For today’s 30 Day Challenge article, I was tasked with picking one player from any of the other 31 NFL teams that I would want on the Chicago Bears. There are a lot of different directions I could’ve chose to take this prompt.
I’d say there are certainly better quarterbacks in the NFL right now than Caleb Williams, but given his progression from Year 1 to Year 2, his elite playmaking ability in the clutch, and the upside that comes with his youth, I don’t feel the need to pick another quarterback here.
Likewise, there are plenty of elite wide receivers around the league, but I’m perfectly satisfied with the group of weapons the Bears have.
However, there’s a clear weakness on Chicago’s roster heading into 2026, and it’s their defensive line. They struggled significantly with creating pressure and getting to the quarterback on a four-man rush, and they didn’t do much of anything this offseason to address that issue. If there’s one thing that holds the Bears back from Super Bowl contention this year, I anticipate it would be a lack of improvement in the defensive trenches.
That being said, my positional focus was easy. I just needed to answer the question: who is the best defensive lineman in the NFL currently? By practically all metrics, it’s the player who just broke the single-season sack record and turned the football world on its axis when he got traded in the beginning of June: Myles Garrett.
This exercise doesn’t consider any draft capital needed to acquire these players, making Garrett an even more obvious selection for me. He’s reached double-digit sacks in each of the last eight seasons, most notably breaking the aforementioned sack record with 23.0 sacks in 2025. He’s led the NFL in tackles for loss in each of the last two seasons. Garrett’s 95.6 PFN EDGE Impact Score predictably led all edge rushers last year, and he’s been a first-team All-Pro in five of his last six seasons.
Simply put: Garrett is a physical specimen. At 6’4” and 272 pounds, he’s a shredded human being whose elite play strength helps him bury offensive tackles and punish quarterbacks in opposing backfields. He has a deep arsenal of pass-rushing moves he can string together to shed blocks; as an incoming 10-year veteran, there’s no pass set or any offensive line tendency that he doesn’t know how to exploit. He’s very explosive for his size, and the sheer presence of him off the edge draws double- or even triple-team blocks, thus opening up opportunities for his teammates along the defensive line.
Garrett was a one-man wrecking crew his entire tenure with the Browns. Now that he’s heading to a loaded Rams defensive line that features Byron Young, Kobie Turner, and Braden Fiske up front, there could be even more chances for him to feast, which is a scary thought given how good Garrett’s 2025 campaign was. If you factor in Poona Ford on run downs and the possibility of Aaron Donald coming out of retirement, that’s easily the best defensive line in the NFL.
Obviously, Garrett wouldn’t have that same luxury coming to Chicago. That said, an edge-rushing duo of Myles Garrett and Montez Sweat would give the Bears one of the best tandems in the league, and it would put a lot of pressure off of Sweat to be the one-man pass-rushing machine that he’s perhaps unfairly been expected to be given the lack of talent around him. Austin Booker is an ascending young talent off the edge whom you could rotate into the mix in this scenario, as well.
Factoring into positional value, the level of need the Bears have along the defensive line, and just how consistently dominant he’s been in his NFL career, Myles Garrett stands out as the one player on another team I wish the Bears had.
Now it’s your turn. Who’s one player on another NFL team you wish the Bears had? Sound off in the comments below.
