Just six months ago, signing with the Bears was a personal highlight for Tremaine Edmunds — a $72 million ($50 million guaranteed) reward for four successful years of development and growth as an impact linebacker with the Bills.
And the reward wasn’t just the money, but the stature. With the Bills, Edmunds was another good player on a top-flight NFL defense. With the Bears he was a leader — the rare player who was named a team captain before he had even played a game for them.
It wasn’t just a well-earned payday, but a chance to take his game to another level, be even better than he was with the Bills. Even with the big contract, he had a chance to outplay the deal.
Edmunds still has the opportunity to do that — he’s only three games into his first season with the Bears. But just those three games have already put him in a much different world than he’s been. The Bears are not just 0-3, but a bad 0-3 — with losses to the Packers (38-20), Buccaneers (27-17) and Chiefs (41-10). The Bears’ defense ranks 31st in points allowed, tied for 29th in yards and 32nd in sacks (one), with no takeaways except for two interceptions against Chiefs back-up Blaine Gabbert in garbage time Sunday.
Edmunds has been caught in the undertow of that slow start. He has 26 tackles in three games, with two tackles for loss. But he hasn’t made the high-impact plays that spark the defense or alter the course of a game.
“I disagree with that,” Bears coach Matt Eberflus said. “He’s made a lot of tackles in there and you felt him. He’s had a lot of nice big hits that I think will generate enthusiasm. And as he does those, he has to do a good job of punching the ball at the same time to create impact plays.”
It’s only three games, but therein likes one problem with the Bears plan to upgrade their defense. They paid $72 million to a linebacker who has to be taught to create turnovers. Not exactly plug-and-play.
“We’re working on that,” Eberflus said. “We’re working on lowering his tackling a little bit to make sure he can get to that position where you need to be to create those big plays. And he’s gonna work diligently to get that done.”
Fellow linebacker T.J. Edwards feels similar pain — maybe even more so as a Chicago-area player. He signed a three-year, $19.5 million contract with his hometown team after four productive seasons with the Eagles. He was the leading tackler on a team that went to the Super Bowl last year.
But, like Edmunds, he’s already lost as many games with the Bears as he did in the regular season last year. Edwards also has been a solid tackler with the Bears — he leads them with 31 in three games. But, like Edmunds, the big-play impact hasn’t been there.
Like Edmunds, he’s facing a harsh reality so far with the Bears. He’s not in Philadelphia anymore. The heat already is on.
“I understand it. I’m [from] here, so I get it,” Edwards said. “I understand the media and how it all works, so the mindset we have right now is just focusing on next week.
“We can’t really control what people are saying or what the past has looked. We want to change what’s happening right now. That just takes us coming in every day and coming together. We haven’t really done a very good job of that through all this time, so coming together now, we’ve just to execute it.”
