Chicago Bears Retain John Timu

The Chicago Bears made it official and announced the re-signing of ILB John Timu.

After the Chicago Bears tremendous activity in free agency over the first few days, they remained very quiet over the next week. The Bears certainly don’t have a finished roster and need to add more players than just what they will get in the draft. The biggest glaring need is depth at multiple positions, including inside linebacker.

With the departure of Christian Jones to the Detroit Lions, the Bears didn’t have any inside backers behind Nick Kwiatkoski and Danny Trevathan, but with this announcement, the Bears are finally starting to work on building up their depth.

https://twitter.com/chicagobears/status/976879826870128640?s=21

The Bears brought back John Timu as a depth piece behind Trevathan and Kwiatkoski. The move is a smart one. Timu has been a solid sub at the linebacker spot and already knows Vic Fangio’s system. When both Kwiatkoski and Trevathan were out with injuries, it was Timu, not Jones, who made the defensive calls, when Jones did it he struggled mightily which may have been one of the reasons the Bears chose not to bring him back.

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Timu made 13 tackles with one pass defended in two starts last year. He will be called upon to step up and become more of a contributor this year with Jones out.

The Bears aren’t done addressing their inside linebacker group. They need to add one more name in free agency. They may address the position in the draft and could even do it with the eighth overall pick (see Trumaine Edmunds), but assuming you’ll address a position in the draft is risky, you never know how the draft will break and can’t rely on getting certain positions at certain times.

The Bears need to sign another inside linebacker to a non-guaranteed deal, someone like Gerald Hodges, that way the defense is covered and if they do manage to draft an ILB, Timu and the other free agent additional can battle it out in training camp for the other backup linebacker spot.