Jaylon Johnson will be a franchise cornerstone for the Chicago Bears for more than just this season.
Chicago and the cornerback reached an agreement on a new four-year contract on Thursday. Jordan Schultz, an NFL insider, said the deal is for $76 million.
This comes after the Bears revealed on March 5 that they had placed a non-exclusive franchise tag on the cornerback, which Spotrac estimated was worth $19.8 million. Because it was a non-exclusive tag, Johnson could have signed elsewhere, but Chicago could have matched the offer or denied it and obtained two first-round draft picks from the team that added him.
Given how expensive signing Johnson would have been for another team, especially with the two first-round draft picks included in the deal, putting the tag on Johnson almost guaranteed he’d play in Chicago until at least 2024.
However, Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports stated that the Bears were still negotiating on a long-term contract with the cornerback that would keep him in Chicago beyond the 2017 season.
That deal came with this move, which is quite a contrast to when the team gave him permission to seek a trade in October.
Despite all of the uncertainty, Johnson told ESPN’s Courtney Cronin in December that he “would want to continue” with the Bears, adding, “I feel like we are Building something special, especially for the boys in the locker area. It’s something I don’t think I can find anywhere else.”
