MOBILE, Ala. — With Ben Johnson at Halas Hall working to assemble his Chicago Bears coaching staff, NFL draft season got rolling this week during Senior Bowl practices in advance of Saturday’s game at Hancock Whitney Stadium on the campus of South Alabama.
Bears general manager Ryan Poles made a one-day appearance Wednesday to see a quality group of prospects. There’s not as much talent here as there was in 2024, but that’s reflective of a more wide-open first round than anything else. It’s a great draft for running backs and there’s good depth at offensive line and tight end — all positions that could be intriguing to the Bears.
Unloading the notebook with what I picked up from three days working the town, including tidbits on free agency, the draft, the coaching staff and more.
1. The prevailing thought during the season was there was no way Kansas City Chiefs right guard Trey Smith would make it to free agency.
Smith has been an anchor for the Chiefs since they drafted him in the sixth round in 2021. He has become one of the best guards in the league and is entering the prime years of his career, as he doesn’t turn 26 until June.
Now there’s growing sentiment that the Chiefs, with other key young players needing to be paid, could allow Smith to enter free agency. Another possibility is using the nonexclusive franchise tag on Smith as a means of engineering a tag-and-trade scenario, as they did in March with cornerback L’Jarius Sneed.
How could the Chiefs, who have to prioritize protecting quarterback Patrick Mahomes, possibly let Smith go?
“He might just get to free agency,” one general manager told me Wednesday morning. “The $20 million guard thing really scares some teams. Teams have seen how the top guards have been paid, and some of them, they don’t want to go there.”
The marketplace for interior offensive linemen has taken off. The highest-paid guard in the league — the Philadelphia Eagles’ Landon Dickerson — will be playing against the Chiefs and Smith in Super Bowl LIX. Dickerson is earning $21 million per season.
Chris Lindstrom of the Atlanta Falcons ($20.5 million average), Quenton Nelson of the Indianapolis Colts ($20 million) and Robert Hunt of the Carolina Panthers ($20 million) are all at or above the figure the GM referenced, and if Smith reaches the open market, he’s a shoo-in to reset the ceiling for guard pay. If the Chiefs use the franchise tag on Smith, it’s expected that figure will come in just above $23 million, a good bump above Dickerson.
Teams used to prioritize paying offensive tackles and tried to save money on the interior, but that has shifted slowly over the last decade and even more in the last five years. Teams have placed a greater emphasis on having a firm pocket for the quarterback to step up into to avoid pressure from the edges. Five other guards earn $17 million or more per season, so it’s not like only a few teams have started opening the vault for the position.
It requires a special player for teams to want to dig that deep for a guard, though, because of the adage that they don’t “score touchdowns or prevent touchdowns.”
“And they don’t protect the edges,” a pro personnel man said. “The first place you have to win in football is on the edges. But Trey Smith is awesome. Young, athletic, incredible run blocker, very good in pass protection. Prime of his career. Championship pedigree now.”
Smith tumbled in the draft when he came out of Tennessee because he had a blood-clot disorder — pulmonary emboli — that no longer should be a worry. He has missed only one game in his career.
It’s easy to see the Bears being a serious player for Smith, considering Ryan Poles was a high-ranking member of the Chiefs front office when Smith was drafted. It’s also easy to envision any number of teams with ample cap space — the New England Patriots, Washington Commanders, Arizona Cardinals, Los Angeles Chargers and Minnesota Vikings, among others — being interested.
If Smith hits the open market, he would have no shortage of suitors. If the Chiefs use the franchise tag on Smith with the intent of trading him, perhaps that could benefit the Bears because Kansas City would have some control over where he went.
The Chiefs dealt Sneed to the Tennessee Titans in March for a 2025 third-round pick and a swap of 2024 seventh-round picks. If all things were close to equal, maybe the Chiefs would prefer to trade Smith to an NFC team? That’s just me thinking aloud.
The Chiefs have a small handful of super-talented young players they need to find a way to pay. Defensive end George Karlaftis, cornerback Trent McDuffie and Smith are in that basket. It’s a great problem to have for the Chiefs, who are going for a three-peat.
If they don’t want to go north of $20 million for Smith — and veteran guard Joe Thuney will be in the final year of a five-year, $80 million contract in 2025 — maybe Smith gets out. I asked around a little about Thuney and whether the Chiefs could move on from him, and the folks I chatted with thought that was unlikely.
Everyone is playing connect-the-dots with Smith and the Bears, and there’s no question it’s something the team is keeping a close eye on. Know this: Lots of teams will be monitoring this situation, and some will be more than willing to make Smith the highest-paid guard in the league if they have the opportunity.
First he has to make it out of Kansas City, and it won’t be an easy decision for the Chiefs after the Super Bowl.
2. Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton was on a quick getaway to Cabo San Lucas when his phone pinged every day he was there.
Each time it was a new request from another team considering hiring one of Payton’s assistants. The Naperville Central and Eastern Illinois graduate joked that it was a little irritating, but it was in jest. This has been a big offseason for members of the Payton coaching tree.
Aaron Glenn, hired as the New York Jets head coach, got his first job as a position coach from Payton in 2016 with the New Orleans Saints. The Bears hired Declan Doyle as offensive coordinator after he worked for two seasons as the Broncos tight ends coach and four before that (three under Payton) as an offensive assistant in New Orleans.
The Detroit Lions hired Broncos passing game coordinator John Morton as their offensive coordinator to replace Ben Johnson. The Jets hired Broncos assistant special teams coach Chris Banjo as their coordinator. Has a team ever supplied three coordinators for other teams in one offseason?
“You take pride in it,” Payton said. “I remember when I first got to New Orleans, Mr. (Tom) Benson (the Saints owner) came in after 2006, we’d lost to the Bears in the (NFC) championship game, and he said, ‘Coach, I don’t like that all the assistants are interviewing for other jobs.’
“I said, ‘Mr. Benson, is that unfamiliar for you?’ I said, ‘You should worry if no one is interested in our assistants.’”
Doyle is interesting because, at 28, he’s the youngest coordinator in the NFL. It’s not the kind of promotion he necessarily was expecting. Neither was Payton, but at the same time, he wasn’t caught off guard that another team would have interest in Doyle.
“I hired him right out of Iowa, sharp, made a good impression,” Payton said. “Came in and he was a good worker. The longer you do this, the more you appreciate coaches that have intelligence but they also wear well in the building. They get along with their staff members.
“Declan is one of those guys that was extremely professional and yet was super smart and therefore super tactful. In other words, he knew the timing of when to interject and maybe when not to as a young coach.”
Quality control coaches will have tells early on if they’re cut out for the business. The jobs are grueling — long hours with lots of demands — and Doyle impressed.
“It happened early,” Payton said. “You observe work ethic and you observe attention to detail. He’d jot me a note at the end of the season. It wasn’t like in any way, shape or form overkill. It was really timely. Tip sheets at the end of each week with the reports and reminders for the tight ends that he would put on my desk. He had great insight and I valued his opinion when we got into the installation meetings. This was from a first-year coach.”