Column: Bears need leaders on the line alongside Caleb Williams in 2025

CHICAGO (WGN) — While the 2024 season was every single bit of a disaster, the Chicago Bears’ win over the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field Sunday provided a glimmer of hope. It could also double as a springboard into a pivotal offseason. But that only comes to fruition if the Bears do the right thing and surround Caleb Williams with leaders along the offensive line.

Tone setters and culture builders are not born on the perimeter as wide receivers and running backs, or corners and outside linebackers.

They are born in the trenches, stand under center or are on the sideline with a headset on. They are tackles and guards. They are your quarterback. They are your head coach.

No team’s body of work backs this up more than the Detroit Lions, who soundly did away with the Minnesota Vikings last night to decide the NFC’s No. 1 seed.

Dan Campbell needs no introduction. His passion for the game of football is known and the culture he’s established in the locker room is evident.

Much is to yet to be made of Chicago’s head coaching search and the Bears have cast a wide net looking for their next “leader of men.”

But the position group where Chicago lacks the most is also the anchor that allows Detroit to thrive as much as they do. Their physicality and mentality under Campbell is unmatched.

“This might sound crazy to people but to me, going out there tonight, it wasn’t if we were going to win, but by how much?” Lions left tackle Taylor Decker said after their 31-9 victory. “That’s how we felt and we know there were a lot of people that didn’t feel that way…F*** ’em. That’s how I feel about it.”

Decker has been Detroit’s left tackle since 2016, facing down the league’s best pass rushers on a weekly basis. He hasn’t been elected to a Pro Bowl in nine seasons with the Lions, but he’s also only given up 40 sacks in 8,495 career offensive snaps. That’s one sack allowed every 212.4 plays on offense, or one sack allowed about every two-and-a-half games.

Then there’s Penei Sewell. I’m not going to transcribe the video because there’s too many F-bombs, but take about 15 seconds and watch this guy give a pregame speech. Reminder, he has a captain’s “C” on his chest, two Pro Bowls, a first-team All-Pro selection and he’s less than three months removed from his 24th birthday.

None of the Bears’ eight team captains are offensive linemen and none of those offensive linemen have been selected to the Pro Bowl. Those offensive linemen have given up the second-most sacks in football since Ryan Poles took over as general manager though.

Winning teams are built with high-powered GMC Sierras and Cadillac Escalades along the line, and charismatic leaders at the forefront. Not with run-down, 20-year-old Buick LaSabres on the line in front of nice guys wearing a headset.

Chicago has their quarterback in Caleb Williams, who by all accounts — NFL scouts, executives and media members included — say has the talent to be somewhere between the likes of Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford and Patrick Mahomes.

But where are the monsters that lurk in Williams’ periphery like Sewell and Decker do for Jared Goff? Where are his protectors to pick him back up when he falls down and remind Williams (and those around him) of who he is?

I’ve seen too many moments this year where Williams was left to pick himself back up off the turf and continue the fight, regardless of whether it was the offensive line or his fault for him ending up there.

That’s not what the Lions do. That’s not what winning teams do and it’s time for the Bears to address it.

They have one piece along their offensive line already in right tackle Darnell Wright, who’s Pro Football Focus (PFF) blocking grades and pass protection this season are comparable to what Decker has done in Detroit since he was the 16th overall pick in 2016.

Outside of Wright though, Chicago has a lot of work to do in free agency and the draft.

The Bears already struck out on Nate Davis, who they paid tens of millions to look like he couldn’t care less to put on the navy blue and orange.

Teven Jenkins, Chicago’s oft-injured and best interior lineman, is set to test the market this offseason and seems poised to take his talents elsewhere.

Jenkins said “I don’t have an answer for you,” when asked if he’ll be back with the Bears next season on Monday. He is also “mentally” prepared to head into free agency.

As for what Jenkins wants from free agency, he said it’s a “toss up.”

Even if Jenkins stayed in Chicago, it’s unlikely he could be relied upon to stay on the field. His 738 offensive snaps in 2024 were a career high, but still accounted for less than two-thirds of the Bears’ total plays on offense.

Ryan Bates and Braxton Jones can be added to the injury carousel, who both missed significant time in 2024 — Bates with shoulder problems and a season-ending concussion, Jones a knee injury and a gruesome broken leg.

If Poles is serious about addressing Chicago’s most pressing need, Indianapolis Colts center Ryan Kelly, Vikings Tackle Cam Robinson, Kansas City Chiefs guard Trey Smith, Baltimore Ravens tackle Ronnie Stanley and Lions guard Kevin Zeitler should all be at the top of his list should any of the five reach the open market.

According to Tankathon, the Bears have the No. 10 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

That pick should turn into one of LSU’s Will Campbell, Texas’s Kelvin Banks Jr or Ohio State’s Josh Simmons — the top three prospects at offensive tackle in this year’s draft.

Chicago has three more picks in the top 75 on top of the tenth overall selection, along with a fifth, sixth, and two seventh round picks. Prospects like Alabama guard Tyler Booker (PFF’s No. 63 prospect) and USC center Jonah Monheim (PFF’s No. 146 prospect) — Williams’ center when he won the Heisman Trophy in 2022 — exist further down the board.

Hit a home run signing and/or drafting any combination of the name’s above, and the Bears will be on their way to properly providing those monsters in Williams’ periphery.

Then maybe one day, Poles can realistically claim Chicago will “take the North and never give it back.“