This is it: the top three of our 10 Chicago Bears with the most to prove in 2026. We’ve seen one special teams player, two offensive players, and four defensive players make the list so far. Based on 2025 performances, it’s no surprise that the next player is also on the defensive side of the ball.
He may be motivated, but Dayo Odeyingbo still comes in at number 3 on our list of the ten Chicago Bears with the most to prove.
Gervon Dexter came in at 5, Grady Jarrett came in at 4, and now Odeyingbo comes
in at 3. It’s probably not great when three of the four players who were expected to be starting defensive linemen all come in a row in the top five, but when the defensive line performs as it did in 2025, it shouldn’t be too surprising.
The Bears signed Odeyingbo to a three-year deal last offseason worth $48 million. Some fans were hopeful Odeyingbo was going to improve and that the contract would age well, but it didn’t take long (mid September) for people to realize that the contract may have been a pretty serious mistake.
Odeyingbo struggled mightily all season. In 8 games, he recorded one sack and just six pressures. Six pressures? Six? SIX?!?
Yes, six.
Odeyingbo’s pass rush was nonexistent, and his run defense was just as bad. Odeyingbo’s run defense was supposed to be his strength, and he was going to grow into a pass rusher. Neither thing happened.
To make matters worse, Odeyingo ruptured his Achilles tendon in October and missed the rest of the season. The tendon rupture was his second in the last five years.
When players suffer a significant leg injury like a tendon rupture or a ligament tear, the medical consensus is that a player doesn’t return to their previous form until the following year. If Odeyingbo is a lesser version of 2025 Dayo, he will be unplayable. If we’re being honest, the 2025 Dayo version WAS unplayable.
Dayo enters 2026 as the butt of a lot of jokes. Motivated Dayo has been across social media platforms all offseason long, and I think most Bears fans assume that the Bears won’t get much at all from Odeyingbo this year either.
The Bears are speaking positively about Dayo so far this offseason, but what would you expect Ryan Poles and company to say at this point?
I think at this point, Odeyingbo is probably at about a 99.5% likelihood of being released after this season. The only reason they couldn’t do this year is that his contract still had way too much guaranteed money. Odeyingbo would have to have such massive improvements to his play that he would be in line for comeback player of the year.
His cap hit for 2027 is $19.5 million. He would have to land about 8 sacks, maybe even 10, consistently pressure the QB even when he isn’t recording sacks, while setting a really nice edge in the run game and playing close to 17 games next year.
That almost seems like an impossibility. Could Odeyingbo have a career-best year coming off a ruptured Achilles in a scheme he struggled in? It’s always possible, but it certainly isn’t being counted on by anyone in Chicago. The Bears claim they are counting on him, but odds are that’s just lip service to the media.
Odeyingbo has to climb Mount Everest to return in 2027, but stranger things have happened. That’s why Dayo Odeyingbo finds himself at number three on our 10 Chicago Bears with the most to prove.
