After going ninth overall within the 2024 draft, Bears wide receiver Rome Odunze played a full 17-game rookie season. Teaming with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, the primary overall pick in the category, Odunze caught 54 of 101 targets for 734 yards and three touchdowns.
There was optimism each Odunze and Williams would make significant progress in Yr 2. Williams lived as much as the billing and took obvious steps forward under first-year head coach/offensive guru Ben Johnson. The one-time Heisman Trophy winner helped the Bears to an 11-6 record and an NFC North title, feats he and the team achieved without Odunze anywhere near full strength.
Odunze handled a stress fracture and plantar fasciitis in his left foot from October onward. The nagging foot problems limited the 6-foot-3, 214-pounder to 12 regular-season games and held him to 44 catches on 90 targets, 661 yards and 6 scores. Odunze then posted matching two-catch, 44-yard showings within the Bears’ playoff games – a wild-card round win over the Packers and an time beyond regulation divisional-round loss to the Rams. He had a costly opening-drive drop near the L.A. goal line. Two plays later, Williams threw an interception.
Odunze recently said he’s adjusting to a “recent normal” together with his foot within the wake of the fracture, per Kevin Fishbain of The Athletic, but he didn’t require offseason surgery to repair the problem. The Bears appear confident Odunze will bounce back from the injury in 2026, having traded durable starting receiver D.J. Moore to the Bills. After shipping out Moore, the Bears made modest free agent investments in Kalif Raymond (one 12 months, $3.5MM) and Scotty Miller (one 12 months, $1.3MM), who should not starting-caliber receivers, and spent a third-round pick on former LSU wideout Zavion Thomas.
Odunze and promising second-year man Luther Burden will enter the season because the Bears’ clear-cut starters on the position. It’ll be an especially essential season for Odunze, as Chicago can have to select on his fifth-year option by next spring. The Bears will pick up the choice and even perhaps consider an extension if Odunze stays healthy and plays as much as or near his potential this 12 months. Otherwise, he may not have a long-term future with the Bears, who Fishbain notes haven’t prolonged one in all their drafted receivers since they gave Earl Bennett a four-year deal in 2011.