The Chicago Bears are expected to offer one of their top defensive starters a lucrative contract in the offseason.
“He’ll be expensive, but he’ll hardly reset the market at his age,” Infante wrote. “Harrison Smith got a one-year extension from the [Minnesota] Vikings this past offseason worth a little over $10 million. Because Byard is having a better year than Smith’s 2024 and [is] three-and-a-half years younger, he gets a two-year deal with over $1 million more annually.”
Byard signed a two-year contract worth $15 million to join the Bears ahead of the 2024 campaign, which turned out to be a steal for Chicago’s secondary.
Part of what has made Byard so important to the Bears’ defense this season is his propensity for takeaways.
Chicago owns just the 24th-ranked defense in the league through Week 16, but the opportunistic unit leads the NFL in turnovers created, and Byard has been a key element in that crucial statistic.
