blitz is a game-time decision tomorrow. I’ll be covering U.S. Curling National Championships all day.
