The Bears Sent Two First-Round Picks to Tennessee for Jeffery Simmons. No Defensive Tackle Had Ever Cost That Much.
Ryan Poles had never traded a first-round pick in his time running the Chicago Bears. On Thursday he moved two of them in one phone call.
The Bears acquired All-Pro defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons from the Tennessee Titans, according to multiple reports, sending their 2027 first-round pick, their 2028 first-round pick and a 2027 fourth-rounder to Tennessee. Chicago also gets a 2028 fifth-round pick back. Neither club had announced the deal publicly as of Thursday afternoon, so this is an agreement rather than a trade the league has formally processed.
Call it whatever you want. Reckless, desperate, overdue. It is also the correct read of where this Bears team actually is.
No Defensive Tackle Has Ever Cost This Much
Per ESPN Research, Simmons is the first defensive tackle in the common draft era, meaning since 1967, to be traded for multiple first-round picks. That is the headline, and it is not a small one. Interior defenders do not get valued like this. Teams talk themselves out of paying for them every single year.
Simmons is 29, in his eighth season, and he is not a name trading on reputation. He was a first-team All-Pro in 2025 after a career-high 11 sacks. He has four Pro Bowls. Through seven games this season he has four sacks, six tackles for loss and nine quarterback hits while playing 86.6 percent of Tennessee’s defensive snaps. Next Gen Stats credits him with 28 pressures, the most of any defensive tackle in the league, and ESPN has his pass-rush win rate at 27 percent, also the best at the position.
He is doing that on a 1-6 team with nothing to play for. That matters.
The Bears Had a Specific Hole and This Fills It
Chicago is 5-2 under Ben Johnson and the surface defensive numbers look fine. They were ninth in points allowed and eighth in total yards through Week 6, and third against the run. Look closer and the interior was the problem. ESPN had the Bears 23rd in interior pass-rush win rate at 13 percent. Simmons is expected to line up next to Grady Jarrett in a front that has been rotating Kentavius Street, Neville Gallimore and Jordan van den Berg through the middle.
Gervon Dexter was traded to Atlanta before the season. Montez Sweat missed two games on suspension. Dayo Odeyinbo has been hurt. A 5-2 team with a thin interior and a real shot at January just bought the best available answer.
What Chicago Is Actually Paying
Simmons signed a three-year, $105.8 million extension in June with $100 million guaranteed, running through 2030. The Chicago Sun-Times reports cap hits of $22.5 million in 2027, $30.9 million in 2028 and $29.1 million in 2029. Tennessee has already paid roughly $20 million of the signing bonus, which is the part of this that makes the picks easier to stomach.
So Poles is not renting a player for nine games. He is buying four more years of a top-five interior defender and paying draft capital instead of cash.
Tennessee Did the Only Sensible Thing
The Titans are 1-6. They have won seven games since the start of 2024. Robert Saleh is in his first year as head coach and Mike Borgonzi is still reshaping the roster. When a 1-6 team gets offered two first-round picks for a 29-year-old on a nine-figure deal, you take the call and you say yes.
Owner Amy Adams Strunk put out a short note. “Jeff, thank you. For how you played, how you led, and how you represented our team.”
The trade deadline is November 10. Chicago just set the ceiling for what the next two weeks are going to cost everybody else.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
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