After an injury-riddled 2025 season, Chicago Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson made it clear how he viewed this season back in August.
"This is definitely a contract year," Johnson said, via ESPN's Courtney Cronin. "We all know with the cap hit and all that stuff. It's definitely a contract year for me. At the end of the day, whether that's here, somewhere else, I've gotta put it on tape that I'm still a top guy in this league."
Johnson is of course technically under contract through 2027, but his $25 million cap hit is not very tenable and he'd be ripe for an extension or a restructuring at some point.
After a breakthrough season in 2023, the Bears gladly rewarded Johnson with a four-year, $76 million contract extension. Treating this like a contract year under the aforementioned circumstances is absolutely warranted.
However, Johnson has not performed like someone who is deserving of a new contract. Entering Week 9 he has posted a 38.1 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, which is 97th out of 102 qualifying cornerbacks. He is allowing the highest passer rating (124.3), yards per target (13.0) and completion percentage (73.7) of his career. To make matters worse, he has nine missed tackles in eight games.
It's frankly worth wondering if Johnson is still not full healthy after last year's major groin injury. But he hasn't appeared on the injury report, and he has played at least 95 percent of the defensive snaps in seven games.
So maybe this is just who Johnson is now, for better or largely worse the way things are going so far this season.
Jaylon Johnson seems to know he's on thin ice (as he should)
The Bears should be, and apparently are, in the cornerback market before the trade deadline next Tuesday afternoon. The way Johnson and Tyrique Stevenson have performed, one or both of them needs to be knocked off the top line of the cornerback depth chart.
Johnson surely knows he needs to pick up his game in short order, or he will be replaced by an outside acquisition or simply benched. A recent post from him on Instagram took things a step further though.
"(They don't love you no more)"
"You don't love me no more?"
"All the s**t I've done for you, you don't love me no more?"
Reading into the meaning of social media posts is an incredibly slippery slope, and Johnson could've been posting about something completely unrelated to football. If he were to be asked, he would surely say this post had nothing to do with football or the Bears.
That said, Johnson has to be feeling the heat. Beyond any negative consequences that may be coming for this season, in terms of a performance-related demotion, he is also falling well short of his hopes and expectations in a self-proclaimed contract year. Not only does that push it toward likely he is not a Bear in 2027, the market for his services come the offseason is being diminished with each week's dismal performance.
If he is not totally healthy, the Week 10 bye could be good for Johnson. The trouble is a demotion is already in play when the Bears return to action after the trade deadline, and it may be too late for him to prove he deserves otherwise.
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