Chicago Bears must attack the trenches in 2026 NFL Draft
The Chicago Bears have several needs heading into the 2026 NFL Draft, but they must address the trenches on both sides of the ball.
No team in the NFL is perfect. With the way that the hard salary cap is in place, nothing is set in stone from year to year in terms of what a team's overall production will be. Even the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks lost some very important players who must now be replaced.
For a team like the Chicago Bears , they have to battle replacing those that they lost, in addition to shoring up any areas of weakness that were already in place. Whenever you don't win the Super Bowl, you must ask why. Last summer, between the NFL draft and free agency, the Bears added All-Pro Joe Thuney, Drew Dalman, Jonah Jackson and rookie Ozzy Trapilo to their offensive line.
With Darnell Wright already in place, they made a major improvement from the year prior. However, Trapilo is going to miss most of the 2026 season after rupturing his patellar tendon in the wild-card playoffs, and Dalman retired just one year into his contract at 27 years old. These unexpected twists make the offensive line a point of emphasis.
When the offensive line was playing well, the impact they had on the game was obvious. Quarterback Caleb Williams was sacked just 25 times, including the postseason, the Bears had the third-best rushing attack in the league and they had a top-10 scoring offense. In the 2026 NFL Draft, finding help at left tackle and/or center to replace the injured Trapilo and retired Dalman must be at the top of general manager Ryan Poles' to-do list.