It’s time to kick off our next yearly off-season series, where we look at interesting training camp battles that could develop throughout July and August. As always, we will unveil these throughout July as we inch closer to the players reporting to training camp. Let’s kick it off on the defensive side of the ball at linebacker, with TJ Edwards and D’Marco Jackson.
The Bears have done quite a heavy facelift to their linebacker room over the last couple of years. They have added quite a few new faces
to the room, and at the top of the list is linebacker Devin Bush, whom the Bears signed as their top linebacker this offseason. Bush was a first-round pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers and had a solid rookie campaign before injuries derailed his career. He started rebounding the back half of the 2024 season in Cleveland and turned in a strong 2025 season. The Bears hope Bush can build on that and start fulfilling the promise he had as a rookie in Pittsburgh. For Bush to do that, he’s going to need a good running mate next to him.
As I often state when I look at a starting defense, I look at Nickel, and I don’t look at Base. In the modern NFL, I consider two linebackers to be starters and the third (SAM) to be a backup. Yes, the third linebacker sees a good chunk of snaps throughout the season, spotting the starters when they are injured and coming into games in base or big packages, but it’s still a significant drop-off. The team’s second linebacker is expected to be out there for 100% of the defensive snaps or close to it; the third linebacker will probably play about 25% of the snaps.
That makes this battle between Edwards and Jackson interesting. When Edwards first arrived, playing in Matt Eberflus’ system, he excelled. He had an outstanding first year and had a strong first half of his second season as well. Edwards started to falter in the second half of the 2024 season. Many fans wanted to chalk it up to the entire dumpster fire that was the Bears’ 2024 season and not so much on Edwards himself, but regardless, there was a drop-off in play. In 2025, Edwards did not play as well in Dennis Allen’s system as he did in Eberflus’ and the Bears brought in D’Marco Jackson, who played with Dennis Allen in New Orleans as a rookie.
Jackson played well when he had opportunities, including earning defensive player of the week honors at one point. Jackson is younger and appears to be a better fit for Dennis Allen’s scheme than Edwards. Jackson has more athleticism and better coverage skills and fits better with how Allen wants his linebackers to operate.
But Edwards is a veteran who has good instincts, especially in the run game. How healthy Edwards will be during training camp will be another issue facing this competition. All indications appear that Edwards is recovering well from his significant leg injury that he suffered last year in the playoffs, but as a player who turns 30 this August, Edwards can’t afford to lose another step and compete against Jackson in this speed-oriented defense.
The truth is, had Ryan Poles not given Edwards an extension after the 2024 season, he almost certainly wouldn’t be here anymore, and the job would be Jackson’s. But the Bears defense has a lot of players who don’t seem slated to be significant contributors in 2026 but have salaries that say they were, at some point, expected to be. Edwards is one of them.
Can the veteran fully recover from his injury and hold off the younger, more athletic Jackson? In my eyes, that’s going to be an uphill battle. Jackson has the upper hand in my opinion, despite many media members and websites just writing Edwards’ name next to Bush’s as the team’s LB2.
Knowing what Dennis Allen wants out of his defenders, that would surprise me. I think Jackson earns the team’s starting linebacker spot next to Bush, and Edwards finds himself as a versatile LB3 that can fill in for both linebackers if they are hurt, and if everyone is healthy, he can come in for base packages.
