The Bears put the finishing touches on their invigorating offseason Tues-day when quarterback Caleb Williams, the first overall pick in the draft, agreed to terms on a standard four-year rookie contract and wide receiver Rome Odunze, the No. 9 pick, signed his.
Williams will make $39.4 million with a $25.5 million signing bonus, while Odunze will make $22.7 million with a $13.3 million bonus. Both deals are fully guaranteed. The Bears hold a fifth-year option on both players that must be triggered after their third season.
The agreements were reached just in time, as rookies and injured players were set to report Tuesday for training camp at Halas Hall. Neither Williams nor Odunze could have attended without a deal.
The Bears, whose first practice is Saturday, had five more days before the distraction would have turned into a full-blown crisis but will benefit from getting both rookies under contract sooner. It had been two months since they signed the last of their other draft picks.
Williams does not have an agent certified by the NFL Players Association and, by league rule, had to negotiate directly with the Bears himself. The 2022 Heisman Trophy winner from USC relied upon legal advisers, referencing them numerous times this offseason, and most recently Saturday, while stressing he wanted to focus on football.
He decided before the draft not to hire an agent, a decision the Bears understood, given his certainty as the clear-cut No. 1 pick. Despite pre-draft rumors, they didn’t foresee issues during negotiations because the NFL’s collective-bargaining agreement has made salaries standardized. What little there was to haggle over included language about guarantees and payments and — in the event a player is cut — offsets.
Negotiations remained cordial, and the Bears supported Williams on Saturday when general manager Ryan Poles, coach Matt Eberflus and receiver DJ Moore attended his “Caleb Cares” charity event in the Pullman neighborhood.
Signing Williams and Odunze by the end of Tuesday was always the most likely outcome, but Bears fans couldn’t be blamed for wincing at the memory of the last rookie contract fiasco. In 2018, under a different front office and coaching staff, linebacker Roquan Smith held out for 29 days while his agent negotiated for specific language about suspensions for violating the league’s new rule on helmet contact.
Smith hurt his hamstring quickly in camp and was limited to eight snaps in the Bears’ season opener, a one-point loss at Green Bay. At the end of the year, the Bears missed getting a playoff bye by one game and lost their first postseason game to the Eagles when kicker Cody Parkey double-doinked a field goal.
There will be no such preseason drama this year. But with “Hard Knocks” cameras filming, training camp won’t be short on excitement after the Bears traded for wide receiver Keenan Allen and signed running back D’Andre Swift and tight end Gerald Everett to support Williams. The offense will spend the next 7œ weeks continuing to learn the system imported by new coordinator Shane Waldron, who spent the last three seasons with the Seahawks.
The Bears open the NFL’s exhibition schedule in two weeks when they play the Texans on Aug. 1 in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.
Williams said Saturday he was eager to get started.
“I’m excited to be able to get back,” he said. “You start getting to the end of the break, and you’re training and you’re ready to go. . . . I’m really happy to be back in Chicago and to get this thing going.”
