Of all of the Ryan Pace Chicago Bears due to get an extension this offseason Jaylon Johnson may be the most interesting. He probably has the highest highs on tape, and the highest upside moving forward. However, he also has just enough flaws in his game that may make the team hesitant about where he stands in their future plans.
The Chicago Bears may try to get an extension done this offseason, but if they do not, there will be specific things the team is looking for to see if he is worth the deal. If he does sign an extension, this is what fans should want to see to show he has taken a step forward.
3. The Chicago Bears need more interceptions from Jaylon Johnson
It is not hard to read his stats and see one glaring number. Jaylon Johnson has just one interception in his NFL career. It came during the 2021 season, and two of his three years have been blanked out in that regard.
We recently looked into players who are in a price range of contracts that may end up similar to Jaylon Johnson. What we saw is that he is well below all of these names in interception rate. He gets a pick on 0.53% of his targets. For comparison, Charvarius Ward is at 1.28%, Carlton Davis is at 1.58%, DJ Reed is at 2.12%, Jamel Dean is at 2.46%, Cam Sutton is at 2.95%, and JC Jackson is at 7.49%.
Jaylon Johnson is going to point at these names and say he wants a contract like them. The Chicago Bears are going to point and say that they all have an interception rate nearly twice as high.
What is interesting about Johnson is that he does appear to be ball aware. He has a forced incompletion rate of 14.2% in his career. This is a better rate than any of the names mentioned above. Last season he had the same forced incompletion rate as Jalen Ramsey, and Ramsey had four picks.
So, it is not for the lack of getting his hands on the football. It is just about bringing the ball in and securing the catch. This is important for Johnson and would increase his value substantially. The difference between an incomplete pass and a new down, and a turnover that gives your team the ball is major. Teams pay big money for players who can bridge that gap.
The Chicago Bears have not seen Johnson take that step, and it is why they will offer him lower than top-tier cornerback money.
2. Jaylon Johnson must allow TDs at a lower rate for the Chicago Bears
Jaylon Johnson is pretty reliable, but you cannot help but see that Jaylon Johnson has allowed 12 touchdowns over the course of his career. He allows a touchdown every 6.32% of the targets that he faces. This is an issue that he will have to improve on. Especially when you see 12 TDs allowed to just one interception.
In comparison to players who are in a tier of cornerbacks who may have similar contracts to what Johnson wants, this is not a good number. For instance, Charvarius Ward is at 3.57%, and Jamel Dean is at 4.91%. If Johnson wants to be in the range of these names, he has to improve.
It is worth noting that he allowed 11 touchdowns during his first two seasons, and he allowed just one last season. Some of this can be saying that he is more comfortable in the scheme that Matt Eberflus is running, and also he is improving. However, he also missed time due to injury this year, and he was targeted far less often due to the huge question marks around him rather than someone like Kyle Fuller.
The Chicago Bears worked to improve their cornerback room, and there should not be such an easy person to pick on this year. Now, we will see if Jaylon Johnson can sustain his run of keeping receivers out of the end zone, or we will see that he may just struggle in this area, and once the volume of targets increased, the volume of touchdowns went back up again, too.
1. Chicago Bears have to see Jaylon Johnson improve in man coverage
If you had to use one term to describe Jaylon Johnson, it would be a zone cornerback. He is best when he stays on one side of the field, and he defends the sideline better than the middle area of the field. He is also at his best when he can put his eyes on the quarterback and read the play, as we know he is not best at reading the ball.
So, this is no surprise that he has some noticable splits in zone and man coverag. He allows 1.37 yards per coverage snap in man coverage and he allows 1.08 in zone coverage. That essentially takes him from an average cornerback to a great one. He is below average in man, and he is well above average in zone.
Even more stunning is his stats in the slot. He has just 27 snaps in the slot, and allowed 186 yards. That is 6.89 yards per snap. If you just took out the snaps that Johnson was asked to play in the slot his career yards per snap would drop from 1.12 down to just 1. That is significant.
This is how the Chicago Bears, and the rest of the league will view him. He is good, and in his role he is great. However, he will never be a top end cornerback if the team can not have him follow certain receivers, or play certain coverages. What he does is valuable and rare, but also depends on the scheme that he is in.
Luckily for him, he has 781 snaps in zone to just 391 in man coverage, so the team does play to his strengths. Last season, he had 83 snaps in zone, and 224 in man, and he allowed 1.89 yards per snap in zone, and 0.92 in man. So, his splits were even more defined with Eberflus.
The Chicago Bears should want to keep him because he fits the scheme well, but they have to know what they are paying for, and Johnson has to know that the lack of interceptions, and higher number of TDs allowed, plus being a zone-heavy cornerback will hurt his value leauge-wide.