Jedrick Wills isn’t arriving in Chicago with the kind of buzz that usually follows a former No. 10 overall pick. That’s not the point. For the Bears, he’s the kind of low-risk addition teams make when they need depth, competition, and a little insurance behind the scenes.
With Ozzy Trapilo sidelined by injury, the Bears had room to bring in another body for the left tackle mix. Wills fits that bill.
He comes in after the Cleveland Browns essentially moved on from him, and the sense around him is that his career had drifted to the edge. Once viewed as a high-end talent out of Alabama, he’s now trying to simply get back on the field and stay there.
That’s where the comeback angle starts to matter.
I spoke with FanSided Browns expert Ryan O’Leary about what Wills might realistically offer the Bears, and his view was cautious but not dismissive. "This summer should be all about baby steps, really.
If Wills can hold up throughout camp, prove his body can handle a full NFL season for the first time since 2022, and perform well in preseason games, he could absolutely be a serviceable swing tackle or depth lineman. He’s only 27 and has a real shot to resurrect his NFL career this summer.
The deck is certainly stacked against him, but I certainly wouldn’t rule him out until the pads come on."
That’s the crux of it. Wills doesn’t need to win a starting job to make this worthwhile. He just needs to show he can survive camp, handle the workload, and look dependable enough to stick as a reserve.
The health history is what makes this such a long shot. Wills has dealt with ankle, shin, knee, and hip issues, and the source of it all goes even deeper: surgery to realign his femur with his hip. For a player with that kind of injury list, plenty of people would already have written the ending.
But there’s still a path here. Wills played 15 games in 2020, 13 in 2021, and 17 in 2022, so he has shown before that he can stay available. If sitting out all of 2025 was the reset his body needed, then maybe there’s still something left to salvage.
Nobody’s pretending he’s about to turn back into the player who heard his name called in the first round. That version is probably gone. Still, a healthy camp and a steady preseason could be enough to make him useful again, and that would count as a real turnaround for a player who has been through more than enough.
Bears fans know what a true recovery story can feel like. Zach Miller’s comeback after tearing up his knee and nearly losing his leg still stands out as the kind of thing that pulls people in beyond football. Wills isn’t in that exact situation, but the emotional pull is similar: a player counted out, trying to claw his way back.
And while the attention at training camp will naturally go to Caleb Williams, Luther Burden III, and the rest of the bigger names, Wills is the kind of under-the-radar story worth keeping an eye on. If the bounce-back happens, it won’t just be a depth move that worked out. It’ll be one of those rare, satisfying football turnarounds that people can actually root for.
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Bears Suddenly Have A Reason To Believe In Caleb Williams' Protection
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NFL analyst Warren Sharp even went as far as ranking Chicagos line sixth in the league, a sign that the units stability is being taken seriously outside Halas Hall. If that evaluation holds and the front five comes together the way it appears capable of, the Bears could be looking at more than just better protection for Williams - they could be building the kind of foundation that changes the ceiling of the entire roster. [Read more 🡒]