The Chicago Bears are among the teams that couldn’t have loved what they saw in New England on Monday, where the Patriots handed out a history-shattering deal to cornerback Christian Gonzalez.
Gonzalez broke every financial record at the position, hauling in a four-year deal worth $135 million that includes $102 million guaranteed. Meanwhile, Bears star cornerback Jaylon Johnson has already declared 2026 a contract year for himself, even despite the fact that he has two seasons remaining on his $76 million agreement.
“I’m not a dummy,” Johnson said over the summer, per ESPN. “We all know that, and I’ve structured my deal a certain way to put myself back at the table at the age of 27. For me, it was always for this point to get here, and then show how I do what I do and be healthy and be out there doing what I do best — and that’s covering, that’s making plays, being a difference-maker. From there, wherever that contract talk goes, it goes.”
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That conversation is all but guaranteed to assume an upward trajectory as soon as it begins.
Johnson is not the best cornerback in the NFL, though he is a two-time Pro Bowler and one-time All-Pro who ranked just outside the top 10 at the position heading into this season, despite missing large swaths of time last year with a persistent groin injury (he sat out 10 regular-season games).
“Time on task has been an issue,” an executive told Jeremy Fowler of ESPN in July, who listed Johnson in the “honorable mention” section of the NFL’s best CB rankings heading into 2026. “He missed a lot of camp and game action. But he’s young (27), so he should be able to get back to his top form. He’s got juice when he’s full tilt.”
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The key to Johnson securing a monster deal is remaining healthy, which has never been his forte but was also never a major weakness over his first five years in the league (Johnson missed 14 total games across that stretch, a little less than three contests per campaign).
He is also likely to enter negotiations with significant leverage given Chicago’s situation on defense. Johnson is their best cornerback by a wide margin.
The second-best is Kyler Gordon, who played just three games last season and will miss the first four this year. General manager Ryan Poles also recently questioned openly whether Gordon will ever suit up for the Bears again after tension around his injury, rehabilitation and return timetable has boiled over in recent months.
Meanwhile Tyrique Stevenson, the team’s second outside CB, is headed to free agency in 2027 and likely to depart. Newly-acquired defensive back Clark Phillips III, who was primarily a reserve across three seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, is also entering the final year of his rookie deal.
Chicago has serious questions on the defensive front, both the edge and the interior, so keeping Johnson around longterm with another new deal makes considerable sense. But if he plays well over close to a full season, it’s going to cost.
Johnson won’t command the money Gonzalez just got, but he will definitely aim to cut the annual pay gap between himself and the top of the market down from the nearly $15 million at which it currently stands.
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