After leading the league in sacks allowed in 2024, the Chicago Bears knew they had to do something to protect Caleb Williams better, sometimes even from himself.
Enter center Drew Dalman and guards Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson. The Bears brought the veteran trio in, moving on from all three of their projected 2024 starters, Coleman Shelton at center and Nate Davis(who ceded his job to Matt Pryor), and Teven Jenkins at the guard spots.
Ahead of their regular-season debut together, everything is literally on the line for the Bears.
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The Bears invested over $91 million in their new interior trio, where Jackson and Thuney have earned Pro Bowl trips (the latter adding All-Pro honors and four Super Bowl wins to his resume), and Dalman was the top player available at his position in free agency this past offseason.
Dalman’s role is quite literally pivotal.
Pro Football Focus gave him the fifth-highest grade at center last season. He was the sixth-highest-graded run blocker, but his pass blocking grade ranked 22nd.
However, he is also heavily reliant on Jackson and Thuney to do their jobs so that he can do his and deliver proper snaps to Williams. To that end, Dalman is appreciative of playing next to two accomplished players like his new interior linemates.
“Jonah’s awesome,” Dalman told Clocker Sports before last Tuesday’s practice. “Awesome player, which everybody knows. But great guy in the locker room, great guy at practice. Just a fun dude to have around and keep the mood up, and he’s always ready to go when the time comes.”
Playing with guys like Jonah, and Joe, and Braxton [Jones], and – honestly, everybody in the room. Everybody’s working hard. We’re all pulling in the same direction. So, I feel like that jelling is happening. And it’s fun, and it’s something that you continue to work on, you never really arrive at, in my opinion. So, I think we’re just continuing to build on that.”
Jackson was equally as effusive in his praise for Dalman, saying playing next to him is “great.”
“He’s a very smart guy,” Jackson told Clocker Sports on September 2. “Joe, too. He’s a savvy vet. So, being able to work with those two guys, and then the guys on the edges, is great. I feel like we’re jelling like we need to at this point, and excited to get the season rolling.”
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Their jelling is critical, and the Bears have experienced their fair share of issues with that this offseason, mostly showing up in porous pockets early in the preseason and presnap penalties.
Thuney showed his savviness, downplaying the severity of the hiccups as “part of the process.”
“It’s a process. We’re always working, always trying to get better pre-snap and cut those things out. And I think as a unit, we’re just trying to really play more mistake-free ball, but it’s just part of it,” Thuney told Clocker Sports on Wednesday. “Just trying to improve as a group.”
Likewise, Jackson said getting three new OL on the same page is “not that difficult.”
“We all jell together pretty well,” Jackson told Clocker Sports. “We’re all kind of the same makeup of person. So, I’d say the transition’s been pretty seamless.”
Thuney was the 11th-best guard in 2024, per PFF, though he slid out to tackle due to need with the Kansas City Chiefs. Thuney was fifth in pass protection and 20th in run blocking, which, in theory, suggests he and Dalman should mesh well.
Jackson was limited to four games with the Los Angeles Rams in 2024 due to an injury.
Jackson was a Pro Bowler in 2021 with the Detroit Lions, the year before Bears head coach Ben Johnson went from his now-NFC North rival’s tight ends coach to offensive coordinator.
It has been a downward trend for him since then, though, so his position could be the one to watch when the Bears take the field against a blitz-happy Minnesota Vikings team, but Bears right tackle Darnell Wright is enjoying the consistency Jackson has brought.
“He’s been good. Obviously, he’s a Pro Bowl player, played a lot of games, a lot of snaps,” Wright told Clocker Sports on Saturday. “It’s been really good just to have somebody consistently beside me for a long time. We’ve just been working together, working the kinks out. Everything’s just, yeah, pretty good.
“They’ve been working. Obviously, yeah, it’s a different position than I play. But I will say, not even just those three, but all five of us kind of just all been working together, good.”
Therein lies another key piece of the puzzle for the Bears.
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Wright said that his goals for this season are to “just try to be one of the best players. Go out every day, play good,” and that he did not have a singular area of focus, “but just improving in all areas really much.”
Wright earned better grades from PFF in his second season in 2024 than he did as a rookie in 2023, which is not the end-all, be-all for evaluating players by any means.
However, Bears offensive line coach Dan Roushar has also cited lapses in the RT’s focus.
The Bears need Wright and Jones to perform better in 2025 if they are going to succeed. Jones similarly saw his grades improve from Year 2 to Year 3, but he faced an onslaught of challengers for his job while he recovered from ankle surgery that cut his 2024 campaign short.
Jones ranked in the high 30s and low 40s among tackles in PFF’s rankings in 2024. Meanwhile, Wright’s grades swung wildly from 77th in pass protection to 48th in run blocking.
Improvement on the edges is just as vital as keeping pressure out of Williams’ lap.
Caleb Williams’ Accountability
Many coaches will pound the table that sacks are, in fact, mostly on quarterbacks and not the offensive line. Denver Broncos head coach and former lockout-Bears quarterback, Sean Payton, is among the most vocal in that regard.
To that end, Williams has accepted responsibility for his role in the number of sacks that he took as a rookie, as well as many of the other miscues the Bears have had.
Turning that into sustained positive play is a critical next step, and having a remade OL helps.
In a key contrast, Johnson has cited his lack of concern with interceptions in the proper context. Payton has mentioned his quarterback, Bo Nix, the No. 12 overall pick of the same 2024 draft class in which the Bears selected Williams No. 1 overall, and his lack of negative plays.
On Sunday, Nix had 2 interceptions and lost his fumble. However, the Broncos still notched a win over a lowly Tennessee Titans team.
Williams may not get the same kind of grace from the Vikings.
He can still go a long way toward proving his hard-knock lessons were not in vain on Monday night. That is true even if it does not look like the most picturesque performances. Not giving up unnecessary yardage on sacks is a fitting place to start for Williams and the Bears’ O-line.
Moreover, getting the ball out quickly to his plethora of playmakers will be imperative to helping take some pressure off an offensive line still getting a feel for one another.