The Chicago Bears’ interior offensive linemen are the new Monsters of the Midway

The Bears’ NFL free agency haul fixed their biggest weakness and forged a new identity

The Chicago Bears as a franchise have always been known far more for stout and amazing defenses than they have been for revolutionary offenses. The “Monsters of the Midway” moniker always referred to the Bears’ defenses from the eras of Bill George and Dick Butkus all the way up to the more modern times of Charles “Peanut” Tillman and Brian Urlacher.

But now, with new head coach Ben Johnson in charge of things, the Bears’ new “Monsters of the Midway” live comfortably along the team’s interior offensive line. This was very much a part of a plan that began with the hire of Johnson, formerly the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator, and it extended to not only improving, but outright flipping major parts of the front five as the analyzed needs arose.

“We want a physical group,” Johnson said from the scouting combine in late February. “Alright? It starts with that. And that’s not just the offensive line – that’s the entire team. DA [defensive coordinator Dennis Allen] and I have been talking about what that looks like on defense. It’s going to look that way on offense. It starts in the trenches up front. We talk about finishing in a dominant position. We want to be around the football. The best football players, they finish around the ball. So, that’s what you’re going to see from the five guys that we roll into. And it’s not just going to be five. The last few years, it ends up being six, seven, eight, nine guys end up playing a significant number of snaps. So, we got to find those five best guys, but we also have to get a good bullpen, if you will, ready to go in at a moment’s notice.”

As far as flipping the line with major changes, Johnson had no issue with that at all.

Yeah, I think it’s been done before,” he said. “Right? I mean, there are a number of teams that did that last year. The Panthers come to mind when they went out in free agency and got a couple top guards, really changed the dynamic of their offense. You saw them clicking there in the second half of the season once they started to really gel. There’s no question that you can change the dynamic of a room just like that. That particular room, it does take time for five guys to come together. Especially if you have to deal with attrition and injuries for five guys to be working on the same page.

“When you watch the tape and you come away with… I think I made the statement in my opening press conference, that’s an area we have to get better. That doesn’t necessarily mean we need five new starters, because all it takes is one individual to blow up a play. And so we’re just identifying where we can get a little bit better, and we’re going to continue to raise that floor, and we’ll find the right mix of five to eight, nine, 10 guys.”

Well, let’s start with three. The Bears have officially flipped the entire interior of their offensive line with three major moves. The first move that took place happened on March 4, when Chicago traded a 2025 sixth-round draft pick to the Los Angeles Rams for guard Jonah Jackson. The Bears also took on the remainder of the three year, $51 million contract with $34 million guaranteed that Jackson signed before the 2024 season.

That 2024 season didn’t work out for Jackson or for the Rams in that regard. Jackson suffered a fractured scapula in September and was only able to play four regular-season games, and one snap in Los Angeles’ divisional-round loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

What Johnson was likely looking at with this trade was how well Jackson had played for the Lions under Johnson’s purview. Because in 2023, Jackson was a great guard in about every way you want a guard to be.

It took the Bears exactly one day to drop the next hammer; that happened when they sent a 2026 fourth-round pick to the Kansas City Chiefs for Joe Thuney, one of the best guards of his era, and a guy who had to fill in at left tackle down the stretch for the AFC champions when their left tackle situation fell apart. The Bears took on $16 million in salary cap with Thuney, as he’s on the last year of the five year, $80 million contract he signed with Kansas City in 2021. Thuney is nobody’s idea of an ideal left tackle, but as a pure guard, the 32-year-old has quite a bit left in the tank.

Then, on Monday, the Bears took the best center on the open market off the open market in Drew Dalman, formerly of the Falcons. Dalman has a new three-year, $42 million deal with $28 million guaranteed. Like Thuney, Dalman is more technician than mauler, though he can get grimy when the need arises.

More importantly, both Dalman and Thuney have the intellectual chops to block up Johnson’s run concepts, which were among the NFL’s most varied and effective when he ran the Lions’ offense. And Jackson will have no trouble remembering the entire playbook.

Do the Bears still have some questions to answer at their tackle spots? Absolutely. Left tackle Braxton Jones allowed five sacks and 26 total pressures on 471 pass-blocking reps last season, right tackle Darnell Wright gave up six sacks and 30 total pressures on 662 pass-blocking snaps, and swing tackle Larry Borom got absolutely viced on both sides of the line in 2024, allowing seven sacks and 22 total pressures on just 237 pass-blocking chances.

But Chicago also has the 10th, 39th, and 41st picks in the 2025 draft if they want to reinforce those positions early on in late April, and the free-agency additions of defensive linemen Grady Jarrett and Dayo Odeyingbo give Johnson and general manager Ryan Poles the flexibility to focus on other spots with the other side of the interior also bolstered in a very positive sense.

So, the Bears’ new Monsters of the Midway are indeed on the offensive side of the ball. We’ll see how Ben Johnson, quarterback Caleb Wiliams, and the rest of that offense benefits, but based on the talent and the plan, the effects could be game-changing.