After the trade of Gervon Dexter, most of us Chicago Bears fans just assumed that Neville Gallimore and Grady Jarrett would be the starting defensive tackles on the team. Jarrett got a decent chunk of change from the Bears last year, and Gallimore was given a healthy raise when they brought him in as a free agent in March.
But Dennis Allen was addressing the media about his unit and said something that had some Bears fans buzzing.
Many Bears fans took this as a positive. The idea of Street being a surprise and elevating the unit.
I don’t see it as a positive for Street; I see it as a negative for the rest of the defensive line.
We know who Kentavius Street is already. There’s no reason to believe that he’s unlocked a new level of his talent.
Street is a 30-year-old defensive tackle. He was a fourth-round selection by the San Francisco 49ers. He missed almost all of his first two seasons due to injury. He did play most of his final two seasons of his rookie contract with SF, but the 49ers didn’t see him as part of their future and they chose to let him go via free agency.
He then went to the New Orleans Saints, signed a league minimum contract, and had a decent year as a rotational DT, but the Saints, like the Niners, chose to let him go via free agency.
Street then got a contract from the Eagles in 2023. It was another league minimum deal. Later that year, Grady Jarrett (then of the Falcons) was injured, and Atlanta needed DL help and traded a 6th-round pick for Street.
The Falcons decided to retain Street to a one year contract (his highest ever at $1.7 million per season), he had a pretty lackluster 2024 season, but they did bring him back in 2025 on a league minimum deal. However, Street didn’t make the 53-man roster, was cut during roster cutdowns, and spent most of the season on their practice squad. He was elevated late in the year and played pretty well the final few games of the season.
But Street left Atlanta for another league minimum deal in Chicago.
Why did I just spend paragraphs going through Street’s career? Because a tiger doesn’t change his stripes. Street is who he is. He’s been in the league for almost a decade and has been nothing more than a rotational defensive tackle.
He has 10 career starts and spent most of last season on a practice squad. Defensive tackles who are 30 don’t suddenly become significant contributors. If Street is playing better than the rest of the team’s defensive tackles, that tells you the other tackles aren’t playing well, not that Street is.
The Chicago Bears have a defensive tackle problem. This isn’t a new opinion; this is an opinion many have held all offseason.
However, with that quote from Dennis Allen, the defensive line might be in even worse shape than even the most pessimistic of fans believed it was.
Ben Johnson said everyone needs to coach better this year. Dennis Allen agreed with him. If Allen is going to unlock this defense, he may be the first person to make chicken salad out of chicken, you know what.
